We Are a Minivan Family :-)

A few Sundays ago we went to celebrate great Grandma Ritchey's 84th birthday at Anne & Brian's house. Alexa really enjoyed playing with cousins, Kate and Nick.










Alexa kept saying, "Kate, Kate, hand." So then they would hold hands and walk around the yard ♥










We are continuing to enjoy Babytime on Tuesdays and Mrs. Jenny is a big hit with all of the kids! Since Alexa likes to be up front, Mrs. Jenny has her "help" lead story time. Alexa does a great job at doing the moves to songs and sitting on Mrs. Jenny's lap for the rhymes.










As promised in my post on our Perry-cation, here is a video of Alexa talking about the ducks.


And in case you missed it the first time, here is more "quack-ing" and "fly away-s."


Alexa has learned to climb onto the kitchen chairs (thanks to some wonderful assistance from Daddy, **sarcasm**). It scares me to watch her sit in big chairs, even worse is when she stands on them!










My two loves ♥










Another one of my loves -- my newest Coach bag, big and cherry red!!










Alexa enjoying some leftover Easter candy after dinner one night.










And yup, Alexa's adventurous climbing had a consequence - she fell off a [kid-size] chair at the gym and got a mini-black eye. Christi said she barely cried at all and went back to coloring. It is almost all healed now (thank goodness because Alexa has 18-month pictures next week!). Enjoying a nice afternoon in the backyard with Chloe.










Picking a dandelion... trying to give a dandelion to Mommy...










Eating a dandelion (not really, I yelled at her as it moved toward her mouth)... smelling the dandelion.










Last fall, my PSR aide gave us their Little Tykes Outdoor Playhouse. We bundled it up, stored it for the winter, and Daddy set it up this past Saturday during Alexa's nap. When she woke up and we took her outside, she immediately went to it and explored.










She LOVES it!!










Later on Saturday we had "the gang" over to hang out. Alexa really took a fascination with Tim and has continued to talk about him all week. She also enjoyed sitting next to Dylen on the couch while he played the Wii. It was great to "show off" Alexa to all of our friends... they were stunned at how communicative and intelligent she is! It was also nice to enjoy adult time once Alexa went to bed since we hadn't gotten together with everyone in so long.

After visiting two dealerships on Sunday then returning to one of them, going to a third, and contacting the dealership in Mentor on Monday, and intense price negotiations (pitting dealerships 2 and 3 against one another) we are now the proud owners of a 2010 Honda Odyssey EX-L with Rear Entertainment System. My Papa is smiling down from heaven with extreme pride at my awesome bargaining skills :-)










It has leather seats, a sunroof, DVD, automatic doors/trunk, back windows that roll down, sunshades, XM radio... (the list goes on and on - I don't even know all of the features the van has honestly)










Alexa fell in love with the new car...










After letting her explore it, we went back in the house and she went to the front window to look out at the van (parked in the driveway) saying, "car" over and over again. And the next morning when I was ready to go run errands, I asked her if she wanted to go for a ride in the new car and she literally ran to the garage door!










She waits while the door slides open and tries to climb in (although she is too short to get up on her own). I let her do a little test-driving ;-)










Wish the lighting would have been better because she looks so happy in the new van!










Clearly we are all SUPER excited about our new family vehicle. It is going to make our bi-weekly trips to Perry (and our bi-annual trips to North Carolina) so much more enjoyable! Well, that's all I've got for now because looking at my camera, it seems like I have stopped taking pictures as much as I used to - hmmm, I will have to change that. We have a busy weekend with my parents visiting (YAY!!) and my 2nd grade PSR students making First Communion :-) Will post again soon. Ciao.