What is Alex up to now....

Someone asked me once how many words does she know right now, and have I made a list of them. Well, she knows more than I can count on a daily basis, picks up new ones all the time (we have to be careful what we say around her, as she is a little sponge!) and amazingly uses them appropriately. As for recording them all...I am not even sure where to start! I am sure it is well over 100 words! Now we are working on listening...she understands what we are saying, we can tell because she stops to look at us...but following directions is not her strong suit yet. We are also working on having patience for mommy and daddy to get what she is asking for...or being okay when mommy and daddy say no. That is really a hard word for a toddler...no.

In addition to having a large vocabulary, she is putting together 2-4 word sentences. "more moo-moo please" "daddy at work" "daddy busy" "No Shadow, get down" ( we may finally train our cats to not get up on the tables!).

She loves to talk on the phone, well not the real phone, but on anything else she can pretend is a phone. We often hear her talking to "Gama" (Grandma).

And she loves fantasy play. She loves her "baby" and pushes baby in the stroller or shopping car all around the house. She has a family of puppy dogs from Calico Critters (http://www.calicocritters.com/) and bunk beds that she loves to play with, putting different members of the family to bed. The puppies also find themselves in the Weebles Treehouse, the stroller, etc.

She also loves trains! Thanks to Uncle Binks, Aunt Judy, Noah, and Gabby for sending all the train stuff out west. Alex loves it! She listens for the trains each day (we can hear them from our backyard) and points out trains when we are out and about. She is great about finding clothes, toys, books, etc with Thomas the Tank Engine on them.

Last week we did our first cooking project, corn bread muffins (from a mix). Alex LOVED helping to pour all the ingredients in the bowl and mixing it all together. This week we are going to try banana bread from scratch, since I have bananas that are past their prime eating time, they will be perfect for her to mash up and put in our banana bread.

Here are a few pictures from our last trip to the zoo....