Red + White = Pink....and a very messy Alice

I think this "food fun" was plain cool whip and red colored cool whip. Alice's face was stained red for 2 days.

Sunday Breakfast with Alice

I shot this for my folks and I want to share a brief breakfast with the princess.

Shower time

I just could not resist posting these pictures. I know the 14 year-old Alice will hate me for it. :)

Messes...uh, I mean Activities...at school

Have to give another big shout-out to Alice's daycare. They keep the kids so busy with activities and seem to keep it interesting too. We keep an extra camera in Alice's school bag so the teachers snap pictures when they can...

Fun with Spaghetti

Trey, Alice, and Micah

Look at all that spaghetti on heads...

Painting polar bears and little girls...

Painting with cookie cutters

Oh, Alice, that red is a great lipstick color for you!

Dress up time?

ICE CREAM!!

"You talkin' to me?"

"Please don't grin at me when I say NO"

Yup, you guessed it. Alice is getting willful. On Tuesday, Alice and I were at the eye doctor and she was exploring. We had been waiting for over an hour so I decided to stop trying to keep her in one place and just followed her around and made sure that she was not getting in the way of the staff. At one point, she was peeking into the business office area of the center. She turned around to see if I was watching her and stood there looking at me for a minute. I said "Alice, NO" and made the sign for NO. She grinned at me and took a big step backwards across the office door threshold. OOOhhh what a stinker. She did end up coming back to my area willingly but only after I feigned fascination with a pack of post-its.

We were at the eye doctor to look into options to correct Alice's blocked tear duct. She was born with it and it is fairly common. Our pediatrician told us that in most babies, it resolves itself by one year of age. Alice's has not unblocked so she is always tearing in her left eye and it is often goopy. When she is sick, her eye gets infected quickly and gets crusty like pink eye. We have done everything that we can do at home (mostly massaging the area and keeping it clean) so we are moving on to the next step....minor surgery. The doctor will basically insert a probe and irrigate the punctum and duct to get rid of any buildup or blockage (see here). This procedure will be done out-patient and has a very high success rate. We are optimistic but are looking forward to having this over and done.

Last week, Alice had her 15 month well visit. She got the last of her shots that are needed to go to school and will not have to have anymore until she is 4 years old! YEAH! She measured 33 1/2 inches in height and weighed 25 pounds, 10 ounces. She is in the 99th percentile for height but only the 78th percentile for weight. The doctor said that was just fine. She is a tall, lean, sturdy girl. I looked at my baby book and at 16 months old, I was only 1 inch taller and 2 lbs heavier. Oh I am so glad that she will be a tall girl!

Hmm....trying to think if there is anything else that has happened recently that I can tell you about. It has been a busy couple of weeks for the adults in our house but pretty quiet for Alice. My mom is coming for a visit the first weekend in March and John's parents are coming for Easter in April. We are all so excited to see them and expect that Alice will be so much more sociable than she was last time.

Today is a happy day in our home. Today marks the 1 year anniversary of John's new job (I guess it is not new any more). For those of you who have been following the blog or know us personally, you know that John was laid off in January of last year. We were certain that we would have to sell our house and move out of Huntsville but we got VERY lucky. It has been a stressful year - trying to get back on our feet financially and gaining back our confidence in a lot of things. We are thrilled that it is 2010 and are finally heading down a good path.

Hope is all well with you!