Playing outside

Alyssa loves to play outside (it's finally cooling off so we can play outside more). It's often a fight because she will run outside if the door gets opened and I can't get her back in without negotiating or screaming. She likes to ride her truck, color, swing, blow bubbles, hunt for lizards, and get into whatever she can. Yesterday she figured out how to ride the scooter the right way, pushing with one foot. I was excited but almost cried because she is growing so fast.

She is putting together whole sentences and has lots of new phrases. Some of her new phrases are bummer dude, cool, duh, and holy smokes. She refers to me as my momma, she'll say 'I am going with my momma". I'm not even mommy anymore, I'm already momma. And she is completely potty trained. Yesterday we went all day with no pull up, the store, nap, and playing outside, and had no accidents. She gets up dry every morning too. Here are some outside pictures.

She learned how to use the hose, and yes she got me

She helped clean our bike cart

Even the babies get to go for a walk

And baby gets to ride on the truck

Soccer Tournament

Miranda is on a new soccer team this year, The Lady Titans. They played in their first tournament last weekend and won 1st place. The girls did great, they swept the tournament, winning all 5 games they played. We can only imagine how good they will be as they play together more. Alyssa loves going to the soccer games now. She stands on the sidelines and yells "go sissy go!", it's too cute. She waves at the girls and goes around claiming that everything anyone else has, especially food and drinks, is hers.

Alligator

So I looked out the window Tuesday and spotted an alligator in the canal behind the house. AHHH! I went outside to see and take some pictures of course. He was about 6-7 feet long, good size. I saw him a few more times. The neighbor called to have him trapped and the trappers showed up yesterday morning. They got in a little row boat to tie it up and then pulled it out of the water. It was big enough that 2 guys were holding it at their waists and it's tail was dragging the ground for at least a foot. It was kind of exciting but I am glad that it's gone.

Summer Pictures

4th of July

Girls just being girls
At the beach

Playing karate, that's toilet paper on their heads
Cousins, Jordan, Miranda, Hailey, & Alyssa

Hailey's 5th b-day

Potty Training

We started potty training with Alyssa on Mon morning. Well she kinda started on her own. She was at a point where she would sit down but wouldn't go. She finally started actually going potty. We haven't had any accidents since Monday morning. She is on the ball, tells me everytime she has to go. I am so proud of her, she has really done it on her own.

Our baby Alyssa isn't a baby anymore.

Welcome to the wonderful and terrible 2's. Alyssa turned 2 on June 18. It's hard to believe how much she has grown and changed in just 2 years.

Minutes Old

1 week old
5 months old

1st birthday

18 months
2 years old
2nd b-day party

Back to school

Back to school tomorrow, the kids only got to go to school for 1 day during their first week of school. Tropical Storm Fay managed to get school cancelled for the rest of the week. I have never seen a kid so upset about NOT having school until last week. Miranda was so mad because she wanted to go to school. We didn't get anything major from the storm, just lots of lingering wind and rain. We started to think that it would never go away, I have never seen a storm hang out that long. We did get to crank up the generator since we did lose power, luckily it was short lived. That could really get expensive with the price of gas these days. There was a lot of flooding south of us in Melbourne. Our hearts go out to those whose homes were flooded.