We have a Toddler!

Alexandra started walking on her own at 15 months, but has recently (at 16 months) started to perfect it. Now, she likes to try to walk everywhere!

Here she is walking with Grandee. . . .

And with her daddy. . . .

And with her mommy!

And yes, as I explained to her cousins last weekend, she can also walk by herself (but it's definitely cuter for photos if she's holding someone's hand!).

I'm so proud of my little girl! She's talking and now walking!

Alexandra's Stocking

One of my favorite things from my childhood is the Christmas stocking that my mom made me. She made a beautiful, personalized felt/sequinned stocking for each of her five kids. I bought a stocking kit to make a similar stocking for Alexandra last year. I wasn't able to finish it before Alexandra's first Christmas - it was so much more labor intense than I initially thought (which means I am even more impressed with my own mother's ability to have done five such stockings)! I finished Alexandra's stocking last month, and hope that she will love it as much as I loved mine that my mother made me :) Here it is:

Ham

Alexandra loves the camera. Whenever she sees a camera (even if it's just sitting out), she poses and demands that you take her photo. Here are some of our recent favorite poses.

Yes, she's wearing two hats at a time. She loves hats!

She looks like she's about to start rapping in this one. . . . .

This is probably my favorite. . . .

She looks a little worried here. . . .

And yes, she asked to wear mommy's sun glasses! I have no idea where she gets her diva tendancies from :)

September Re-cap

Where has the time gone?!? I'm going to do a re-cap of all of the fun that we had during the month of September with this posting, then will have to do a couple others really quick to catch up before it's November. . . .

In September, we had fun picking apples . . .


And meeting a friendly goat. . . .

And picking raspberries (Alexandra and I ate one for every three we picked). We made use out of our water-bath canner and canned batches of applesauce, apple butter, and raspberry-currant jelly. Christopher would prefer not canning late at night, but it's the only time we can guarantee that we won't have to worry about a little one roaming around while literally gallons of hot water are boiling on our stove.

Alexandra had fun playing with her cousin, Finley. We sent her jumper over to his house so that he could play with it for a while. Alexandra hadn't played in it for months (at the end of its lifespan with her, she would scream when we'd try to leave her in it), but all she wanted to do was play in it while Finley was here. Yes, that's her diaper cover coming off in the photo - my baby girl has a small derriere and it can be problematic when we try to have her wear diaper covers, shorts, pants, etc. I'm sure she'll appreciate this problem when she is older, though.

My tomatoes were finally ripe enough to pick! I've gotten to enjoy about 8 home-grown organic tomatoes. Here, Christopher made a wonderful salad for me with homegrown organic basil, mozzarella, and olive oil.

We went to the National Book Festival. It was Alexandra's first outing to the National Mall (can you believe it?!) I'm so glad that this event, started by former First Lady Laura Bush, has continued beyond her eight years! It's one of my favorite DC events.

This year, we had a special treat at the book festival - we saw ELMO in the PBS tent! In the words of Christopher, we were thrilled to see "the real flesh-and-blood muppet!" We saw the actual puppet and puppeteer! The real Elmo! Christopher and I might have even been more excited than Alexandra!

Laura came with us to the Book Festival, and introduced Alexandra to Sid the Science Kid. She only gave her a sticker (which Alexandra is holding in the photo below), but we can already tell that Alexandra is logical and has an aptitude for higher education.

Whew! That's September in a whirlwind. . . .I'll blog about Alexandra's crazy camera poses and my recent crafts next!

Wrapping up our Colorado Photos

Hmmm. . . I've been blogging about our Colorado trip for a while. It wasn't a particularly long trip, I've just been really behind in my blogging! Well, I'll finish up the trip with this post. We had a lot of fun hiking in Colorado. Here we are on a family lunch outing walking around small lakes near Eltron.

Note Alexandra's stylish hiking shoes.

Grandpa and GG.

Blizzard and Kody probably had the best time on the hike.

Here's Emily hard at work at Eltron Water Systems.

We spent one of our last days touring the Coors Brewery in Golden. Even though Alexandra is too young to drink beer, she now knows exactly how it's made.

After the brewery tour, we took a couple of trips down the Alpine slide (what visit to Colorado would be complete without it?).

Yep - Alexandra rode down with her mama!

Alexandra discovered her grandparents' gong and figured out how to take off mallet and ring it all by herself. What a clever girl!

Hiking and Sliding

Last month, we went on a wonderful family hike in the Rocky Mountain National Park and ended the day on a big slide in Estes Park, Colorado.

Here are Sandi, Alexandra, and I all ready for our hike!

Group shot in front of Dream Lake. Grandpa, GG, Uncle Mike, Alexandra, me, Uncle Andy, Aunt Sandi, Uncle Mike, and Christopher. Alexandra doesn't understand the timer on the camera yet.

Little family photo in front of Dream Lake.


Alexandra got pretty heavy for her oxygen-deprived parents who are used to breathing sea-level air. Good thing we had an athletic 16-year old uncle on hand!

Since Alexandra didn't get to go horseback riding, we thought it would be fun for her to ride an Alexandra-sized horse. This was her first time on a coin-operated horse, and she thought it was a lot of fun! Note the pink baby Converse high tops. Alexandra's grandpa gave her these for Christmas.

We ended the day by going down the big slide in Estes Park. To give you an appreciation of the size of the slide, you have to climb like 3 or 4 flights of stairs to get to the top, and you ride down on a piece of carpet.

Here's the group (minus GG) coming down the slide. Apparently Mike won. See the little black speck in the top left of the photo? That's Alexandra and I. I was determined to have Alexandra go down the slide, since she loves slides at the playground and I have found memories of going down this slide as a kid myself. As she was obviously too little to go down the slide by herself, that meant that she got to ride with me. When we started our first run, all that I could think was "holy crap, what was I thinking! I'm taking my BABY down this thing? What kind of responsible parent am I!?!" After a couple of harrowing seconds, I realized that I could effectively hold onto my kid (who was squeeling with delight, oblivious to her mother's distress), and that it was actually kind of fun.

The Yurasko Difference after our second ride down. A much calmer Sarah. Baby in one piece and giggling.

Our last trip down. "I wasn't worried at all, silly Mommy!"

Horses, Fish, and Tigers, oh my!

While we were in Colorado last month, my parents watched Alexandra so that Christopher and I could go horseback riding with Andy, Sandi, Emily, Joey and Mike. We have added this activity to riding segway scooters and snowmobiling as "things we like to do in a line." It was a lot of fun!

Christopher got to ride the second largest horse I've ever seen! That would be only second to the horse that Andy got to ride. Check out Ajax, Christopher's enormous horse!

We went to the Denver Aquarium, which was a lot of fun! Alexandra really likes looking at fish and other animals swimming around.

That's Alexandra! She's hanging out in a statute that they have at the entrance to the exhibits. Silly girl :)

And that's a tiger. That's right, they have tigers at the Denver aquarium! Because, when I think creatures of the sea, TIGERS are most definitely the first mammal that comes to mind!! On an "it's a small world," note, Christopher and I actually saw these tigers back when they were kittens, as they were born at the National Zoo. Julie, Katy, and Jess also saw them when Katy and Jess visited DC back in May of 2006. They're all grown up now. . . .and living at the aquarium in Denver.