This post makes me officially caught up on Instagram posts, so the next one will be month of March! YAY!

I find this segment refreshing, because if you really care to take the time to look through the collages I put together, you can catch a glimpse of our normal life and what it looks like ( the highlights of it, of course)

In February we visited Disney for the last time till the fall, since the crowds start coming in right after that. It was one of the hardest trips I’ve ever taken with Lexi. I sure do hope I get a chance to post photos and describe the trip, but in the meantime, you can see a glimpse of it in my Instagram photos.

Top:

Biergarten, one of our favorite Epcot restaurants since forever, due to the fun atmosphere and its laid back feel. One of the highlights of the trip was Lexi going out onto the dance floor to listen to the Musikanten (spelling?)  and dance. Lexitwin soon followed and they completely melted the whole audience.

Bottom:

Beach trip, infrequent due to the most horrible winter. The gulf can’t warm up since we keep having cold nights and often cold days. So when we do get a chance to go to the beach, it’s a treat.  Lexi is a bit unruly and unstoppable about the water and runs right in, which is makes it hard to take beach trips during colder days.

I was editing pictures to post on here and then decided to group them by outfits instead.

When it comes to clothing, Alexis has more of it than she can wear ( damn you, sale sites), and mostly they are all of different random brands, but there are a few companies that keep a constant presence in her wardrobe.

One of the is NununuBaby. I think I mentioned it a million times. It is alternative style clothing that is like nothing you’d expect a girl to wear. Skulls, stars, alphabet and funny toddler sayings is what you’ll see on it and only a few colors: light pink, white, black, grey and neon green. I think they are super cool! Definitely standout in the crowd of bright pink and ruffles ( not that I don’t like that, I very much do, but I also enjoy variety and contrasts in my life).

Since this has been a super cold winter by Florida standards, we’ve been wearing a lot of NununuBaby, since we had some cute stuff from their winter line. I was even excited to have Alexis wear a size 2 dress that was CLEARLY too big for her, but it was cold and the dress is so cute, we still put it on. It will be a while till it doesn’t look like a nightgown on her… That’s what I like about NununuBaby, their sizing is generous,so the pieces last longer.

If you’re interested in checking out the brand, you can visit their website here. I usually buy most of their clothing on end of season MyHabit sales, since they discount it almost 50% and I occasionally get sent a few pieces to try them out for the blog.

Rather than doing monthly updates for the whole 2nd year of Alexis’ life, I decided that it would be much more fun and special to regularly write about all the cute new things she does. I will attempt to keep this a regular features and add things to it as she learns new things or blows our mind with the adorable things she can do.

CUTE THINGS LEXI DOES:

Here is the best of the best from December I hadn’t gotten around to posting.

{I am not sure how I missed Decemeber so completely, so I am going back to that. I also have both January and February scheduled to post, so I don’t miss them this time}

DECEMBER {age reference: 10 months}

is photography. Photographing my little girl.

I don’t think I am great at it. I am average. But it gives me so much happiness taking photos and then sifting through them, organizing them , processing them. It’s a shame I can’t to on a vacation and organize my photos all day long for 2 weeks …

So while I was gone from here , from life, without having my laptop and my precious photos, and while working on launching Daily Mom, there have been many photos taken a filed away.

Here’s a small part of what I have shot. In just 2 months (has it really been two months) Alexis has changed greatly. I have a lot to catch up on – I know… But I am loving having this blog, and managing Daily Mom and being a SAHM/WAHM to the most adorable toddler in the world and a wife to the most hardworking loving man in the world. I never thought my life would take this kind of track. That I would be a full on MOM. A mom with hobbies and interests and work, but still a MOM, one completely dedicated to her daughter. Yet I am and I am going to embrace it.

11 Months old

I don’t know where to start. Again.

Again. You’ve blown our minds.

Yes, we are first time parents so our minds are pretty easy to blow. But you’re still a rockstar, regardless of anything.

At 10 months 6 days exactly you took your first independent steps. The next day you ran from mommy to grandma, and back. Then to daddy and back. By midmonth you were taking 10 steps on your own. They were wobbly and were more like running than walking- you were in the process of falling and catching yourself over and over again, which is what walking is, essentially. You spent this last month doing nothing but walking holding onto one of our hands. You don’t like holding two hands. Oh no, you push the second hand away and walk with pride holding onto only 1 finger. Crawling is long abandoned.

Today I will start a series of posts that are probably the most requested ones of all time.

Photography for Mommies

(it’s like “photography for dummies” books, but it’s mommies. Get it? Get it?)

It’s not a series for people who are well versed in photography. This will be written for beginners, new mommies and veteran mommies, who are looking to get better pictures of their kids and themselves, and their families, and their dog, you get it!

I wanted to start this series with a post about photography gear for two reasons:

Another photo dump! Skip it, if you’re not interested. This is mostly here for posterity.

Some 9-10 months photos

Seen in the photos:

This is my favorite picture post of ALL TIME!

While at Disney we booked a reservation at a Garden Tea Room at Grand Floridian resort, the fanciest resort at Disney World.

It was our one chance to do something special and princess like with Alexis that wasn’t too extensive since she was only 7.5 months.

Like I described in the recap post, we didn’t want to put her into an uncomfortable and hot princess outfit until she was old enough to want it, but did want something special for her to wear. The dress she wore c/o of Baby Beau & Belle was utter perfection! It’s kind of funny but it turns out a friend of mine had bought their dress for her little girl’s christening  a few years ago. What a small world! Really their dressesare meant for events like weddings, birthdays, christenings, but I can’t think of a more fitting place at Disney to wear such a fancy silk dress than the Garden Tea Room at Grand Floridian. Feel free to check out their website and Facebook and Twitter for frequent contests and giveaways.

When little Lexi is old enough, we will do Garden Tea Party at the same place with Princesses and Disney characters and tiaras and many special girly things, but for now we had our own PARTY.  If anyone is planning on visiting Disney, I would say it is almost a must that you visit the tea room. If you have older (loud) kids, then probably the tea party is best, but if your babies/kids can stay quiet or you’re coming on a adult only trip, there is no better place to relax and feel all “pretentious” and pampered than in a fancy room overlooking (you guessed it!) a garden, sipping the tastiest teas you’ll ever drink in the smallest cups with your pinky out, while savoring mini deserts and mini-sandwiches which are a part of 4(?) courses. Actually, I loved their tea so much, I asked if we could buy it and sure enough, at $12 per box Princess Tea was ours!

I used to not like writing or reading Instagram posts. I felt the photography was lacking and I like “purdy” pictures. But I am starting to love Instagram photos more and more for one reason. As Alexis gets older and more mobile, it is becoming harder to have my big heavy camera with a big heavy lens on hand for those cute fun and precious moments that happen in a blink of an eye. In addition to that, she is obsessed with pressing buttons on my camera, which means as soon as I pull it out, Lexi crawls to me which makes it impossible to take A picture, let alone a candid one. So taking cell phone pictures is the only way to really capture the amazing girl that she is. I really don’t like to have become on of those moms that ONLY takes and posts pictures of their kids, but that’s most of what I do all day and it’s hard NOT to take pictures of your kid. So lately, as I have been going through my Instagram photos, I’ve been loving how real authentic and fun they are. Just our life: dirty, messy, funny, real every day life. So this feature is here to stay, as evidenced by its newly created category :)

OCTOBER 2012

A massive Zulily order of books. We actually really like these and most of them are impossible to find otherwise.