Little Miss Independent--Lexi at 15 months

Teeth: 4 (just barely got the fourth)
Weight: 24 lbs
Height: Around 31 inches

Words:
Mama
Ba (Uses for bye-bye, bottle, and blanket)

*She isn't a talker, but she knows a few signs and can let you know exactly what she needs.  There is a song on scriptures scouts about King Noah that we have altered and sing about Lexi.  It goes, “I want, want, want what I want, want, want, and this is how I get it.  I grunt, grunt, grunt for what I want want want and I always get it.”  It is funny if you know scriptures scouts.

Food:
She is getting pretty good at using a spoon and fork.  She still will not allow us to feed her.  She loves lunch meat, oranges, french fries, ketchup, and ice cream.

Other Cute Things About Her:

• She loves to run away when I try to get her dressed.  She thinks it is hilarious .
• She loves to dance.
• She clasps her hands together when we say, “prayers.”
• She loves TV and movies.  She especially loves Mickey Mouse and Sesame Street.  She is particularly fond of Elmo.  She will find the remote, hand it to me, and then go and stand in front of the TV.  
• She loves shoes and socks and taking them off.  When we go to indoor playgrounds, she will always rearrange all the other kids shoes.
• She loves playing hide and go seek.  Mainly, she loves finding Nicholas.
• She LOVES her blankets.
• She is a good napper and good at going to bed. Though if she doesn't think it is her bedtime, then there is no getting her down. She does not respond to snuggling, bouncing, lullabies, or begging.
• She loves books, though she does tear them.
• She is so much better than she was at not sticking random things in her mouth.
• She loves the outdoors MUCH more than her brother.  She loves gathering sticks and playing in the sandbox.  She will help me find her shoes and socks so she can go outside.
• She is fascinated by puppies.
• She can entertain herself, which is such a blessing.
• She is really ticklish on her neck.
• She grows all her hair on the back of her head so she is always being called a boy. She also wears some of Nicholas' old shoes so that contributes to the problem. She also refuses to wear a bow.
• She responds to both Princess and Lexi.
• When we ask for loves, she will snuggle up on your shoulder and lay her head there for a few moments.
• She is rarely in a bad mood. When she is upset, she drops to the floor and shakes her head. It her little mini tantrum.
• She will wave bye-bye. When she shakes her head yes, she often loses her balance because she does it so vigorously.
• If she sees or hears anyone clapping, she immediately joins in.
• She loves her bottle. She will often get upset if she sees a bag that at one time held a bottle. When she sees that (or anything she really wants) she will grunt and tense her jaws and start to shake.

Nicholas the Disciplinarian

Nicholas thinks that if we expect certain results and obedience when we say certain phrases then he should expect the same.  We hear phrases like this a lot. 

Mom, if you lay with me for 15 minutes.  Then I will be proud of you.  If you do not lay with me, then I will not be proud of you.

Here is the deal.  I want to go in your room.  The deal is I go into your room.  Okay, deal Mom.

You need to listen to me. Why are you not listening to me?

You got to keep trying to do what I say.

You have to listen to me, because I'm in charge.  I'm the child and your the parent and I'm in charge.

You got to stay right by me.  You can't leave me.

You have to do MY work.

 It is kind of scary to hear what comes out of his mouth.  It gives insight into what is going on in his little mind.  Sadly, all these phrases get about as much results when they come out of his mouth as they do when they come out of ours.

Appliances

We discovered after buying a house that appliances require maintenance.  So far, the major culprits for us have been the AC, the fridge, the furnace, and the oven. This is more of a what we have learned with home buying type post, so if you're not interested, feel free to skip this one.

The AC:
We still feel bad about this one.  Since we bought the house and then realized we weren't going to get to Texas for several months after, we had some friends stay here for a few months.  They were great sports and always told us things were going fine when we called to find out how they were doing.  It turns out the AC had lost most of its Freon and was totally useless.  This is not a nice circumstance in Dallas during the summer.  We got that fixed and it ran fine the rest of the summer.  Then next year we turn it on, and it isn't working again.  Turns out the guy who filled it didn't get the cap properly sealed, so we got to do it again.  Later that summer it just quit working.  After much head scratching and tinkering, I realized that a large capacitor inside the outside unit was bloated and dead.  Magically, I replaced it and it worked again!  The next summer, the hottest in record for Dallas, it stopped again.  This time the wires leading to the capacitor had completely burnt through so a few new connectors and another capacitor and we finally have a working AC again.



The fridge:
We were given an old fridge Maren's parents and were grateful to have it.  We decided the golden rod color wasn't ideal for the house, so we painted it black and it ran fine for a while.  The seal around the doors started to not work quite so well with time, but it still kept cold inside.  One day Maren and I were watching a movie, and heard something in the kitchen.  It turns out the fridge had decided it was done and sent out a smoke signal to notify us.  We quickly got on Craigslist and started e-mailing any fridge listing under $100, and soon found one we could pick up the next day, was running, was only $50, was running, and had and ice maker (only inside)!  We felt very blessed to find it and were grateful for our friend in the ward who helped me pick it up the next morning.


The furnace:
Just before we left for vacation to see family, the furnace quit working.  I won't go through everything I tried to fix it, but I ended up ordering a piece that it didn't need, and it turned out that the plug was just upside down. That was a lot of work for something should have been easy, but we are glad we figured it out before we called a service guy since then it would have been expensive as well as cold and embarrassing.

The oven:
We woke up late one night to a beeping in the kitchen.  It would stop if you pressed cancel, but then start up again.  We ended up flipping the circuit breaker and going to bed.  When we flipped it back, it stayed quiet for a few days, then started beeping again.  The error code it was giving indicated the ERC (the electronic range control, the part with all the buttons and circuit board) was dead.  Since it is a smaller built-in oven, replacing it was not a budget friendly option, and it also turns out that the ERC panel had been long since discontinued.  The only options then were to pay lots and completely replace it, or try sending in the ERC to a repair shop.  We opted for the latter, even though it was in the ~$150 range and there was no guarantee that was actually the problem.  The fact that there aren't that many things that can go bad on an oven and I had checked several of them and we really didn't want to figure out how to replace a built-in oven led us to go ahead.  The shop e-mailed us and said they have fixed it.  Hopefully it will work now when it comes back!