23 months

In one month, Lexie will be 2 years old. Where has the time gone? We spent such a long time waiting for this little girl and now the days just fly by.
Lexie, you continue to captivate us with your bubbly personality. You make us laugh until our stomachs hurt. You have made our life complete and we can't imagine what it would be like without you.
Even though you're a tiny thing, you are strong. You drag boxes that weigh more than you around the house. You love to carry my 2 and 4 pound weights and will try to exercise with them. You have a grip of steel. Once you grab onto something, you won't let it go.
Your fine motor skills and memory are improving everyday. You can stack the colored rings all by yourself and in the right order. You're able to put the right shapes into the right holes. You're doing your puzzles all by yourself.
You are always jumping and if you're standing on a chair or the couch, we better be quick because if you yell "jump", we better be ready to catch you. You also love to walk on your tippy toes.
You love looking for letters. Whenever we're reading, you always find the letters O, S, L, E, X, I, M.
You are a great eater! You love pizza, kiwi fruit, cereal with dried strawberries, pancakes, carrots, pop tarts, green bean tempura, beef curry, chili, chicken, fish, spam, and the list goes on. You are willing to try anything. And if you don't like it, you will still eat it if we give it to you with some rice.
You are my little sweetheart. I can't go anywhere without you following me. When I'm trying to take a bath, I hear you banging on the door. When I come home from work, I hear you at the door, screaming, "Mom." You won't even leave me alone when I'm trying to exercise, instead, you tell me to "march" and you start counting along with the exercise DVD.
You are also daddy's little girl! You love your daddy so much because he doesn't treat you like a fragile little girl. He swings you and throws you in the air and you love it. He also can get the biggest laughs from you.
When Lexie turns 3, she can take Mandarin classes at our agency. We're trying to teach her some words each day. She knows "xie xie" (thank you) and "wo ai ni" (I love you). We've been trying to teach her the numbers.
Lexie is fascinated by anything she sees in the sky. She will yell if she sees birds, airplanes, helicopters, balloons and kites. She said she wants a kite for her birthday, actually a yellow kite. We got her a Little Mermaid kite, but it hasn't been windy, so we haven't got to test it out.
Lexie is learning her colors. For awhile, everything was blue. Now she recognizes yellow and her favorite color seems to be purple, which happens to be my favorite color. Like mother, like daughter!
Lexie still doesn't put many words together to form phrases, but her vocabulary is expanding. Her new word is "gross". And she knows how to use it. She will say, "Ewww, gross!"
Lexie was having some rough nights during the past month. She wasn't sleeping her usual 12 hours. She was waking up every few hours because she was congested and then had a runny nose. We couldn't believe she was catching another cold, but then we saw something poking out of her gums. Her eye teeth were coming out. It seems the worse is over and she has started sleeping again, which means we're getting some sleep too.
Lexie continues to love Gymboree. She runs around there like she owns the place and she's very vocal and not shy about singing and dancing. She can also be competitive because she wants to be the first person to get a stamp at the end of the class. The only thing that stops her is her need to wash her hands. She always has to wash her hands when she's done, so by then, most of the other kiddoes have come for their stamps. She has moved up 2 levels since joining Gymboree. We know Lexie will be sad when we stop going there. We're thinking of signing her up for gymnastics.
Lexie is finally getting to meet many Taiwan friends. We can't wait to see more friends when we head off to Dallas in August. When I ask Lexie if she wants to ride the airplane, she says, "Yes!"
Where Lexie learns how to do things still baffles us. She gives us the "side eye" and sometimes even does the "blue steel" look. It's just hilarious!
Her taste in music is very eclectic. Lexie loves Train, Bruno Mars, Daughtry and once she was even signing and clapping to James Brown. Then, of course, she'll dance and sing to Barney. It's amazing how she can carry the tune to songs and memorizes certain words and knows exactly when to sing them. If she likes the song, she'll clap at the end.
Each month is full of new adventures with this little girl. We never know what awaits us. Our life has gotten busy, chaotic and crazy, but we wouldn't change anything about it. Happy 23 months, Lexie! We love you!