Shining differences!

The differences in the girls are showing more and more everyday. Isabel is a loner, and extremely independent. Alexa on the other hand, loves to play WITH you, and likes for us to participate in things along side her. Isabel can be more soft spoken, and tends to be very sensitive (I know most of you are thinking "she must get that from Deb"!!), Alexa conversely likes to yell many of the words she is learning and on occasion has been known to just scream very loudly just because it makes her laugh (clearly taking after Doug here!). I have never seen a child who loves to laugh as much as our Alexa.

The girls are very very curious these days, and constantly trying to repeat words that we say. Some of their favorites, are bye bye, book, car, up, Elmo, Daddy and Mommy. Although they are both saying all these words, they come out very differently from each of the girls. When you ask Izzy to say Mommy, she gets these really big, doey eyes, and softly lets out "ma ma". Very cute, and melts my heart each time. Then we'll ask Alexa to say Mommy and she says "MAA!" in her loudest voice. Hilarious the first couple of times you hear it. Bye bye is another funny one, with Izzy she takes her time and then finally uttering "buh bye" and Lexi letting out "BAHYE", again loudly, but this time with a southern twang!

We are really enjoying reading still, but have added signing videos to our list of favorite things to do. They both like the videos and have picked up a lot of signing through them, but of the two girls Lexi is mesmerized by the videos. When she wants to watch a video, or if you say the word video, she will come up to you grunting, and clasping her arms in front of her like she is cradling a baby and then rocks her arms back and forth. This is the sign for baby and is used in the theme song for the videos. They are really into associating signs with the things that go along with them. For example, whenever I ask the girls if they want to go in the car, Lexi usually will first make the sign for car, and then she will go over to the closet that contains our shoes and jackets, and she immediately starts making the sign for shoes. I think she does this because we always put our shoes on to go in the car, so she relates them and occasionally confuses them!

Isabel loves to find the missing item in a group, or if you are holding part of a toy and you ask her to find the other parts she will go get them and bring them all to you. She is a snuggler, and finds complete happiness just sitting in your lap. She can be much slower to warm up to people, but when she does she becomes quite the little flirt, and hams it up! She is a GREAT eater, but appears to be more petite than Lexi, we often comment that we wonder where she is putting it all! She adores puzzles, and enjoys reading, but if you throw her on your knee and bounce her around or twist her up and flip her over, she is in hog heaven! I think she is going to be a roller coaster girl!