This was Phoenix's first presentation. I was so proud of her. It was on rainbows. We took a video and might upload that later.

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Ae-F0zSgvdAhZGRxenRwamhfNGR0a3R2emR3&hl=en_US&authkey=CLm-8M0H

I have had happy things happen.

Butterflies:

Phoenix had her first day at the beach today in Delray Beach, FL. After checking in at the front desk this morning (we arrived last night after the office closed), we took a quick stroll for her to see the beach. Since we didn't have our swimsuits on, we didn't go in the water, but she was still very interested in the water. She did not like the sand at all, and kept hesitating before walking and saying "Shew!" (meaning the sand is dirty). Here's a couple of pics of that first encounter.



After going up to the room and having lunch, suiting up, and putting on sunscreen we returned to the beach. We were well prepared with lots of beach toys for Phoenix. She warmed up to the sand a little bit when she discovered she could dig in it with her little shovel. We then proceeded to take her into the water. She really enjoyed the water right away, and didn't even mind when a wave came and splashed her entire face with salt water. She just thought it was funny. However, once again, she had a problem with the sand, this time because it had broken seashells in it and felt gritty. We picked her up and held her and waded deeper into the water. Surprisingly (to me, Chris said he wasn't surprised), she wanted to try to swim, so I let her be in the water on her belly while I was holding her, once again, she didn't seem to mind when she got a face ful of saltwater. She then decided to relax a while in her boat. Then, she got fussy and wanted to try to swim again. This same fussiness over lack of independence occurred before she knew how to crawl. She wanted to move around, but didn't want us to do it for her (but had no other way to have it done). This is occurring in the water again. I doubt we'll be able to teach her how to swim this year, and I'm definitely not going to try teaching her in the ocean. We all had fun, though, and I can't wait to get out there again tomorrow!

We went to the Arboretum on Easter day with my parents and Chris's mother and grandmother. Phoenix was all dressed up. Here are some of the pics:















This next one I took today. Phoenix has learned how the camera works, and loves it when I show her the pictures right after I take them. She really loved this one, and was wanting me to show it to her again and again.

Here's a few more random pictures that I really like of Phoenix.

Phoenix loves to be like me and wear my sunglasses, she's always digging in my purse to get them out:


Phoenix on her Little Tikes toy that has a seat attached to a big inflated ball, then you can bounce up and down on it, it makes her very joyful:


I thought this picture really captured her beauty better than any other one lately:


She has discovered that going down the slide is a lot of fun, unfortunately, Chris and I both have to be there to help her with it (one of us to position her to go down, another to catch her at the end):

We went to our neighborhood Easter egg hunt this Saturday. Phoenix had practiced hunting for her plastic eggs at home beforehand, so she knew just what to do. She was extremely cute gathering her dozen eggs in her little basket purse. Here are some pictures.

Phoenix on her way to the egg hunt:


Phoenix being greeted by the Easter bunny:


Phoenix gathering some eggs:

Chris wanted an "artistic" type picture of the one with Phoenix and him on the stairs. Here's the result. We both thought it was very pretty.

Phoenix, Chris, and I went to a great park this weekend called Davis Park. It is within the city of Highland Park, which is a really ritzy part of Dallas/Fort Worth. We took some great pictures.


















After being at the park, we headed to Mom's to eat dinner. Phoenix is taking more interest lately in walking, as you can see for yourself.

These next shots are just a few everyday shots. She is starting to look so grown-up is some of them and you can tell she's definitely a "toddler" now and not a baby anymore. She really feels grown-up in her little pink chair, but we've had to stop putting her in it because she's started climbing on it, and it's not very sturdy. Anyone who's thinking about what to get her for Christmas, here's a hint, those children's foam chairs at WalMart are very sturdy :) .

I thought I would post a few more pictures before I sent an email to everyone telling about the site. These first three are some pictures that we took of her in her Christmas dress, and one of them will go in Mom and Dad's Christmas card, and one will go in our Christmas email. She just adored having this hat on at the consignment sale we went to (she didn't want to stop looking at herself in the mirror), so we got it for her.

All of you have been asking to see new pictures of Phoenix. I thought this was a good format. I think I am going to try to do updates every week or so. For now, here's some pictures we took of Phoenix at a pumpkin farm on Oct 8.