Merry Christmas!

Christmas card

Here is Alex taking a break from his lunch to read a Christmas card from Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Jennifer. He really liked the pictures and asked me to read it to him.

He is eating so well on his own. When the fork doesn't work, he just uses his hands and he seems to get enough to eat that way. He is still on the small side, but we think that is genetics, not nutrition.

He has started saying house...ouse and when I put him back to bed in the middle of the night (after a snack) he says "gacias" or dah dooh (thank you). He is a sweetie...as if I don't say that enough!

Christmas baby

Here is Alex with our little tree. Last year we didn't even get a picture of him with a christmas tree! Everytime he goes by the tree he asks me for a candy cane.

christmas cookie party

This first picture is of Alex, before the cookie making partywe had yesterday. I was telling him that his buddies were coming over to play and he was already waiting for them is his p.j.'s.
So, yesterday we had our first annual christmas cookie making party. Dalit and Asher, Linda and Uzziel, Monica and Patricio, Me and Alex and Dalit's friend Jenny all came. It was really fun... except when I knocked about 30 cookies on the floor at one point!!! The good thing was that we saved about 20 by blowing on them... Everyone came early to bake the cookies, I had already made the dough ahead of time. I think only a few had ever made cut out cookies before so it was also like a cookie class.
We took turns watching Alex, Uzziel and Asher since Patricio is still pretty small yet. They played outside with dirt and on the swing and with the balls and shopping cart...well they fought over the shopping cart. They also played inside too. Everybody was here almost all day long since it took so long to bake and then decorate all the cookies. Overall we had a great day.

Uzziel and Alex

Uzziel came to play on Saturday with Linda, his mommy. He is 4 1/2 months older than Alex. I was amazed at how well they played together. They had alot of fun. They do really well together. When it was time for Uzziel and Linda to go home, Linda told Uzziel to get Alex because we were going to leave. So Uzziel went and took Alex's hand and walked all the way down the driveway with him, hand in hand. It was SO cute...but I missed taking a picture. I did get a picture of them once they had sat down on a doorstep at the end of our driveway.

playing with playdough

A friend gave me a recipe for playdough. I didn't color it since I was worried the food coloring would make everything colored, not just the playdough. He enjoyed it for a short time. He liked putting his spoon and fork in and making them stick.

new words

Yesterday he asked me for his gogu (yogurt). He has also been saying please (peahs) and thank you (gahsahs). It's weird, those two words are always whispered... He also calls peas, grapes, oranges, tomatoes and any other round food :balls. He sits eating peas and rolling them around saying ball. It's pretty funny. Daniel tried to teach him to say uva...which means grape but he'll say avu and then ball again.
When he's about to go off to do some mischief like pick up a coin he saw or take all the dvds and look at the pictures and then try to stand up on a stack of them he kisses his hand and says bye bye. and then he'll wave until I acknowledge that he is going away by saying bye back to him. Of course then I always follow him to see what he's trying to do.
Yesterday I was counting the cars for him...there are four (two are the tios' and two are ours) so I counted them : one...two...three...four... and then he counted... toh, toh, toh, toh...it was really cute.

buddies

Here's Alex and his buddy Asher. They had a playdate on Wednesday this week. It consisted of Alex forcefully taking back each of his toys from Asher then saying "gracias" very kindly and whispery. Asher is wearing no pants here because after he got his diaper changed he decided he didn't want to wear them anymore. Overall I think they had a good time. Asher put up with a lot but I'm sure the tables will be turned when we play at his house. Up til now he's been pretty tolerant of Alex though.

look who got a lollipop

me cepillo los dientes!

This is how I pretend to brush my teeth... I run around with the toothbrush in my hand and show my pearly whites.

Hey Grandpa, it's your day! Have a happy happy birthday.

Goin' shopping for Christmas

Alex is getting himslef a ball and a train :)

big boy

I took Alex to see the doc on Friday to check if there was a physical reason for his night wakings. Apparently he is perfectly fine, and now, thank God, he has stopped getting up at 1 in the morning. He wakes up at 4:45 for a little bit but thankfully goes back to sleep until 8 a.m. The rest has made us all a little less irritable and given us more energy.

The great news is that Alex has jumped back on the growth charts...he was hanging out below the bottom rung and now he is at 50% for height and around 10 for weight. The doctor told me to stop worrying about his weight and told me to just try to give him pediasure to give him some extra calories. But overall he said Alex is developing normally and seems to be fine. And once again I breathe a sigh of relief...

ashes ashes...I'm gonna fall down!

Ashes Ashes: Last night our friendly neighborhood volcano gave us a wonderful ash shower... Some people get snow...which I don't envy them...we get ashes, don't envy us either! It's not fun to breathe it in or wipe it off the cars and floors... yuck. Hopefully this was our entire experience with it this time around. What do I expect...it is an active volcano.

I'm gonna fall down: Mr. Alejandro has decided he likes to scream every night around 1 a.m. and when we try to console him...he blows us kisses and asks to be picked up...then when we try to put him back to bed he screams again. So, for three nights in a row, one of us has had to sleep in bed with him. Daniel and I are both ready to collapse.