Birthday Boy

So, technically Baby X's first birthday is tomorrow, January 26th, but we celebrated it with a little family party tonight.

Baby X had carrot cake cupcakes that, just like his big brother on his own first birthday, he didn't want anything to do with.

His big present was a pretend piggy bank that he enjoyed at a friend's house last week so we got him his own. The picture of two pigs having a tea party on the bottom row was PS's idea... it's Buddy's real piggy bank and the new toy one Baby X got.

*note: The flu hit our house this weekend, Buddy Friday night and Baby X Saturday night so he wasn't quite himself for his little birthday celebration. Poor kid.

Baby X at almost a year

Notice his tongue in most of these pictures.

1 week. 52 weeks.

*Once I take his 12 month alligator picture tomorrow,
I'll collage all these in order and you can see how he's grown week to week.

52 Weeks!

My baby boy is 52 weeks old (somehow that I don't want to think too hard about, this is not on his birthday. His one year birthday is Monday, this picture was taken Saturday).

At the very beginning of this video, Baby X licks B's hair and pulls his head away in disgust. Then I kept filming hoping to get it again... better. It was so funny. Just the way his head was, and how long B's hair is, he kept licking it and grossing himself out. So hilarious.

Up the Stairs

Baby X has been doing the stairs for awhile but has gotten a lot better at them lately. AND... he even does pretty well going down. We still have to be right with him in case his legs get caught or he gets distracted. He also started crawling off our bed and our couch feet first a couple of weeks ago. There's still usually a big fall at the end, or we have to help him, but he's trying.

Baby X walking

Officially, Baby X took his first tentative steps in early December at 10 1/2 months. The first time he put more than 1 or 2 steps together was Dec. 10. And he kept that up for a few weeks. On December 28th we realized that walking has truly become his way of getting around. This video is from Saturday, January 17th... a little over a week before his first birthday.



*video with sound courtesy of my new digital camera

Buddy builds a puzzle

We have lots of kid puzzles, but the way my kids play, it's a pain to get them out because I know that at some point, most of the pieces will end up on the floor or lost. Buddy got B 1000 piece puzzle for Christmas that B did the other night (yes, he does them very quickly) and he left up up for the kids to see the finished product the next day. Buddy kept taking a corner apart and rebuilding it, so we opened up this dinosaur puzzle he got from his cousin C for Christmas. He has a great time building it with his daddy (even though the dinosaur was a little scary). Every time he got a piece in the right spot he'd get a huge grin and cheer for himself.

51 weeks

Cute Kids

You can see his eyes aren't as crystal clear blue as the older kids.
They are still blue, but a gray-blue, or a hazel blue.

PS loves being a big sister. She'd hold him and
carry him around all day if he (or I) let her.

Snowman

After several days (that felt like weeks) of temperatures in the teens and single digits, it warmed up a bit today (just barely) and snowed last night so we woke up to white everywhere. It wasn't a ton of snow, but enough to play in.

P.S. I'm loving the pictures from my new camera.

New camera

I've been wanting this camera:

Nikon D40

But it retails for just under $500, and I don't even think that's including the lens. I was saving up for it, but something more important to spend the money on kept coming along. So when my parents sent some money for me for Christmas this year I decided to add a bit to it and buy myself a better camera, if not my dream camera. Meet my new camera:

Nikon Coolpix S210 (in plum)
What you can't tell from this picture is how incredibly thin it is. .71 inches.
Oh, and it films with sound. (Loud clapping from all of this blog's readers.)

On our last trip to St. Louis we stopped at Circuit City in Columbia, MO (they've shut down all the Kansas City locations and supposedly have good sales at all other locations). I saw this camera and liked it a lot. My old camera was also a Nikon Coolpix. Circuit City didn't have any in stock. Nor did any of their locations in the St. Louis area. Or online. So I started shopping ads and found it on sale at Best Buy this weekend. I placed an online order and picked it up today.

Here are the few sample shots from my exciting day at home unpacking and doing laundry:

Do they look better?

Fun pictures of Baby X in January

Trying to escape during week 49's alligator picture.

Cutie.

What a face!

50 weeks

49 weeks

A Map Party

Yesterday I asked B what kind of birthday dessert he'd like. Buddy then asked why kind of party he was going to have... you know, since kid parties have themes. I asked what he thought Daddy would like, he said Homer Simpson. I quickly talked him out of that since I couldn't think of how to decorate for a Homer party with what we had at home, not to mention making a Homer cake (me being frosting impaired and all). So I talked Buddy into a map party since B definitely likes maps and geography. Here's how the theme went:


Globe decoration by Princess Sparkley.


Happy Birthday banner (lettering my me, coloring of "Happy Birth" by Buddy, coloring of "day, Daddy!" and a globe cake by Princess Sparkley, all of this courtesy of a nap by Baby X).


Map banner by Buddy.


Brownie and abstract Earth design by me.


Please ignore the moustache!?!... I try to.

Playing Outside

As we were laying around the house, being lazy on Christmas, B mentioned that growing up we could play outside. I guess that's one of the benefits of being a kid in California at Christmas time... if you get a bike for Christmas, you can actually ride it that day. We were lucky enough to have a warm day after Christmas that melted most of the snow (it's back now) so we let Buddy take his new bike, and Princess Sparkley her new scooter our for some fun. Here's a wimpy video of it:

48 weeks

11 months

Merry Christmas!

Left to Right, Top to Bottom. Row by Row. Sort of. (Click to enlarge.)

PS and her new Webkinz pink poodle that she's named Lavender (since according to her new Fancy Nancy's Fancy Words book, Lavender is a fancy word for light purple... not sure why she decided to name a pink dog that.)
We gave Baby X PS's old "bike" aka Little Tykes ride-on and doll walker push toy. Notice his Bandaid by his eye... big owey.

PS and her new pink scooter.
Baby X.
Aebleskivers.
PS and her new Webkinz cat which she has named Tiara (another fancy thing).
Buddy in his new fleece robe reminding us of Uncle R.
Christmas Day dessert... Peppermint.Candy Cane Ice Cream Pie.
Buddy and a train book.
The stockings here hung by the chimney with care.
PS being fancy... the theme of today.
Aebleskivers cooking in their pan.
Buddy on his new bike.
PS extra fancy... notice how the shoes complete her look.
The kids are the top of the stairs waiting to come down and open presents.

Buddy riding his new bike... he thought I was taking a picture,
not filming, so he stopped riding to smile for the camera.

B's 1000th County

photo by Buddy (age 4 1/2)

I'm sure we've mentioned it before, but just in case we haven't, B keeps track of the counties he's been to. Sort of like what some people do with states. He and Buddy went on a county getting trip last weekend and they got 45 counties and B got is 1000th county. Yea! He's about 1/3 of the way done... or, more specifically:

1042/3132 (33.27%) as of 12/21/8

Noel

As I've been out and about this holiday season with the kids, Buddy has noticed Noel signs and asked me what it means. I haven't really had an answer other than it's Christmas related (turns out, it means Christmas). Today we were listening to Star102, Kansas City's Christmas station (which has been playing Christmas songs since Halloween and in between songs... 20 minutes worth of ads) and the song "The First Noel" came on. I told them to listen up. I explained that I guessed Noel meant Jesus' birth or Christmas. Buddy* said, "Maybe it means no L. Is there an L in Christmas?" No, there isn't. So in our family, Noel now means there is no L in Christmas.

*He has been hilarious lately. He's got this new crack up laugh that I need to capture on film. And he's been making up super silly "jokes." This is my favorite (did I already write this here?): How do you know you're a Clementine? You got peeled!!

47 weeks 1 day

Princess Sparkley Rocks Out

Princess Sparkley: Can I listen to my [Princess Sparkley's] profile . . . (She means playlist.) to hear that song?

Me: What song?

PS: All the Single Ladies.

Me: [Cracking Up.]


B and I saw the Saturday Night Live skit a couple of weeks ago with Beyonce and Justin Timberlake singing and dancing to "All the Single Ladies."

I hunted down the video on YouTube while Princess Sparkley was nearby and if the computer ever starts making noise (music, videos, etc.) the kids come running to see what it is. She loves the song. So I made a Princess Sparkley playlist on Napster and she has her songs from Enchanted and this song by Beyonce. Oh, and also the David Duchovny song by Bree Sharp.

She's just informed me that she'd like this video posted on her blog with the boys dancing funny as well. Oh, she says she likes the boys and she doesn't like the girls.

Smarty Pants

Because Princess Sparkley is smart. And because she knows that I get all of my answers from the internet. And because she doesn't want to do math, she just asked the following:

Can you look up how Santa gets around where it isn't winter?

Snow plow

After driving around in lots of snow on unplowed roads and getting stuck twice (which is one of my worst nightmares) I picked B up from the bus stop and said, "We need to get a car that can never get stuck in the snow. What kind of car is that... a snow plow?" Which got a loud, excited response from Buddy in the backseat who said, "YEAH, a snow plow." This might have been the most exciting idea he's ever heard since he'd spent all morning with our snow shovel pretending to be a snow plow** complete with his own snow plow noises.


**Yesterday he snow shoveled right along with out complex's maintenance guy. It was so funny to watch, especially since he's normally pretty shy around adults he doesn't know. I asked him if the guy talked to him, he said, yes, twice. I asked if he talked to the guy to which he answered, "umm... I don't think so."

Buddy Makes Jokes

Buddy: Mom, why are you a clementine?

Buddy: It's a joke. I made it up. You know how it ends?

Me: No.

Buddy: Because you got peeled.

And he walks

Baby X took a couple of steps on his own accidentally last week (Tuesday and Thursday ish) and since then he's been walking along our walls and letting go and trying to keep walking. Or walking along something and letting go and walking a few steps to get to something else (ie: chair to coffee table, etc.) So at 10 1/2 months, he's "walking." Here are my pathetic attempts at capturing it:


By this point, he was so excited about walking that he was more running and thus just falling down.


*Have I mentioned that Baby X has a third tooth. Top front, his left. It's been around about 1 1/2 to 2 weeks.

Santa's Early Delivery

We woke up this morning to this
,

and this


and it kept snowing all morning and after lunch.


"Santa" couldn't very well send the kids out to play in the snow knowing perfectly well that she (I mean he) had boots for them in her/his closet that they'd asked for on their Christmas lists. So Santa dropped off a special delivery due to the snow that came before Christmas.






We also got B this new yellow snow shovel which he's going to have to fight Buddy for. PS wanted to sled. Buddy wanted to shovel. I can't wait until he's a teenager.

46 weeks

How we sleep at our house

This is normal sleeping, right? His arms are sort of crazy, but this looks normal.


This is how we found PS the other night.

Decorating the Tree

Look how big Baby X has gotten!!!

This is how B contained Baby X from the tree decorations.

Our new friend Allison

Princess Sparkley raided our recycle box and created Allison, her new friend. Unfortunately mom and dad considered Allison to be trash and insisted she be returned to the recycle box immediately upon completion of this picture. (Note: she'd already visited PS's bed.)

B and Buddy sleeping Sunday morning

45 weeks