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More Firsts

So, yes last weekend marked the first birthday, but this weekend wins in NUMBER of firsts.

Sylvia Quetzal's first birthday party

Though a week older than Alder, her shindig was this weekend, and despite Alder's wrapping up a fussy week of hand-foot-mouth virus, we took part in a wonderful celebration of family, friends and ridiculously delicious food cooked in the mud oven, over at Sylvia's house. We had a blast and like always they kept Alder up way past bedtime by the fire. We paid for it a little bit the next day but always worth it... so Happy Birthday Slyvie... and thank you for sharing your muffins.

(Sylvia, we will dump many more pics on you from the gathering next time we meet.)

First bathtime outside

No pic but we have had a true Spring this year ( i.e. several weeks of mild temps, sun still low, and low humidity days), so we have taken advantage of a hand-me-down little pool in a sunny spot in the backyard. Alder and Tsuga got baths. And Alder is big boy enough now (!!) that he didn't need the little seat to restrain him from face-planting in the water. I did keep hands within inches of him while he played.

Our first visit to the berry farm

And not to be forgotten. Morning after Sylvie's rager, we sluggishly headed out, way out, to the berry farm to pick some strawberries. So Alder was pretty fussy still but we plopped him in the straw between the berries (to the horizon). We set to picking and he commenced to eat ...

to stuff ...

to become one ... with the berries
And when he wasn't eating....But he had a strange yet successful method of ramming the whole berry in, chewing, swallowing and then ejecting the sepals and stem. We neat and tidy adults always pick this off and THEN eat it. We made off with 21 or so pounds and all we could all eat.

First visit to the neighborhood pool

No pics here, but we did this today. Very cool. We will certainly make the most of this neighborhood feature this summer. How cool it was to stick Alder and Alder gear in the wagon and cruise down there. He liked it but needs to get a bit more comfy with it. It must be overwhelming.

And first official cruising (walking while hanging on to stuff)

Stages of mobility still coming at an accelerating rate. Early in the week, Alder showed us he could pull up with no help on multiple things about the house. By the end, he was doing the same in his brace even and starting to cruise some without it (albeit very slowly and cautiously). Best is moving along the spindles around the deck. These are perfect for him. We'll get a picture of this up soon.

And speaking of the brace, Alder got a new one this week. We were excited that we pushed long enough with the last brace to SKIP a size. He puts a hurtin' on these things and they run about $800 a piece. We are thankful for insurance.We could always milk more firsts from a week than this, but in the interest of time...

Everyone, have a nice week.

First Birthday!!!

Wow! what a weekend. There is so much to say and show. Sorry we have been so busy that it has taken us awhile to post this momentous occasion. Here is a mighty long post that hopefully touches on the highlights.

As alluded to earlier, Alder did indeed get his first haircut this birthday weekend and here he is in the bathtub just before it. I did only chop a whopping centimeter off the front bangs and left the rest to blow in the wind upon Jason's and Eli's request. This small amount cut made a huge difference and made him look so grown up (notice in the remainder of pics). My favorite comment was from Dan who said "Nice bangs"...

I must say that the big birthday celebration was a total success! The weather was absolutely beautiful and all seemed to have a great time. We are so grateful to have such wonderful family and friends to share this day with us.

Here is Alder is in his new wagon which he loved sitting in and riding around the deck and neighborhood. A nice change from the stroller I am sure as he can see all around.

Alder loves all his gifts so much - it is so fun to see him learn how to use them and listen to the new books - variety is the spice of life for an infant after all... here he is with his xylophone and punch -n - drop.
Uncle Travis was an especially special guest and Alder loved getting the extra QT with him.

Ms. Anne, who takes care of Alder when we are at work, described him recently as a 'wheel boy' and she couldn't have been more right. He LOVES to push cars and trucks around and make a noise as if an engine were revving as seen here...we can't decide if this is just innate in all little boys or if he learned this from the other fellows at daycare....

Here's the trio just before (or after?) singing Happy Birthday! Very exciting! He was already reaching for it!!

I searched around to find a sugar free cake for his birthday and found a really great one. It is a sugar free carrot cake. I used the one on this website:
http://www.grizzlybird.net/2007/01/babys-1st-birthday-cake-recipes.html
It turned out really well and I just barely put some frosting on Alder's...I actually licked most of it off just before we sang to him! My mom said that he will be mad at me when he gets older, but I will risk it! I made a sheet cake for the big kids and adults and a cupcake for alder. The cake was naturally very sweet and he LOVED it...I hope everyone else did...


The most special part of the weekend was having all the grandparents together for the first time since the week after he was born! Thanks to all of them for making the journey!

Finally, the most 'big boy' gift was the bike seat for daddy to ride Alder around. He took his maiden voyage on his actual birthday yesterday when he was feeling a bit under the weather. Despite this and the wobbly helmet, he seemed to enjoy it and feel comfortable.


Thanks to everyone for the wonderful gifts and for celebrating this most special day with us.

Mannerisms and First Mommy's Day

Here are a couple of clips from the past couple of weeks that display some of the mannerisms that we have been enjoying here recently. Alder is learning how to make lots of little noises and stick his tongue out and grab his toes when prompted... And this does a pretty good job of capturing his absolute love for '"bear," a gift from Aunt Ana and Uncle Travis. He attacks bear several times a day, when prompted or not.

Another pic to show how the garden is coming along, or at least where it was last weekend.
Here I am sifting some compost to make nice new homes for some tomatoes. There's lots of work to be done on this soil, but its coming along. Our tomato seedlings didn't amount to much so we bought some plants at the local farmers market and from a woman in our neighborhood. She had built a make shift greenhouse on he back deck and just loved selling them for $1 a piece. And she "threw in" some other stuff. .... more to come as we get more in.

Also, today was Lesley's first out-of-the-womb Mother's day. We had a nice low key day hanging out together, peppered with little chores when it wasn't raining. Alder was exhausted from a late previous night out with Sylvia. They partied until 11 pm - about a fifth of a day past his bedtime. Oh and we parents had a great time too.

We also found ourselves for a moment looking a pics from Alders birthday last year - THE birth.
Enter: a thousand words. Actually probably not even describable by THE perfect 1000 words. Unfortunately (as Dan so truly pointed out last night) a father of a year can't describe the day of his child's birth without sounding ridiculously cliche:

"Man, it was the best day of my life."

"It was like nothing else."

Funny.

May Days

With the migrant birds arriving and singing in our backyard and warm weather finally upon us, we have been eating and playing outside lots. Alder is SO much fun these days. The teething-fussiness seems to have subsided for the time being and he is moving everywhere faster and interacting more all the time and we find ourselves laughing together often.

Dad is showing Alder the difference between an American Redstart and a Black and Black-throated blue Warbler song...something tells me he is not getting it quite yet....although he does look up when we say or sign 'bird'.

We're thinking about trimming the hair on the big birthday coming up....


Learning to feed oneself requires some exploration indeed....Tsuga is always there to help with mistakenly, or more recently purposefully, dropped morsels.

We have a video of current locomotion and antics to come soon...