Very belated Christmas videos

Things have been a little busy since Christmas, so it's taken me awhile to post new pictures and videos! We had a great time in Minnesota for Christmas and Matty enjoyed lots of attention from his grandparents. Juan got me a very tiny camcorder for Christmas, so we tried it out over the holidays. See below for my handiwork...

Matty enjoyed playing with Morris, the cat while in Minnesota:


Little did we know it, but Morris was living the last of his nine lives when this was taken. Poor Morris had to be put to sleep a couple weeks after Christmas due to an abdominal obstruction. We will miss him!

Opening presents:
Ripping paper is fun!

Fun with wipes:
We have trouble getting Matty to sit still long enough to have his diaper changed, but giving him wipes to play with keeps him entertained!

Matty (aka King Kong) playing with blocks with Grandpa and Jack

After our return from Minnesota, our friends Pablo and Andrea came for a visit with their kids Maricela (2) and Christian (8 mo) over New Year's. It was great to catch up with them and see the kids play. Matty turned on the charm and managed to get a kiss from Maricela in this video (and gave one in return...)

And, here's the two of them taking a break:

Juan consistently impresses me with the new things he thinks up to keep Matty entertained while getting him ready for bed. In this video, Juan is pretending to be very sad which Matty finds hilarious.

And, we rounded out the month of January with a visit from our friends Kevin and Amy and their son Josh. It was so fun to hang out with them and get some good bathtub pictures to blackmail the boys with when they are teenagers:


We hope you all had wonderful holidays and that your New Year is off to a good start!

SNOW!

What's that saying about hell freezing over? Tonight it is snowing in Houston! It's been at least a few years since the last time we saw snow here. Here's a picture of Matty checking out the snowflakes...




I doubt any of it will stick, but it's fun to see anyway!

Long time, no blog...sorry for the delay! Let's see...alot has happened in the last month. (warning - long blog post follows!) First of all, there was Halloween. As you saw in the last posting, Matty went as Yoda. We didn't end up going out trick or treating since Matty is too young to eat most of the candy, and Juan and I sure don't need it! Instead, we took pictures with pumpkins and took Matty to the park.

From Halloween and Thanksgiving

From Halloween and Thanksgiving

As you probably guessed, if you click on the "Halloween and Thanksgiving" link below any of the pictures, you'll go to our Picasa album that has more pictures than what I posted here.

And, here's a video of Yoda in action...




Not too much happened in the first part of November, but the week before Thanksgiving, I had to go to Seattle for work for 3 nights. This was my first time ever spending a night away from Matty. On one hand, I was REALLY looking forward to THREE nights in a row with no baby monitor! But I knew I would miss the little guy (which I did of course). I had a good trip and knew Matty was in good hands - Juan's mom came to visit for the week to help out. So, Matty got to stay home from "school" for the week and enjoy 1x1 attention from his grandma. What could be better than that?

After I got back and before Juan's mom had to go back to El Paso, we all went to the zoo. Juan got some really good pictures of the animals - check them out!

From Halloween and Thanksgiving

From Halloween and Thanksgiving

From Halloween and Thanksgiving

Next, we were off to El Paso for Thanksgiving. Juan's sister Darcy and his mom cooked up a strom and put on a delicious Thanksgiving dinner. We enjoyed seeing all of the family and eating to our heart's content. Matty had a GREAT time playing with Darcy's daughter Jasmine who is only 6 weeks older than he is. It was super cute to watch them running around after each other.

From Halloween and Thanksgiving

From Halloween and Thanksgiving

From Halloween and Thanksgiving

And, we owe a big thank you to Juan's brother David and soon-to-be sister-in-law Isabel for hosting us for the weekend. I don't know how they managed to get any sleep after 6:30am when Matty woke up every day. His "inside voice" is not exactly quiet.

Now, we're getting ready for Christmas! For the first time in several years, we actually put up a tree. Check out Matty and the tree below. He's actually been pretty good about leaving it alone. It only took a couple of times saying "no touch!" before he got the message. But, we'll see how long that lasts...there's still alot of time before Christmas.



And, of course, Matty is doing all kinds of new things. He can show us where his nose, ears and belly button are, he can imitate a gorilla, and tell us what the owl says. He says a few words now. We think "duck" was the first word that he actually used pretty consistently toward the correct object. Other than duck, he also says "Dadda", "Momma", "shoes", and "uh oh". He really likes to say "uh oh". Especially when he drops anything from his highchair - accidental or not.

And, as always...a few vidoes.

Falling asleep while drinking his milk...


Crazy baby!


Playing laundry basket boat with Aunt Darcy and cousin Jasmine

Halloween Preview

Last Friday, my company had an Oktoberfest party where families are welcome and kids are encouraged to debut their Halloween costumes. Matty, aka Master Yoda, had a great time running around at the party and eating ice cream and hot dogs. Check him out below - he's about the right height to be Yoda! The costume did not last long. He was fascinated with climbing up and down the stairs in front of the building and the robe was getting in his way. But, we think he makes a pretty cute Yoda!




“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not." - Yoda

Busy Boy

Sorry it has been so long since I've posted any new pictures! We've all been busy, especially Matty. As promised, here is a video of him walking.



We are having tons of fun with him. It cracks us up to see him toddling his way around the house. He keeps himself (and us) very busy exploring all over the place. And, he's working on a few words. So far, he just says the first sound, like "Ah dah" for "all done", and "dow" for "down".

And, I'm sure no one is suprised to learn that he is a champion eater. That boy can put away the food. We can't tell if he's right or left handed, since he usually just uses both hands at once to jam as much food as he can into his mouth, as demonstrated in the picture below...



That's all for now...Halloween pictures coming soon!

Power, sweet power!!!

YEAH!!!!! I am excited to report that I'm writing this update from the comfort of our air conditioned, lighted, and Internet-connected home. Whoopee!! We returned from Austin this afternoon to find the CenterPoint energy crews working on our power lines. Within an hour, the juice was flowing again. Hallelujah! Good thing there were no generators to be had in Austin (they were all sent to Houston), so we didn't end up buying one after all.

So, life is starting to return to normal, but with a very clean fridge.

Matty was a trooper during our adventure, AND he hit two big developmental milestones along the way - WALKING (videos coming soon) and no more bottle. Our little guy is growing up. He still primarily crawls to get around, but he can stand himself up without help from furniture or us, and string together 5+ steps at a time. Now we need to get ready for Hurricane Matty.

7 days and counting...still no power

Apparently, getting the power restored for 2.26 million households takes awhile. We are part of the unlucky 1.21 million who are still waiting. The really crummy part is that virtually ALL of our neighborhood has power except a stretch of ten homes where ours is. No fair! The latest is that it may be THURSDAY before our power is restored. THURSDAY!!! Ugh.

So, our stint as nomads continues...after one night with Jen and John (thank you!), 3 nights with Jamie and Andy (thank you thank you thank you!) and 1 night at home, we packed up and headed for Austin yesterday. Juan had to be here for some meetings today anyway, so we made a family trip of it. We are now comfortably situated at the Hilton Garden Inn until Sunday. After that, our plan is to buy a generator and make do at home. The latest power updates make it look like both of our company offices and Matty's daycare should have power by early in the week, so as long as we have AC during the day, we can make it work with a small generator at night.

We are trying to remind ourselves how lucky we are - the poor people in Galveston have it MUCH MUCH worse. But boy do we miss being in our own home with good stuff like lights. We're crossing our fingers and toes that it really will be Thursday (or sooner...).

To quote the back window of a car we saw...I DON'T LIKE IKE!