Cheeeeese!!!

So this past weekend was definitely one of ups and downs. The ups obviously included Christopher, the down was that I got food poisoning or sick or something starting Saturday night. You know, it sucks to get sick at all, but on a weekend and when you have a kid, it just double sucks.


However, Saturday we had fun, we got out of the house, and I was able to get some videos and pictures of our little peanut.


I remember reading somewhere when I was pregnant in one of my MANY pregnant/baby/new mommy books that you should talk to your child as if they know what you are saying. To avoid talking baby talk back to them. I mean, we do this occasionally, but the idea is to ask him to "put the toy over there", "give me the sock", "are you done with your milk" even if you don't think they know what you are saying.


The coolest thing about this is when out of the blue, after asking/saying it a few times, they respond. Christopher will all of a sudden turn and put the toy away, give me his sock or hand me his sippy cup. I know daycare helps with this a lot, but it's so cool when I say something and I learn that he knows something I didn't know he knew.


Case in point.


Christopher has two musical toys attached to his crib. He turns them on for the occasional midnight party, but mostly in the morning after he's woken. He turns them on, lays back down, has some conversations with his stuffed animals, some can't take it and throw themselves overboard, the others stay to play. David went in one morning and asked him to turn off his music. And.. the video...



This was after his afternoon nap on Saturday.


He seems to pick things up quick, so it's fun to try out new things to see what he knows.


Later, he was playing in the bathroom. No, he doesn't play in the bathroom often, but he has such a good time with bath time, I think he goes in to play with his toys.








Christopher's spify new big boy shoes.



So he was playing in the bathroom, when I asked him a question... here look.



Cheese!
I think this is now my all time favorite video! I didn't know he knew it! And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he's posing by leaning on the toilet. Lovely, this years Christmas card photo... in the bathroom. At least it's nice and clean!


Bath toys in our cool new basket!



Ahh, the pose



And I captured it! The cheeese! I think he's really working it here.



And on to snack time (after washing up of course)









He's getting so big and developing such a great personality. I'm consistenly proud of our little man and what he can do as well as tries to do. I can't believe he'll be 1 1/2 next month! It's amazing how time flies.

My Gym

We had quite the busy and productive weekend just recently. More to come on other things... but this post is about our trip up north to San Carlos to a My Gym for a birthday party.

This place was pretty cool. It's pretty much a big play area for kids. They had a ball thing like at McDonalds that the kids go in and it's just full of balls. Christopher has a deep rooted love of balls, any ball. He LOVED the ball area, so many balls, so little time.

He loved all of the balls. He'd be playing with one...


Drop it, see another and go running yelling "ball, ball" till he got another one.


Then we had group time where the kids were asked to sit in a circle. Yeah, that didn't really happen. He loved to dance with everyone though...


I'm not sure what he's doing here. I think he was getting ready to run, but they said put your hands on your head... too many decisions!


Then... the bubbles started. Now, this is my (and David's) fault, but it appears that our son has never experienced bubbles.


He was too young last summer to enjoy it but we do have bubbles. I think this will be something we'll have to do when it gets warmer.

So, they started blowing bubbles, the kids started running around. And what does our little "I don't want to sit still and watch" kid do? He sat down and watched. He looked up in awe at the bubbles. He watched the other kids playing... popping and chasing bubbles.

This was the birthday boy of the day.... Aiden :)

And then he stood up and ventured out into the land of bubbles.

You see his little blond head there in the lower left corner?

And then it was all over. He had found bubbles.


Bubbles over here...


Bubbles over there...


Oh my goodness... they are everywhere!

The other parents and friends were enjoying that he was soooo excited about the bubbles.

And then of course, being his father's child, he goes looking for the source. How do these bubbles work? Where do they come from? Are they being made the right way?

I believe they received a thumbs up from Christopher on their bubble making abilities.

And then Christopher found this ball/donut/toy thing. Thank goodness he's not at the "I want/need that" phase. Otherwise we'd have been googling where to buy a ball/donut/toy thing.


Oh my goodness, the fun to be had.


It was almost unbearable!


Fun times, over and over and over...


and over...


again.


And don't forget the trampoline.








Overall, we had a great time. Christopher slept most of the way up. Then had dinner in the car and slept almost the whole way home and went straight to bed. He was coughing a bit more after playing hard and we aren't sure if it's just that he was getting over a cold or some sort of allergy. However, the minute we got outside he was fine, ate fine and slept great (as usual).

And he officially has the new word "ball". He played Sunday with all his "balls". He'd find one and shout out, "ball!". His vocabulary seems to be really increasing which is really fun to watch.

Oh, and we are in the process of re-doing our backyard and the vanity in our master bath. Details (and photos of course) to come soon. I won't post till the projects are done, but we are soooo close and I am soooo excited!!!

Papa!

I think we are just about at the point where the new words are about the just start flowing out of Christopher. He has started this bab fest with none other than a name for Grandpa. "Papa" Of course it could be "Pop pop" or "poo poo" but I believe it's papa. It is absolutely adorable when we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house Monday (Jr was a bit sick so we opted for G&G Daycare) and as we walked in the front door, Christopher looked around and said "Papa? Papa? Papa! Papa?".

Ahh, looking back.... memories.

He's also added bye bye (when Grandma closed a door, he shouted out "bye bye"). So cute. He also just broken through the last baby molar on the bottom right so he's in a little bit of teething pain (poor little guy), but still handling it like champ. 

Christopher's also mastered the sign for "food" where he puts his fingers together and puts them to his mouth. This has made things MUCH easier!! If we ask him if he's hungry, he'll sign back, or just sign if he's hungry if he wants food.

He's been doing great on being back on cow's milk. Not a big fan of milk, but loves all other dairy. His weight is up. After only gaining 3 oz in the 3 months between his 12 month and 15 month appointments, he gained a full 1lb and 1 oz in the 1 month between his 15 month and a 16 month check-up for his ear. Yeah for weight gain!!! (in babies that is :)

Lunch and the park...

We had so much fun on Sunday. Anthony, Christopher's cousin (well, my cousin's son, so still a cousin) was over for part of the day so we could watch him. The boys had a great time playing together. As Christopher gets older, they are able to play more. They have a little more than 2 years between them.

We started by watching Nemo, which Christopher took an hour nap right in the middle of. Yeah for naps!!!

Then we had lunch.

Grilled cheese and strawberries for Junior (separate of course!)

Christopher is loving fruit, strawberries, raspberries. He's not so sure about blueberries yet.

Anthony being VERY good and eating up his veggies!

And then it was off to the park. And yes, Anthony and Christopher have the same white, all over the place, hair.  Anthony just has more of it!

It was so cute, on the walk there, Anthony walked along side the stroller to chat with Christopher.

Christopher LOVED the swing.

He even got into swinging himself...

I think he was having a great time!

Don't you think?

I think Anthony had fun swinging too! Cousin Dave helped him.

Thinking about the big boy area...

And wow, look at that boy go!

Gotta get rid of that extra energy somehow!

Out of focus, but I still love this photo. He is so happy here!

Then we headed back to the house. It was so gloomy in the morning and it turned out to be so warm and beautiful out!

Leading the way!

And home finally! Where Christopher fell in love with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

And when Christopher discovered his first piece of Thomas the Train merchandise.

We had a wonderful day, as you can see.