Alex Finally Walks!!

Last week, Alex FINALLY took his first steps unassisted!  I'm so happy since he's been walking while holding on since about 8 months.  YAY for Alex!  Here's little video we took of him once he got the hang of it!

Playing in the Water!

Alex and I had been at friend's house where they had 3 cats and this really cool water feature for them to drink out of.  We thought it would be a great thing for us to for the boys since we're constantly filling the water dishes in the kitchen.  So, we bought the same thing our friends had and as it turns out, only Gizmo liked it.  Sully and Wally were confused by it and Brodie just didn't understand it.  However, one person in our family LOVED to play in it - Little Alex!  We decided to remove it from the kitchen and give the boys their water dishes back, but Little Alex will be playing with it a lot this summer outside.  Here's a video of him playing with the water feature!

Chicken Pox!

In early January, we noticed Alex wasn't feeling too well and took him to the doctor.  As the doctor was examining him, he noticed he had just started getting these pink spots on his leg.  Confused, he asked us if we knew anything about these.  All of a sudden, it clicked.  There had been a little girl in Alex's class at daycare who had gotten the chicken pox vaccine (during her 15 month visit) and apparently her body rejected it and she ended up with chicken pox.  Because Alex isn't 15 months yet and hadn't had the vaccine, he was at great risk for it.  I had completely forgotten since he had been fine over the past week or so since it happened.  When I told the doctor this, he asked when Alex was exposed and I said, "2 weeks ago."  That is the exact exposure timeframe for it.  So, all in all, Little Alex got chicken pox.  I know it's a little weird, but since it's rare these days that kids get chicken pox, I decided to take some pictures of what he looked like during that time.  Fortunately, he had it in specific parts of his body and was so young that he really didn't itch much.  Good news is that the doctor said we can now forget about giving him the vaccine at his 15 month check up since he already has gotten chicken pox!

The Best Christmas Gift of All

Little Alex wasn't the only one who had a great Christmas this past year.  Alex and I received the best Christmas gift of all...we found out on Christmas Eve that we're expecting our second child.  It was a bit of a surprise, but all in all a wonderful one!  I'm due on September 2, 2011, but will give birth in mid to late August via C-section.  I won't have an actual date until it gets closer to the date.  And yes, we're definitely finding out whether it's a boy or a girl.  There's no way I can wait for 9 months to find out what it is.  All in all, I've had an easy pregnancy.  This one has actually been so easy, I kept taking pregnancy tests early on because I kept thinking maybe it was a false alarm.  Hopefully, it will continue this way.  So, if you look at the top of our blog now, you'll see I added a ticker for Baby M and how many weeks and days pregnant I am.

Christmas 2010

Even though this wasn't Alex's first Christmas (he was 9 days for Christmas 2009), it was the first one where he was walking, talking and overall much more functional!  It was great!  He did get many gifts for his birthday the week before so it was very difficult to come up with MORE gifts for people (as well as Santa) to buy him.  We did end up with a good list for people and Little Alex received so many gifts.  He especially loved the singing dog from Grandma Louise!  Here's a picture of him with Santa and here's a short movie of Christmas morning and a video of him with Grandma Louise's gift!

Catching up again!

Sorry again for not posting for a while.  Things with us have been so busy over the past 3 months that I just haven't had time.  So, now I'm making time to update you on the many events that have occurred since Alex's 1st birthday in December.

The weekend after Little Alex's "official" birthday (Dec 16th), we had a party with family and friends.  We had around 35 people and I know more of you would've come had you lived close by.  We figured that we couldn't host that many people at the house, so we had the party at Chuck E. Cheese.  Even though Little Alex probably wouldn't understand anything about the party and the place, he was going to be the youngest child at the party, so we figured everyone else would have a great time.  As it turned out, everyone had a great time!  We even had a Pug Cake!  We were so fortunate to have such wonderful family and friends who joined us on such a special day.  Here are some pictures and a short video of that day!

Alex is 1 year old!

So it's official - my son is one year old!  I can't believe it.  It's been a whirlwind year and Alex and I have gone through so many changes - there's too many to count.  It's amazing to look back and remember what this little guy looked like on December 16, 2009 and then to look at him again on December 16, 2010.   Physically, he's grown so much.  At his 12 month doctor visit, he was 29.8 inches and weighed 20 lbs. 4 oz - which is average for his age.  That's definitely an increase from what his stats were at birth - 19 1/4 inches long and 7 lbs. 2 oz.  Emotionally and socially, he's grown up so much!  He's so responsive and talkative these days.  He loves to play with other kids and play by himself.  He's always discovering new things!

Alex and I were talking the other day about our first year with little Alex.  We both think this past year went well and that it wasn't that hard at all - like most people told us it would be.  I'm so happy to see that both Alex and I have grown into our "mom" and "dad" roles like we were meant to always be there.  Plus - we know that all the support from friends and family definitely helped us through many hard times.

So, thank you friends and family for being there this past year.  I know we'll lean on you plenty again over this next year!  Thank you Alex IV - for being the best and most awesome son anyone could ever ask for!  I can't wait to see how you grow over this next year!

Here are some pictures of baby Alex as a newborn and now.

Talking Bubba....Walking Bubba!!!

As Alex approaches 1 year old, he's been changing daily.  The other day he just started talking a lot and walking with his walker.  He hasn't officially taken his first unaccompanied steps, but it should be any day now.  Here are 2 videos of him....one of him talking and one of him walking with his walker...ENJOY!

Bubba in the drawer!

Since Alex has been in discovery mode, he has been investigating every cabinet and drawer in our kitchen.  Of course, we child-proofed the important ones, but left the other ones available for him to explore.  He definitely explored.  Alex and I were talking in the kitchen and looked over and saw Bubbs sitting in one of the drawers.  It was so funny and cute, we had to take some pictures of it.  ENJOY!

Thanksgiving in Florida

We decided this year to spend Thanksgiving in Florida with my dad and Daisy.  That meant there were going to be a lot of firsts - Little Alex's first plane ride, his first time to Florida, his first time at the beach and the first time our family spent Thanksgiving in Florida.  We were all excited about what adventures we'd have.

There were no surprises....

Little Alex did great on the plane.  He slept for most of the ride and watch his DVDs and read books with me when he was awake.  Here's a picture of him on the plane watching his DVDs.

He seemed to love Florida and the pool.  Here are some pics of us at the pool and of little Alex just hanging out at Dad's.

Unfortunately, he didn't really care for the beach.  He didn't like the sand and cried when we put him down in it.  He also didn't really like the salt water either.  I'm hoping that he's just a bit young and that the next time we go to the beach, he'll love it.

Thanksgiving was fun.  Dad and Daisy made us a wonderful Turkey dinner with all the fixings and we ate like royalty.  Suzanne even managed to get some time away from Macy's (even at Thanksgiving) to join us down there for some of the fun.  All in all, what a great vacation!