My First Halloween!

Hello everyone! Hope that you had a fun Halloween like I did. As you can see in the pictures, I was a turtle. My Daddy and Mommy always call me Turtle Wurtle and my mom really likes the turtles in Hawaii, so she decided to make me a turtle costume. It was a fun project, which I helped with. You see the picture where I am in the pile of paper? That was cool! Mom was ripping up grocery bags to make the shell from papier mache.....it isn't very often that it is Mom ripping the paper, usually that is what I do! Anyway, I had alot of fun playing with the paper.

So, after it was all finished, I crawled around like I usually do and pretended I was a turtle. I followed my sister around, tried to go under the end table, all the stuff I normally do, and I managed to still get everywhere with my shell. It was a bit rainy outside, but we had a lot of fun playing in the house. Mom says that we can carve the pumpkin tomorrow....that should be fun too! Hope you had a good day.

Happy Halloween from Mr. Turtle Wurtle!

What's Up?

Even while he was sick, Alex was a super trooper and was a happy little guy! These days he is into everything, so you always need to be a bit quicker than him, which is getting harder to each day. His little bear crawl can get him places very quickly! He loves eating Cheerios all by himself. I never realized just how entertaining some little pieces of O cereal can be. He also likes when you feed him small pieces of what you happen to be eating. Lately, some things he has tried that way have been bread, roasted potatoes, pears and some fish.

Of course, he still is intrigued by his big sister, but she is being rewarded with the Cheerios which go overboard these days, so she isn't complaining. His favorite little words seem to be "grrrr", like he is a little tiger, and of course the ever favorite "dadada"....those are at least the ones which stick out in my mind at the moment.

We have not been out much since we were sick, but are looking forward to getting out and about and seeing our friends again next week. We missed the little Halloween costume party at our group today, but he will be sporting a costume tomorrow evening. Between now and then, just need to get the finishing touches done and carve the pumpkin! We will post pictures after it is all over.

Get Out and Vote!

Hi all! Hope that everyone is doing well. Sorry for the delay in posting lately. We have had a bug traveling around the household, so the posts have taken a backseat to that. Thankfully, it all seems to be resolved and we are healthy once again. So, with that said, I wanted to get this voting post in before the elections are upon us!

Alex has been surrounded by this exciting Presidential election since the day he was born....literally! He was kind enough to allow David and I to cast our votes in the "Super Tuesday" primary, before he showed up on what we would dub, "Fabulous Wednesday". Since that time, he has attended some Obama functions with his little friends and their moms, and I'm sure he will even help me make a few phones calls before election day. We urge you to get out and vote.

We need change in our country, as has been even more clearly evidenced in the past few months. The economy, our healthcare system, our relations with other countries around the world, among so many other things, are all in shambles right now. Barack Obama can help to lead us in the direction of regaining stability in these areas. Providing our fellow citizens with healthcare, helping those who have stumbled upon hard times, building better schools and rebuilding infrastructure which is aged and crumbling is not socialism....it is what America is all about. We all want these things for our children and our grandchildren, so this is the time to start rebuilding.

All of us are real Americans. We study hard, we work hard, and we accomplish. We remember our past and we look towards our future and we stand together and lend a helping hand when our neighbor needs it. That is America. Please go out and vote Obama on November 4th!

Alex This Week

Alex has been keeping busy this week, as usual. On Sunday we took a hike in the morning with his favorite sister, and then in the afternoon, we went over to Mountain View Cemetery in Piedmont. It sounds like a strange place to go, but we had seen pictures in a photography class that we took a couple of years ago and finally remembered to go and check it out. There is a lot of history in this beautiful 226 acre cemetery. The views are amazing as well. Lots of trees and shade, so it made for a nice place to walk around.

Afterwards, we headed over to LoCoco's, a favorite Italian restaurant on Piedmont Avenue. Alex enjoyed having his own cool seat, which attached to the table and decided that he loved the fresh bread which they serve, just as much as Mommy and Daddy do! As always, we had a very delicious dinner (cannelloni--YUM!) and the benefit of going around 5:00 is that there is no wait, which is a rarity for LoCoco's, indeed.

We've had a fun week, with Alex continuing to crawl around and explore the house. The laundry basket is very interesting and crawling into small spaces is not a problem, especially if a piece of paper can be retrieved. Unfortunately, our Wednesday plan to go to the new California Academy of Sciences fell through, as the wait to enter was three hours. I guess we weren't the only moms who thought that free admission was a good thing! Oh well, we will go sometime soon. The aqaurium looks amazing!

Pumpkin Time!

Well, it looks like Fall has officially arrived. It was a crisp Fall morning, so we decided to go and find a pumpkin for Alex. You might remember a picture of Alex and I a few months ago, next to the big pot where his pumpkin plant was growing...well...the vines grew great, but no sign of any pumpkins ever came. Oh well, it was worth a try!

Given the poor pumpkin turnout in our front yard, we went to Joan's Farm in Livermore this morning, to celebrate Fall and choose the perfect pumpkin. As you can see, Alex had a fabulous time! There were ponies, hundreds of pumpkins to choose from, and he even did some tree climbing. He loves to crawl on the grass and be able to pick up and examine leaves, twigs and blades of grass. He carefully examined the pumpkins and took home the two that he is pictured with in the wheelbarrow.

In addition to all of the fun at the pumpkin patch, we got together with a couple of sets of friends today as well. We had lunch with the Fox family in Dublin, on the way back from the pumpkin patch. We hadn't seen Elliot in about a year and a half, so he looked so big now! He will be three in a little over a month, and he will have a little baby brother in less than a month. It was nice to be able to have lunch with them before the little one arrives.

This evening, we went over to Carrie, Pat and Johnny's house for a delicious dinner. Alex hadn't seen Johnny in awhile, so it was fun to be able to get together. He brought the little pumpkin from the farm, over for Johnny to enjoy. Sounds like they are going to brave the Half Moon Bay pumpkin festival next weekend...brave souls! Thanks to the Lee's for having us over, it was a great time.

Whew! What a fun day and that was just half of the weekeend. Hope everyone is having a great one as well. Oh, by the way, if you enlarge a couple of the photos where Alex is smiling, you can see those cute little bottom teeth.

Hmmmm....how does this thing work?

Fun With Friends

Alex met up with some of his friends today at the BlueSky Family Club in Emeryville. It is a new play place which we have gone to a couple of times in the past few weeks. Lots of padded playspace, toys, and little "cars" for the kids to play on. A bunch of the moms from our mom's group have decided to meet up there at least once or twice a week to get the babies out, especially now that they are getting much more mobile these days.

In the top picture, Miles, Alex and Liliana looked like they were at some sporting event cheering on the players... in reality, they were just oohing and aahing at some toddlers who were running around and playing. I think that they were just trying to figure out how they could do the same. Oh, soon enough, you guys, soon enough!

We've been keeping busy here this week....mostly just keeping track of Mr. Alex, who is now crawling everywhere...and he's fast (even in his sleep)!! As you can see from the pics, he can now pull himself up and stand against a variety of furniture, with the dining room table seeming to be his favorite. The good part about that is there is carpet underneath the table and David used foam pipe insulation to cover the wrought iron, so it is fairly safe for him to play under.

Another favorite pasttime is destroying catalogs/magazines. If you need something to keep him occupied for a few minutes, that is a good option. One of his nicknames in the past few months has been "Destructo Boy", for this reason.