Cole & Alex

Alex and I met up with Ev and Cole today, after not seeing them for a few months. It is crazy that we live only 11 miles from one another and yet it seems that our playdates are months apart. Guess we need to work on that in the new year. It was fun to see them, and so hard to believe that the boys are already almost 10 months old! Hopefully the boys continue to enjoy books as much as they enjoyed "It's Not My Dragon" today.

Dancing Boy

We brought the cradle out into the living room the other night to get it ready to pass along to our friends who are having a baby in March. Alex had a fun time making it glide back and forth, once he realized that it could move. As you can see, he really enjoyed dancing to David's harmonica tune! He had good balance, like a little surfer or snowboarder. I'm sure it won't be long until he tries the real thing out!

Little Driver

The Latest

Alex has been keeping busy this week, especially during the unseasonably warm weather on Monday. After finding out that our BlueSky Family Club had shut its doors, only a few weeks after buying a membership (bummer!), we decided to meet some of our friends at TotLand Park in Berkeley. It is an awesome park for the kids. They have so many toys for them to play with, including the car, walker and rocking horse, which you see Alex on above. Doesn't he look like a little old man, looking into the mirror to switch lanes in that photo? He had a fun time playing and then we all had a picnic lunch in the park. I guess we will all be meeting at one another's homes during the rainy season, which is too bad, because the club was a great place to meet.

The other day, while getting ready to take Alex and Xena on a walk, I came back in the room and there Alex was, holding onto the leash. Just had to get a shot of that...pretty cute! He has recently learned to open up cabinet doors, which means that we need to get those childproofed. He loves playing on the foam block playset, which we bought this weekend at a neighborhood yard sale. It has a couple of ramps which can be used to climb and then slide down as well as a couple of other shapes to play with.

As you can see from the recently posted video, he continues on his culinary explorations. In the video, David was feeding him bits of a LaFarine chocolate croissant (none of the chocolate, of course). He was very interested, as you can see. We went for dinner at a local Cambodian restaurant on Friday evening and he enjoyed sampling the rice and charbroiled pork. These days his favorites seem to be stewed pears (from the backyard) and yogurt, or baked sweet potatoes, lentils and rice.

He keeps us on our toes, and we love it!

Croissant Monster

I Love My Sis Sis.....

New Rides!

Yay! for Craigslist and its ability to help us all recycle kiddo gear which still has lots of life left in it. A couple of weeks ago, we went out to Danville to purchase a bike trailer and Kettler trike for Alex. David had been searching for a used trailer and when this one came up, it happened to be packaged with a Kettler trike. Luckily, we were able to contact the seller quickly and made an appointment to go and pick it up. The trailer and the trike are both in excellent condition and will be put to good use. Bonus was the fact that they were a great deal!

So, that is why David is tuning up the bike and I'm on the hunt for one as well. As you can see, Alex enjoyed both of his new rides, even though the trike is way too big for him at the moment. We should have lots of fun biking moments in our future.

His Father's Son

Alex has a penchant for all things electronic, whether it be one of the many remotes at our house, cell phones, keyboards...you name it, he likes it and will find it. I cannot imagine where these tendencies come from....like father, like son, I guess :-).

Sunday Night Already?

It is hard to believe that it is already Sunday evening....where did the weekend go? We saw a bit of rain yesterday, but it was a nice sunny, yet brisk Fall day today. Alex had fun with his friend Johnny and mom Carrie at the park on Friday afternoon. It is amazing that they are already enjoying the playground equipment! Soon, they will be running circles around us at the park--we will have no chance of catching up.

On Saturday, our early riser decided to get up at the way too early hour of 5:30, so by 10:00, we had accomplished quite a bit! David is getting his bike in order and we are looking for one for me as well. Later, we went to Chinatown to our favorite Vietnamese restaurant for Pho, which is beef noodle soup. It was definitely a Pho kind of day, with the rain and the chilly weather.

Today we went to Luke's first birthday party at Lake Temescal. He had a lot of friends and family there to help him celebrate his big day. A yummy cake, lots of friends to play with and even cereal party favors for the babies. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good pic of Luke with his cake, but we wish him a very Happy Birthday!

Lately Alex has really taken a liking to eating "finger food". Small pieces of sharp cheddar cheese, tofu cubes, peas, and chopped carrots were some of the things he enjoyed this week. He also liked tastes of a grilled cheese sandwich, claypot rice and chicken. Another favorite is stewed pears from the backyard, with cinnamon. If you mix that in with some plain yogurt, he is quite happy. Of course, the Trader Joe's O's cereal is still a big hit. It can basically stop a meltdown right in its tracks!

That's what is happening here. Hope that all is well with you.

Little Monkey

Hooray!

Thanks to everyone for voting and making the best choice for America. It will be a long road, but this is the first step to helping our country be the best that it can be.

We voted today. Make sure that you do too!

We walked down to our polling station on this nice crisp morning, before David left for work. There was a short line of about ten of our neighbors in front of us, which moved very quickly. Usually there is not a line, so hopefully this means that there will be a great turnout today. If you haven't already done so, make sure you get out to vote today. Go Obama!