Please Help Support Diabetes Education and Research

What is Tour de Cure, you may ask? The Tour de Cure is a bike ride, which serves as a fundraiser for The American Diabetes Association. Each year, rides are held across the United States and this year, David and Alex will be participating in the one which will be held in Napa, California on May 3rd. They will be doing a 25 mile loop around the Napa Valley, along with many other participants from the area.

Diabetes has affected both of our families, with each of us having a Grandfather who had diabetes. At present, diabetes is a chronic disease with no cure. It is the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States and at this time 23.6 million Americans have the disease. The American Diabetes Association works hard to educate people about diabetes, as well as working on research to someday cure this disease.

If you feel inclined to donate to this cause, please click on the link "Tour de Cure 2009" on the left hand side of the page or you can click here: http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR/TourdeCure/TDC557228030?px=4601835&pg=personal&fr_id=5637.

We thank you for your support of this worthy cause!

Go Red Sox!

Thanks to Theresa, Dave and Alex's buddy Mattie for the cute little Red Sox hat. Alex loves to put it on and is quite proud to wear it. He looks like such a big boy with it on, doesn't he? Hopefully we will see you guys and meet Mr. Mattie sometime soon!

Fun, fun, fun

Wow...a tunnel slide! Cool!

How cute am I in this helmet?

Zonked out!

Hey, Daddy and I are riding a camel!

Daddy, do you want this flower?

One fast little guy!

With the sun out in full force, temps in the 70's and the smell of Spring in the air, we were inspired to alot of activity this weekend. The agenda included a bike ride in Alameda, playing and working in the front yard, a trip to the San Francisco Zoo and some fun at the local park. It flew by, but it was fun while it lasted.

The bike ride was enjoyable and Alex took a nap in the trailer, so that was successful. Alex and David need to get some practice time in for an event coming up in May. I'll explain more in a future post. The choy sum and broccoli raab which we planted last week have started to sprout, another sure sign that Spring is here. The San Francisco Zoo was fun. We saw some cool kangaroos, the grizzlies were being fed and the polar bears were having a great time sunning themselves. We brought a picnic lunch and Alex loved running around in the big grassy area, picking all of kinds of little flowers.

Hey sister, I've got your tail!


Alex and Sis-Sis

I'm posting some happy pics of Alex because this week was a sad one in Oakland, with the tragic deaths of four of the police officers who served to protect us every day. My mind kept wandering back to the situation throughout the week and today, while watching pieces of the funeral, I couldn't help but think of their families and what they are going through. My heart goes out to them all, the parents, the wives and the children. It reminds you just how precious life is and how thankful we should be for the police officers who work so hard and put their lives on the line every day.

Out and About

As you can see from the photo, Alex still loves the cows at the Little Farm. This time, he fed the cow some lettuce and was very excited to pet it. There is not one ounce of fear in regard to the cow, even though its head is huge, compared to him. The chickens remain a close second as the favorites on the farm.

Today Alex did a lot of exploring at Dimond Park, after the library's storytime. He found someone's wheelbarrow and had a lot of fun hauling dirt around, and the stairs were another hit. Curiosity is something which Alex has an abundance of, something which makes me very happy. It also tends to make me very tired sometimes, but I can deal with that.

Little Helper

Alex is my little helper in all endeavors. Yesterday I wanted to work on the yard, which was in desperate need of some tender loving care. I planted some veggie seeds in the garden, so hopefully those will start sprouting soon and we will have some veggies again this summer. I also wanted get some raking done, so I decided to buy Alex a little rake while we were out and about. He enjoyed it, although he still seems to prefer to try to help me with mine. Regardless, he is cute and is always a good helper. Hopefully this continues well into his teenage years....a mom can dream, can't she?

Welcome!

Casey Xue Xian Wang




Gabrielle Rose Alojado


It is a bit delayed, but I have been meaning to welcome some new friends to the world for awhile now. Some fellow February babies joined Alex's fabulous birthday month this year. Casey was born to Phil and Virginia on February 3rd, while Gabrielle joined Roy and Emily on the 5th of February. Congrats to both sets of Mommys and Daddys and welcome to these two little cuties! We look forward to meeting you both sometime soon.

Busy Bee

The weather has been beautiful here and hopefully it is nice where you are too! Alex has been keeping busy reading and playing with friends. He loves to go to the library where he is really like a little bee. He runs around, picks up a book, looks at it for a few seconds and then is off to look at another, or stand on the chairs or browse the DVDs. He's always on the go. They have storytime on Wednesdays at the library which is walkable from our house. He always enjoys new books!

On Thursdays we meet up with three other sets of moms and kiddos to do a babysitting co-op. Two of us stay with four kids each week for three hours, so the other two moms get some free time sans baby. We alternate, so we each get three hours free every other week, which is cool. Alex is slowly warming up to the concept. Today they had fun with all of Marco's toys and of course, Alex loved the out of service cell phone which Marco has. As you can see, he spent alot of his time talking on the phone during the playdate.

We have also been working on signing more lately. Just received some board books and a DVD in the mail today. Now that I know more signs myself, I can teach Alex. The sign for "all done" is a favorite for him.

Little Leprechaun

Happy St. Patty's Day and Happy Birthday Grandma Chng! Today was an absolutely gorgeous day, so Alex and I met Carrie and Johnny at the park for some fun in the sun. Alex and I plan to make some lamb and potatoes for dinner to keep our Irish roots alive!

Time Flies!

It is hard to believe, but these little guys have grown so much over the past year. We first met Miles' parents in our childbirth class, and then the boys were born about two weeks apart. The first pic is from April last year, the second is from July and the last is from Johnny's birthday party on Sunday. Alex and Miles are both big guys now!

Hey Mom, this cupboard is a mess!

Hi!

Alex's greets everyone with "hi" all of the time now. Finally captured it on video yesterday.

Happy 1st Birthday Johnny!

Alex's buddy Johnny celebrated his first birthday today--yay for Johnny!, and of course a big yay for Mom and Dad too! The party was great fun, with a whole playground to play on, tasty Mexican food, all kinds of friends, and some yummy cupcakes, as well as cool mini board books to take home. It was nice to see everyone and be able to hang out and play for awhile. It has been a fun year getting to know you Johnny, and we look forward to many more happy years ahead.

Lo CoCo's Cannelloni....yum!

Too bad you can't post video to Yelp. Alex would be happy to review Lo Coco's.

Bubbles!

Today Alex's friend Johnny came over to visit for a few hours and since it was cold outside and we couldn't play in the sandbox, we played with bubbles inside for entertainment. As you can see, it was quite a hit. Xena got in on the action too, actually trying to eat the bubbles!

Alex's Platform

Remember last week, when I said that David and Alex were working on a project? Well, here's the finished product! A few weeks ago, while doing some reading, I saw a gadget called the Learning Tower advertised. It was basically a platform for kids to use in the kitchen to watch and participate in cooking activities.

I thought that this would be a great idea for Alex because he has always loved being in the kitchen with me and now he always wants to see what is going on, but is really too big for the Bjorn these days. The only drawback was the price, which I thought was rather high at $180. I mentioned the concept to David and he agreed that it was a cool idea, and proceeded to draw up plans to make one himself. So, he started on it last weekend and today he finished it up.

I think that it turned out very nicely. He used redwood and then used a beeswax and orange oil finish on it to bring out the color and grain of the redwood. As you can see it has a variety of heights which it can be adjusted to, just move the dowel to the appropriate holes. Alex loves it! He tried it out today and even donned his yet too large apron for the occasion. I am sure that he will get much enjoyment out of this project that Daddy worked so diligently on. Thanks Daddy, it looks great!

Busy Meerkat Tunnel

The tunnel which leads to the special meerkat viewing area was quite popular this morning. Are these guys cute or what? You can hear Alex talking quite loudly at one point, and I'm sure listening to the echo of his voice.

Exploring

This week, the dreaded molars have been quite challenging, so I have been trying to keep Alex distracted as much as possible. Yesterday, we went up to the Little Farm in Tilden and had fun visiting the animals, despite the fact that it was in the mid 30's up there. There was frost and a bit of ice on the little duck pond. I think that my blood has thinned out over the past ten years, because it was cold!

Today we met some friends at the Oakland Zoo, which is always a good time. Everyone can walk around and explore now, so it is a different experience than even just a few months ago. The meerkats were a hit, as usual, as were the monkeys and birds. The giraffes were eating breakfast about the time we got there, so they were all quite preoccupied. We ended up at the play area over in the children's zoo, where Alex and Luke had fun exploring the what's in your yard exhibit. There are flaps that you can lift up to reveal what bugs would be found around that particular type of object or plant. They love to lift up those flaps and then explore the area around it. They looked like a couple of little men on some big adventure. Too cute!

Helping Daddy

Alex was a great little helper on Daddy's woodworking project, this weekend. He was quite excited to try to use the tools, as you can see. What were they working on? You will soon see. Pictures to be posted, once project is completed. It will be fun and very useful!

Sunny Days....

We have been happily enjoying some sunny days here in the Bay Area, after some much needed precipitation. Alex loves to be outside and play in the front yard in the sandbox or out of it, searching for flowers and playing with his Sis Sis. This past Saturday we attended Beck's 1st birthday party, which was very fun. The weather was perfect and Alex enjoyed some cold soy milk from a straw, which was a new discovery for him.

His latest favorite thing to say is "hi". He uses it in the correct context and it is super cute when he says it. When you come into a room where he is, he smiles and says "hi", which is so cool. The other day when we were at Cafe Trieste, he said it to a lady sitting next to us, yesterday he was saying hi to all of the dogs outside of Rick and Ann's restaurant and today we took Xena to the vet and he was saying it to the lady sitting next to us in the waiting room. It is too cute...especially when people don't expect it.

In the veterinary waiting room, Alex also had his first up close encounter with a cat. There was a cat in a crate, waiting to be taken into a room and it was meowing and Alex looked at a picture of a cat on the wall and pointed to it. I pointed to the crate and the lady was kind enough to turn it around so that he could see the cat. He walked over and did his little squat down to inspect and Xena then became very interested in what was going on. It was almost like she was jealous or afraid that the cat was going to do something to harm Alex.....see, they do love each other!