sorry it's been a while...

...since i last had a chance to write we have had 2 birthday parties (nick and mine) and all the planning that entails, a great trip to colorado so i could be in my dear friend's wedding, alexei and i have both been down with some kind of virus deal, we took our first camping trip as a family of three, i got to help host baby showers for two sweet friends (one of them had her baby last week - oh so cute. definantly makes me think about wanting another one before too too long. ;), and we have had so many fun times with our wonderful sunday school class, the new parent's class - it has become a huge chunk of my life. alexei is still working on his teething (still no teeth.). i wouldn't mind so much that he doesn't have teeth, but that he seems to be really uncomfortable so much of the time. his little teeth have been right under the surface of his gum for a couple of months now and he has been holding his ears and fussing. i took him to his pediatrician yesterday to make sure it wasn't another ear infection, but she said he looks totally fine, that it is probably just the teething. i am so thankful for baby motrin. and for antibiotics. i have mastitis again. stink. what did they do before they had antibiotics?

ok, so that was probably more info than you wanted. on to more interesting things...

alexei is 10 1/2 months old now - wow, does time fly by or what? he is such a sweet heart. he is really getting into reading books, he loves turning the pages and on the one lift the flap book that we have (my dear friend, becky, gave it to him for christmas) - "dear zoo" he is really good about opening the flaps and knows which direction each one opens. he gets really excited every time a flap is lifted and does his suck in- squeal-whole body stiffens up move that only alexei can do when he is excited. :) his other favorite book of the month is "the very quiet cricket". every time we get to the last page where the quiet cricket finally is able to make his beautiful sound when he sees a cute girl cricket, alexei dies laughing every stinkin' time. it is hilarious. on a long day we'll just sit there and read that book a couple of times and then we'll resort to just rereading the last two pages so we get the effect when you come to the last page. it is just as much for my entertainment as it is for his.

nick hung my birthday present in the trees in our backyard. my parents got me this really cool canopy covered swing that is supposed to just swing peacefully on your porch. you all know what those look like. well, mine apparently wasn't exciting enough and needed to be improved. (as do most things in our house. ;) nick had already climbed two of our 40 ft. trees in our backyard with his rockclimbing gear and strapped an anchor to branches way up there to pass an old climbing rope he had through a clip so two ropes now hang down between the trees just waiting for fun to be had. we have clipped alexei's johnny jumper to it which he loves, because it becomes a swing/bouncer and with a pull on the rope that is in nick's hands, alexei can soar up 6 ft or so. he seems to really love it and gets super excited every time he gets in it. i must say he did get kind of quiet at the end of last night's jumping session, was looking around and when nick thought it would be good to get him out so we could get him ready for bed, he threw up. that's right. what kind of parents are we? ;) he still had a smile on his face when they came in from the back yard while i was getting dinner on the table, and he still was really excited, so he doesn't seem any worse for the wear, but i think we will have to tame down our jumping sessions a little bit. :) so back to what i started to say earlier with the ropes hanging from the trees and my birthday present... in case you haven't already guessed it. nick hung my swing up between the trees. at first, i lacked the vision that is second nature to nick. i wondered why a perfectly good porch swing needed to be improved upon. but i must say it is pretty cool. you can swing back and forth under the trees very smoothly and it is really relaxing. nick has mentioned attaching it to bungie cords of some sort, but i don't know about that.

current alexei tricks include: being able to pull up and squat down quite proficiently, he tries to stand on his own and can stay up for a few seconds before grabbing for something to help steady himself, he is crawling like a speed racer, can make every sound known to man and then some (truly a guy), has attempted climbing stairs (thankfully we were there), absolutely loves balloons and is really good at grabbing them by their "belly buttons" so he can drag it around the house with him at all times, loves to dance to the music (really just bouncing up and down) with his little fisher price kitchen/living room toy thing i got on sale a few weeks ago, loves carrying around little stuffed animals - especially a little yellow chick i got in a baby basket along with a Dell onesie (they sure like to take over every area of your lives, huh? they even want to put their logo on your cute baby's chest;) . he loves to be tickled and thinks that dad is the coolest thing on earth. he was wearing his red t-shirt that says "my dad is my hero" yesterday that melinda cassidy gave to us when he was born. definantly suits him.

ok, so let me put some pics up here and explain them before alexei wakes up from his nap.

these are a few pics from our trip to portaransas in february. i know i already told you about that trip last time, but since then i finally got the pics off of our camcorder and can post them as well. so here you go. alexei is enjoying his second beach experience. his first was when he was four months old and we went with my family down to the coast, but he was much more active and could enjoy it more this time around.
we got to go up to colorado springs for my sweet friend, danita's wedding. i was one of her bridesmaids and nick was a champ for being willing to do super daddy duty during the rehearsal and wedding. we were hoping to go up to breckenridge so nick could ski, but a bad snow storm was on the radar so we decided to stay in denver for a couple of nights. we ended up having a great time with nick's american brother ryan and his girlfriend, dawn. we went to the denver zoo. i really like it. we went last year during spring break when we went up with my parents and kristin and john. i was pregnant with alexei, but this was his first time to the zoo outside of my tummy. :) you can tell he is pretty excited to be there.that's uncle ryan to the left with the beard. we love uncle ryan. :)here is aunt kristin with alexei in the swing before it got hung in the trees.trying out some fun tongue twisting moves. on his first camping trip, hanging out with his buddy, katherine. she is just a few weeks older than alexei. he did really well and slept all the way through the night. in fact, he slept better than nick and i did. :) i would love to do it again soon. we went with three other families from our sunday school class and loved getting to spend some good time hanging out and getting to know each other better.the boys wrestling on the floor after a long workday.the bouncy seat in the trees - you can see how it is rigged now. this is before he threw up. "what are these wierd things they insist on putting on my feet?" this was right before nick took him outside last night. alexei definantly prefers to be barefoot. ok, folks. that is all for now. thanks for caring!