alexei at 13 months - installment #3

our third set of photos from alexei's 13th month ;)
here he is learning to slide with grandpa. grandma and grandpa got him this cool little slide that can be indoor or outdoor for his birthday. right now it's gracing their formal living room - the mark of a true grandparent house. :)

here is alexei taking some of his first steps! he just started walking since july 4th. first with a push walker that dad's side of the family gave him for his birthday ( a pooh bear train) which he absolutely loves, and then the next day he decided to try to walk on his own. two days ago he started walking around alot - like rather than crawling. he had been taking maybe 8-10 steps to me or nick, but now he is cruising, actually more like running all over the place. i think he decided to skip the walking part. i wonder who his daddy is? ;)
this morning he heard nick talking in the kitchen and said "da da" for the first time and walked in and found him. he kept saying da da when he was with him, it was really cute. he has been saying mama for a few months but besides that, "uh-oh" was his only other word and he just started saying that when he dropped things a couple of weeks ago.

here is daddy pulling alexei around the backyard. we have a little "hill" in our backyard he loves to roll down. he has only flipped over once. ask nick about that. ;) he was fine.

if you look closely, you can see his first tooth on the bottom left. he got that on 6/20/08 - i think he is working hard on his second one.

he is starting to gain weight again. he lost a lot while he was on the first two rounds of antibiotics for a nasty ear infection we have been fighting for a month. he didn't want to eat any solids, just nurse. thankfully during this third round we are almost finished with, he still has an appetite and his stomach isn't as upset. since he had the hand foot and mouth disease over his birthday weekend, he has had another cold, was healthy for a week or so and then got this ear infection that has been crazy persistent. please pray that he will totally heal b/c if it isn't totally cleared up when we go back to the pediatrician next week we either need to go see an allergist to see if he is truly allergic to penacillin drugs (he had a reaction to amoxacillin when he was 8 months old) so we can have more options to treat him with in the future if he isn't allergic, or to an ENT to see if we need to do anything more serious. this is only his second ear infection - it's just lasted a month. poor little guy. it's hard to tell what is teething and what is ear infection at this point b/c he holds his ear when he is teething as well. thus the check up next week.
ok, i need to publish this series of installments and go get him. he's playing around in his crib. short nap today. bummer. :) thanks again for keeping up with our little lives.

alexei at 13 months - installment #2

ok. so our second set of 4 photos from picassa:
we had so much fun at our new parent's sunday school class picnic at brushy creek water park! the sprinklers pop up out of the ground and the kids can run/crawl around and the parents can stay cool too! and it's free - even better! :)

our water baby. :)

this is alexei in his little car that his play group friends pitched in and got him together at his surprise birthday party i mentioned earlier. he loves riding in it. his feet can't quite reach long enough to propel himself, so nick put a bungee cord in the bottom and alexei has learned to prop his feet on top of it so they don't get caught underneath. smart kid. i am not at all biased. ;)

i have some more pics of him with daddy pulling him in the car i'll try and post in the next set of 4. thanks for your patience and bearing with me :)

alexei 13 months - installment #1

[sorry the order didn't work out at all. i tried to post it backwards so the first would be first, but apparently it posts by time you created it. i don't know. sorry for the goof up. hopefully it will be better next time. :) ]
hello, everyone! we just got picassa so i am trying to figure out how to post photos from there, and it won't let me do more than 4 at a time. i don't know what i am doing. so you'll get a couple of posts today. don't complain, it's better than nothing. i was about to do one photo per post so 4 is an improvement. ;)
so alexei had his birthday, y'all saw those pics already. we really enjoyed hanging out with my dad's side of the family that weekend. you see them here (lft to right top row) uncle mark, grandpa matt, aunt candy (bottom row) great grandma, grandma katy, aunt zo and the three of us. we hung out at the marina and at the oasis with them the afternoon of alexei's and really enjoyed the beautiful weather.

alexei loves the swimming pool! he and daddy have so much fun together! i'd imagine in just a few years alexei will be doing his own laps in this swim lane. :)

alexei's little play group friends threw him a surprise party (really the moms did;) since they couldn't come to his party since he was sick with hand foot and mouth disease. this is the same playgroup that came out of the square one new moms group that jan henegar started at our church last fall. alexei is the oldest out of the bunch by about a month. left to right is logan, kaitlan(our neighbor friend), molly, alexei, abram, and bailey. it is so fun seeing them grow up together! this first year really flew by! alexei doesn't like hats. :)

alexei loves when daddy puts him in boxes or bags and "drives" him around. he is still a little sleepy here. :)

ok. i'll post another 4 photos. :) sorry. eventually i'll get this figured out.