Time to ring in the New Year!

So another year draws to a close. I can't speak for AJ, but this has been one of the best years of my life. I'm glad everyone is happy and healthy. We had a wonderful time with Grammy and Papa Joe in Columbus and all of D's aunts and uncles (see pictures below). Diego received so many wonderful Christmas gifts from you all, thank you so much. As for us, we got our X-mas gift back in July. Diego is growing so much, it is so hard to believe that he is going to be 6 months old in less than 2 weeks. He is eating like a champ now, loves peaches and carrots. He has mastered the consonants "G" and "D" so we are treated to a round of gagagaga and dadadada every morning. Now if he would only master "M" so he can quit calling me "AWH". And, all I want for Christmas is for his pesky teeth to finally break through (or maybe I don't want that, which is worse irritability in the baby or irritability in the nursing mother who suddenly becomes a chew toy?).

We aren't planning on doing much for New Years eve and I will post pictures of that later. Here's wishing everyone a happy and healthy and prosperous 2009!

Merry Christmas....

....and a Happy New Year! We are going to be in Columbus for the Holidays and I don't know when I will get a chance to post these again, so here is Diego's salute to Christmas. We've had a wonderful year, and hope that you have had a good one too. Here's hoping we will get to see you all sometime next year!

Back to work...temporarily.

The holiday season is hard for us. We just got back from San Francisco and on Friday we are leaving for Columbus. I feel like I haven't accomplished much of anything the past month, except playing a lot with Diego. Meanwhile, Diego and Alier both have colds, and D has another ear infection. Man I hate daycare! The goods news is that Diego starts at his new daycare center, across the street from mom, after X-mas. I can't wait. Smaller class sizes, stricter rules here we come! Here are some pics from this past week, Diego has been home most of the week sick, but it hasn't stopped him from playing (or channeling his Grandpa Flory!)

Diego's latest update

At his last appointment, prior to Thanksgiving, D weighed in at 13 lbs and was 24.5 inches. I'm pretty sure he's even bigger now, probably closer to 14 lbs, but we will find out in a week and a half. He is a child with many tricks these days... he easily rolls over both ways (although he refused to show his grandparents in SF). He will be crawling any day now, as he can already scoot himself on his belly all over his mat and can support his upper body on his hands and get his legs underneath him with butt in the air separately, but not quite both together yet. He prefers to stand up to any other position and will LOUDLY let you know how he wants to stand (don't turn the kid away from a football game, or you will really get it!). He has found his favorite new playtoy....his feet, and we started him on cereal the day before Thanksgiving and are slowly working him up to other solids (he doesn't much like the spoon, as you can see, but loves to eat off my finger, also he doesn't use his high chair quite yet, this was a test). Finally, the kid is teething and is miserable. I think he has a few coming in, two top and one bottom, but its hard to tell. I hope they've broken through by Christmas. You all forgot to warn me that teething babies like to gnaw while breastfeeding....OUCH!

Miscellaneous Pictures

Too many pictures, too little time to blog....

Rock Band!

While Rock Band has been Alier's latest addiction for a while now, and yes I play on occasion too, we exposed the rest of the family to its hilarity. The best part was that Alier created rock characters for Dominic and Justin and they wanted to be called by their rock names. Too cute!

Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving at Tia Sha's house with a wonderful meal (that I didn't have to prepare....YEAH!). There were so many people there including Diego's Great Great Aunts and his cousin Roger III, who is two weeks younger than Diego and as cute as can be....look at all that hair!