Our little family was quite sick with various colds for the majority of November, but we didn’t let that stop us from having a great month and a delicious Thanksgiving. Our holiday weekend was packed with the usual cooking and eating activities, and included yummy dishes such as pumpkin pie (from scratch!) and Michael’s famously evil mashed potatoes.

After a cool autumn outing to the park recently, 19-month old Alex tried his first ever hot chocolate which HE LOVED, of course. Alex has learned a new word, “this”, which he uses to indicate everything and anything he wants. We are trying to teach him to use specific words for items, but that hasn’t worked just yet.
Alex also met Santa Claus, in person, for the first time ever. Though it wasn’t the happiest meeting ever, we did get a pretty good photo of the two.

We are heading to Chez Etchegaray in Las Vegas for Christmas and New Years and are SO excited to see all of our family members who are making the trek to join us. Happy holidays to all!

Love and kisses,
Michael, Tracy and Alexander

The three of us had a very active and fabulous month.

Michael and I each had to go out of town for work for a few days during the month. This is pretty unusual given our current jobs, but the time apart helped us appreciate each other even more.

Grandma and Grandpa Etchegaray came for a Halloween visit and watched Alex so that we could celebrate our anniversary during a breakfast date – it was 7 years on Nov 2nd!!  We shared the Halloween sandwich slug tradition with the grandparents, went to a pumpkin farm and survived the chaos that was trick-or-treating at the mall.

Oh yes, Alex was Captain Kirk, ala William Shatner from Star Trek, for Halloween:

 

Alex now “helps” us with getting him dressed in the morning, is learning how to wash his hands (very important considering the upcoming flu season!), knows how to find his bellybutton and nose, and says “uh oh” often. 

Alex is also on verge of climbing out of his crib and figuring out how to open the baby gate…any day now.

We hope that everyone stays healthy in the coming months and enjoys the upcoming holidays!

Love and kisses,

Michael and Tracy

With each passing month Alex’s accomplishments are growing in difficulty and quantity – and we usually don’t even remember the most remarkable ones to share with everyone!
This month, Alex:

• got his first flu shot
• fell off a dining chair and got a bit hurt
• tried to take off his shoes, socks, shirt and pants, all with moderate success
• learned to close doors…from the outside (unfortunately locking our kitty in the bathroom with no litter box for a full work day!)
• can walk across a wide balance beam almost completely by himself
• helped mommy fold laundry (see photo proof below)
• is finally starting to enjoy baths
• got his own play tent that looks like a monster (thanks to Target!)
• got his 4 molars in
• needs a haircut
• tries to mimic select words that we say to him, like “where”, “yellow” and “beautiful”
• is learning to clean up his toys when playtime or bathtime is done

One of the highlights of our month was a very cool event called Baby Loves Disco at Ruby Skye in SF.  The venue was filled with games, toys, kid-friendly snacks, music, activity centers, (best of all) crazy bubble machines and tons of kids.  We met up with some friends, had a great time playing and dancing, and Alex (and mommy and daddy) had a long nap afterward.  The next event is a “Pajama Party” theme in November and we already have it marked on the calendar. 

The Alex photo of the month:

Enjoying a ride down a slide!

We are fairly up-to-date on photos, so check out our photo site here.

Lotsa love,

Michael & Tracy

Yes, we are still celebrating each month since we officially met our son. Yes, we are saps.

Today, I (the mommy) took Alex to his 15-month check up – only a month late! Alex is, as our pediatrician declared, a charmer and built perfectly. He now weighs 23.75 lbs and is 31 inches tall; just tall enough to climb on EVERYTHING we own.

We had a great month, exploring art fairs, new parks and the Palo Alto Junior Zoo. Alex is such as strong and active little boy, and as such, he is now a card-carrying member of The Little Gym of Millbrae, where he plays with the other “little Bees” each Saturday morning.

Here is our little acrobat enjoying some play time with his daddy:

Our little Whisman family took our first family trip of the year in July.  We spent close to a week at Grandma & Grandpa Etchegaray’s home in Las Vegas. It was a fun week filled with neighborhood walks, fish exhibits, kiddie pool playtime and even a visit with Great Grandma Yudin.  Michael and I spent two nights away from Alex, which were our first two nights away from him EVER! Though we did miss him, it was great to spend some time enjoying ourselves alone and not carrying around a diaper bag.

And just when we were starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by life with a very active toddler – everything got suddenly easier!  No more bottles!  Sleeping through the night (mostly)! Alex even uses his own word, “nena”, for food, which helps us understand at least one of his basic needs.  And although we thought that Alex started disliking scrambled eggs, it turns out that our son is a ketchup on eggs guy. How cute is that?

We are still struggling with bath time as Alex does not like to get water on his face (okay, that’s an understatement), and he mostly refuses to sit in the bathtub despite the dozens of enticing bath toys. So if anyone has any ideas, let us know.  We do manage to get Alex clean, we just wished he enjoyed bath time more.

Happy August!
Much love,
Michael & Tracy

Our ketchup on eggs guy on vacay:
(photo courtesy of Grandma Etchegaray)

I know y’all just want pictures, right? Well, we have had a very busy month and are very behind in getting those uploaded for your viewing pleasure.  I’ll let you know once we are up-to-date with our online albums, but until then here is a sneak peek:

Our very busy month consisted of a couple of “date nights” sans Alex, a birthday party, a computer crash and quite a few unreasonable work deadlines We even went to see Joel McHale, from the Soup on E!, for a live comedy show in SF.

As for Alex, he has recently mastered the fine art of climbing onto and getting down from the couch – there were a few spills along the way, but nothing even tear-worthy. Meals are incredibly easy for us now as Alex hasn’t had a jar of baby food in months. He eats everything we eat, well, almost everything. He especially loves Meatball Mondays and fresh cherry and blueberry “desserts”.  We spent much of the long 4th of July weekend at various parks, climbing up steps and running through the grass.

Have a great July!

Much love,

Tracy & Michael

Well, I guess we can take down the “happy 1st birthday” banner any day now. I am still sending out birthday thank you cards, so I am pretending that another month has passed us by.

Lex is such a different child than even a month ago – its amazing how fast he learns and grows.
One of his favorite activities now is to “help” mommy and daddy close doors and drawers. He is such a good helper, too! Lex is now clapping and waving and we are trying to teach him a few signs (sign language), and although he doesn’t sign back he seems to understand the signs for “daddy” and “eat/food” pretty well.

Lex is also an eating machine these days. He eats practically everything we give him – from peas and broccoli to blueberries and Sprinkles cupcakes (yummy!!).
We hope that everyone is having a wonder month.

Here is your Lexi photo of the month (its pretty good, if I do say so myself):

Much love,

the proudest momma & dadda

We had a wonderful weekend celebrating Alexander’s 1st Birthday and Mother’s Day!

The Whisman Grandparents and Etchegaray Grandparents all flew in for the weekend festivities.  We had a wonderful lunch at the Elephant Bar in Burlingame.  Our party “theme” was rubber duckies – complete with a rubber ducky shaped birthday cake.

Alexander seemed to enjoy the day full of attention especially when we sang the “Happy Birthday” song to him. We are appreciative for all of our friends and family that were able to attend and share our son’s very first birthday celebration.

We are slowly opening gifts to give Alex some time to get acquainted with all of the new toys – we are overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity and thoughtfulness.  Our son is quite possibly the most loved little boy ever.

Michael and I were able to spend some quality time with our parents and celebrate Mother’s Day with our moms which was a wonderful bonus to our already wonderful weekend.

More pictures available at the First Birthday Weekend album.

Wishing our little Alexander a very happy first birthday!