Limon (accent on the o)

*I couldn't post the last picture on the previous post...It's true, Xavier has also developed a taste for lime. Sorry, gramps, you can't give it to him and hope for the scrunched up face...he has no reaction to the sour taste, at all. We were so surprised when he put it in his mouth because that was the reaction we expected. Here's the picture!

Stopping to Smell the Lavender

After days of technical difficulties with Blogger, I may actually get to publish new photographs with updates. Some photos are completely unrelated to the updates...just here because they are cute. The pic on the right hand side, cute, the one on the left, also cute, but shows how Xavier's hair is starting to curl. Here are other updates:

*Communicating - Xavier sounds like he says a lot, but most of the time doesn't repeat words more than once. He clearly and with purpose calls out to his father as dada/daddy or papa/papi (already bilingual!), to his mother as mama/mami, and to the cats as kitty. He does, however, also refer to dogs as kitty. Oh and he calls milk/bottle ABY. We finally caught on that when he yells aby, aby, aby he wants his bottle. We think he may actually be saying Xavi (pronounced Javi) as in give it to, which is the name he responds to best at this point. Xavier is also consistently signing for "food" and "more", but most often pointing to what he wants.

This is a picture with a new toy from tia Lala. Thanks again! He loves it!

*He has another tooth. This time it's the other bottom front. He has essentially had 6 teeth come through in about 2 months. They have been in random order and he never had two teeth come in next to each other at the same time, so they are different lengths. At this point he looks like he only has every other one!

In (above) and out (below) of the box.
The box has become a favorite. In it came a train from his girlfriend Pippi. He loves the train too! The shirt is also a gift, from Kris. Thanks to you too!

*He is loving whole milk but hating the idea of giving up his bottle...we're trying to get him to use a sippy, nuby or any other cup and he is not cooperating.

*Another thing he has somehow learned is how to smell things, but he still doesn't know where his nose is (though he does know where his mocos are - the stuff in his nose)

All Aboard!

The Xavier Express! Today was Xavier's birthday party and below is a close up of his cake.

Here's what the whole cake looked like.

I should back track. The party thing has been a bit of a stressful issue for me. In trying to avoid having it at our house, I really put off the planning. In the end I added to my stress by having to plan the party (at the last minute), after just starting a new job two weeks ago and getting this miserable cold last weekend (see post below). I think we at least got the cake right and that was worth it.

Plus he got great gifts...like this chair. Xavier had to ask, is that really Elmo behind me? So he took a closer look. Yes, it is! Thanks to tia Gris for this fun gift. If you look closely, you will also see that he has a new pair of big boy shoes. These were sent by the Anello grandparents. They got them during their trip in Germany and are fantastic. Definitely glad you brought them back!

There were lots of other great presents and fun guests. He loved hanging out with his 7 year old cousin, Mayra. And was very happy to see his 1 year old cousin show up to play with him.

I have heard, from more expereinced moms, that for some these celebrations can be quite stressful and this seems to apply to me...so next time I'll have to plan way ahead!

Oh, and he now has 5 teeth! The top 4 are in and his bottom front. Tomorrow morning he has his 12 month appointment so I will update other stats then.

Stats are: 22lbs (50%), 30 1/4 inches (75%). Check his 9 month post to see how much he has grown.

Whole Milk, Honey, Facing Forward and...

...other adventures with Xavier. Today is Xavier's first birthday and, yes, he now drinks whole milk (hooray! no more formula to buy!), can eat honey (theoretically, though we haven't tried it yet...), and faces forward in his car seat. The car seat thing happened this weekend during our attempt to visit the Anello grandparents in NY. We didn't actually make it because we missed our flight! We made it about 10-15 minutes from the airport when Xavier threw up in his car seat. We had to pull off the road and clean him up (we lost way too much time doing this and got back on the road during 7am traffic). Needless to say the car seat was a mess. So after cleaning it up we just faced it forward. He (and both his parents) were miserably sick the rest of the weekend and week. Now that we are all feeling better we opened a few presents and had birthday cake to celebrate the occasion. He received a box from the Anello grandparents and was very excited about the bubble wrap...the presents too, but the bubble wrap AND the box were pretty awesome. Thanks for everything!

This has been an exciting day! We've also made a video of a collection of pictures from this last year. Enjoy!

C:\Documents and Settings\Daniel\My Documents\My Videos\First Year on Vimeo