Turning six months old in TEXAS!

On May 15th, 2008, Joaquin took his first airplane trip. And it was to Texas to see his great grandparents, great aunts and uncles and go to a family reunion. On top of all of that he turned six months old and went to the beach for the first time the same day. Talk about packing a lot into 4 days!

First of all, I need to brag on my baby for a second. He was amazing!! What a happy little guy. Just put out a pallet of blankets on the floor, scatter some toys around and put a bunch of people in a circle around the room and he is happy as a lark, er, parrot, for a few hours. He was definitely working the Professional Baby all weekend. I was beyond impressed with him. Not only that, we had just given up the swing for naps the week before and he was able to sleep in his playpen that we bought for night and naps almost without a single fuss. He did refuse a few naps, but he was a pro enough to know if you Nap Strike you have to be a happy baby so no one tries to put you back in the baby jail to sleep again. He's clever. I think he gets this from his papi.

We spent some good time with Great Ma and Great Pa in Houston and Great Aunt Deb. Here are the photos from our Houston time.

Everyone together enjoying the air conditioning.



Four Generations.



On Saturday we traveled down south for the reunion, the beach and more great-relatives. Joaquin was a big fan of watching the seagulls at the beach. But you know, I still think he thinks they are flying Siamese Cats.

These are at the reunion at the Rockport Beach. We basically put our suits on for the photos and then changed back. But hey, they turned out great. He got baywater on his feet and even 2 months later I still sniff them and saw Ewwwww, those smell like shrimp!










Quality time in Aransas included sitting in the rocking chair with Great Grandma and chewing on his giraffe.






On the way back to Houston we stopped at Woodsboro to visit Ronald and Patsy, the new baby barn kittens and a good photo op in front of a great handpainted Texas fence. Perfect!!

Joaquin took a big nap right on Patsy's shoulder. Those are very, very rare from him. But he found a great snuggle partner and just took supreme advantage. Smart fellow.





And finally... since we weren't at home with the big guacamaya puppet, we had to use the little one and great grandma's chair. I think it worked.

SIX MONTHS OLD TODAY!

I am so behind. We owe everyone a LOT of posts. Let's start with Mother's Day!

EEEE-Yikes! How has it been two months since I have posted to the blog!? What in the world have we been doing. Uh. Well, enjoying decent weather for one. Going outside without many many layers. Driving with the windows down. Putting on sunblock. Those kinds of things.

So let's start back in time a couple of months and I will try and get as up to date as I can. And yes. I am posting on the evening of July 4th ... hope hope hoping that the racket outside from the illegal fireworks won't wake Joaquin up. It sounds like Beirut around here.

Mother's Day. It may be my new favorite holiday. (It's definitely topping July 4th. Heh.) We had a great day as a family together. Starting with opening some very sweet presents that included a dogtag style "locket" that I wear with a photo of my baby boy. And of course he is obsessed with it and loves to yank on it and play with it. So we only wear it out and about. It's a great built-in toy. After I wear it one day he spends the next day looking for it. Let's talk about Object Permanence shall we? :-) Douglas also got me a very sweet book called I'll Love You Forever. How in the world I am expected to read that to Joaquin and not bawl each time is beyond me. He also got me an adult book, Barbara Walters' autobiography.

We went for brunch at Gioco. A restaurant we hadn't been to before but definitely will return to. It's nice to be able to make reservations for brunch because waiting on a table often eats up the "good" baby time in the infant carrier.

Here are photos from our day.










Game over! Let's GO!

We went to the Shedd Aquarium today. We like fish and watching kids!

Oh, what a fun day. We went to the Aquarium today to check out the fish. What a fun time for us all. Joaquin really enjoyed watching the fish swim around, but he also really loved watching all the high-energy kids run around, too. He did so well in his big seat on the stroller, sitting straight up and looking around.

After the Aquarium he got pretty hungry, so Papi fed him a little bottle in the car. Guess what!? Joaquin feels big enough to hold his own bottle (mostly!) and even take it in and out of his mouth when ever he wants. I cannot believe how well he did with it since he probably hasn't even had 15 bottles in 5 months.... seriously!

Here are the photos and videos of our day. Not a lot of pictures of fish, I went with a camera with an almost dead battery. Nice planning, mami!

Are you taking photos again?



The elusive Mami and Baby photo. :-)



Kissing me. Again. Again. Again again....



More photos. It's hard to look cute All The Time.



A short video at the Aquarium. Typical staring at camera baby, too.




Holding my own bottle. That's right. I can do it myself. Once you take the lid off.


Look at what I can do...

I am 5 Months Old now!

Holy smokes. This month flew by. It may have something to do with all the fun we are having or the fact that at least a few days a week we get better weather. On Thursday the 17th Joaquin turned 5 Months Old. Goodness! We celebrated by seeing a friend at lunchtime, recording an interview for a local radio station about tango, having a bath and drinking a lot of milk. Sounds like perfection for a baby, huh?

Here are our photos from mami's 5 Month photo shoot.

Yeah. I am 5 months old.



Hanging out with my guacamaya puppet and smirking.



A new position for the chair. And some drool.



Don't tell Papi we let Samui in the nursery and in the chair. ;-) It was a special occasion.



Here are two "out-takes" from our photo shoot.

We got a LOT of feet in the air shots. Someone loves to play with his toes.



And Samui was bored of this game and desperate to leave. Can you tell?






FINALLY..... We have rolling as of 4.5 Months. This is a really really long video but it's what happens when your baby decides to roll from front to back to avoid Tummy Time. Now it's very hard to get him to stay on his belly for too long.





And a few more photos from the past few weeks.

My newborn hat from Prentice doesn't fit, mami.


I would like to play in the Johnny Jump Up but my armpits are still too low. Stupid armpits.


Trying out the Big Boy Seat for the stroller before putting it on. We did go for our first walk in it on Friday. It's FUN!

Mmmm.. I can eat a Carrot. I can gag on a Carrot, too.

Hahhaha. This is from last night. Don't watch if you are squeamish about drool and baby gags or mami's that snort and gasp from laughing/mocking their kid.

He loves his Organic Toys. We have a Banana that goes in the car, this Carrot and some Grapes. The Grapes are no where near as fun as these toys that gag.

It's long. Enjoy!

4 months old today!

It's so good to be 4 months old. Joaquin spends his time blowing bubbles and screech-screaming. He will start on the bubbles within about 3 seconds of being awake for the day. It's great. He also loves to be held, snuggle-buggled with kisses on his neck and for Papi to tickle him. We are SO lucky that he is still sleeping through the night ... every night! He is addicted to all naps in the swing (or in the car!) and I have no idea how we are going to get him to nap in his crib... do they make adult sized swings? :-)

Because he has stretched his sleeping out a bit and we don't need 10-12 hours of sleep, we started letting him sleep in the crib in his nursery. No issues with that at all. I just get up when he wakes up and we start the bubbles over in his room and not in the co-sleeper like before. It's not quite as much fun to have him out of the room, but it's nice not to be watching TV on mute. Heh.

These are some photos from today. And then the most annoying video ever shot. But he won't do anything when he knows the camera is on and I at least wanted the audio of his laughter. I am SO sorry about my voice. It's torturous, I know. He seems to like it though.

I am getting Big. I am Serious Baby.



Mami, can I put this one in my mouth, please?



LOOK! The elusive other dimple that makes appearances only at really odd expressions!!



Warning. This video is long. And annoying. And loud.

A little assortment of photos and a video.

So... we have a thumbsucker. He is still sorting out how to keep his little baby fingers from jabbing him in the eye, but he knows that he likes to suck his thumb. Specifically his left thumb. He reaches for toys most often with his right hand.

This photo was taken after breakfast in the bed with me. He was dozing and thumbsucking.




The dreaded Tummy Time. He still detests it. But if I use this towel he will stay there for a whopping 4 minutes. It's too bad he screams bloody murder when I remove it, though. He really isn't bearing weight on his arms like he ought to be doing. Still. He looks pretty proud of himself there, doesn't he?





And this is a little video of Nursey Mouth. He recently started doing this pretty actively. I like to think it means he is hungry, but I caught him doing it 2o minutes after he ate today. So..... I hope it doesn't mean I Have Teeth Coming or something. Yikes. Maybe it's the progression after the bubbles he has been blowing for the past 2 weeks. Whatever. It's really cute, I think. Little Nursey Mouth.