Arbor Day and First Haircut

Last weekend we planted three new trees in the front yard: a Pinyon pine, a Bosnian pine, and an apple tree.

The Pinyon pine was HUGE and very, very heavy. It took about an hour to complete the enormous hole needed for it, on the North side of the driveway.

Alex likes the big hole

Next came the apple tree, a red Honeycrisp...
We decided to plant this front-and-center on the North side of the front yard, amongst a small collection of roses and other flowers that were already there.

We planted the tree above Alex's placenta (kept in the deep freeze for the last 18 months), after taking a moment to celebrate and reflect on what a wonderful little boy we have.


First Haircut

Last Friday Dana took Alex to get his very first haircut.

Many of you have been "dreading" this day, but I'm afraid it was just getting too long. His bangs were falling in his eyes, and needed a trim. We kept it pretty long, and he still has all those curls in the back.

First Camping Trip (and Dan's 30th)

The weekend before my birthday I had a camping trip up at Hermit Park, just a few miles above Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. It was just the sort of relaxing excursion I needed to celebrate my 30th birthday. I brought a bunch of friends up to help celebrate, and we had a great time. It was also Alex's first camping trip.

Before we left, Alex took a break to play in the sprinklers:


Another fun thing we discovered is that the inflatable raft is lots of fun on the grass in the backyard!

Now, on to the camping trip...

Mother nature's son

We arrived on Friday afternoon just in time for a humongous Rocky Mountain thunder storm.

Uncle Eric and Dan struggle in the rain with the 2-room mega tent while Ali and Dana relax under the canopies that take 1 person 5 minutes to set up

On Friday night it was just Ali & Eric and Mike and Nicole who braved the elements to join us.

Mike and Nicole relax on the inflatable couch in the "kitchen". (Complete with Dan's now famous kitchen sink)

Alex was intrigued with Ali and Eric's rolling house.

Ali and Eric catch up with Kim (a Benicia transplant just like us!) and Tom, who just moved to Colorado to teach/research at CSU. Go Rams! Kim came up for the afternoon despite being 6 months pregnant!

During a resupply trip into Estes Park, Ali and Alex catch up on their phones.

Mandy can't believe the bullshit that Tyr is dishing out, but Dan is eating it up.

Saturday night: Mandy is going to stoke that fire if it kills her... Tyr was kind enough to bring along his growing collection of digeredoos, harmonicas, mouth harps, and other musical oddities, which kept us all entertained well into the night, until we were visited by the very friendly park rangers sometime around 12am, who respectfully asked us to shut the hell up.

Last weekend we thought Alex might be old enough for his own bed. So we tried putting the guest bed on the floor, and letting Alex sleep in it. He fell out twice during the night (no injuries, and he was too sleepy to even really notice), so we reverted to the crib for the time being.

Alex's Vocabulary

Here are many of the words Alex knows:

Can say and understand in American Sign Language:
Milk
Cracker
Banana
Bread
More
Food / eat
Drink
Juice
Water
Socks
Shoes
Cheese
Apple
Cereal
Cookie
Hat
Dog
Car
Train
Bus
Boat
Potty
Diaper
Sleep / sleepy
Please
Thank you
Hurt
Hot
Cold
Ball
Bye (waving)


Can speak and understand in English:
Ma ma
Da da
Alex ("Ice" or "Aikse")
Milk ("mek")
Ryanne ("Rye rye")
Apple ("happle")
Nose
No!
Uh oh!
Up ("Upff")
Down ("Dowww")
Hat
Book
Car
Hot
Cold
Tick-tock
knock-knock (he knocks with his knuckles)
Ball


Meanwhile he understands a remarkable amount that we say (probably more than we even realize!) We often ask him to do things, or interact, using words that I'm certain he's never understood before. It seems his ability to understand grows immensely every day. We often say things like "Alex, bring me the yellow block", or "Where's the froggie?", or "which do you want?" and he responds appropriately. Further, you can say "let's go for a drive in the car", or "let's go outside" and he'll get ready (go get his shoes, for example).

(We aren't sure yet what words he understands or can speak in Mandarin - you'd have to ask Christine, or possibly Uncle Richard, but we don't know enough Chinese to say)

He knows how to do "high five", "down low" and "knuckles". He will dance if you ask him to. He knows how to toast with his bottle. He knows how to clap his hands. He knows where all his major body parts are (hair, ears, eyes, nose, cheeks, teeth, tummy, legs, feet, toes), he knows most of his clothes (shirt, pants, diaper, socks, shoes, hat).

He is usually quite willing to do what you ask, even if it's against his interest. "Alex can you give me the stick please?" "Alex please pick up your bottle." "Alex what's in your mouth? Can you give it to me?" "Alex, wait.... stop... ok, go" (still practicing this one).

Monkey Man

Last Friday night Alex demonstrated his amazing climbing abilities. I was re-assembling his crib from our summer in Frisco up in his room. He was playing on the floor, watching me and admiring my mad allen wrench skills.

Then he hopped up and walked over to the rear piece of his crib and proceeded to climb up it, like he'd done it 1,000 times before!

Up he goes

Ok smart guy, now what are you going to do?

Oh, that's easy, just climb right back down (he did!)

On Sunday we enjoyed an afternoon at the Fort Collins Irish Festival. We danced at the ceili they had, with a real Irish band and caller (from Ireland!), and all of our Morris friends were there dancing too. It was the first ever FC Irish Fest, but seems like they know what they're doing. With any luck they'll be around next year and beyond. It has been blistering hot the last several days, with highs in the upper 90s to low 100s, but on Sunday it was mostly overcast and rained a few times, which helped cool things down considerably.

There was a family of Irish Cob horses on display at the festival. Alex thought these enormous working animals were just incredible.

Alex has been going to bed very well lately. His bedtime is generally between about 9:30 and 10:30pm, and he's been waking up between about 7:30 and 8:30am. He has slept through the night soundly for the last few months without incident.

Last night we wanted to go to the big furniture store in Longmont to look at some dressers. They stay open til 10pm every day, and the place is nearly deserted by about 9pm, when we got there. Alex had a ball running through the store, hiding between the displays and playing on the sofas and beds.