First Birthday

Michael turned 1 five weeks ago. We dressed him as a monkey, and he didn't mind his costume. With so many friends and family, he had a great time. He didn't really dive into his cake, but then again he had never had sweets before (besides fruit). The finger-painting and piñata went over really well. By the end of the party, Michael was sooo tired. But he, and his parents, really enjoyed the day!

Here are a few pictures from before his party, including some with his castle gift from us.








Here are some pics from his party:











And this one could be mistaken for one of my childhood pictures:




There's plenty else that we need to share, including some videos playing with his presents, and hopefully it won't take 6 weeks to find the time to do so. In the meantime, I leave you with a simple video and Miguelito's Ray Charles impersonation.

Our boy can walk!

Miguelito has been standing and walking with assistance for months, but now he walks all on his own without any problems. It seems that every day he gets better at it, and he enjoys the freedom. Sometimes he'll be doing one thing, and then just get up and go somewhere else without any warning.

I discovered Windows Movie Maker, so I put this collection of videos together to capture his progress. He has come a long way in a year, and now he's going places.

It also turns out that our son is already bilingual!! When I picked him up from daycare today, one of the teachers told me that he said "thank you". I thought she meant he had signed thank you, as they are teaching him sign language. But the teacher said he actually said "thank you" while also giving the sign. I couldn't believe it!

But then when we got home, Amada and I tried to have him say "gracias". And sure enough, he repeated it twice and he was clearly saying gracias. And then during dinner I got him to repeat it a few more times. So he's saying a few words beyond Mama and Dada!

He's come such a long way, but hearing him say words was more shocking to me than his physical development. We really are proud of our boy :)

First Thanksgiving, First Christmas and More

Babies grow way too fast and I can't seem to keep up with all that Miguelito is doing because he's just going through his first year way too quickly...he's almost a year old!! He's had major holidays come and go, he eats so much more food now and he can walk. Well, he's super cautious to be walking around like nothing but when he doesn't even realize that he's not holding on to anything, he walks beautifully. Anyway, here's a run down on the events he has done during the time we have not written:
Thanksgiving-
We all got together at Grandpa and Gigi's house and spent it with family and friends. Michael had his first Thanksgiving feast and had some Sweet potatoes to celebrate the occasion, except not the delicious ones his Grandpa makes, he only had the plain ones...maybe next year :)
He even had a furry friend for a weekend. Michael and Coco were so cute together. He liked her toys and she liked his...pretty hilarious.

Christmas-
We went to a Christmas party that Aunt Dee and Uncle Joe had and we discovered that Miguelito likes to play the piano. It was very entertaining. He had Christmas in New Orleans and then Christmas in Zapata. Michael enjoyed all of his presents and plays with ALL of them. At first he didn't really know what to do but once he got the hang of ripping the paper off, he liked the paper and the boxes :) He enjoyed spending time with his cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

Walking-
We still have not been able to get a really good video of him walking since he does it for a little while and we can't get there in time with the video camera since we're enjoying it ourselves, haha. This will come soon but for now just enjoy the videos we've posted and his wonderful pictures...isn't he adorable?

Videos:
Playing with Daddy
Playing with Mami

Futbol Americano

It was a really rough weekend for football in the Gordon family. First our beloved Aggies jumped out to a 10-0 lead in the Cotton Bowl only to get blown out 41-24. Then our Saints had the same early start only to lose in ugly fashion as well. When the Saints defense allowed the 5th touchdown of the day, sealing their fate, Miguelito couldn't take it anymore and broke out in tears. Pobresito.

Dancing Miguelito

Michael and I got to play hooky from daycare and work today. After he woke up from his morning nap, he stood up in his crib and seemed so happy. So I turned on his mobile (which we rarely use now) to see if he'd like to see it up close and if he'd dance to it. He dances all the time now -- to music on the tv or even if we just sing, whistle or clap for him.

This might be my favorite video yet: Miguelito Dancing

You'll see in the video that he waves now. He also likes to clap, and he can keep a beat fairly well.


Children's Museum



Thanksgiving



Mami preparing foods while Miguelito supervises



He never gets tired of water bottles



He can feed himself cereal O's now. He even fed me some today! How nice of him.



As well as teething biscuits

Halloween

It's been a month since our last blog. Our boy has definitely been growing up. He's crawling on his knees now instead of on his belly. He's gone through a couple spurts of teething when he's fussy all the time and didn't want to eat anything besides having his milk. We tried tylenol, orajel and teething tablets with minimal or short-lived success. We even bought a mesh feeding where he would theoretically bite into a mesh filled with bananas and it would feel good on his gums, but he didn't take to it at all. But lately he's been doing great.

He's tried some new foods including asparagus, white potatoes, mango, sweet potatoes, avocado, peaches and egg yolk. Amada has made most of them at home, blending up large portions of fresh fruit and vegetables and freezing them as ice cubes, but I did hard boil the eggs (I know; very hard-working father here).

Amada spent all day with Miguelito on her birthday, and here are some pictures from the park and our yard:





We also went to NASA this past weekend (in his Halloween costume -- see more pics below):



An active participant at ULA. Check out his poker face. He's staring someone down.



He loves water bottles and any plastic. Combine the two and see how giddy he is.



A picture of his 6-month pictures.



He still loves his hats!



Out for a stroll in the jogging stroller with Mommy. I can't believe this pose. Could he be any more relaxed?



Halloween pics! He got to wear his costume three different times so we feel he got its money's worth. I'm not sure he scared anybody, but he sure was cute.






Here are some video links:

Flying Scarecrow

Room Organization

Swinging

We'll get up some other videos soon of him getting closer to walking and playing some games.

Highs and Lows

Recent highs:

Videos of Laughing with Gigi and Talking Up A Storm.

Other fun times:

Receiving Gigi's hand-made baby stitching


Playing with grandparents




First cold day of the year


Having too much fun at dinner time



And one low of having his first fever (taken under his arm)


24 hours later and his most recent temperature is back to normal. Hopefully it stays that way! I got to stay home with him all day, but a fussy baby isn't the easiest thing.