Holiday Jingle Bell Bash

Simon's daycare held its holiday potluck tonight, and all of the kids performed 3 songs for us! Simon's room, the Koalas, contributed by shaking their shakers and clapping at the end of each song. And of course, as I expected, Simon was the only Koala to get antsy and go for a walk mid-performance...

Santa!

Simon paid a visit to Santa last weekend, and we got 2 pictures out of it...one of super-happy-to-see-Santa Simon and one of not-so-sure-of-this-old-guy Simon.

Groovin'

At daycare, Simon and his class do a lot of "moving to music" as they call it. Now he likes to give a little shimmy or shake at home, too. His favorite song is the one we play as we're getting him ready for bed, Jack Johnson's Constellations. All it takes is the first few notes and he's up and moving. While we don't have that on video yet, here he is showing off some of his subtler, but still very smooth moves.

15 months old

Here we are, at 15 months already! It's been a tough month...since starting daycare Simon has had one cold after another, and we even fit a bout of Hand, Foot & Mouth disease in there a couple of weeks ago.

But he is also developing in leaps and bounds. He is still loving daycare, and learns new tricks there all the time. Today, Karyn and I took out a toy that the last I knew, Simon didn't understand yet. But he took one look and proved me wrong...I guess stacking rings is something he's been doing in "school". He also loves to climb, and is pretty good at getting down from whereever he has gotten to. He knows to turn around and go backwards when he goes down, and he takes this skill very seriously.

Other than that, we made it through this past week which saw Seattle's first snow of the 2010-2011 winter season, and had us inside for most of the week due to ice and snow on the roads that don't get plowed around here. Karyn made it up for Thanksgiving and we pulled off a pretty yummy dinner at the last minute.

Finally...the 15 month picture. We were trying to get a fun shot of Simon in his antlers for our Christmas card this year, but even though some were great, he looked so sick that I couldn't use it for the card. But it did seem completely appropriate to use a sick picture to represent what has been a pretty sick month...enjoy!

Overtired Simon

Simon has a funny way of showing us he's ready for a nap...

Family visits

We have had quite a few visitors in the past month. First Melissa, Peter and Papa all came out for a long weekend. It was good to see them and it was particularly special that Simon got to spend time with his great grand-father, who came all the way from Atlanta. The highlight was a trip to the aquarium, which Simon loved.

2 weeks later, Mom and Karyn came to visit for a long weekend as well. We checked out the Children's Museum and went shopping, and of course helped Simon walk all over the place.

Finally, Dad came out this past weekend. We hit the Children's Museum again, since Simon loves it there. We ate out a bunch and Simon was a champ, trying new foods and charming all of the waitresses.

Thanks for coming to visit, everyone!

Wandering around the museum

This is a long video, 2 1/2 minutes, and it just follows Simon as he wanders and plays at the Children's Museum on Halloween. I'll warn you, not much happens, but since he's new to walking, I thought I'd share.

The video Simon will hate us for when he's older

As soon as Simon started really walking I knew I had to take this video. Here's Simon walking to the bath in his birthday suit. Sorry older Simon!

14 months

This is a little late, but we wanted to use a Halloween picture for Simon's 14 month shot...so here it is!

This has been a huge month for Simon, as he is officially walking full time now! He's super cute, and we are having so much fun taking him out and letting him wander around. I'll post some videos soon of him using his new skills!

He also started daycare and is LOVING it! He eats well, sleeps well and spends all day "exploring". One of his favorite things to do is taste all of the art supplies he gets to use at art time. Markers, paint...apparently it's all delicious! We are thankful they only use baby-safe art supplies!

Halloween!

As you can see below, Simon was an astronaut for Halloween, and we got a ton of mileage out of the costume! And now that Simon is walking pretty much full time, it was pretty cute to see him toddle around like a drunk rocketman.

First, we had our PEPS meeting last weekend and all of the kids dressed up.

Then on Friday afternoon, his daycare had their Harvest Festival. Below are Simon's 2 teachers, Jonette and Kasey.

The kids got some Play-Doh, Simon didn't quite know what to make of it.

Walking around outside, Simon seemed to find a moon rock!

We went to the Children's Museum for the first time, and he loved it! Here he is checking Clifford's mailbox!

Happy Halloween everyone!

What does Simon love most in the world?

Watch Simon get super excited about something during dinner tonight!

More walking

I know, I just posted about Simon starting to walk, but he's getting better, so here's another quick video of him trucking along!

First day of daycare

Simon started daycare today, at the Early Learning and Development Center right near us. He is in the Koala classroom, with a bunch of other 1-2 year olds and his teachers are Jonette and Kasey. He and Matt visited a few times last week, so he got to know the lay of the land a bit, but we were still pretty nervous to drop him off all day today.

So we got there, I started crying, and Simon, well, he didn't even notice us leaving. So much for separation anxiety!

We called to check in on him once during the day and they said he was doing well but not eating, which isn't terribly unusual.

We went back to pick him up at 4:30 and he had a great day! In fact, he barely noticed when we arrived to get him! Apparently he spent the day checking out every inch of the place, inside and out. And since he's still primarily crawling, his outdoor adventures apparently made him quite messy! But no tears all day and he made it through with one 35 minute nap (and promptly passed out in the car on the drive home).

So we're off to a good start. We feel great about this daycare and think Simon is going to remain very happy there.

Here are a few shots of him before we left this morning!

2nd Haircut

Ok, I admit, we were a little timid with Simon's first haircut, and it ended up back in crazy land way too soon. So we went back to the salon. And after 15 minutes of wrestling with the stylist, Simon was returned to us looking much more like a little boy than a baby. We think he's even cuter now...but of course we would.

x

First steps!

Simon is starting to walk on his own, and while he doesn't make it very far and certainly isn't walking as his primary form of locomotion, it's pretty exciting! Check him out!

New Chair!

For Simon's birthday, GG, Aunt Donna and Aunt Ceil gave him a personalized, comfy, Simon-sized armchair! It's super cute, and he has learned how to get in and out of it on his own. Here are some pictures of Simon (and Leia) enjoying it!

Thank you for the wonderful chair!

13 months

Another month has flown by...and Simon is well into his second year. This month has been interesting...we had been planning for Simon to start daycare once Matt went back to work after Labor Day, but to make a long story short, that hasn't happened quite yet. We are hoping to get started within the next couple of weeks, but for now, Simon and Dad are still at home together.

He is still on the verge of walking--he has taken a step or two on his own once or twice, but doesn't seem to quite realize that could become his primary mode of locomotion. He does spend much of his day cruising and walking with either a chair or his walker toy, but he also took a pretty good spill and had to go to the doctor as a result. Everything was fine, but we will be happy when he's a little steadier!

About his monthly picture...we have excused Peeks the puppy from participating from now on, mostly because the photo shoots are getting harder and harder to stage with Simon's cooperation. So here's the boy at Remlinger Farms, enjoying a beautiful fall day!

Simon's First Haircut

As much as we love Simon's ringlets, his hair has gotten a bit out of control. Take a look at this:

So after a couple of weeks of indecision, Simon went to Kids Club at University Village for his first haircut today. Here he is with Matt, waiting his turn:

Before the cut, in the great car seats that they use:

Getting his hair cut, with no freak outs and no tears!!

All done, and all cleaned up!

Introducing Loki!

Ever since we lost Luke, Leia has seemed a little bit lonely. She meows at night and comes looking for more attention than usual. Once Matt goes back to work, we are a little worried that spending all day alone would make her sad.

So...we adopted another cat! His name is Loki, he's somewhere between 8 and 12 years old (Leia is 10, so we wanted an older cat) and he's really sweet. We found him through a small cat rescue organization, met him on Monday and then they brought him to us tonight.

Once they opened his carrier, he made himself right at home. He took a look around the place, had a snack at Leia's food bowl and came back for petting. We took a quick video of him...keep in mind this was maybe 20 minutes after he was brought to the house...clearly he feels at home!

We are taking our time introducing Leia and Loki. Hopefully by this weekend they will meet for the first time (we are keeping them apart for a few days first) and we really hope they become good friends.

Welcome to the family Loki!

Simon's Party!

This is a bit overdue, but I wanted to get everyone's pictures together before putting up this post.

We had a big party for Simon's first birthday on 8/14. We rented some space at Magnolia Park, BBQ'd some burgers and dogs and celebrated with about 40 of our friends and family.

And we celebrated all weekend...Dad, Aunt Donna, Grandma and Karyn came in on Friday and we spent the day together. Simon got some fabulous new clothes for his fall wardrobe from everyone and in the afternoon we went over to University Village to order Simon an adorable personalized chair, a gift from Aunt Donna & Uncle Paul, Aunt Ceil and Grandma. We then celebrated my birthday with a delicious dinner at Piatti. Simon was a champ, eating everything from goat cheese ravioli to a caprese salad.

Saturday was the big party day, and everyone was a huge help in making it a success. Dad and Jeff manned the grills, we had work friends, PEPS friends and the family to enjoy the day with and the weather was perfect. Simon refused to eat anything all day...until we offered him some of his cake, which he enjoyed greatly!

We spent Sunday with Mom, Jeff and Karyn, enjoying some quiet time at home. Simon played his new piano for everyone, which was a gift from Karyn and Neville. We took him out back to try out his new playset from Mom and Jeff and then had a fun dinner at Rositas.

It was a wonderful weekend and we were so happy to have everyone there to help us celebrate this huge milestone. Thank you for all of your help, gifts and wishes for Simon!

Check out a lot more pictures at our Shutterfly site!

http://teamwinstanley.shutterfly.com/361