Happy New Years

I can't believe 2010 is (practically) over already! This was quite possibly the best year ever and I am so excited to see what 2011 has in store for us!

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

I totally stole this idea from my wonderful friend Tree, who is a million times more creative and blog-savy than I will ever be. Please don't be mad at me!

How what should have been the best Christmas ever turned out not so great... and 8 months.

Sorry all, I've been a slacker, but in my defense, I had finals/a giant research paper, then I got a seasonal job, and the holidays are always insane and a half. In case you didn't read the very creative title of this post, Logan is now 8+ months old. And very sick.

On Thursday night I started feeling pretty yucky, which turned out to be the plague stomach flu. I was sick until Christmas afternoon, Nick got sick last night (and is still battling with the aches) and now our sweet little boy is sick. He seems to be handling it better than I did, and I'm hoping that the worst of it is behind us. Yes, I am the worst gift-giver ever.

On to happier news, a lot has happened concerning our little Monster's development, some of which happened in the last week (so not a terrible week, all things considered.)

-L is sleeping through the night! He wakes up every once in a while, but soothes himself and gets anywhere from 11 to 13 hours of sleep a night. And he still naps a couple times a day. It's amazing.

- Logan is crawling! It's more commando style than full-on crawling, but he's super fast and I don't know if he will switch styles since this one suits him so well. We ended up having to get a safety play yard fence thing to keep him away from cords and the Christmas tree. It's exhausting at times, but so exciting.

- L is definitely a big boy now. He eats two to three servings of solids a day, though his current favorites seem to be carrots, cheese, and these organic baby cheerios.

- L's first word is "Dada" and Nick is thrilled (even if he won't say it.) I'm still a little sad that he hasn't said "ma" at all, yet, but I love how excited my boys are to see each other.

- December has been relatively warm in NM, so L got to go to the park for the first time. (I know, I'm a slacker.) The one we went to didn't have a swing set (the whole reason we went), but it did have a slide and L loved it. Sadly our trip was cut short once I heard the coyotes yipping. Thankfully I was able to get some great pictures of L before we ran to the car.

- As the previous post demonstrated, L loves to be scared. It is the one thing that is guaranteed to make him laugh. It's the funniest thing. I just hope he doesn't become a horror fan in the future.

- L can now sit up from any position and even more exciting, he can pull himself up to stand on his own! Ok... so exciting, but scary and tiring at the same time. There have been quite a few tumbles (nothing serious though). I promise to take a picture soon.

Now for some Christmas pictures!

Below left: L opening one of many gifts. I was still pretty sick. Below right: L lovin' on his grandma

Left: L playing with his new Leap-Frog book (complete with British accent) and me just happy to be alive. Right: L riding the rockin' dino that Nick and I bought him.

All things considered, it was a very exciting month and it wasn't a completely horrible holiday after all. 2010 was a great year for the Tafoya family and we can't wait to see what 2011 has in store for us!

Father and Son

Scaring the hiccups into him:

Oh how I love them!

Hichi!

The Monster is 7 months old now! It's nuts!

-At his last appointment (10/22) L weighted 15lbs 8oz and was measured at 27" long. He also took his shots like a champ! He crieda little bit at the first round, but the second round (flu) didn't even phase him! I'm so proud!

- L has never been very big on cuddling (when awake) but the last couple of weeks he has been happy to just snuggle up against me and rest a hand on my cheek. It's quite sweet and I really hope it isn't a temporary thing.

-L is a little mover! He's not quite crawling, but he's able to roll, wiggle, and scoot his way around the living room now- which unfortunately means that we have to baby-proof pronto since he appears to have an appetite for cords.

- It looks like "dada" is going to be L's firsts words (tear!) because he spends most of his days saying "da da da da deet da da" (he gives the biggest smile when you say "deet" which I think means that he is very concerned about the affects of bug spray.)

- Not so fun for Daddy, L has this- uh- fascination with Nick's chest hair, and by fascination, I mean zeroing in on it, then diving at it and pulling out as much of it as his little hands can latch on to. I'm not sure if it's because L envies or detests it. Pretty soon Nick is going to have a bald spot. (I think it's hilarious, but for Nick's sake, we have to get him to stop.)

- L can now drink water out of a sippy cup! (with a rubber nubby on it.) He spends most of the time just chewing on the nubbyness, but he does drink from it as well. It's still kind of messy, but he's getting better at it.

- L has become quite the ham. No matter how upset he is, if I pull out my phone he's going to smile for a picture. One such example (he was not a happy camper when this was taken):

- All three of us just recovered from the plague, and I must say that the little Monster handled being sick for the first time a million times better than I expected. He was a breeze to take care of! (Of course he got his Aunty Hopie sick, so she may think otherwise about it.)

- We went with our friends, The Nuckols, to a corn maze Halloween weekend, but L decided to snooze while we went through it. Sad day. All we saw of L at the maze:

- L was the World's Cutest Monkey for Halloween, and boy, did he pull off his costume!

- The past couple of weeks, so many strangers have stopped me at stores/restaurants to tell me how adorable L is. As much as I love showing off my beautiful little boy, I am extremely weary of strangers and it's been stressing me out a little because they keep wanting to touch him. So I say to you, strangers: back off my baby, or I will cut you.

- I turned 25 a couple weeks ago and strangely, I didn't really want anything in particular (apart from a pair of rainboots, but I didn't have my heart set on those either). I think it's because in April I got the best present ever:

The Sleep Issue: Finale

Yeah, that's right, we have reached the conclusionof our 30 week journey. L can now self-soothe which means that Nick and I have a baby who sleeps through the night and it only took five nights!

The first night, he woke up cried (lightly) for no more than twenty minutes, and went back to sleep (he did this a few times.) I also didn't feel bad about doing it, one, because I think I was just so exhausted and two, because his cried weren't the ones for a changing or food, so I wasn't neglecting him (if that makes any sense.) The issue: when he started crying at 6:30, Nick and I didn't know what to do. Since he went down at 7:30 the night before, he should be able to sleep until 7:30am, but on weekdays, I will go get him if he wakes before 7 so we aren't rushing to get out the door (I have to drop Logan off at 7:20 in order to catch the early bus to school... yes I take the bus). So we didn't know if we should let him cry or pick him up. We picked him up. The day went pretty well, but he fought nap time pretty hard (eventually we got him to sleep though.)

The next two nights he only woke up twice and was back to sleep within ten minutes. He even slept until seven!

Night 4 he slept great, only waking up once that I noticed and nap time was much easier.

Night 5 second night of what is now a continuing streak of STTNs! He is a little bit harder to put down now, but it really isn't bad. And he's been going to bed at 7 which is amazing!

Then the time change hit. I want to go back in time and punch whoever came up with day-light savings time. Getting him to bed is fine (not easy like it used to be, but definitely do-able) but he's been waking at 5:30 and I don't really know what to do about it. He cried for an hour this morning. I know with time and patience it will work itself out... only to get messed up again in six months.

Anyway, here's some cute sleepy pictures of our little Monster:

The Sleep Issue Continues

Last night we let L cry-it-out after much debate (and very little sleep.) I'm hoping that it only takes a few days/nights to get him to self-soothe so that all of us can STTN (sleep through the night). I will update next week sometime.

In the mean-time, this is the goal:

Isn't he just a doll?

This is what happens when Nick goes out of town...

Yeah, that's right. My son is wearing BabyLegs.

They're currently on sale at Target, which is great since I would have paid full price for them.

Nick isn't going to be thrilled about it, but I'm happier than a pig in mud!

On a side note, L has a new favorite song! He laughs when I sing it to him, which could mean that it is not a favorite song and he thinks my singing is terrible, but I chose not to believe that.

Closer to One than Zero

Has it really been six months?

Yes. Yes it has. Crazy, I know. So many things have happened the last two months (yikes! I'm a bad blogger) so this update will be rather long. Sorry if there are any repeats- the old site is no more, so I have no way of knowing what was on there.

• L had another beauty-shoot! Here's one of my favorites:
• Lil Loge (his rapper name courtesy of his uncle Mike) attended his first kid birthday party and has discovered that, like his father, he does not like clowns.
• We started solid foods! As per the doctor's orders, Lil Loge only ate oatmeal and rice cereal. Last week (or maybe the week before?) we gave him avocado, but it wasn't a hit. I did manage to catch this doozy though: it almost looks like a self-portrait!
• He can now sit unsupported! At first it was only for approximately ten seconds before he toppled over or dived (apparently "dove" is incorrect. my hubby is so clever) for a toy, blanket, or pile of freshly folded laundry. Now he can sit for about ten minutes before throwing himself on his back and laughing. It's quite funny!
• Loge and I went to the Balloon Fiesta and he really seemed to enjoy what little he was able to see of the balloons (he slept almost the whole time.) He did wake up just in time to see Darth Vader launch. His Uncle Mike was very excited. Fiesta-ing in the Ergo:
• He is quite the conversationalist now! It's very cute.
• Along with talking, he is now doing a very loud fake-cough-slash-screech thing now. Let me tell you how much I enjoy it. =/
• There is also the fake cry. It is awesome because he stops, checks to see if one of us notices and then proceeds to "cry" some more. I was lucky enough to catch it on video!
• Halloween is quickly approaching! We did a fun mini-photo shoot with the G-Ma yesterday with him in his mummy onesie. The best part: he got to see his grandpa for the first time in a couple of months! (More enjoyable for G-Pa I think.) Here he is with the pugs Lola and Roxie respectively:
• My grandmother is now in a nursing home, which means I got to see her for the first time in almost three years. Nick and Logan were finally able to meet her as well. She is the first great-grandparent L has been able to meet. It was a very nice visit and I hope to go down there as often as possible.
• Back to grown people food, he ate peas for the first time today. They aren't his favorite, but he ate quite a bit. Go Monster!
• Finally, the babeh is standing. He can't pull himself up yet and his balance is a little shakey, but he has come a long way in just a few weeks. It makes me both excited and a little sad to see him growing up so quickly. Next thing I know he will be off to college!

So that's the past two months in a nutshell! I'm sure there are little things I am forgetting, but that's ok... for now. As to what Nick and I have been up to, I just finished my midterms (yucky) and Nick is preparing for a week in Seattle (to work, but I'm still a little jealous.) That means that I will be all on my own with the Monster for four days. I'm a little nervous about it since L seems to have regressed on sleeping, again, and the combination of sleep depravation and school work wears me down rather quickly these days. I'm thinking about starting sleep training for reals Tuesday night (10/19) but I may wait until Nick comes back home. I'm hoping that this is just a growth spurt and his good sleeping habits return on their own. Anywhozit, that's all folks!

Salutations!

Welcome to the new bloggy!

As mentioned on the former bloggy, we have decided to move to blogspot. Yay! Once I have a little more time, I will sit down and really blog (especially since Logan is five months old now!) but for now I need to sleep.

-Aliza