Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas this year. I was lucky to get Christmas Eve and the day before off, so I wasn't as exhausted on Christmas day as I have been in the past couple of years. Christmas Eve we had dinner with Mom and Dad, went to the Christmas Eve service with them and spent the night so that they could see Joaquin open gifts in the morning. He was much more into opening gifts this year and we all had fun watching him. After Mom and Dad's we went home to take a nap and then on to Tommie and Breneda's. Mom and Dad joined us there for dinner as well.

Joaquin on Christmas Eve, playing with the nativity scene.

Doing a little Christmas dance :)

Joaquin LOVES playing with the ceiling light in grandma and grandpa's room

Opening his first present.

Joaquin thought this was a good toy to stand and sit on.

Enjoying the table and chairs that we got him.  It has a whiteboard finish so he can draw on it.

Making his way down the tunnel.  He goes so fast that by the time Chris could snap the picture he was right in his face already!

Joaquin's new favorite toy.  It vibrates and spins all over the place.  Every time it turns on Joaquin gets a huge grin on his face!

First Hair Cut

Saturday Joaquin got his first haircut. I was amazed at how well he did. I thought for sure I was going to have to give him a bottle so he would let someone near his head with scissors but he did great even though it took almost 30 minutes to cut his hair! And that was after about 30 minutes of waiting for his turn.

Later on Saturday we went to Akron to visit with Jim and Laura and Connie and Jerry. Joaquin met Christopher for the first time. Christopher was born July 25, 2009 so Joaquin is almost exactly 1 year older than him and Christopher is the same height as Joaquin was at that age only he is 2 pounds heavier. It's amazing to see the difference in their sizes and remember that just a year ago Joaquin was that small!

Sunday I took Joaquin to get his Christmas pictures taken. They turned out great and hopefully soon I can get those posted.

"School" Pictures

Here are Joaquin's "school" pictures. They did pictures a while back at daycare and we hadn't planned on getting any, so didn't even send Joaquin to school dressed for pictures, but they did the pictures anyway and sent some home recently giving us the option to buy them. We liked them so much that we decided to buy them. Included is his class picture.

Update

Joaquin is doing great these days. We have never really had any problems with him sleeping but now it is super easy. When it is time for him to go to sleep we just say "you want to go night night" and he'll say "nigh nigh." Then we take him to his room and he almost leaps into his crib, lays down, lets us put his blanket over him and he just smiles at us.

His favorite thing to do right now by far is reading. He will find a book, climb into your lap and read the book with you. Then he'll get down find another book and repeat this process for about 20 minutes straight :)

Tonight we discovered something else that makes him smile. He was drinking his last bottle of the night and started to hold it above his face and wait for a drop of milk to fall from the bottle onto his face. He would make a shocked face and then smile and do it again and again and again.

Halloween Fun

Trick Or Treating

Talking with Mr. Scarecrow

Joaquin's Halloween

Pumpkin Picking

We took Joaquin out to pick his pumpkin for Halloween. He had fun, but didnt' want to actually touch any of the pumpkins. And he was way more interested in the trees than the pumpkins. Another picture shows one of his newest achievements... climbing onto the cofee table. The closeup pic of him is his favorite. After I took it I showed it to him on the camera and he just could not stop looking at himself! Other news: Joaquin had his 15 month checkup today and weighs 25 lbs (54%) up 1 lb. from his 1 year appointment, and he is 33 inches long (94%) 2 inches longer than his 1 year.

Things Joaquin brought to the couch

Joaquin has started to carry just about anything around and likes to then bring them to the couch. Here is a look at what he brought to the couch a couple of days ago.

Hurricane Joaquin

Lately we feel as if we've been hit by category 5 hurricane Joaquin. He seems to look around for things to destroy. As soon as we get the house picked up he destroys it. Luckily he's cute. He also seems to be a bottomless pit. We can't seem to feed him enough. I think he is eating more than Chris now!

Here are some pics and videos from this week. The first picture is Joaquin playing his piano while seated on his batman blowup punching thing (I can't think of what they are called...). The second picture is one where Chris decided to make a face like Joaquin does all the time. The first video is Chris dancing with Joaquin doing a Hammer dance. Normally this cracks Joaquin up and he laughs and laughs the whole time. Of course when I brought out the camera he stopped doing that and we only got a couple of laughs out of him. The second video shows Joaquin walking on the couch. He loves to try and climb the couch and point at the lion pictures above. Also he loves to screech as you will hear! The last video shows Joaquin with his new backpack from GG and GP. He loves carrying it around. I try to get him to say thank you which he has started to do lately, but of course he won't do it for the camera.

Dining with Joaquin

Time has gotten away from me these past few weeks. Joaquin is growing and changing so much. He now refuses to let us feed him most of the time, so as you will see meals are quite the messy affair at our house. He has also become very clingy to me. This last weekend I was home with him all weekend and he wouldn't let me out of his sight and much more than usual wanted me to hold him. He still loves running around but since he doesn't get much time with me usually I think he just didn't want to let me go.

We gave Joaquin a small piece of american cheese the other day and he did fine with it, and a few days later gave him mac and cheese and he did fine with that as well. So today grilled cheese was on the menu at daycare and we told them it was ok for him to have it but he broke out in a rash on his face after eating it :( We think maybe it is cheese food that they use at daycare and that is why he reacted? I guess we will just have to keep trying cheese at home for a while. We are going to start mixing his soy milk with regular milk and see how he does with that.

Joaquin had his 12 month well check visit in the middle of August. He weighed in at 24 lbs and is 31 inches tall. So he is still average for his weight but in the 90th percentile for his height and head circumference.

More B-day Pics

More pics from Joaquin's birthday party. First my friend Beth's daughter Emma playing in the baby pool. Second, how messy Joaquin really got with his smash cake.