Muchas Gracias Abuelita

Jan. 23 - Today I let Tato open up his first 2nd Birthday present. It was from his Abuelita. Loads of fun books in both English and Spanish. And there were a few surprises for Papito as well. Ric was pleasantly surprised to find some old bed linens from when he was young. Thank you Abuelita the boys loved their surprises : )

Beep! Beep!

Jan. 21 - We have a new family outing...going to the mall. We drive 10 minutes over to Laurel Park Mall in Livonia, have an early dinner, then walk the mall. Well, Ric and I walk. Tato oscillates between running very fast, to holding our hands. We'll go to the book store, do some window shopping, and just spend some family time together. This particular evening, Tato discovered these stroller/cart/car things that you can rent for $5. He loved it so much that he would climb in, close the door and pretend to drive, even though he was going nowhere fast. The toughest part of the night was getting him out without making a scene. Beep, beep!

Happy Birthday Lolo Charlie

Another amazing creation by Courtney Clark of Cake Nouveau.

Check out her other cakes at www.cakenouveau.com
SURPRISE!

Make a wish...

February 7 - Tonight we surprised Lolo Charlie with a party and a SUPER FUN garden birthday cake. Flavor? CARROT CAKE of course and that so happens to be his favorite flavor cake. The individual veggies were all edible. She even put rows of edible "dirt." YUMMY!!!

Jan. 28 - Now I know what you're thinking, but we had absolutely nothing to do with it! I swear! Just this year we've had to bring up Mr's cage because in his old age of 13 and his condition of chronic hepatitis, he has been making a mess in the middle of the night. So we're back to caging him during the evening. Tato had never seen the cage before, so he would observe Mr. get in and lay down. One day, when we were down in the kitchen, I turned around and found Tato IN THE CAGE. I'm going to say that he was just checking out the comfort and to see what the big deal was ; ) He hasn't gone back since.

The Newest Little Orca

Jan. 26 - I was in Chicago for a doctor's appointment and was happy to finally meet the newest little Orca*Griffin. Introducing Ruari and Teagan's baby brother DECLAN KOHL ORCA GRIFFIN, born Dec. 29, 2008. He was 8 lbs 3 oz at birth, which is just an ounce shy of Tato's birth weight, but he seemed to be at least a couple pounds lighter by the time I got to meet him. Now Tato has another little guy to pal around with : )

Ushering in a New Era

JANUARY 20, 2009 - Today was a big day in U.S. history and we made sure not to miss it.

Even though it was a very difficult last minute decision not to go to Washington DC for the Inauguration, it was still amazing to watch on TV. As you can see, the process seemed to run a bit long for both Ric and Mister ; )

Fresh Face

Jan. 18 - Just a few shots of Tato fresh from a much needed bath. He actually enjoys having lotion or petroleum jelly smeared on his chapped chubby cheeks. Now he just says, "cheeks, cheeks."

I have returned!

FEBRUARY 25, 2009 - MARDI GRAS, FAT TUESDAY, and most importantly the day Ivy returned to her blog posting duties! I greatly apologize for the hug gap in posts, but I have been SWAMPED with work and then I misplaced my camera. That latter caused me quite a bit of anxiety. Happily, I return to posting the latest on our little man...

Mmm, Cookie

Jan. 10 - Today was another unusually big snow day in the Plymouth area, so what better thing to do but to bake up warm sugar cookies! Yes, I started with the break-apart kinds for Mateo's first go at it. I didn't want to seem to ambitious ; )

I tried to show him how to arrange the cookies on the cookie sheets and he clearly had his own idea. He was so proud of himself and why shouldn't he be?

After waiting 15 very long toddler minutes of baking time and another few minutes of cooling time, it was time for some decorating. I frosted the cookies and Mateo did the sugar-shaker decorating: blue, green, yellow, orange, pink and purple. He got the hang of it right away and loved it.

Ta-da! Decorated sugar cookies a la Mateo. Now was the time to taste the fruits of his labor. He had a cup of milk to wash it all down with but all he really wanted was cookie after cookie. I have to cut him off and as you could imagine he got quite upset.



Today was a great day for being "stuck" in the house. Mateo and I had an absolute blast from baking and decorating cookies to taking a long walk out in the evening snow, while Ric was on snow duty. I must say that this was one of my most memorable days with my little man. He's growing SO fast.

Too Much

Jan. 8, 2009 - Ric always says that he's going to give Mateo big kisses until he can no longer give him big kisses. Mateo is such good sport - most of the time. He allows his Papito to give big kisses, but when he's not in the mood, he not-so-gently shoves him off and yells, "NO!"

Ovaltine Please!

Jan. 7, 2009 - A goofy smiling face is what I like to see during mealtime.

Here's he's just enjoying his cup of Ovaltine. "Pass the Ovaltine please!"

Lunch with Papito...

Somehow Ric always seems to upset Mateo during mealtime.

Clearly, Mateo was much more content once released from the clutches of his high chair.

OK, he really does prefer sitting in his high chair when it's time to eat.

Jan. 4, 2009 - While I was out running errands, Ric and Mateo spent some "quality time" together.

Where are you?

Jan. 3, 2009 - Mateo got tired of playing with his Mega Blox, so he took the bin that they were in and played peekaboo over and over and over and over, etc... again.

HAPPY 2009!

January 1, 2009 - We hope you all had a wonderful New Year celebration. We wish health and happiness throughout the year. Mr.Quincy partied a bit too much, so his rest was well deserved.

M.I.A.

I deeply apologize for being delinquent in posting updates to Mateo's blog, but our PC hasn't been all too cooperative. In other words, it broke during our Christmas break. One of Ric's co-workers was kind enough to "fix" it, but it's still not 100%. However, he saved us a bundle ; ) You will see that my picture selection is limited, but I couldn't go on any longer without a posting.

OMG!!! OMG!!! OMG!!!

DEC. 28 @ roughly 7:00pm - This definitely deserves to be immediately posted because I am still in complete awe. After dinner tonight, Mateo and I went upstairs so that I could give him his bath. When I turned on the water to rinse the soap off of him. He was sitting facing the faucet because he likes to fill his little bucket with water. Then came...
Mateo: Off, off, ...
Me: Do you want Mama to turn off the water?
Mateo: Off.
Me (thinking): Is the water too hot? He usually says "hot" if that's the case.
Then he stands up and puts his finger on the word "OFF" to the right side of the faucet and taps its. And again repeats the word, "off."

OK. Is that just a complete coincidence or did he just read the word off? It was too deliberate to be a fluke though. I am still in complete awe and amazement with what occured during 30 seconds of his bath tonight. He is completely into learning the alphabet, but what a FANTASTIC SURPRISE : ) I am proud beyond words!

Como Te llamas Me llamo ......

A song we sing alot with Tato goes something like this, "como te llamas, me llamo ?" (Translation: "what is your name, my name is?"). We've taught him to respond to our song by saying, "Tato!"

Well, one day on our way back from Daycare, I break out our song. Unfortunately, he was not in a good mood to sing along but he managed to give me a little something.

Parents & Tots

Always with a truck.

His Amish gingerbread man.

Snacks...

... and more snacks.

Denise & Nate

Dec. 12 - I decided to take the day off today, so I could have a special Mateo & Mama day. We went out to Einstein Bagel for breakfast then to another PNN event. This one was Parents & Tots. We again met up with our friends Denise and her son Nate. We did two craft projects, had snacks, listened to stories, and sang songs. Lots of fun : ) He was so well-behaved the entire time too. That just means that he wasn't running around like a crazy kid. That was a nice surprise for me.

ABCs

Mateo has really gotten into learning the alphabet. He has a few alphabet books that he likes to pull out and point to the letters and ask "What's this?" I tell him the letter and he repeats it. I go through the entire alphabet that way and he does pretty good. We sing the alphabet song ALL THE TIME now and he's gotten pretty good at that too. He can sing A-B-C-D-E-F-G all by himself. Then we pretty much help him with the rest, which he happily finishes. Now he's really gotten into the habit of pointing at the letters on the pages of any of his books and saying a letter, whether he's right or wrong. He can recognize a few letters on his own too. The cutest thing is when we hear him singing the alphabet song. He scolded me one night when I joined in; he clearly wanted to sing it himself!

The Fat Man Cometh

Dec. 9 - Ric took a whole series of photos of Mateo, while he was sitting in front of the computer watching one of his favorite YouTube video cartoons. This one is our favorite because it is the ultimate in fat man faces. He has the rosey chubby cheeks, double chin, squinted eyes, and wide open mouth. We love this photo, especially since it makes us laugh whenever we see it.