O Tannenbaum

Baxter loves the Christmas tree.  He loves looking at the lights, touching the fake branches and needles, and most of all, rearranging the ornaments.  We bought shatterproof ornaments from Costco but after a few days of picking up ornaments all over the floor, putting them back together, or preventing him from cramming them in his mouth, Mike made an executive decision and put all the ornaments on the upper half of the tree.  Upon seeing this, Bax started decorating the lower half of the tree with his socks, binkies, teethers, and other assorted small toys.

Only 13 months old, and already making lemonade when life throws him lemons.

Diaper rash and Christmas gifts

I originally tried posting updates to the blog from my phone, but I see now that it failed miserably.  Consider this edit as attempt #2.

Baxter's first Christmas gift from the mail came from Tita Mila.  He shows his appreciation well.

Bax made it his entire first year of life without really bad diaper rash, but unfortunately his streak of trouble-free buttocks came to an end last week.  I came home from work to change his diaper and found welts, which later wept and sloughed off.  I think it was from our cloth diapers needing to be stripped, so he's been in disposables with rash cream since then.  As of today (12/13), it's pretty much all gone, but for a while I made sure to air that booty out.  One mention of rash, and Lola to the rescue!  She came over with super-cute briefs for him to wear so he wouldn't be dingle-dangling all over the place.  

Finding Nemo briefs

Daddy hugs make it all better.

No!

Someone has learned how to be defiant! Stocking full of coal, here we come.

Hello, November

Wow, so much has happened with little Baxman since my last update at the Schilter Farm.  Unfortunately, I haven't gotten around to uploading any pictures so you'll have to just imagine everything in your heads until I do that.  :)  Or maybe I'll just save posts for those until I have the pictures ready.

Anyhow, here's a quick and dirty update:

- We went to Maris Farm in Buckley about a week after we went to the Schilter Farm for more pumpkin shenanigans.  Maris Farm was HUGE!  Baxter wouldn't smile for any pictures (again) and mostly rode around in the Beco looking at things.  We got lost in a corn maze and waited in a really long line for roasted corn.

- Baxter turned ONE YEAR OLD on November 2.  We had a small family gathering at our house.  Bax loved seeing everyone and wowed us all by almost eating the entire slice of strawberry cream cake we put in front of him.  He surprised us all again when he took his first steps while opening his gifts.  A big thank you to all who came in the middle of the week to attend.  Our living room now looks like a daycare with all the toys he got.

Ever since he learned how to walk, Bax is a walking machine.  It's his latest tactic in fighting sleep.  Instead of agreeing to cozy up with a blanket and a book before bedtime, he'll cuddle for about 30 seconds, jump down, and start walking around the living room nonstop like some drunk person.  We visited Grandma and Grandpa Choo-Choo (aka Bob and Kae) on Sunday and Bax did laps from the living room to the kitchen and back for two hours.  All that ambulating made his bowels move three times in about as many hours.

- Bax was a tiger and Superman for Halloween.  He went to a couple parties with Mike the day before Halloween and strutted his Tiger stuff at Lolo's office and Aunt Mikki's Halloween party.  On Halloween day, he dressed up as Superman and went trick-or-treating around Uptown Gig Harbor.  His favorite thing to do was slobber on the candy he got from one place, then try to trade out his now-wet candy for dry ones at the next place.

- Teeth update: Bax has had his lower front teeth for a few months now, and the latest teeth that are cutting his gums are his upper fangs!  I thought the two front teeth were the next ones to come out, but as of this morning, his upper left fang is 50% out.  Speaking of teething, it's starting to affect his sleeping at night.  He'll wake up every couple of hours some nights pointing at his fangs and crying.  Poor kid.

- He got his first haircut this past weekend at the Kid's Salon in U Village.  He did great!  He sat in a little yellow cab and his stylist gave him a container full of cars, planes, and trains to play with.  She even used clippers and a blowdryer, and all he gave her were the occasional side glances. We kept locks of his Amish sideburns for his baby book.

Before: The Last Samurai

After: Super cute and knows it.

Other things Bax has started doing include:

- Sticking things in his nose.  It used to just be his finger(s), but now he'll try to put anything up his nose, including his pet mouse's tail, a spoon, or your finger.  He hasn't tried putting food particles in there yet, but I'm sure that will be next.

- He's started motioning with his outstretched arm and hand for things he wants to take a closer look at.  He's not pointing yet, but he'll stretch his arm out and make an "Eh?" sound.  This is his new favorite thing to do, especially when in the toy aisle at the store.  He wants to look and touch ev-er-y-thing.

- He can drink out of a straw!  He has a sippy cup with a straw that he's never really been interested in, but one time at the mall I had a smoothie that he kept motioning to.  I let him have at the straw just to see what he would do, and lo and behold, he sucked up about 5 seconds worth of smoothie and gave himself a brain freeze.  He's also started to suck out of the little food pouches we have for him too, which makes things easier for me since I don't have to pack a baby spoon in the diaper bag for them anymore.

- Bax doesn't really have much of a vocabulary outside of "ded-ded" (Dad) and "mum-mum" (Mom, which he says rarely), but he sure does babble like crazy.  He's like the homeless schizophrenic person you see on the streets, staggering around and talking with his hands to himself, but you're unable to make out any real words.

- Another word he's picked up is "Ello?"  I discovered this when I realized Bax would scramble around for something to put up to his ear whenever he saw anyone talking on their cellphone.  If he can't find anything, then he'll put his hand up to cup his ear and say "Ello?", followed by facial expressions and babbling like he's having a conversation with someone.  He will also talk on his imaginary cellphone after hearing any kind of jingle, like a fancy doorbell or the hourly chime of the clock at his Grandpa Bob's house.

Schilter Family Farm

We visited the Schilter Farm in Lacey on Columbus Day with my sister.  It was a beautiful and crisp autumn day, there were lots of activities and pumpkins, but Baxter didn't seem to care about any of it.  He enjoyed picking the stems off of old pumpkins and trying to eat them, and would not cooperate with pictures.  Maybe he was just mad because he couldn't run around and do all the kid activities yet.  Even though we didn't get that picturesque family picture people always seem to get at pumpkin patches, I still had a lot of fun.  It was my first time at a pumpkin patch too!

Instead of my usual photo dump, I decided to play around with Picasa's video feature and made a slideshow/video of our pictures.  Enjoy!

Shutterfly photobook

Click here to view this photo book larger

Scenes from a road trip...

We've been back for a while now, but work (and now, a cold) have prevented me from blogging about our road trip to Oceanside.  It was a really great trip that ended on somewhat of a solemn note, but good memories were made nonetheless.  I'm glad I got to spend quality time with my family, my sister, and my extended family in California and just relax and have fun.  It was quite an adventure since we didn't really plan anything past where we were going to stay over the first night.

We took off from Gig Harbor early Sunday morning and took I-5 down to Portland, where we routed off to Hwy 101 and headed toward the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  Since it was Sunday, the factory wasn't making any cheese for us to see, but they did have ice cream for us to eat.  Mmm.  Probably not the smartest idea for those of us who are lactose intolerant, but hey, we were going to be spending a lot of time in the car together, so we might as well get used to those sounds and smells, ifyaknowwhaddimean.

We stopped at a couple places to take pictures and enjoy the natural beauty of the Oregon coast.  These were all taken somewhere before Newport, since that's where we spent our first night.  Before getting to the Comfort Inn, we experienced our first drive-thru Subway.  At first we thought, "Cool!" but after spending a good 10 minutes at the drive-thru box trying to explain our order, we were afraid that the sandwich artists would spit in our sandwiches.

Day 2 of our trip started off watching a whale at Devil's Punchbowl and visiting the highly-touted "World's Largest Sea Lion Cave" in Florence, OR.  The sea lion cave was something Bee and I had been looking forward to, but unfortunately when we got there, there were no sea lions in the cave.  Oh well.  We bought some more travel bingo cards and got a souvenir penny from the gift shop and went our merry way.

Mike spotted an air museum that looked interesting, so we decided to detour and go there.  When we finally got there, it too was closed.  We took some pictures, ran around in the rain, and hopped back in the car only to get lost around some cow poop yards (thanks, TomTom) before getting back on 101. We picked up a brochure at the Sea Lion Caves about this cheesy dinosaur place that raved about their "lifelike" dinosaurs, but lo and behold, when we got there, they were closed as well.

From there we went to Coos Bay, OR where Mike knew of a Steve Prefonataine exhibit at a museum he wanted to check out.  Guess what?  The museum was closed.  We start to wonder if anything we want to see will be open on our trip.

Eventually we made our way into California and visited the Avenue of the Giants to see the majestic Redwoods.  It was really beautiful!  These trees are HUGE and OLD.  We had fun driving through trees and climbing on stuff.

We squeezed in a trip to the Jelly Belly Factory but unfortunately weren't able to go on any of the tours.  We actually made it to the factory 10 minutes before it closed due to heavy traffic in Napa Valley.  We made good use of those 10 minutes, zipping around buying souvenirs, jelly beans, and taking pictures.

We drove through San Francisco and compared what we saw to visuals on "Full House", and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge.

After a night in San Jose, we went to the Winchester Mystery House.  Unfortunately it was 90 degrees with no wind, and the house has no air conditioning or ventilation.  We went on the tour and had to stay in the back because Baxter wanted to either babble or scream while our tour guide was talking.  The house had some pretty interesting architecture.  We didn't have any paranormal experiences, but we did learn how to pose in pictures like Billie.

From San Jose we ditched Hwy 101 and drove the rest of our trip on I-5 because we didn't think we'd make it to Oeanside by Friday at the rate we were going.  We stopped over in Anaheim and spent Baxter's 10-month birthday at the Disneyland Resort.  It was Bee's first time visiting Disneyland since she was in 6th grade, but unfortunately she couldn't ride any of the rides.  Bax rode on a couple of rides and really loved the Small World ride.  He fell asleep on Pirates of the Carribean.  It was here that we discover his fondness for Winnie the Pooh characters.

Baxter actually bit Tigger's paw and wouldn't let go after the picture was taken.

This splash area is in California Adventure and Bax LOVED it.  I have a little water baby who loves getting wet.  Of course, whomever was holding him also got wet.

On Friday we graced Oceanside with our presence.  Tita Baby was kind enough to let us all crash at her place, and Tita Josie and Uncle Henry had a nice pool party for us at their house.  All my cousins showed up to meet Bax and eat good food.  Mike learned how to play poker.

My cousin Dennis took us out to the Carlsbad Lagoon on Saturday for some jetskiing and kayaking action.  We all had an awesome time.  Bax enjoyed playing in the sand and even tried eating some of it.  

Tita Mila hosted a Mexican dinner for us that night.

Billie flew back to Washington early Sunday morning, which ended up being a pretty laid-back day.  Mike and Dennis watched a bunch of movies MST3000 style, and Bax took a super long nap on his Uncle Dennis.

On Monday we met up with an old high school friend, Steve Lazo, and his family at the Carlsbad Outlets.  We forgot to take a picture, but had a good time catching up and meeting his wife and their children.  Afterwards we visited Guy, Kate, and Quinn to see how they were holding up with Erin being gone on a European trip.  When we saw them, Erin had been gone five days, and the girls' hair had turned into afros.  I took pity on them and gave them pigtails and french braids. 

Monday night was a dinner party at Tita Rosie's house with Ate Ann's family.  I don't know what Jon is telling Baxter in this picture.  Maybe he's teaching him the rules of autocross.

We had lunch with Tita Baby and Tita Rosie at Ruby's Diner before heading back to Washington on Tuesday.  In a last minute fit of cuteness, Baxter started performing all of his "tricks" for his Lola Baby and Mama Rosie.

We took I-5 all the way back to Washington.  Here's a picture of Baxter in the car playing with a gift from his Tita Marivi, a DJ sound table with no volume control.  Thanks, Tita Marivi!

We had a really good time on our road trip and can't wait to do it again next year for Dustin and Jennie's wedding.  I think for next year's trip, we'll plan the activities a little better so things are actually open when we stop by.  :)  Thanks to all of our family in Oceanside and San Marcos for opening up their homes to us!  We had an awesome time!

A boy and his toys

How is it that boys intuitively know how to play with cars?  Bax started rolling his toy cars around on the floor by himself recently, and if he doesn't have a vehicle nearby to roll, any old thing will do, be it a package of wipes, a piece of cardboard, or junk mail.  Here he is in the kitchen playing with his firetruck.

I found this toy at one of the children's consignment shops I go to.  It's one of those things where he can push it and walk, or you can convert it so he can sit on it and scoot along.  He doesn't exactly know what to do when he sits on it, so for now it's his little walker that he uses to get from one place to another if he doesn't feel like crawling.

Baxter loves swinging, but unfortunately the neighborhood park only has slides.  We bought this baby swing and hung it up off of the front porch.  He absolutely LOVES it.

Love that smile!

In a few weeks, Little Man Bax will be 10 months old!  Time has flown by so fast!  He's going to ring in his 10 month birthday surrounded by all his extended family in Oceanside, CA.  We'll be taking Hwy 101 down to southern California and stopping at a few places to enjoy the sights.  It will be Baxter's first big road trip and first vacation.  We're all excited to see everyone!

Photo Dump

Baxter is so active these days!  He's crawling everywhere, snacking on whatever he finds on the floor, and bonking his head on every surface.  Everyone who has watched him for a few hours has said how hard he is to keep up with.  Preaching to the choir, people!  The worst thing was that Bax seemed to go into warp speed with learning new things and moving when Mike was watching him after my oral surgery.  He had to admit, watching him day and night for days back to back was "exhausting".  Well spoken, dear husband.

Here is Baxter in his kitchen table "fort".  He's eating puffs while monitoring the landscape guys put in our backyard.

BEFORE: Well-manicured dirt pile.

AFTER: Well-manicured (for now) sod.

We plan on putting in a hedge at the back and getting some fencing installed on the side.  We don't want to completely fence the yard because we like seeing the trees behind the house.  We often see deer, raccoon, rabbits, and wild birds back there.

Speaking of grass, Baxter loves to eat it.  This is a picture of him at the Silverdale Waterfront.  As soon as I put him down on the picnic blanket, he scuttled off to the edge and started grabbing at the grass and stuffing it in his mouth.  When I took the grass out of his hands and mouth and put him back down, he crawled even faster to another edge, then started eating the grass from the ground like a cow. That's my boy!

By popular demand, here is a post-surgery picture of me and my swollen cheeks.  It's been eight days since I had my wisdom teeth taken out and my left cheek is still swollen with a visible healing bruise.  To top it off, I have a socket infection too!  (Yay!)  For the past two days I'd been tasting a mixture of pus and week-old food that got stuck in the sockets.  I now wield the handy dandy socket syringe cleaner so I can flush out all the crud and have a fresher tasting mouth.  I go in next week for another follow-up, but if the antibiotics haven't kicked out the infection, then Dr. La Rosa will have to open up the socket again.

Last month my sister got married and Baxter got to be the ringbearer.  He was so proud to be walking down the aisle with me and his Lola (who ended up holding the ring pillow).  He was high-stepping like a showhorse the whole time and loving all the attention he was getting.

Watching the thrilling rubber duck race at Whaling Days.

Mike's magic diaper changing glasses.  They stopped Bax from wiggling for about two diaper changes, and then Bax realized behind the sunglasses was just Daddy, and not Kanye West.

Liking trains seems to be something that runs in the Balogh blood, and Baxter is no different.  What sets him apart from the rest is that he fancies the shinkansen (Japanese bullet train) instead of the steam engines that Grandpa Choo-Choo enjoys.  Really though, Baxter most likes acting like Godzilla and eating the traintracks.

That's all for now, hope you all are having a fabulous summer!  In a few weeks we'll be taking our first family road trip down Highway 101 to southern California so Bax can meet my aunts, uncles, and cousins in Oceanside.  That should be an adventure!