LELAND'S FIRST BIRTHDAY!!!

Thank you to all that attended Leland's First Birthday Party. Hope you had fun!!!

Leland's Ninong Jeff & Uncle Jona took some great pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/16870895@N04/sets/72157614979960471

Here are a few of our fave's:

LELAND'S FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY

The Party is set for Saturday March 7, 2009, his exact birthday!

Invitations were created by Leland's Ninong Jeff! Go A's

RSVP! RSVP ! RSVP! RSVP! RSVP!

Please leave a comment and let us know if you are able to make it. Be sure to let us know:

- number of people coming

- name

- address

- email

- telephone number

Hope to see you there!!!

ELEVEN MONTHS!!!

So almost a year ago, I started this blog. More importantly, today marks Leland's 11 month birthday. Believe me, one year has flown by! Its probably been the fastest year of my life. Needless to say, your life is never boring when you have a baby.

What's undescribable is the feeling of seeing all the changes Leland has gone through. To feel the love and joy of watching your baby grow up and start to do things for the first time... You have to go through it yourself.

Here are a few 11 month highlights and milestones:

As of 02/07, Leland has EIGHT TEETH showing. That's right: four on top, four on the bottom. Mama Macho would like to thank Trader Joe's for supplying her with dairy enriched yogurt during her pregnancy. With eight teeth comes the love for anything edible: meat, veggies, fruit, bread. We've been loading him up with a lot more adult food, not to mention whatever we DON'T KNOW grandma & grandpa give him while they're watching him...
Leland with one of his potential "future" GF's, Kenzie (who turned two last week! Oh yeah, OLDER WOMEN!). The funny thing is, Leland is surrounded by a lot of baby girls. The only other baby boy is his cousin Elijah, who he still kind of bullies (territorial?). But when he's around baby girls, he's not like that at all. Actually, they sometimes bully him.

Leland is walking! Ok, not a picture of him walking (just him wearing dad's beanie and holding his socks!). He's been crawling since he was 4-5 months, standing on his own at 8 months, so he was bound to walk soon. He'd take a step or two, then fall. He did that for two months. Then finally, out of nowhere, Super Bowl weekend, he just started walking. Taking 8-10 steps, turning, pivoting, everything. Of course he still falls down from time to time, but now all he does is try and walk when he has the chance. Its awesome!

He sleeps through the night... Like 10-12 hours straight... He's been doing this for awhile now... But... We...Don't... Want... To... Jinx... It... During the day he'll catnap: 30-45 minutes two, maybe three times. Its because he hibernates at night. Down by 8p, up by 6am, 8am on the weekends. He sleeps in his own room, in his own crib. Sometimes we'll sneak him in mommy & daddy's bed, but for the most part he loves all the room he has in his crib. He'll start on one side, and the next morning, he's on the other side. He kicks the blankets off, too...

Leland's First Holidays

Wow, can't believe its already been more than a month since our last blog. It has been a busy past few weeks...

Highlights from the Holidays, with accompanying pictures:

- Christmas at our house with the Pacho and Malazo Families, 12/24/08

Leland of course still doesn't understand the full concept of Christmas, gifts, Santa, etc. He does like the colorful wrapping paper and cardboard boxes, though. They make for perfect chewing objects.

- Christmas Day with the neighbors, 12/25/08

Apart from waiving hello to the folks in our neighborhood, there are a few that we stop and chat with occassionally. Then there's Scott and family next door- Best Neighbor in the Whole World. Might have mentioned this before. Anyways, he had a small gathering he invited us to. This is us next to the extremely large Christmas tree. Leland did great amongst the white folks, being passed around from stranger to stranger without a peep. Social butterfly.

- Post Christmas, MacDigity's come by from LA, 12/26/08

Leland's cousins Xavier and Vinny came by the house on their way up from LA. The last they saw each other was when we visited them in October. They were all pretty excited to see each other. One thing we learned: Xavier loves beer-battered onion rings!!!

- New Year's Eve at Amy's, 12/31/08

With Leland, we knew our New Year's party was going to consist of just us three in our house, Leland asleep in his crib while watching Dog the Bounty Hunter... And that's what we did. Beforehand, we did make it out to a family party and got our grub on. But come midnight, Leland was out, and it was just Melissa and I watching Dick Clark (struggling) to count down...

- New Year's Day at John Muir, 01/01/09So we get a call New Year's Morning from Jay-R. Not good news. We find out one of our good friends got into a bad fight (at a family party) with some hoodrats slashing tires. We all go visit him in the hospital, where multiple stab wounds later, he's up, alert and making jokes.

- New Year's Day at Cha Am in Vallejo, 01/01/09

After eating at our favorite Thai restaurant, we were about to order dessert when all of a sudden Leland started mumbling... "Mmmm...Maaa....Mmmm...Maaammaaa....Maaamaa....MAMA!" You should of seen the looks on Mama Macho's face. Leland has been saying "Dada" really well for the last couple of months, so for him to say "Mama..." Well, Leland got to eat Fried Banana with Coconut Ice Cream for that!

- New Year's Day at the Macaraeg-Collins House, 01/01/09

Along with the MacDigity's, Dustin & Ruby were hear from Chicago. The first time the "Jongs" (James, Leif, Jeff and Dustin) were able to spend time with each other for almost one whole year.