Snow Day

Just thought I'd add the latest snow picture. By the way, Felix placed the hat on Frosty and then when I put the carrot in the snow for the nose he asked quizically, "Boogie?" as in booger.



If any of you not in the Seattle area watched Monday Night Football, where the Seahawks defeated the Packers in Seattle, you will already know that we had snow last night. Today, the following Tuesday, I just happened to have the day off. Here are a few pictures of the boy enjoying his first romp in the snow.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

I know, you are stunned that I am updating my blog! How did I find the time between my booming bookkeeping business, my volunteer activites, Megan's latest teen crisis and the constant needs of a toddler? I hired a nanny! It was only 2 days and a total of 7 hours but wow, what a difference! I got a little bit caught up with my clients and didn't have to work like a dog on the evenings and weekends! Felix really took to her and the first day he took a walk with her without even checking on me, no mom in tow, no apron strings attached! He is sleeping now, in his bed, after she cleverly got him down for a nap. These are pictures taken with Marlies' cell camera.

There is something to be said for hiring someone truly dedicated to the care of your child, not distracted by a desire to get back to their my space account or to their video game! Nothing against the loving attention he gets from his sisters, but I am so relieved to know that he can and will go to someone other than family! When Dana and Natalie were in Switzerland I got really behind on work and realized that I was always juggling Felix's needs against that of my business and it takes a lot of effort to keep those balls in the air. Now that I am caught up and looking to the holidays, I am aware that I need to let go of more in order to be more focused on the things I am most thankful for: my loved ones! If it weren't for this bookeeping business I wouln't be able to be at home with Felix and there for Megan after school. I've got to find a balance.

Felix and His Second Halloween

In our neighborhood, the city is replacing all the sidewalks and the street. Felix wakes each morning and intently watches the workers demolishing and building. A word he has learned in all this is 'backhoe'. He loves the backhoe, and anytime he sees a vehicle or picture of a vehicle that remotely resembles one, he yells 'backhoe, backhoe, backhoe'. We went to a clothing store the other day where he saw a shirt with a tractor on it, 'backhoe, backhoe, backhoe' he yelled until we acknowledged that he has seen a backhoe. The work crew made the mistake of leaving the backhoe over the weekend, as you can see Felix and Renae took it for a spin.


I know that all the talk right now is on the recent trip Natalie and I took to Switzerland, but this is Felix's blog so we will defer to him. Well, I will say that Natalie and I were met at the airport by Megan, Renae, and Felix, all wearing Switzerland shirts. I was really moved at how excited Felix got when he saw me. As you might remember from a previous post, Felix and I play foosball. Well, as Renae tells me, while I was gone, Felix got up to the foosball table and was calling for me, then began referring to the foosball figures as daddy, and then proceeded to kiss them. I teared up when I heard that.
Also while I was gone, Felix used his potty chair for the first time. Not only that, he stood up to pee. That has been the only time he has used it, though we have not really been trying. We also have a potty seat that fits over the toilet. He has been getting up on it, though he has not "used" it yet. He seems interested, so we will let him explore at his pace.
As you can see, Felix was a pirate this Halloween. When we first introduced the costume to him a few weeks ago, he didn't want anything to do with it. But Renae had the great idea of easing him into it each day. Eventually he loved it, probably from all the attention he got while wearing it.
At one point we had some company over and Renae asked Felix if he wanted to put on his pirate costume, he ran over to get it and couldn't wait to show himself off in it.
Our Halloween was cold but, thankfully, dry. On our block, the city is replacing all the sidewalks and the street. Literally replacing the street. Anyway, I think we didn't get as many trick-or-treaters as we could have. Felix really enjoyed all the decorations on the houses in the neighborhood. He wouldn't say trick-or-treat, but he had no problem reaching into the candy bowl he was offered and taking a treat. Though, sometimes I would have to influence his choice.

Foosball - without the picture

It's been awhile since I've posted, I'm sorry for that. Felix has been keeping me very busy. Anyway, Felix is developing so fast now- his vocubularly is expanding it seems exponentially, he picks up new words right away now, he's putting words together and forming little sentences. He also picked up a new hobby- foosball. Some of you will know that we have a foosball table and when I play Renae, Natalie, or Megan, I get very animated when I score (though they might say obnoxious). The excitement I bring to the game has captivated Felix, and so that he could participate he pushed a stool over to the foosball table. We've since moved the table and now an ottoman acts as his stool. So now when he wants to play, he'll get up on the ottoman, point to the other side of the table and say "daddy". I crush him, but he still has fun and cheers with me when I score. I know the above the picture is not of foosball, maybe I'll get one later. Also, I wanted to get something up for you all. I'll try to post again soon.

Felix, Food, Fun

Well, we've been promising a blog about Felix and food...here it is! Felix appears to be taking after his daddy by being a finicky eater. However, the following pictures indicate just how much he has been expanding his menu. We were concerned for a while there about his weight gain (or lack of) but he quickly gained weight last month and is now ranked in the 30th percentile. Bon Appetite!

Natalie's Graduation

I was recently reminded that we haven't updated this blog in a very long time. I apologize to all of Felix's fans and can only say that we are too busy enjoying this little guy! Frankly, I don't get enough computer time to keep up with my work so when I sit down at the computer, I try very hard to avoid doing anything personal on it. That said, tonight he is sleeping in his own bed and I'm somewhat caught up, so here goes.

I'm including a picture of Natalie's graduation. It is hard to believe it has been two months now since that happy occassion! We are so proud of her. She is now working full days at her dad's office as an administrative assistant but she takes one day off a week to spend with Felix so that I can keep up with my clients. She is a great big sister and Felix adores her.

I'll do my best to send a more recent picture sometime soon. But lets be realistic...
Renae

Before I get into the goings-on, and development of Felix, I'd like to post about Megan and her magnificent performance as Hermia in Nelson Middle School's rendition of A Midsummer's Night Dream. Here is a picture Grandma Deanna got while I was busy video taping. Megan is a very good actress. I always thought she would be, but, to see her acting out this play as if she were really involved with this scene and these characters, I have to admit that I got a little misty. So cheers, Megan.


As some of you may have read on Rooney's blog, our house (the House of Howard) was afflicted by a bug over Memorial Day weekend. Oddly, this flu seems to have only affected males: Felix, Rooney, Mike, Cuyler, Jim, and myself. I don't know if any females got it. >>>Renae has to interject and say that yes she got sick and took care of sick Felix without moaning and groaning like a MAN. >>>Anyway, it caused me to vomit for the first time in I can't remember how long. Vomiting hurts. Poor Felix could hardly keep anything down. He hardly ate, he was cranky, and at times could only be pacified by his mommy. He is much better now, he is eating more than he ever has and has regained his sunny disposition.

Okay, so aside from illness what else has Felix been up to? I'm glad you asked; if you've read earlier posts, you may remember me writing about Felix crawling under the gate we put up to block off the the mudroom. Here you can see Felix foiling our efforts to keep him out of the dog food (the dog food is on the other side of the wall out of view). Actually, we did keep him out of the dog food, so in your face, Felix. I have a story I'll share with you as it was told to me by Renae. I wasn't home at the time. The other day, Felix was in the entry and saw his shoes in a basket by the front door. He fished both his shoes out and set them on the floor. He called out 'mommy' and once he got her attention he pointed to his shoes. After Renae acknowledged him, Felix picked up his shoes, walked over to Renae, gave her his shoes, turned around and backed into her and then sat on her lap. He then lifted his right foot for Renae to put his shoe on, and then his left. Once his shoes were on, he hopped down and walked over to the front door and tried to open it. All of this happened without prompting from Renae. He wanted to go outside and figured out what he needed to do to make it happen. It's really incredible watching him progress. I am constantly amazed at what he can now do. I can see the development of personality and character in him. New mannerisms that become increasingly sophisticated. I am actually watching him incrementally shed babydom and become a little boy.
On a rare string of sunny Spring days here in Seattle, Renae bought Felix a little inflatable pool. Felix is such a good helper, he took the initiative and filled his pool up. Initially it was a little colder than he likes, so he let the sun warm it up before he played in it.



Here he is helping his momma wash the car. What a good little guy.

I'd like to take this opportunity to pat myself on the back. As you can see, I'm teaching Felix to play the guitar, and I don't even know how to play. Pretty incredible, huh? That guitar(?) was a gift to me from Annie. She got it in Hawaii. With all his practicing and my teaching, Felix is as good as me now.

In the short time (for me) since I last posted, a lot has happened. I haven't invested much into learning how to manipulate these posts, that's why they often look sloppy, but what can you do? Anyway, my little girl is nearly a woman, it actually moistens my eyes thinking about it. She had her prom last weekend and as you can see, she was stunning. She got a lot of help getting ready from Renae and her Aunt Annie and Susan. Where has the time gone? I still have a baby picture of her on my refrigerator that I've had there since she was born, or thereabouts.




The other day Rooney stopped by to yuck it up with Felix. Aren't
they adorable? They laughed, they cried, they made crank calls on the toy phone. It was pretty harmless. I don't think they really thought out what they wanted to say when Cookie Monster answered the phone because they would just hang up and giggle about it afterwards.

Who doesn't love Felix at the park? Felix sure loves Felix at the
park. We go there quite a bit now
that the weather is better.

Last post I said that I would include a picture from his grandmother's birthday party. I know it's blury, but it seems a little ethereal to me.









Felix, Felix, Felix. Sometimes we catch Felix "taking a play off". Actually, like many of the pictures I post, I don't know the story behind this one. I think one of the girls took this picture.
I do have a story that I don't have a picture for though, and it happened just last night. For awhile, Felix and I have this game we play where I go hide down the hall and he comes looking for me. When I see him, I crawl chasing after him and he runs away, giggling and laughing until I eventually catch him and he squirms and shrieks trying to avoid my tickling. Last night we did this when he thought he would try something a little different, after I chased and caught him, he walked down the hall and then peeked his head around to see if I saw him. When I did, he chased after me. What was so cute about it is that when he looked around the corner, he was initially trying to hide but not really, like he wanted to be seen so as to bait me over. He popped his head out then leaned back when he saw that I was turning his way. When we both knew he had been seen, that's when he jumped out after me. He didn't quite know what to do after chasing me, when he got close to me he turned into the couch and fell down laughing.

Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Hey, look at that, if you scroll down to the bottom of this post you will notice that I learned how to take credit for my own posts.
Okay, so it has been a while since I've posted, but that just means there is more to tell. Why just today Felix broke a branch off of one of our plumeria plants, and that's just the beginning (or, to date, the last) of the misadventures of Felix Truman.
Several weeks ago, our family along with Felix's great-grandmother, Ramona, visited Northwest Trek. Northwest Trek is a wild life park that features animals indigenous to the Northwest. Unfortunately, we got so caught up in photographing the animals that we didn't get many of Felix. But here is an animal we saw, see if you can guess what it is.If you said "buffalo", you are wrong. It's a bison, and apparently there is a difference, as true buffalo, though related to bison, are only found in Africa and Asia. It's too bad because I really prefer the name buffalo to bison. We also saw moose, or meese as some may incorrectly refer to more than one. At this time of year moose are without their antlers, otherwise I would have included a picture. It would be like posting a picture of a horse.
As we have done for the last several years, and what has become a tradition, we hosted Easter this year. In Seattle the weather is always hit or miss, but despite an early storm the day was beautiful. We had a lot of both sides of our family come over, which meant lots of cousins for the Easter egg hunt. Even little(?) Rooney participated, kind of. Felix had a lot of fun and loved being around all the kids, which wasn't a problem as they loved picking him up and carrying him around. Unfortunately we didn't get many pictures. We mostly videotaped. But we did make sure we got one picture.


That coat he is wearing is a coat that I wore when I was his age. I thank my mother for holding onto this coat so that one day my son could wear it. When we first put the coat on him, he wrapped his arms around himself, squeezed, and said "I love you, daddy". It was really touching.
Around Easter we discovered that Felix finally broke a tooth. He has two showing now, and a third upper tooth about to poke through. In contrast, Felix's cousin, Eva, has a mouthful of teeth, and she's only two and a half months older than him (she and I share a birthday, Jan 1st). We saw her, along with almost all of Renae's family, in Mount Vernon this past weekend to celebrate Felix's grandma Deanna's birthday. I think Eva's mom, Rita, said that Eva had a molar coming in.
Felix had a great time. He loved being around all those kids. Most of the kids played in this large room, large enough that it would echo. Felix screamed, and laughed along with the other kids. It was pretty neat to watch him interact with so many of his cousins, he has so much fun. Unfortunately the pictures didn't really turn out, they were blurry. Maybe later I'll post one anyway.

Lastly, Felix got a haircut. And I gave it to him. Usually my haircuts aren't that good, but after all those years practicing on Natalie and Megan, and then on Karma, well, it really paid off. Even Renae thought it looked it good. Also, you may notice that Felix is wearing shorts. We finally had a day warm enough for shorts.

Rockin' the Suburbs

He hasn't had any lessons either. Can you believe that?

Okay, well if you've been to Rooney's blog you'll know that Susan scooped me on Felix's birthday. I don't know what her problem is, she knows it only takes me forever to update this thing. But now I will give you my version of the events on that fateful day. A bunch of people came over, we had a Champagne toast, unwrapped presents, and had some cake. Only one of those things is not true.
Felix's cake was... I don't know, Renae made it. It had no added sugar (the applesauce of course has fructose) and it was made with whole grain flour. That's all I know. Renae's not here right now so I can't ask her. We did make another cake, one that everyone else would eat... you know, loaded with sugar and fat. MMMMMM
Felix loved the musical/educational chair his grandma Deanna got him. He stands on the seat then squats down to press all the crazy buttons. Unfortunately we found out that the chair was recalled. I'm not sure why, I think it's either the asbestos insulation in the seat or the lead chewables. He also recieved a handmade rabbit/dog (I'm sorry, I don't know which) from his great grandma Morse from Chicago. Here is a picture:









Today Renae had a conference to go to so I took the day off and took Felix to the park. Here is the sequence of Felix entering the playground and subsequently going down the slide.















And then he swung

Felix's First Birthday - Almost

Less than a month has passed and I'm updating the blog! Before I begin, I'd like to congratulate my cousin, Carie, who is pregnant with a boy and a girl. As I understand it, she will be naming them Dana and Andrea.
Felix is very active as you can imagine, and is now able to stand up from a sitting postion without having to use an object to pull himself up. He also moves faster than we anticipated. See, we put this gate up to block Felix's access to our washroom, which is where we keep the dog's food dish. We set the bottom of the gate about a foot off the floor, this allows the dogs to come and go while discouraging Felix, well really just slowing him down. So I remove the gate just while I'm moving the clothes from the washer to the dryer, and in that time Felix sprinted,I guess, from the family room, across the entry, through the living room, through the kitchen, and finally the washroom to a new found love- a mouthful of kibble. I was able to fish them out of his mouth, but he really likes the dog's food, and how can you blame him? It's really good.
As many of you know, Felix's first birthday is March 10th. We are very excited, but time seems to be moving so fast it feels like I'm missing out on something. But before I get to that, Felix didn't want to seem like a hog so he asked me to help him extend a happy birthday to his Grandma Peggie, someone he almost shares a birthday with.This is my proof that Felix can stand, how else could he put those letters up?
Anyway, back to Felix's first birthday. Well there's not much to tell yet, I'll have more to write about his first birthday after his first birthday. Then I will share it with you.
Renae has taken to feeding Felix in the nude, um... that's Felix in the nude. Actually, she did it this one time because she was going to give him a bath, then thought maybe I should feed him first, blah blah blah. Anyway, here is a picture:
Okay, honestly I don't know if any of that is true. Renae took this picture, I thought it was really cute and so I invented a backstory so that I could put it on the blog.

Yes, Felix is walking

Okay, I know it's been awhile, sorry. Anyway, Felix began walking a few days after he turned 10 months- around mid-January. He now toddles everywhere, and it is really cute to see this little baby walking around.
Here you can see Renae and Felix exploring the beach at Gene Coulon Park on Lake Washington. Felix walked to that spot.
At the end of January, I had to take a business trip to Portland, Oregon. I was able to bring Felix and Renae with me, where we took advantage of the pool at the hotel. We had a lot of fun. Felix loves the water and while I was working, he spent much of the day in the pool with mommy. Later that day, when I was done working, I spent some time with Felix in the pool. Check out Felix's speedos. Oh, and Felix walked to the pool.
So here you can see Felix in action. Felix's aunt Lisa came down to visit so we all walked down to the park.Felix almost made it the whole way, but it is a little too far for his little legs to carry him.
Scroll down and see Felix's monthly diaper picture. I've included January and February's. Can you believe he is almost a year old already?
And, in parting, more Felix Truman.