Happy Birthday!

This is our precious baby when he was first born. Weighing in at 8 pounds/10 ounces, Mathieu was born at 5:34 PM. I will never forget that day nor how grateful I was and am for my loving husband.


Here's Mathieu a full year later.
We were lucky and both grandmothers had a one-day overlapping visit. They planned a party complete with cupcakes, balloons, and candles. Let me just say that Mathieu LOVED the balloons. He swatted them, batted them, chased them, and held them. Mathieu is such a delightful baby with a pleasant disposition, endearing smile, and infectious chuckle. Dave and I are so thankful for the joy he brings us each day and we are very much in love with our precious child.

Orange Baby

Our pediatrician took one look at Mathieu and said, "You like your carrots." Indeed that is the case. At this moment, Mathieu eats carrots and sweet potatoes more than any other food , and it shows. No, he's not jaundiced or has anything wrong with him. He just has lots of beta-carotene in his system. I'm not sure if you can tell by the pictures, but our baby has a slight orange tinge to him.

In other news, we flew to Chicago two weekends ago and had a fun time with Grandma and Grandpa. Mathieu sat in the snow, strolled around the zoo, and met up with friends. Mathieu also enjoyed playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Our Little Monkey

Mathieu is at the stage where he sometimes prefers to feed himself food instead of accepting the spoon from us. We feed him finger foods like Cheerios, kidney beans, and cooked vegetables, but his favorite of all is a banana.

Mathieu has brought us new weekend activities

Before Mathieu, Sue and I would try to spend nearly all of our weekend daylight hours outside kayaking, canoeing, biking, hiking, camping. Needless to say, things are different now. We have to work around Mathieu's schedule. He needs to have his daytime naps. He needs to be fed at certain times, at his pace. In between these important activities we like to take walks or bike rides around Tybee as a family, but no big long adventures. Instead, Sue and I spend a lot more time around the house on weekends. This has led to more time doing some home improvements. We have reorganized out house several times for our's and Mathieu's benefit.

The picture below shows my first major home construction project. It is meager for all you home-owner people, but this was the first time I've ever gone to home depot and bought a bunch a wood and spent a weekend constructing something permanent. Getting 12 foot boards into our Toyota Corolla was truly a Gambian experience (my Peace Corps friends will understand).
You see, with the arrival of Mathieu, my boss was kind enough to enclose our back porch so Mathieu could have his own room. This has been a great addition to our house. All of us in just one bedroom would have been challenging. But this has meant that all our bikes (and now strollers, bike cart, etc) have just been outside in the yard constantly getting rained on. Now we have a shelter!

Dave and I have returned from Rhode Island (where it snowed 4 days in a row!) We had a wonderful time visiting all my relatives, and my parents made it very easy at the house by doing a superb job baby-proofing. Here's a picture of my Dad and Mathieu having a close conversation. The big event that occurred over Christmas did not happen in RI, but on St. John's Island. My brother, John, and his fiance, Tabatha, married. The following picture shows my immediate family extended with spouses and children!And how can I resist: Another cute picture of Mathieu with his daddy!

Sledding!

We are currently up in Rhode Island for a week visiting Sue's family. I received my wish of having a nice snowstorm so we could take Mathieu sledding. It's been so long since I've been on a sled. We relived childhood memories of the red plastic in snow. Mathieu didn't object to this new activity but seemed a bit skeptical of its value. It was also approaching his nap time and he seemed to be falling asleep while riding. This year we just pulled each other around. Next year--hills!