Lovely Weekends!

We made Zack a great play area by the big living room window.  You can see how crappy our window is in this picture, but oh well.  It's still an awesome play area, and we like sitting near him and catching a breeze while he entertains himself.

He has been super snuggly lately.  He likes to jump on us while playing.

He also enjoys taking the shapes out of the mat.  And sometimes putting them back in.

Geneva's birthday party on June 19th!  Zack plays with Kate and some noodles.

He loves this house in the back yard.

June 20th.  Park near our house

This is a play structure made for little kids.  It's perfectly Zack size.  He got up to this level totally on his own.

He was really in his element in this little play area.  Just loved it.

Dancing?  Doing karate?  We're not sure.

And this play structure is made of 100% recyclable materials.  They sure know the way to a girl's heart.

Zack takes a bonus nap.

The farmers' market today!

Note the corpse face shirt, a birthday gift from Marc.

Zack spent most of the time at the market striking out on his own like this.  I don't know if you can see the small blood spots on the back of the onesie.  Mommy cut her finger cooking, but I guess it's fitting to have your zombie onesie get slightly bloody.

Yay, farmers' market!

The petting zoo.  Zack was fearless.

This was our first time inside the fence.

We've only looked at the animals from the outside before.

Hooray.  Mangy, molting little chickens.  Um, great!

This one was a complete spaz.

He kept walking up my hands like a little staircase.

Duck!

Our delicious friend the pig.

Soft bunny.  I was a little more interested in petting the animals than Zack was.

He was like, "Wow, check out this chair!"

Also, he really liked the purse of the lady next to him.

She had to take it off another chair and put it on her lap.

He did pet some goats.

The pony ride next door.  This kid has the right idea.

A little red haired girl.  She said to me,

"The last time I was here, a goat nibbled on my daddy's  butt."

Zack heads to the ATM for some cash.

After zoo snacks

That face.  Whatta kid.

I know I've said it before, but the Farmers' Market is a hoot.  I enjoy counting the number of $900 strollers that go by.  Today I saw $3600 worth of Bugaboo and one Stokke.  There was a camera crew shooting B roll for something.  They were zipping up the street, and I heard a crew member say, "Vegetable stand, coming up on the left!"  We also met a girl named Maggie, who seemed to have three daddies, as far as we could tell.  Oh, Studio City, how I love you.  (Also the produce is delicious.)

The Stats

At his one year doctor's appointment:

31 1/2 inches tall (90-92%)

26 pounds (90%)

19 1/2 inch head circumference (still off the charts)

He can still say five words:  Mommy, Daddy, ball, bubble, and water.  It's funny that he just exploded with those five words so early, and we've heard no more.  Except for "Wow."

He also says, "La-dee-la-dee-la-dee-la-dee-dah."  We'll have to get some video up of this.   La-dee-la is Zack's first inside joke.

His favorite foods are brocolli, rice, veggie burgers, chicken, bread, YoBaby yogurt, and avocado.  He hated bananas for a long time, but a couple days ago he ate a whole banana.  He loves them now.  Same with strawberries.  Today he had strawberries at daycare and came home smelling like a giant strawberry, with berry stains all over him.  He has been refusing formula.  He hates cow's milk.  I'm still nursing!

He doesn't point or do "Sooo big."  But he makes himself understood very clearly.  When he sees a food he wants, like the animal crackers at daycare or some veggie burger at home, he makes his hands into little fists and shouts, "Unnngh!"  It's quite articulate.  We get it.

He pushes away things he doesn't like, whether food or books.  That's his way of saying no.  He just pushes the offending object out of his sight.  During story time, he has become very picky about books, so it'll go something like this:

"Do you want to read Night Night Baby?"

Push.

"No.  Okay, how about Go Dog. Go?"

Push.

"Hm.  Well, we can read Where's the Kitten?"

He leans back into my lap.  Okay, that one's all right.

He laughs along with us when we are laughing.  He wants to be in on the joke.  This cracks us up when what we are laughing at in the first place is Zack.  It also makes me think that it's nice he is growing up around two people who laugh a lot.

Zack is ONE

Yay! Zack has moved into his second year on Earth, and we celebrated the first one last weekend. Here he is at his party, but first...

A few days before his birthday, we got a pair of packages from Nana and Papa in Florida. We didn't make him wait. Zack was very interested in the box...

and it contained an Ugly Doll! (You can see he's still intrigued by that box.)

His other present was this great farm puzzle, the pieces of which all have big wooden knobs that are great for little hands. How do I know?

Well, here's Zack eating and he's still clutching a piece (that's the goose piece, I think).

And here he is an hour after lights out, still clutching the piece he was clutching before bedtime while Monkey looks on jealously. I'm pretty sure that piece is the rooster.

Zack's actual birthday was on a Wednesday, a few days before his party. I wasn't working that day, so it was all Zack and Daddy until late afternoon. Here he is chilling on the playmat.

And here he is doing some scientific research on the playmat. Subject: What Everything Looks Like Upside-Down.

We were short on some essential supplies, so we took a trip to good ol' Target shortly before Zack's naptime. You can see the tiredness in Zack's face, although he was still clearly "thumbs up" about this great big ball.

After naptime (see the difference?), Zack listens to his birthday message from Marc.

After that it was a trip to Toys R Us! I let Z loose in the aisles to see what he liked...

And he went straight to the toy zoo he's already got at home, pressing the demo buttons to make monkey noises. I got him a little something else and we took off...

but not before a quick photo up in this ball bin.

After that we stopped at daycare so Zack could hang with his buddies. Here they are grooving on bubbles.

We didn't go crazy for the party on Saturday, just bought up a buncha food and had people over at the house. We purposely overshot, so pretty much everything you see here lasted us well into the following week. I made four quiches, homemade guacamole and hummous. Not pictured is the bloody mary mix. I made it as an afterthought, but wound up serving bloody marys to several of our guests.

Zack's daycare friends Benicio and Brandon (below) both came with their parents, as well as two of the daycare center's teachers, our landlady, and a few friends.

There were some folks who couldn't make it, and they were missed -- although it was the perfect number of people for our living room.

Cake! It was carrot cake with the yummy cream cheese frosting. Mommy helped him blow out the fancy candle...

And then Zack helped himself to some of Daddy's piece of cake.

The hunk he crammed in his mouth is the biggest thing I've ever seen him eat. I was following him around with a napkin for a few minutes, certain I was going to catch a fat wad of cake, but to my astonishment he worked it down without a hitch.

It was a great party. Zack got cool presents from everyone and, as Marc's expression will attest, had a good crazy time.