So I went to pick up our Christmas cards today and while our portrait sheets were in, the cards had been delayed. Which turned out to not be such a bad thing because they gave me a sheet of different sized pictures for free to make up for it. So I have received four portrait sheets for free (a $40 value) and the Christmas cards worked out to be $.50 a card. (The deal was 50% off and a free 8x10, we ordered a couple extra sheets, which caused the price to be high enough to trigger a discount equal to the price of the two extra sheets. That part was just luck, we didn't know it would do that.)

Here's the one that's being used on our Christmas cards:

We ordered a couple of sheets for this pose:


This is the one that we got for free! Yay!

Tonight I took Costa to get his Christmas pictures taken. They're already online!

Here is the one I chose for the portrait package:


( Other pictures that were taken )

We actually have another appointment on Thursday at a different photo studio for all three of us to get a picture taken together for greeting cards. (It is much cheaper to go to multiple studios for different shots because while their portrait package is a very good deal, if you want any additional photos it can become really expensive.) It will be our first professional shot as a whole family so that will be cool.

Costa didn't seem to enjoy Thanksgiving all that much. We went to a big family gathering at my in-law's in-law's home (yes, I meant to say in-law's twice) and I think it was just too many new people. He refused to eat any of his Thanksgiving dinner. It was mostly foods he had never eaten before and along with being overstimulated and late for his nap, he was just not in the mood to be an adventerous eater. When he started melting down I took him over to Grandma's house, where he did a lot better, but still didn't want any of the weird Thanksgiving food. Finally, I just gave him a banana and he ate nearly the entire thing.





( Gobble gobble... )( Read more... )

Well, Costa technically can walk now...we've seen him take as many as 12 steps before falling over, but he still crawls everywhere he wants to go. And I am afraid we have sabotaged his attempts to learn to walk. We didn't want him to get upset when he fell down, so whenever he fell down we made sure to stay happy and cheer him on anyway. And now, he thinks it's more fun to fall over than to walk! We can barely get him to walk now because he immediately falls down on purpose. And even when he's not walking, one of his favorite games is to be on his knees and put his hands up in the air and then bring them down as hard as he can against the floor as if he was falling. So at this rate, he's still going to be crawling for awhile...

We were rear-ended by a drunk driver tonight.  Matthew might have a small bit of whiplash, but other than that we're all okay.  Costa was sleeping when we were hit and cried out but then immediately went back to sleep.  Our rear bumper has a crack about five or six inches long.  This is a brand new car that we just bought in July, so really not appreciated. Matthew got out to talk to the driver and the driver actually had a beer bottle in his hand.  When Matthew went to call the police to report the accident, the driver fled the scene.  We noted the license plate number, but I'm not sure it's going to do much good because when the police ran the number we gave them the car came up being registered to some woman in Nebraska and it is registered as a Mercury Sable but I distinctly remember seeing the little Chevy cross symbol on the front of the car, so I'm confused.  One possibility is it wasn't actually a WA license plate, but it seems like it would have stood out to us if it had been from a different state (I am also confused how anyone would have WA license plates, but be registered in another state.  Wouldn't you put down a local address when you applied for the plates?)  The other possibility is that we're remembering the number wrong, since it was over an hour until we got to talk to the cop.  However, we would have given the number correctly to 911 I'm sure, so it may be good if someone would go back and listen to that call.  Maybe we should mention it to the insurance company when we call to report it tomorrow (sounds like the insurance company is going to being doing a lot more investigating of this than the police).

It's interesting because before I left my mother's house this evening it turns out my mother and I were both worrying that I would get into a car accident on the way home (we did not discuss this with each other until after the fact though). As I was driving I was actually contemplating how Matthew and Costa would get along without me if I died in a car accident but Costa survived (Matthew wasn't in the car at this point as I was going to pick him up from work, the accident happened after I had picked him up and he was driving) so when the accident actually happened I was relieved to find out that my premonitions were a bit on the exaggerated side.

( Pictures from this weekend )

Costa took his first steps on Halloween.  He can only do two at a time before falling over, but at least it's something.  Maybe he will learn to walk eventually!

He knows 8 signs now.  He can sign "milk" "all done" "more" "eat" "book" "cheese" "yogurt" and "banana".  The last four he needs to work on a bit more, but we can understand what he means and that's the important thing.  He might have even more signs that he does because he often moves his hands in a way that deliberately looks like he's trying to do a sign but we're just not sure what he's trying to say.

One year ago....


Today!

This morning when Costa woke up, he immediately crawled over to the nightstand where his favorite book was sitting. He brought it over to me so that I could read it to him. Matthew entered the room shortly afterwords and I stopped reading to talk to him. Costa did not approve of this. He made his unhappy grunting noises to let me know that I was supposed to be reading to him. Matthew took over the reading and at one point he happened to be holding the book in a way that his hand covered up one of the animals in the book. Costa grabbed his dad's hand and pulled it out of the way so that he could see. Our baby does not let anything stand in the way of him enjoying a good book.

I have so many pictures I want to post online but the website is being so slow uploading them.  I have at least managed to get all the birthday cake pictures uploaded.  That's the important thing!

We had Costa's birthday party yesterday (Saturday).  It was just a small party in the park.  It turned out pretty nice.  The day before that we took Costa to the fair, which was fun.

Costa now weighs 25 lbs 7 oz, which means he's gained a pound a month since he was 6 months old.  Hopefully, he will slow down now!

He's just recently figured out how to wave goodbye (actual waving, not just sticking his hand out in front of him like he's been doing), make the sign for "milk" and crawl down the stairs. 

Now for the birthday cake pictures!

( Yay, cake! )

Happy Birthday to Constantine, who will officially be one year old in one hour and thirty four minutes!!!

Here is a picture of me on my first birthday and Costa on his with the same toy (And it still works too, 26 years later!  They don't make baby toys like that anymore!)

Costa turned 11 months yesterday...one more month and I'll have a one year old, pretty crazy.

It's cool because he's getting to be able to understand more and more of what we say to him.  The most interesting thing is he knows the word "walrus".  He has a book with a walrus in it and if I ask him where the walrus is, he'll get a huge smile on his face and point to it.  I think he likes it because he finds my walrus imitation hilarious.  I can't wait until he's a little older and I'll teach him how to do a walrus imitation himself. He won't be like the normal toddlers going around with their "woofs" and "meows" and common animals noises like those!  Nope! 

He got to meet his one and only cousin (first cousin, that is, don't want to offend any of his second cousins or first cousins once removed that may be reading this) today.  She's almost two, the last time I saw her she was 6 months. She's turned into the most rambunctious toddler ever (though maybe some of that was the pent up energy from the plane ride, we'll see if she calms down at all).  She ran right over to Costa when she saw him for the first time and hugged him, saying "hello, baby".  It was pretty cute.

Now for baby pictures...



( More pictures )

So about three months ago Costa started babbling.  He babbled for a couple days before apparently deciding that babbling wasn't anything he wanted to do any longer.  Of course, he'd still makes noises, but they were sounds like 'ahhhh' and 'mmmm' not what I would consider babbling.  I wondered about it periodically, why no more babbling?  I wondered if it was a sign that he would be a late talker too, since both Matthew and Matthew's grandfather didn't start talking until the age of 3!  Yesterday I actually mentioned my wonderings to Matthew, right there in front of Costa, and it's almost like he understood me because after three months of no babbling, he was babbling all day long today.  Silly baby.  His favorite noise to babble sounds like "blah blah blah".

Another cute thing that happened today was Matthew was unloading the car and Costa was sitting by the front door watching him. 
Then at one point when Matthew went back to the car, Costa shut the door behind him.  When Matthew tried to open it up again, Costa  wouldn't let him, and was laughing about the whole thing hysterically.  At one point after Costa had shut the door on him, I asked him "Where's daddy?" thinking he might understand because we play peek a boo type games where we ask him "where is so and so?".  And he understood, he started clawing at the door trying to open it back up, which was pretty cute.

We found a baby floating ring and it works so well for Costa.  For the first time today he was able to completely relax in the water.  He figured out right away how to kick his legs and move forward.  He even stuck his face in the water numerous times, sometimes even deliberately!  This is quite an improvement from the baby that would shriek and cling to me as soon as his feet were immersed in the water.



( more summer fun )

Today is Costa's 10th month birthday and he decided to celebrate it by climbing up an entire flight of stairs for the first time.  Before this he's only managed to climb up one or two steps at a time, never more than that.  And today, all of a sudden, he climbed up the entire flight! (I was right behind him the whole time, don't worry.)

I will have to try and post baby pictures later today.

So we are in the process of moving to a new apartment.  Our old apartment is a one bedroom, extremely cramped apartment with noisy, horribly inconsiderate neighbors.  The new one is an over 1000 sq feet two bedroom townhouse with a strict noise policy and a swimming pool! Yay! We're actually only subleasing it for a couple months; then we will probably be moving into student housing because that is a lot more affordable, but we are kind of tempted to sign a lease and stay for a year.  We'll see how it goes.  It'd be fine if we're both working part-time...but I don't want to count on that for the next year because my job is not that dependable for the long term.

Now for some baby pictures....

Costa discovers yogurt...


( Read more... )

Tonight Costa just started randomly kissing his relection in the mirror.  It was pretty cute.  You could tell he was making a special effort to turn his face up enough so as to go for the lips and not bump noses.





I also have pictures from this weekend that I should post eventually.

More baby updates since I'm posting: Costa has learned that raising hands upwards=pick me up and I think he's also starting to get the concept of waving goodbye.   He is definitely going through the "I like mommy best" stage, but nothing too severe so far.  I can still leave him with his grandparents just fine, but when I return he gets all excited and immediately crawls over to me.  If I leave the room, he'll come look for me.  He likes his dad a lot too though.  When Matthew will get home for work or school, Costa will throw up his hands upon seeing him, as if to say "pick me up, dad!"

So I was just changing the baby's diaper and he wasn't too happy about it because he has much more important things to do then sit around and have his diaper changed.  It's always a bit of a struggle to get him to stay on his back.  When I finished changing him, I announced, "There we go!" and his slightly annoyed little face changed to happy and he started clapping his hands.