*VIDEO* Alex posing in front of the Xmas tree 12-25-10

*VIDEO* Alex's First Christmas Morning 12-25-10

*VIDEO* Alex's First Christmas 12-25-10

Week 11

Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas Everyone! Happy Saturday! Wow what a week! Alex not only hit his first double digit week but now he already added another number! I really can't believe my little man is already 11 weeks old... time is flying by and not showing any signs of slowing down!

This week has been full of adventures. The biggest one being that I took him and Mia out (ALONE!) for the first time on a shopping trip. I really had to pick up his pictures from the studio in Moreno Valley. It has been storming all week and I mean BAD! and that day was no exception. Though the weather was good to us on the way up, on the way back home it was a nightmare! I ended driving through TWO huge downpours that really scared me! We made it back home safe but I will NEVER do that again!

A not so fun thing also happened to this week. Alex got his first shots! NOOO! I know it was horrible! Poor baby, the good thing is, he took it like a champ and though he cried a little bit he was fine the rest of the day. He never got a fever or cranky either! YAY! While at the doctors he was measured and turns out hes another big baby just like his sister was. And just like his sister he is above average in his height but below average in his weight. They aren't to concerned about the weight and neither are we. Mia was the same way and didn't start becoming average until after she was a year old!

Another HUUUUUUUUGE thing happened this week! He laughed for the first time! Though it is still pretty tough to get him to laugh I still have managed to do it a couple more times. Its the cutest sound I have ever heard and I love hearing it. I hope he laughs more and more...

Another huge even that happened this week (this week seems to be full of huge events) is that he not only took his first San Diego trip and introduced to his Cardoso side of the family for the first time, but he celebrated his first Christmas Eve! He was such a good boy and considering the long drive and him not being able to sleep as much as he wanted too while at the party he did really well. He only cried a few times and was MUCH better than Mia was at his age. Everyone loved meeting him and couldn't get over how cute he was or how blue his eyes are! Yep, he definitely stole the show.

I had alittle scare this week regarding my milk. Not sure if it was because I was sick or that I lacked more sleep than usual but it seemed to get less and less everyday. It got so bad that I could/can no longer pump to make extra for those nights Adrian can feed him. It has really started to concern me and I felt that formula supplementation might be around the corner, however, yesterday it finally started to show signs of coming back! YAY!!! I just need more rest than anything else... too bad that is so hard to come by these days.

Well thats about it for my little Coo Bear this week. I have so much going on playing Santa and getting ready for today that my mind is elsewhere. Hopefully I covered it all. Well I am sure I will have many more stories to share after we celebrate his very FIRST Christmas!

Christmas Eve 2010!

Current Mood: Cheerful

Wow talk about a crazy day! What started off as a stressful morning turned out to be a great day! Though I am beyond exhausted, I am really happen to see how the day went.

This year was the "Cardoso" side Christmas. Which means we spent Christmas Eve with the Cardoso family in San Diego. It was a big day for our little family, especially Alex, who would be taking his very FIRST trip to San Diego and his very first time meeting his family. So needless to say preparing for our trip was a bit stressful for me. What didn't help is that Mia woke up really congested and sick. She was sneezing all over the place and her little nose was like a fountain! I was so scared that she would be to sick to go but she seemed to pull around a few hours later. Alex too also had me concerned. He had diarrhea in the morning! Poor little guy was so fussy, I was so scared he was under the weather too! but like his big sister Mia he pulled out of it by mid-morning. I guess they both didn't want to miss the chance to celebrate Christmas with their family.

When the time came to finally go we packed up the car with presents and the kids. Right away Alex was upset. He really doesn't like his carseat AT ALL! and cried the whole way to the freeway. Mia tried to console him but it didn't work. Eventually he stopped and both of them fell asleep, and so did I!

Alex did awesome on the ride down considering. He did so much better than his Big Sister did on long trips. Though he would cry here and there, the crying sessions would never last too long and he was back to sleep again. The only times he really woke up is when we would stop or hit a pocket of traffic. Once the car slowed down or stopped he would wake up MAD, but fall back to sleep once we got going again.

It took us alittle longer than usual to get to our destination (Tia Gloria's house) because we hit a HUGE pocket of traffic on the 805. It got so bad that we had to take a detour around the 54 but we finally made it eventually.

We got the kids off the car and walked in the house. Right away EVERYONE wanted to see little Alex, the newest and youngest member of the family. Though he was crying when we pulled up, once we got into the house he stopped, so everyone got to see how cute he was. EVERYONE commented on how adorable he looked and how blue his eyes are. Needless to say, he really stole the spot light. Though Mia got some attention too, she looked all cute in her little "Snow Princess" dress.

After making his big entrance and said his hellos, Alex then started to cry. That is when his Tia Ana took him and comforted him so I could grab a quick bite to eat. I wasted no time and scarfed down some delicious tamales and other tastey treats. Mia did as well as Daddy fed her while she sat in his lap. After I was done eating I took Alex upstairs and fed him in Tia Gloria's room. In the meantime, Mia went NUTS playing with her cousins. She was running all over the place and having LOADS of fun. When I came back downstairs I finally got a glimpse of her and what did I see? Her face covered in chocolate! Yep she got into the cookies.. again! haha I didn't mind though it was Christmas so I let her be her own little cookie monster! She was having so much fun playing with her cousins that I rarely saw her. When I did, it was usually her chasing behind her cousins screaming! haha Ya she was having lots of fun.

We visited a bit more then Alex became grumpy. I then took him and rocked him in my arms and he eventually fell asleep on my shoulder as I sat at the table talking with the older cousins. I was so proud of holding my little man, however, the bad thing was, I was unable to watch Mia. All I could do was watch helplessly as she dove into all the decorations in the house and caused trouble. Luckily Daddy came to the rescue and was pretty much on top of her, however, there were a few times where he had to leave for a short while and Mia took full advantage of that. She never broke anything though but she did do her own decorating with their tree and ornaments.

Soon it was time to go since we still had to make another stop at Grandma and Grandpa Santos' house. So we packed up the kids again and said our goodbyes. Mia didn't want to leave but once we told her we were going to Grandma's house she got all excited. She loves to go there because she knows how much fun she has coloring, visiting Grandma and getting into mischief! haha

On the drive to Grandma's house she was all excited to see all the Christmas lights on all the houses. Alex, however, wanted no part of it and cried the whole ride there. Luckily Grandma's house wasn't to far from where we were so so made it there in no time.

I took a crying Alex off the car as Daddy took Mia. He showed her the Christmas lights on the house then we all walked in. We were quickly greeted by Grandma. Alex quickly calmed down once we made it into the house. Both Grandma and Grandpa couldn't believe how BIG he has grown. Grandpa Fernando had not seen him since he was born, so what a big surprise it was for him to see how much Alex had grown.

As soon as Mia made it into the house she went straight for their toy area and busted out some crayons and a book. She didn't care that she had presents waiting for her, she wanted to color! It took some coaxing to get her away from coloring and once she realized she had "prizes" to open, she quickly ditched the crayons and dove into the presents.

She went into a present unwrapping frenzy! She had presents there from both her Grandparents but also her Auntie Rebeca, Uncle Richard and cousins Natalia and Brianna too! She tore through all the presents and ended up opening Alex's too!!! They both made out like bandits and not only got really cute clothes but also toys! Mia even got a big princess blanket to the name "Princess Mia" on it from her Grandparents! It was too cute. One of the cutest things that happened though, is when she opened one of her presents and was all excited, she quickly turned to her Grandma and without being asked to and completely on her own she said "Thank you Grandma!". Of course this melted Grandma's heart and mine as well. She is always so polite now and thanks everyone for everything, I love it. Well once all the presents were opened, then Mia picked out what she wanted to play with and took off with it. Of course it was Alex's present but he didn't mind.. he was too busy playing superbaby with Grandpa.

Then Grandma brought out their little bird "America". It is a little gray tamed cockatail. Mia got really excited about seeing the bird but really didn't want to touch it.

After getting bored with her presents Mia ran off to color some more. That is when Grandpa Fernando took her to the music room to show her all of his instruments. She right away took out the drum sticks and started to pound on the drums. She actually had some rhythm which surprised me a bit. I guess all those times Daddy takes her to Best Buy to "play drums" has really paid off. I can't wait until she opens one of our presents we got her, its a electronic drum set!

Alex was did pretty good. Grandma held him and he fell asleep so we really got to visit for awhile, while Mia colored at the kitchen table. Then he woke up and was hungry so I fed him in the livingroom. That is when things started to go downhill. He was fussing BIG time and wouldn't really eat well. I burped him a few times but that didn't seem to stop him. Eventually Grandma came to the rescue and she managed to get a few more burps out of him. Poor baby was gassy. Then he started to spit up and EVERYWHERE. As much as I tried to stay on top of him and make sure he didn't get his Grandma's black shirt... he still managed to tag her ... BIG TIME! Sigh.. ah well. After his little puking incident he finally felt better and started to smile and coo again.

Mia was having fun sitting on Grandpa's lap and watching YouTube videos of little kitties. He also played Twinkle Twinkle little star for her and she went NUTS! She started dancing all over the place and sang the song for them. I was so happy that they got to see her version of "Twinkle Stars"

Soon it started to get late so it was time to go. We didn't want to get home too late since we still had lots of "Santa" business to take care of. So we packed up the kids and said our goodbyes. Again, once Alex was in the carseat he started to cry again and didn't stop until we hit the freeway. Mia was not happy about this and complained in the backseat since she couldn't sleep with Alex screaming. Once we were on the freeway though Alex calmed down and slept most of the way. He did wake up a couple of short times but he was soon back to sleep.

Once we got home, Daddy took Mia off the car and carried her off to bed. I took Alex off and put him near the back door as I unloaded the car. He didn't make a peep, infact he stayed knocked out in his car seat for over an hour!!! That gave me some time to run around and play Santa and prepare things for Christmas. Once I was all set I took him out, woke him up and fed him. After he ate he went right back to bed. Talk about tired!

Well thats about it for our little Christmas Eve adventure! I can't wait until tomorrow when the big even officially happens.... its Christmas Time!!!

*VIDEO* Alex hanging out on Christmas Eve 12-24-10 (10 weeks)

Alex Laughs for the First Time!!!

I did it!! I did it! I finally managed to get my little man to laugh!!!!! I am so excited!! Wow what a great start to the day!

For sometime now I have started to notice that he was getting closer and closer to laughing. He is such a happy, smiley baby that I knew it wouldn't take very long before he discovered how to laugh (other than in his sleep that is). Then yesterday he took a huge step towards laughing...

It was evening time and things were winding down. He had just eaten and pooped! So after I changed him, and Mia was off playing with her toys, I decided to squeeze in some quick Mama/Alex time. He was laying on his back on the couch and I was next to him talking to him, stroking his cheek (which he LOVES) and playing with him. He was smiling all big and cooing like crazy. Then I did his next favorite thing (which I just recently discovered a couple of days ago) I took both his little hands and shook them around (gently) all while saying "hi hi hi hi". He goes nuts when I do this and was on the verge of laughing!! I tried so hard but I just couldn't coax that little chuckle out. I tried and tried and finally gave up when be became bored with our little game.

Well it finally happened though, today was the day he choose to give Mama an early Christmas present. It was early morning and I just fed him. I was drained and tired and really wanted to attempt to catch another hour or two of sleep before Mia woke up for the day. Unfortunately, Alex didn't want to go back to bed. Usually we have some one-on-one time in the morning but I was way to tired. I put him down hoping that he would get tired since the sun had not come up yet. WRONG! It didn't take long before he started to call out to me and get a little fussy. I felt guilty for putting him back in his bed even though he wasn't very tired so I got up to get him.

Once I reached him in the pack and play napper, he took one look at me and smiled all big! Though it was still pretty dark in the room his little gummy smile shined through. I couldn't just leave him there, so I talked to him a bit seeing if he was tired... nope... so I picked him up and laid him on the guest bed on top of his Grandpa's blanket (which he loves to nuzzle by when he sleeps on the bed). I laid down next to him and chatted with him. I was so sleepy and my eyes felt so heavy. I was hoping he would get tired soon so I could go back to bed.

I tried to shut my eyes for a bit but all his cooing kept making me want to look at him. Yes, hes a charmer already! So I talked to him and soon started playing as well. I really got into making him coo and smile. I then started to play peek-a-boo with him and that really got him cooing and smiling. Then I started to tickle him a little below his neck, on his upper chest, like I always do and for the first time I started to see a tiny laugh starting to break through!!!! I got excited! So I tickled him some more and really acted silly. He lit up more and sure enough I heard it! He started to laugh! A cute little baby laugh! I was floored! I couldn't believe what I just heard!!! So I did it again and again he started to crack up! The more I did it the more he would laugh. I was stunned and I think he was too because when he stopped he looked all shocked haha. I tried again a few more times but it only worked a couple of times before he grew bored and finally became tired.

YAY!!!! Alex hit a milestone! I am so proud and so extremely excited that my little guy can laugh now!! I can't wait to share the good news and really can't wait to capture it on video! I am still in shock that he did it so early too! Mia was a little over 3 months before she laughed for the first time (and it was Daddy who got to see it first). I always felt alittle bummed about that since I tried so hard everyday to get her to laugh but never could. Then Adrian plays with her and she choose him to laugh at (while I was away) I was a bit sad. So having this moment with Alex really made my day! I am so happy he choose me!