A Leap Day Treat

Two weeks ago we had some professional photos taken of the three of us (mostly of Mateo, of course). We have about 150 photos from the shoot -- here are our favorite 20. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do. Happy Leap Day!!

Photography by Emily Payne (www.emilypayne.com)

A Visit from Mateo's Savta

Well, it's been a little while since we've posted to the blog -- mostly because we've been extremely busy lately -- so here's a brief update of what's been going on. Mateo has been a joy and a challenge. A joy in that he can sit up very independently now and and has even begun to pull himself up to standing, which he is extremely proud of (as are we). Moreover, he's been extremely smiley and interactive and has the most adorable laughing spells (see the video posted below for a taste of this). However, the challenging part has been that Mateo started to refuse taking his bottle from our nanny Teresa, and he would no longer take it from us either, nor from our friends. We tried all sorts of suggestions we got from friends, family, professionals, and of course from the internet, but in the end, we decided to cancel the nanny last week and Jesse stayed home with Mateo every day to work on the bottle issue. Slowly, but surely, we were able to get Mateo to accept the bottle, if only for a small amount. We're hoping the trend continues when Teresa resumes watching Mateo later this week.

In other news, Jesse's mom Barbara (Mateo's Savta), flew out from Woodstock, NY to visit us for a short while. She had a great time seeing her grandson and we all had a lot of fun together. Here are some photos from the past few days:

Mateo (gnawing on a microphone) with his cousin Adin. We went over to Jenny, Amy, Talia, & Adin's house in Berkeley on Sunday for dinner, and we got to watch a bit of the Oscar's too, which is always fun since we don't have our own TV (however, it was also a little depressing because we realized that we haven't seen any of the nominated films -- in fact, I think we've only seen 3 movies total over the last six months -- having a baby will do that to you).

Cousin Talia is always super-excited to see Mateo.

And last but not least, this 1-minute video of Mateo laughing loudly at Daddy's peek-a-boo game will brighten your day.

Just Pictures

Mateo's First Solid Food

Last Thursday, we decided to feed Mateo his first solid food. For the past month, he's been increasingly fussy whenever he watches us eat, and he seemed fascinated by our food, so we figured it was time to include him in our meals. We started him on some organic brown rice cereal mixed with breastmilk, and he seemed to like it alright. He wasn't exactly thrilled with it, but he wasn't pushing it away either, and he seemed pretty entertained by the process. Here are a few photos:

And a few more miscellaneous photos from our weekend:

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

In celebration of Anita's birthday, we had a bunch of Anita's school friends pay us a visit, complete with pizza and ice cream. Many of them had not seen Mateo in a couple of months, so they were thrilled at what a charmer he had become. He loved being the center of attention!

Below are: Anita, Lucretia, Kim, Cara & Jessica with Mateo (Sarah didn't make it into the photos)

Party Time!

Daddy was out of town for the weekend, so it was time for Mommy & Mateo to play. Here are the main events:

BOWLING
The Women's Community Clinic (Anita's work) had a weekend social at the bowling alley. As usual, Mateo loved all the attention from everyone.

Mateo even got in on the action: if he can't bowl, at least he can keep score.

VISIT WITH THE COUSINS
We were lucky to get a visit from Mateo's cousins. Specifically, he met Sondra & Gordon Pearlman for the first time who are his 1st cousins twice removed (we looked this up) and got to see his favorite 3rd cousin, Elliot, and his parents, Mark & Tracey. We're unlikely to keep this cousin categorization from getting complicated... but the simple fact is that Mateo has lots of wonderful cousins who think he is great!

Mateo with Sondra & Gordon

Gordon Showing Off His Special "Baby Seat" He has Perfected Over the Years of Being a Grandfather

Elliot Teaching Mateo How to Play "This Little Piggy"

PARTY WITH THE DARCY/ANDERSONS
Once again, there was a big party with our "adopted California family" to celebrate Julie & Sammy visiting from Wisconsin. Things started out pretty mellow...

Moms & Babies: Julie with Samuel Charles (14 months) Anita with Mateo Nadav (5 months), Casey with Maya Mae (3.5 months), Sarah with Allie Chau (6.5 months)

Jen Playing with Mateo

Then the Baby Sunglasses Came Out...

And it got really crazy...

It makes you wonder what we all did to entertain ourselves before the babies arrived!