Wasaga with the Deasy's

Summer 2011 in Canada

My mum and Sarah at Alex's swimming lesson!

I got to celebrate my birthday with Ava-what fun!

Yeah! Tee Ball

A lot of standing around wondering what they are supposed to be doing :)

Alex is the one in red. Always wears his Canada sweat shirt.

Getting some tips from the coach!

Not sure how to get this one the right way up :(

This is the moment I have been waiting four and half years for! Alex to start organized team sports. However, I was very wary about giving up our precious family time but the tee ball season does only go for two months and the summers off so here we are starting baseball. These are pictures from his first practice. He is on the Red Sox team and his coach is Coach Adam (who is the nicest guy ever!). Alex was so super excited to start baseball just like his little friend Cooper. He wants to do everything just like Cooper does. The first practice was hilarious, a few of the players had actually played before but it was clear that most of them had never even hit a ball. He has practice every Monday and games on Saturday. I live for this stuff!!

Our New Bath

Jay said that Alex should wear his Tee-ball hat into the tub and get it wet so it would fit him better. Cool!

Not sure how I feel about our bath at our new house. It is called a soaking tub and it reminds of the tubs we had when I lived in Japan. You definitely can not stretch out and read a book but on the plus side you do get completely covered in water. I will let ou know how I feel when we get our first water bill. Alex on the other hand loves it, that is when he feels like taking a bath (which as of late is not very often-always a fight).

Tingley Beach

No, Albuquerque does not have a beach, but the little man made lakes sure are fun to fish in. This was my first time fishing ever!!! Since Jay has been on nights I took Alex out for his first real fishing experience. He had been asking to go ever since jay bought him a pole (which he promptly broke). There were lots of people from Fish and Wildlife there to help me set up the pole and put the bait on etc. Alex had a great cast and reeled it in like an expert. We did not catch anything which I think is a good thing, as Alex had the opportunity to reel in a fish and freaked out when the fish came near him! It was actually very funny and everyone around apparently thought so too. Lots of fun and we definitely be going back soon.

The Roadrunner

Being Silly on the train.

Playing at the Children's Museum.

Living in the hotel was definitely an experience. Although the suite had two rooms and a living room you could hear everything going on in every room and with Jay working nights and sleeping days Alex and I had to leave the hotel every day. So we played tourists doing all the things that I have never done in Albuquerque and seeing all the new things that have opened since we left. We were excited to take the Roadrunner train to Santa Fe to visit the Santa Fe Children's museum. This train did not exist when we left Albuquerque five years ago. It ended up being quite the adventure. While the train is great fun it is not so much fun being a slave to the bus schedule once you get there. That being said we realized once at the museum that we would have to leave right away in order to get back to the train on time. Luckily a very nice man overheard our conversation and offered to drive us to the station. Normally I would have said "thanks but no" but he had two young kids with him and an extra car seat and to top it all off he was CANADIAN so it was a no brainer. We had a lot of opportunity to chat and he and his wife (both veteranarians) had just moved from NC but before than Vancouver. Really nice guy!!! His kids also went to Montessori school and his oldest son was named Alexander. Very cool chance encounter. I might have to open another chapter of Canadians in Albuquerque in Santa Fe! I haven't even mentioned the Ragin' Grannies for Healthcare Reform on the train, but that is another story.

Albuquerque Zoo

Loved it so much we even got a membership. We spent 8 hours there! Especially loved the gorillas-not so much when one of them through poop at us. Not sure what that meant. I found the gorillas so fascinating-so human-like. They even clapped and tapped on the window when we would knock on it. Alex loves telling the story of the poop-what 4 year old does not love a good poop story.

Tori and Earl's Wedding

Tori and Earl finally tied the knot January 1st, 2011. They had a beautiful ceremony at their Lutheran Church and then the reception was at the Radison Hotel in Las Cruces. We all had lots of fun helping Tori with all the wedding plans particularly putting the biscochitos in their little boxes, and then eating the broken ones of course. Tori had all her family there to help too. Alex cut lots of rug on the dance floor showing all his breakdancing moves to everyone. Tori made a beautiful bride and we are so happy for the two of them! Congrats!

Alex and the Dogs

Alex with Otis. The newest member of the family.

Grandpa with Sydney, Sydney loves to sit up there with Grandpa.



Alex on the couch with Otis and Riley, always a fight for a spot on the couch.

Santa Baby

Too cute not to post!

Holiday Time

This is Alex doing one of his favourite things-cutting with a real knife!
Decorating our gingerbread house with Dad.
Cookie time!

The past few weeks have been a little crazy around the Gilson household. Having my shoulder operated on, trying to sell our house and keep it spotless all the time, Jay moving to Albuquerque, Thanksgiving, raising a toddler, trying to organize Christmas and trying to recover from having my shoulder operated on all have left very little time for anything let alone blogging. Here are a few pictures of us trying to keep things a little normal for Alex while everything around us is going crazy!! A very good crazy though and I would not have it any other way.

Alex the Viking

This is how Alex looks on any given day around the house. One of his favourite games right now is capture the dragon. Sydney plays the dragon, Alex is Stoikl the Viking and I am Hiccup. Our roles have changed a bit since the summer but the game play is still the same!

Turkey Trot

Instead of eating mounds of food this Thanksgiving Alex and I ran the Turkey Trot in downtown Austin with about 17,000 other Texans.

Parent-Teacher Conference

Alex has now been at Community Montessori School for about two months. I spent the first month bribing and begging him to get into the car every morning and feeling my heart break every time I had to leave my crying darling at school. He really did not like it. I think a big part of the reason was that he started about three weeks after most of the children so he felt like everyone knew each other and he didn't know anyone. He kept saying he had no friends (very hard for any mama to hear from their child) and that he didn't know anyone's name.

Well here we are two months into school and just the other morning he told me he loved school. He actually gets a hint of sadness on Saturdays because there is no school (he does not get that from his parents). He now has his little group of friends and according to his teacher a little girl who invites Alex to join her for tea everyday. Alex has told me about her and tells me that she loves to drink tea, but she talks too much. He also has the friend who he gets crazy with and has to be told not to work with him anymore. He loves tracing, table washing and the geometry cabinet. His teacher says he is not too interested in practical life anymore, but loves sensorial, he actually spent half an hour on the binomial cube trying to put it away, he got it upside down but managed to put it away.

Every day I am blown away with the things that he comes home with that he has clearly learned at school. There are a lot of thins that I can take credit for teaching him, but recently most of learning is definitely coming from Montessori. As a Montessori teacher I obviously wholeheartedly believe in the methodology but it wasn't until I had Alex that I got to see Montessori in practice in the home. I always saw things happening in the classroom, but it is reassuring to know that the lessons learned at school actually carry on over into practical use at home. I have many examples of this happening with Alex but a few of the ones that stick out in my mind are him helping with laundry and hanging clothes on hangers properly. The other night one of his shirts fell off the hanger and he actually went and fixed it. He has always loved to wash windows in our house but now he will notice that they are dirty and go get the squeegee to clean them. He loves to teach me lessons when he gets home from school and he always makes sure I have a mat to put my work on. He is so quick to correct any mistake that I make. He loves to do his homework which could be table washing or tracing numbers.

Toothless

With Jay away right now I am constantly looking for ways to entertain Alex. While shopping at Walmart yesterday I came across a Toothless (from How to Train a Dragon) costume on major sale -$2.99 - unfortunately they only had a 8-10 Robust (that is really what the package said) so I figured it would definitely not fit Alex but it would probably fit me-why not eh? I think I might be comparable to a robust eight year old??? Right???

Literally the first words out of Alex's mouth every morning are either "Can we play lost kitty?" or "Can we play Toothless and Hiccup and you be Toothless". There is no easing out of a deep sleep gently in this house, it is straight to the role playing games. So this morning it was the latter of the two morning questions and my costume idea gets to put into play. I sneak into the bathroom to change into my costume and as he is slaying dragons in the living room out comes Toothless aka Mama. I wish I had a camera to catch is expression-PRICELESS. He was completely floored that Toothless was standing in his living room. We had a ball playing this morning, just wish Daddy was here to play the part of the zippleback dragon.

Toothless is his absolutely favourite character right now and right before him there he was!! Bonus points for mum today. The costume was a little tight therefore no full body picture, that and my camera screen is broken so it is always a bit of a guesstimate when taking pictures.

Pluto

As I lay in bed beside Alex tonight he asked me if Pluto was very far away. I told him that it was VERY far away. He then told me that he loved me to Pluto and back. Just what I needed to hear after a very hard week with my shoulder. They never cease to amaze, surprise and delight...do they! And double bonus he is in bed and asleep before 6 o'clock, won't be so fun tomorrow morning but for now I will enjoy.

Halloween-Texas Style