Marching into Spring

You haven't really been able to tell in the pictures from recent posts but Alex has been walking since early February. Now he's a regular walking machine. It's exciting to see all the progress he's making. He will walk into his room and just sit and flip through books for 10, 15, 20 minutes at a time while Julie and I are cleaning or eating. It's cute to poke your head in and see him intently looking at a picture in his book, not even knowing you're there. When he was born Jeff, Julie's brother, got him a pair of Converse All-Stars that we knew he wouldn't wear for a while. Last week Julie put them on for fun, and they almost fit. They make his feet look huge! NBA here we come!

Alex still loves to crawl around and put things in his mouth. This picture shows just what I mean. He loves Mickey Mouse and just happened to put the block in his mouth perfectly. Julie was able to get the camera in time. You can tell by the look in his eye the he knows he did something funny... what a ham!
Last weekend we were in La Crosse for Jon's 1st birthday party. Being only 5 weeks apart Jon and Alex will have lots of fun growing up together. They don't know it yet but they will probably get in all kinds of trouble (fun) together.



Alex played so hard one day that when Julie put him down for a nap he ended up sleeping like this. It was too cute to pass up a picture.

Next month we will be taking a road trip to South Carolina for Jeff's college graduation and were buying some things for the trip. This was the perfect hat to keep Alex's ears and head from getting fried by the sun while we are down there and out playing this summer. He thinks it's pretty cool. He likes to have it all the way down so you can't see his eyes.

One Whole Year

Hi everyone! Incase you haven't heard yet I had my first birthday on February 8th. Now that I'm 1 Mom and Dad are letting me write this blog entry. I want to show you some pictures from all the fun I had.

I was very lucky and got to celebrate my birthday THREE times. First was at home with my new buddy Tyler. He turned one a month before me, so he had this birthday thing down pat. He and I played while our parents watched the Super Bowl. On my actual bithday Grandma & Grandpa Fretwell came out to visit. They brought me a wagon to ride in and Mommy and Daddy gave me a play kitchen. The night before my birthday they put all my toys together so when I woke up the day of my birthday I could play with them... boy was I surprised! Then this past weekend we went to Grandma & Grandpa Fretwell's to celebrate my birthday again, and this time Grandma & Grandpa Kearney came up with aunt Jen. That was a lot of fun. Grandma & Grandpa Kearney gave me a Mickey plane that plays music, that thing is cool!

I got my first experience with cup cakes/cake. They were yummy! I got a cup cake each time we celebrated my birthday. I must be my mother's child because I barely made a mess. Despite some messy hands and face, I was very clean.

Mommy and Daddy didn't let me eat all of these cup cakes, but the one with the candle on it was all mine.

Look Mom, no bib!

This is my new wagon. I can't wait for the snow to melt so we can go for a walk.

Here's one of the many books I got for my birthday. This is one of my favorites.

Mommy and Daddy gave me a bubble bath. They must think I'm going to be the next Santa because they're starting on my white beard.

Ah, my favorite past time - pulling out baking pans. What you can't tell from the picture is that I'm getting ready to practice for my future career as a drummer.
I'm getting so big that I'm showing Daddy how to brush his teeth. He's learning, slowly but surely.
I hope you all liked my first blog entry. I'll try to update more often. Until next time I'm going to catch some rays.

Many meals, many laughs, many memories

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! Ours was busy. We spent Christmas weekend at Julie's parents in Amery, WI. Alex enjoyed his first Christmas and received wonderful presents, although he was more interested in the ribbon and playing with the cat. It was nice to spend time with family and relax. Alex also got to go sledding for the first time. The pictures don't do justice to how much fun he actually had. Unfortunately we only had one good weather day to go outside. He giggled going down the bumpy hill and loved making snow angels. The weekend following Christmas the Kearney clan came to Plover to celebrate the holiday. We made accommodations for 8 adults, two toddlers, and two infants. Much fun, food, and drink were enjoyed by all. Alex enjoyed playing with his cousins, aunts, uncle and grandparents so much he tuckered himself out... he took a two and a half hour nap after everyone left.

Alex has a push car he got from Kelly and Travis when he was born. Now that he is close to walking he loves it, and uses it all the time. It is cute to watch him motor all over the house pushing his cart.

Alex wouldn't be a Kearney boy if he weren't getting into some kind of trouble. In the first picture he got a hold of D.J.'s "Sport Illustrated" one day and decided to leaf through it while Julie was getting ready for work. The second picture shows Alex's favorite activity, pulling all of the Tupperware and utensils out of the drawers. One day he completely emptied the two bottom drawers. The only reason he didn't do three was because he couldn't reach.

With the Vikings in the hunt for a playoff spot D.J. wanted Alex to get into the spirit of things and taught him to do "touchdown". Unfortunately he didn't get to practice enough because Minnesota couldn't get in the end zone, but we did catch a cute pose on camera.

Not enough time in the day

Wow! It's amazing how busy the holidays are. Between D.J. starting to cover winter games, Thanksgiving, and getting ready for Christmas the past month and a half have flown by. First of all the little man continues to grow. He has started standing on his own. It is fun to watch him just stand there for about 30 seconds and then he decides to just sit down. We're taking bets on if he will be walking by Christmas.

We've let him start watching some cartoons. His favorite is Tigger and Pooh. He gets so excited to watch that he stands right infront of the TV. Also, since he has so many teeth we've started brushing them. He loves watching us while we brush so we started brushing his as well. He has a little grin on his face while we brush them.

Thanksgiving was spent at the Kearney's in Chaska. The whole gang was home, so we had 8 adults, 2 toddlers, 2 infants, and 2 dogs. A good time was had by all, except D.J. had bronchitis and was coughing most of the time. Alex enjoyed spending time with his cousins. He was very interested in Jon as they are only 5 weeks apart. They will be a handful as they get older... I see many mischevous adventures in the future. Since we had so many people we wanted to cook an extra bird, but Alex wouldn't sit still long enough to baste him.

Julie's birthday was on the 27th of November, she turned 27. Since it was her "golden" birthday we threw her a surprise party while home in Chaska. Julie's parents and brother came in from Amery as well as some other of Julie's friends. Needless to say she was very surprised and happy to see everyone. And she got to have her favorite, Dairy Queen ice cream cake.

With all the cold weather we got the chance to bundle Alex up in his elf and marshallow man winter outfits. And since the snow blower needs a tune up he came out side to help Mommy and Daddy shovel snow, he's got a smile on his face so I think he had a good time.

November has brought us many projects. The highlight came when D.J.'s parents came out to visit and his dad helped him put up crown molding and some cabinet work. After 12 hours the job was done (without any major injuries) and they sat back to admired their work over a cold beverage.

Happy Halloween

Alex is almost 9 months old now. We can't believe how fast the time is going, and how quickly he is growing. It's hard for us to even remember when he was so tiny and couldn't crawl. He is a bundle of energy. He loves to crawl all over the house, open cupboard doors, chase the cat, and play with his toys.

In the past month he's been starting to babble a little. He's started saying "Mama" but it comes out as "Baba" some times. He hasn't gotten anymore teeth, but is far ahead of schedule already having eight. Julie endured her first nights away from Alex as she had a business trip to Chicago. D.J. took Alex to Grandma and Grandpa Kearney's house while she was away. Both mother and boy did very well, but were very happy to see eachother when they got home.

On October 23rd we celebrated our 3rd anniversary. Grandma and Grandpa Fretwell took care of Alex so we could spend some time together over dinner.

Here's D.J. and Alex all ready to watch the Viking game. Unfortunatley they didn't show it... surprise, there was a Packer game on.

Alex got a new Vikings sweatshirt because he out grew his other Viking out fit so fast. Here he is proudly showing it off.
Alex loves to play with the remotes, and the other morning he got 2 of them and had a lot of fun playing with them.

Here's Alex taking his bath - D.J. wanted to see how "big" he could get Alex's hair, this is what we got, but Alex wanted to show you his duckie.

Alex has a couple different smiles, there's the one when he's laughing and it's a big smile, but then there's the sly little smile where his eyes will crinkle and his cheeks will raise to show his little teeth - this is my favorite smile because it's so genuine!!!!!This one is of Alex during trick or treating (we have it on Sunday during the day, so it's safer, but not quite the "Halloween spirit"). It was tiring for the little man to hand out so much candy. (We only went to a couple neighbor's houses, and passed on the candy - maybe in a few years.)
Here's Alex in his pumpkin costume with our other pumpkins, I know which one's my favorite, how about you?

Here's Huey, Alex's stuffed cat.
Here's Alex on his rocking moose.