Whew!  These past few days have been a whirlwind of activity.  We’ve been to several playdates and a birthday party, and then today a friend and I hosted Loretta’s baby shower at my house.

Lex isn’t in this first picture (he was by my side), but here’s our Wednesday playgroup:

Our friend Sam (from playgroup) turned one on Friday:

Not sure what Lex is doing in this picture (attempting the splits?) but this was at the birthday party:

Loretta at her baby shower (she’s due in October):

We had a great selection of food at the party (if I do say so myself).  Fruit kabobs, bagels and cream cheese, ham & cheese puff pastries, and homemade cupcakes.

And we actually got to use our front room for a change!

(Lex and his daddy spent the morning at Gymboree class, but yes, Lex did get a blue cupcake when he came home.)

Tim had a very eager helper at his side:

On Saturday we made the trek to Salem again and had dinner with Aunt Winnie.  Lex was in fine form that night.  He waved at everyone in the dining room and was in such a good mood…it was definitely contagious!

showing Aunt W pictures from our laptop:

Lex wanted to play with Aunt Winnie’s earrings:

Let’s see…what else has been going on…

Lex is learning new words right and left.  His vocabulary continues to flourish, as does his love of all vehicles.  The boy is obsessed with trucks, tractors and buses.  Today in the Fred Meyer parking lot we passed a red sports car and I kid you not, he said, “hot rod.” (It’s from one of his books.)  He still points out buses and trucks that are miles away, only now he’ll let us know if it’s a box truck or a big rig.

I’m slowly experimenting with leaving Lex in various forms of daycare/nursery care.  I’m currently taking a 45 minute Pilates class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, so I’ve been  leaving him in the playroom at the cafe where the class takes place.  He’s doing remarkably well.  He only fusses right as I leave, but then he’s easily distracted with toys.  And on Sunday Tim and I tried a new church for the first time, and we left Lex in the nursery for the hour and a half service.  When we walked in to pick him up, he gave us a huge grin and said, “Oh hi!”  He was being held by one of the gals though.  He usually latches on to someone and wants to be carried around most of the time.

Meanwhile Kiwi continues to recover from her pancreatitis.  We are so grateful that she is gaining weight and her blood tests continue to show improvement.  The poor dog has kennel cough currently though.  I think she might have caught it from staying at the vet hospital those two days.  So now we’re struggling once again to get some pills down her, but at least this isn’t life threatening.

Now now, to all of you who are gasping about Lex losing his curls…don’t you fret.  He did get his hair cut today, but only about an inch was taken off.  Lex initially enjoyed sitting in the fire engine chair at the salon, but he objected when his hair stylist tried to drape the plastic cloth around him to protect his clothes.  (I wasn’t surprised by this…the kid won’t even let me put a bib on him.)   And once she sprayed his head with water, he decided that he was done.  When the tears started flowing I took him to an adult chair and we finished the haircut with him sitting in my lap.  The whole experience only lasted about five minutes.

We were the only customers there at the time, so Lex got a chance to sit in all three of the fun chairs after his haircut was finished.

And they gave him a cup of animal crackers for being a good boy.