Mateo is One!

Little Man Mateo is now officially one year old! We celebrated his birthday at the beginning of the month with a small family gathering. As is to be expected with a first birthday, the birthday boy was as enamored, if not more so, by the wrapping as the gifts themselves, the older sibling was more than helpful with unwrapping said gifts, and the man of the hour was not quite sure what to think of his first experience with cake. But fun was had by all and our baby is turning into a little boy right before our eyes. He's trying to communicate a lot more with sounds and hand signals (and banging his head on the floor when he's tired and wants to be held), and I have decided that his first official (i.e. intentional) word was ball ("ba!"). He also loves putting Emilia's headbands in his hair all by himself (in the picture above he has one around his neck); I think he's trying to keep up with his ultra-fancy sister.

Mateo models the poncho Tio Jojo and Tia Tara brought him from Chile

And here are a few more pictures from the past few weeks:

Emilia models one of her many homemade costumes; I forget what she was supposed to be here, but take note that she's wearing puppets as slippers

Enjoying a warm day in the backyard; Mateo isn't a big fan of the big pools yet, but loves the bath and the little plastic pool

Although Mateo took his first steps several weeks ago, he has preferred crawling as his primary means of locomotion until just recently. Now he takes as many as 8-10 steps at a time and enjoys showing off his walking skills. He still looks like a drunken sailor most of the time, but our cheers and laughter just encourage him to keep practicing the walking. I'll bet it's his preferred way of getting around within a week or two.

With Yaya and Grandpa at a different birthday party (note Emilia and her doll are wearing matching outfits--the result of shopping with Yaya)