Stand and Walk Little Man

Neli decided to walk on his own at 15 3/4 months. He was up past his bedtime and full of fun cousin/family energy at thanksgiving. He just stood up and started walking like his ancestoral great apes. When he fell he got up and took off again and again. A week or so later he hasn't seemed to have that much interest in repeating his walking feat.

A Halloween Story

15-16 Month Action

Baby Talk

Neli has taken to talking before walking. See his progression of vocabulary from 13 months to 15 months old.

14th Month of Fun

A sampling of all things fun in the 14th month of Neli.

First Steps (with help)

Just out of the blue Neli wanted to take some steps (at 13 months) The weird thing is he took about a month off before he showed any interest again in taking steps.

1st Birthday Dance Party

Neli One Year Relentless Love

Like they say "the years fly by fast", or in this case one year of relentless love will complete its turn on August 4th. Every morning he is up ready for a new day of learning and everyday something new is learned. Whether it is how to master crawling, as he has this last month of year one or his fascination with pressing buttons this little guy's waking hours are all about experiencing the moment. Us parents are co-explorers, observing as he does. Nadine as a principle investigator armed with her night-stand reference library and myself as the data collector taking hundreds of photos and videos to reflect upon in the future.

A whole new world of the outside has opened up to him through a portal you and I know as the doggy door. One moment he is in the house pushing the flap and the next he is whooshed out to the dirty flagstone yard of chickens, flowers, and sticks.

He has almost six teeth in and happily crunches on cereal. There is not much he is not interested in eating. His new skill of waving good bye to mommy, daddy or visitors is getting honed in (as in he will do it when someone waves to him and not minutes after the person has left) and at times he will wave good bye to the dog in anticipation of her fleeing his approach. He still has little to no stranger anxiety and yesterday decided to crawl across the whole park to check out the basketball court, the balls being his point of interest.

One year down, the rest of our lives to go.

11 Month Fun

Neli and Greta

Hat, Hat, Hat

The Starving Baby

Neli's nanny Tessie has called Neli the "Starving Baby". He seems to have an non-stoppable interest in feeding himself.

Opening Door, Tickling, and Tounge

Neli Meets A Chick

Locomote!

Maybe he is related to elephant seals? This is his first "crawl" ever.

Eating Glasses

One of Neli's favorite past-times. This is a video might only be suitable for diehard Neli fans - 3 minutes of baby babbling and sucking on glasses, not much else to see.

Oatio Magic

Learning to feed himself.

Neli Eating

So this might be only suitable for the diehard Neli fans. Almost three minutes of Neli eating! Not the most exciting flick in the world but we enjoy watching his hands while he eats and wonder if he will continue to wave his hands in the air when he eats as an adult?
We also wonder if his skin is a tan hue cause of all the sweet potatoes he eats? It is a fact that a doctor once thought Nadine was jaundice cause of her orange skin from eating too many carrots.

7 Month Dance Party

Highlights from Neli's 7 Month Birthday Bash.
This day has enspired us to celebrate with daily afternoon dance parties.

New Years Greeting 2008

Grease Lightning

In 2005 the farm apprentices where I work said they we doing a rendition of Grease - "Farm Grease". I didn't let this opportunity for my first stage performance pass me by. I got to sing Grease Lightning. I played Kinicke, Danny's best friend. It was incredible how great this musical worked out even though we hardly rehearsed.