Summer Fun

Since school has been out the Wines have been busy enjoying the summer. We were "summering in West Virginia" for most of the month of July. Alex had a blast playing in his new froggie pool. Alex and I went to Ohio for a few days to visit my best friend Sandra and her family. Then I spent a wonderful few days in the mountains of North Carolina catching up with my student council friends. We headed back to the Big Apple the last week of July to visit with our friends Jeannie and Buddy who were vacationing in NYC. We gave them the walking tour of lower Manhattan and went to the Central Park Zoo. Alex was a great tourguide!!! Then Jeannie and I headed to Washington, DC to attend the big fitness convention we go to every year. Suddenly I looked at the calendar and there are only about three weeks left in the summer.....oh no!!!!!!!! We have to hurry up and have more fun before I have to head back to work!!!!

Happy Birthday Alex!!

Yes, our "little" Alex has celebrated his first birthday. Thanks to Aunt Carol and Aunt Jennie who came to take wonderful pictures....I had about 500 to look through thanks to their great photography work. The Wines and the Mortons were out in full force bringing about 30 people to Mom and Dad's for his party.

Everything was going great until he grabbed his candle before I could blow it out. Granddad Wine came to the rescue with a cup of cold water. Then he had his first lesson in color mixing....yellow and blue make green....all over his face. I know that you all will be SHOCKED (not) that we had a WVU theme....to go along with his monthly pictures of course. Grandma Sue is visiting us in NY and school is almost out!!! YEAH!!!!!!!

Let's Go Mets!!!!!

What a glorious Thursday afternoon we had this week. I went on a field trip with my school to Shea Stadium for "Weather Education Day" to see the Mets play the Nationals. OK, the "weather education" part of the day was really a bogus excuse to get kids (and teachers) out of class to go enjoy baseball. We did get to see Daryl Strawberry, who was there with the local weather team.

The best part of the day was that Sean brought Alex to the game too!!!! His first MLB game in the final year of Shea Stadium. My students were so excited to see Alex. And Alex was, of course, a complete joy for the whole day. The only down side was that the Mets managed to lose the game, boooo!!! Oh, well! I still had a great day!!

Spring Break!!

Oh I've been so slow to post new info!!! We were away in WV for spring break....just where everyone always wanted to spend spring break...central WV!!! The week started off great!!!! We took Alex to the WVU Gold-Blue scrimmage game on Saturday, April 19...his first game at Mountaineer Field. We went to watch Zach Flynt play!! Zach was in our wedding and certainly made us proud with his play. After the game we had dinner with the team in the practice facility. Alex was so funny...he was afriad of the field turf and didn't want to touch it at all. We tried really hard to get him to take some steps on his own since he had no desire to touch the turf and crawl, but he was content to just sit or stand in place.

He did decide to go ahead and take those first steps a few days later in the week. Yeah!!! First steps. My how quickly he is on his way to being a real "big boy." He had so much fun in the warm WV spring weather swinging in the swing his Granddad Wine hung in a tree for him and "driving" the tractor. Cousin Elizabeth was visiting for the week (Jennie's 2 year old) and she had fun playing with the chickens and wading in the creek......until..........it hit.................

THE SICKNESS!!!!!! Elizabeth got sick with some kind of stomach virus (Jenn calls it the "Gem Chicken Flu" and we call it "Typhoid Elizabeth.") Before the end of the week it had hit both my mom and dad, Alex (yes my baby was sick at his stomach for the first time.), Sean, me, Sean's Dad, two sisters, nephew and mom....in that order. Elizabeth was sick on Wednesday and everyone else followed on Friday, Saturday, Sunday.....on into the next week. Not quite how I envisioned ending my spring break.

So we're back in NY awaiting Alex's big first birthday.....party at the Cunningham house on Sunday....WVU theme of course to match his blanket pictures. We love days when the weather is nice enough for all of us to go to the park after school. School we'll be going on for over another month up here. We go clear til the end of June...yuk!!! But summer is right around the corner.

Alex is 10 Months!!!

Our GROWING boy is 10 months old!!!!! How big he is getting and how much fun it is to watch him explore his world!!

This past month has been full of firsts. He went to church with Grandma and Granddad Wine on Easter Sunday. He even got to participate in the Right Hand Fork Easter Egg hunt. He didn't win a prize for the most eggs, but he was the cutest baby (OK, the only baby, but still cute.)

We were so excited the WVU Mountaineers beat Duke (take that ACC) in the "big dance" to advance to the Sweet 16. Too bad they couldn't keep the winning streak going past Xavier. It was better than most people expected us to play this year. The women's team bowed out early too, but they still had a great year.

We (by we I mean me, Sean had nothing to do with this) decided to let Alex attempt to "feed" himself. I think he got the correct end of the spoon to his mouth all of 3 times, and I don't know that there was any food on it. But he certainly had fun playing with his food while I fed him with another spoon.

Yesterday we finally had a nice spring day here in NYC. It was warm and sunny. So Alex (not wanting to be "out funned" by his cousin Elizabeth) asked us to take him to the park. He was so interested to see what the other kids were doing. He climbed on the little kids play set all by himself (with mommy a step behind) and daddy would help him slide down the little slide. He really enjoyed the swing most of all. He just giggled and laughed!!! We are hoping for more warm days to play at the park.

March Madness!!!

We decided to kick the March Madness "holiday" off in style by taking Alex to his first college basketball game. What a treat it was. He got to see the WVU Mountaineers beat St. John's in overtime. And since we live in NYC how lucky little Alex was to see his first college basektball game in Madison Square Garden. He was decked out in blue and gold from head to toe....WV ball cap, WV onsie, blue and gold Nike pants, WV socks......and there's more.....WV pacifier, WV spoon for his lunch, WV sippie cup, a tiny Mountianeer, and a WV basketball....AND a WV backpack for Mom to carry it all in. You KNOW you're baby is cute when even the opposing team's fans tell you how cute he is. He was so good at the game. He watched the people around us and loved the lights in MSG. He loved the St. John's band and "danced" to anything they played. (If you consider jumping up and down dancing.) He even napped from about 10 minutes to go in the second half...but woke up just in time for overtime.

We won't press our luck with his good ballgame behavior. The Mountaineers are on their own this week when they return to the Garden for the Big East Tournament. We'll be content to watch from our living room in Sunnyside.

Alex is 9 Months!!!

Oh my!!! I can't believe how time is flying by. It's so hard to believe that Alex is already 9 months old!!! We took him to the doctor for his checkup and he officially weighs in at 24 pounds (just 1 pound shy of his cousin Elizabeth who is 2 years old!!!) and he is 29 1/2 inches tall. Sean says he is in the "Shaq Percentile" for height and weight. He has cut a few new teeth and is up to 6 total now. We don't always brush twice a day, but we are beginning to brush.

We got to go home to WV last month during my mid-winter break. We traveled to New Martinsville to surprise Sean's sister Sonnie for a belated birthday greeting and also squeezed in a trip to Webster Springs to see Cathy, Joe, and Sarah and Tammy too!!! We were lucky enough to be treated to a WV snow....finally some fun winter stuff to play in. We bundled Alex up tight and took him out to the barn to see the snow and the horses.

He also got to attend his first live sporting event while we were home. It was a Lady Eagles basketball game...go figure!!!! We were treated to watch Tiffany Huffman score her 1000th career point. Afterwards I got to congratulate both Tiffany and her teammate Shauna Pritt who had reached her 1000th point earlier in the season. That brings the 1000 point club to 8 members total (Cousin Lori Cunningham, me, Aunt Jennie, Mindy Kniceley, Mary Grace Carson, Michelle Facemire, Shauna, and Tiffany.) We were surprised to see our cousin Joe Moses at the game too. Alex climbed right off of Grandma's lap and onto Joe's like they were long lost buddies!!!

Alex is becoming a real flirt. While we were home he started "blinking" at his Grandma Wine (like winking except with both eyes!!) She would just laugh and laugh. Well, Alex is a born entertainer like his daddy. Soon he was blinking at everyone, even Jennie's dog Kennedy. It was a treat when Jenn and Elizabeth came down to visit while we were home. Alex just jumped and jumped in his exersaucer at Grandma's. I don't think I've ever seen him so excited to see anyone.