Happy Birthday Luca!

When Luca was born, Christina and I talked about making an annual video to record the highlights of the past year for our family.  We are all at home together, snowed in, and decided to finally get around to finishing up this project.  

This past year has given us so many moments of pure joy that it became impossible not to indulge ourselves in memory and nostalgia.  Every picture and every video of Luca with all of the people who love him managed to leave us with big lumps in our throat and we couldn't bring ourselves to leave anything on the cutting room floor.   As a result you have two versions of the annual video.  So here it is...

Luca, Year 1

(Mom's version)

Luca, Year 1 

(Dad's version)




Untitled from Agnish Chakravarti on Vimeo.

Thank you to all the people who have figured so prominently in making the first year of Luca's life such a fun and memorable one!

Love,

Christina, Agnish, & Luca

Who's Your Grand Daddy?

Luca was obsessed with his grandpas...
Is Grandpa Gong Gong?



Or is he Dadubhai?

Thanksgiving Dinner

For some reason, I can't get the chronology of the pictures correct, so these are in reverse order.

Thus, here is Luca after his first Thanksgiving meal. Like the rest of the family, he changed into his bathrobe and regretted over-eating.


Our first Thanksgiving as a little family!



The paternal family...



The maternal family...

A lavish spread...

Thanksgiving Dim Sum

To demonstrate the gluttony that occurs when our families get together, we made the very unwise decision to begin Thanksgiving with a big Dim Sum lunch. Luca had a great time with Dad, Tai Po, Thamma, and Gong Gong. He also had a good time with Mom, Popo, and Dadubhai, but we're not pictured.

random pics

Dazed and confused after a particularly rowdy ride on Rody:




Luca's idea of heaven--warm milk and many balls.




Caught on a night when we realized that he didn't know how to sit down once he pulled himself up on the fridge. What a cutie!

One Teaser Photo

This is a very busy week for me so I will be way behind in posting all of our Thanksgiving and Family visit photos---here is just one picture taken by my dad of all of Luca's adoring female fans (Thamma, Mom, Tai-Po, and Po-po).
ps. Happy Birthday Agnish! We love you.

PEPS Birthday Party

All of the PEPS babies are starting to turn 1, believe it or not.   So we decided to have a group birthday party on Nov 9th - just about the midpoint of everyones' birthdays.

We were all at the Little Gym, which has preschool classes near our house.  The babies had fun using all of the gymnastics equipment and eating appropriately-sized cupcakes...we can't believe how quickly 12 months has passed...

More Halloween Pics

Luca's adoring fans have requested more Halloween pictures. Since Agnish and I did not do well with the camera, I've had to steal them from our more photographically-advanced friends.
First, here he is as Sigfried (Dad was Roy) at the Mitchell's party--note the tiny tiger on his neck.



Presto chang-o---In true Halloween magical spirit, same costume doubles as Young and Old Elvis...






Elvis and a Lion Tamer (kind of lame, I know...)

At the PEPS party, we had Elvis (young and old), Dorothy (baby and adult), Scarecrow (male and female), the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, a skunk, 2 cowboys, a strawberry, cat, puppy dog, and dog walker!

First Family from Oz...

Dorothy (how cute are her shoes!?) and the Cowardly Lion...

Second family from Oz...

Elvis is putting bets down on the skunk versus puppy race...

"I wish I could quit you..."

Skunk wants to eat a Strawberry...

Happy Strawberry Family.

More Pictures from Judith

Last Saturday we went back to see Judith Fernstrom (Luca's friend Benjamin's aunt) to take some more pictures. Luca was pretty crabby so I didn't think they would turn out very well---but once again, Judith has shown how amazing she is!

Check out the awesome photos she took here! I LOVE the one of him in the little chair!!
http://fernstromphotography.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/11/whos-so-big.html

Enjoy!

Halloween Party Highlights

Some videos from Luca's first Halloween...

Random Pictures

The drama of mealtime....

Comedy...

Tragedy...

Lounging with Anya at dinner.  We're going to need to watch these two when they are older. No sneaking off to the basement...

Spelunking practice...

A ball is in sight...

Kisses for Mommy

Luca & Rody

Luca learning to ride his new (inflatable) pony

Gimme 5

Luca and Joanne Duet

Here is a very adorable video of Luca and Joanne singing a Chinese duet while he eats.

Unfortunately, it is pulled from her cell phone and so it is very poor quality video and sound--thus, it is really only for those of you who are bored and/or truly Luca lovers :)

Pictures from Joanne's Cell Phone

In early September, Luca got to spend the day with one of his biggest fans, Han (Joanne's 8 year old son). They had a wonderful time together, going to the zoo, playing in the park, and taking walks!










here are some other pics that Joanne was able to grab off of her cell phone.
Le Luca when he is only 2 months old--Look how much hair he had then!!


Han and Luca's first meeting, in July:


Is it me, or does Luca look like a dog next to a water bowl here?


playing with mom in August (8 months old)


In late September--the outfit he is wearing here is a favorite of mine, Joanne's and Agnish's!

More tricks

Waving hi. Luca didn't get the hang of this until very recently, when his pals Cora and Liam (who had been waving for months) finally taught him. It was pretty funny to see the lightbulb go off over his head when he finally figured it out!




Reading with daddy, wherein he shows his love of balls and dogs.

Babyproofed

Luca loves being a prisoner. Hopefully this isn't an omen for things to come.

Tricks

Luca is at such a fun age now, it seems like every day we're realizing that he's figuring out the world. I'm trying to capture as many of his "tricks" on videotape as possible. Here are a few, hopefully more to come (got to learn to get handy with the video camera!)

Giving kisses on command...

Mom's take on pig versus ball:

Dad's take on the same trick:

PEPS revisited

I stole some funny pictures of our last PEPS meeting from Baby Jammy's blog.
Looks like Luca isn't the only baby who isn't headed down the path to AA. All the daddies look so proud to be raising beer swilling spawn.

PEPS is getting to be so fun now that the babies are up and crawling and playing with each other.

Luca is still not so good at sharing. :(

Some more random pics

Seems like it has been a while since our last post. But not much is going on, so here are some random pics.

Play date with Cora. She is getting bigger than him, we think (they have the same birthday).


The Puppy just had a bath...

Watching TV (Thamma, avert your eyes)...

He knows he is not supposed to watch.

Recently, is obsessed with pushing either the stroller or grocery cart.

It's very cute in real life.

Here's a good shot of his new buck teeth. He now has 7 teeth! (2 on the bottom, 5 on top)