Andrew’s enjoyed the fall weather.  He’s hung out around the house, we’ve gone pumpkin picking, and we got him a swingset.  Here are some photos of what we’ve been up to.  There are also videos up on youtube if you’re curious.

By the way — only 23 days until he’s a year old.  Time has flown by.  Last year at this time I was huge.

Here are some photos…

Outside in our yard…

Pumpkin Picking:

Our new swingset…

Man this tree is tall!!

It’s now 6 months later.  We tried to duplicate the photo, with little success…

Before (Dec & April)…

Now…

He’s gotten WAY big.

Instead, we did a better job capturing him toddling about.  Here’s a set of photos of him enjoying the fall weather this weekend.  For those of you with dogs; yes that is a KONG toy.  Clean (and recently Busterized) ones make good teethers in our house.

In other news — Andrew is now done with bottles.  He’s loving the sippy cup.  And I’m missing the morning cozy time.  But enjoying the freedom that comes with plunking him in a high chair.  He also ate an entire tub of baby yogurt, and 1/3 of my cheddar broccoli soup today for lunch at TGIFriday’s.  He’s an eatin’ machine!!  But needs a couple more teeth so he can have things like my cheeseburger.

My son looks all trouble when he gets out of the bathtub.
You can spike his hair & he looks all rugged…

But underneath that tough facade, he’s really a Momma’s boy….

**Note that we have strategically placed lotion bottles and/or hands to keep our site at least PG, if not G rated for family viewing. 

He’s now taking 8-10 steps on his own, is drinking well from a sippy, and has learned to climb stairs.  He knows “Ma”, “Ba”, “Da”, “Ga”, and is working on “Na”, and “EYE” or “I”….  we updated a September gallery in our photo gallery page…

Today we went apple picking.  It was chilly, but Andrew had a good time…

We held a wedding at our house over the weekend.  Some photos from that too…

Earlier this week, we took Andrew to the Champlain Valley Fair. He had a lot of fun in the petting zoo and seeing the gigantic Batman sandcastle.

Andrew had his checkup; he’s something like 31 inches long now. Weight hovers around 22 lbs. Drs are all excited; he’s in 75th ptile for height & weight, so he’s a healthy guy.  We added photos to the photo gallery, if you’re curious what he looked liked in July & August.
We’re taking a couple of weeks off, there’s a wedding at the house in a few weeks, and Momma has to go back to gardening.  See you in a bit.

Today Mom & Andy spent the day together.  Mom made up some fingerpaint with flour, water, and food coloring.  And Andy spent part of the afternoon painting on posterboard.  Here’s how the afternoon went….

I think the 2 paintings are beautiful.  And I’m glad that we have a bathtub.

We went to CT and visited Karen, Kevin, the twins, and saw Uncle Gary.  We had decent enough weather, and a great time.  The campsite we stayed at was wonderful, and had we known how nice it was, we would have stayed an extra day or two.

Some other updates:

• The rain has been awful for my pansies, but I have tons of green tomatoes, and this year — have sunflowers!  The only year I didn’t plant any is the year that I get them.  Go figure.  And, on top of that, I see honeybees pollinating them.  I’m very excited, because usually I only get bumblebees at my house.

• Craft-wise I’ve been busy.  I am now on an online forum of Quilting Moms, and its helped me with some of my current projects.   Especially to stay motivated with quilting.  I have completed a carseat blanket for Andrew, and sent 2 blocks to others on the forum.  One is a social swap, where I recieved a block in return.  The other is a block that I donated for a quilt to be raffled to support a children’s advocacy/abuse program.

Andy’s carseat blanket:

The block I sent:

The block I recieved:

 The block I donated:

• Oh…Andrew!  He’s doing well.  He’s figured out that screaming is fun.  And grunting means he’s frustrated.  He is trying to pop out his 2 front teeth.   Here’s a recent photo to keep your Andy-fix down until we can update the gallery.

Andrew has been finding them.  Specifically is taking an interest in Perry’s Chemical Engineering Handbook.  While I enjoyed it as a reference, it’s not light reading (either in weight or in style).

Part 1:2

Part 2:2

Andrew is getting really good at crawling.
I do NOT suggest this as a before-bedtime routine, but it is pretty funny to watch.

BTW — he did this for about 10 minutes before bed today.  Just chasing around the little roll-a-round ball.  Good times.

Since we posted last, Andrew is just cruising right on into adulthood.
He now weighs 22 lbs, and is in 9-12mo clothes.  He is about 1/2 as tall as his Mom, so probably around 30″.

Andrew’s palate has now increased to include cheerios, pancakes, graham crackers, and other carbs.  Watermelon, blueberries, and other soft fruits.  Peas & corn are normal staples too — and as he eats more finger food, he is disliking puree more & more.  He knows the word “book”, and tries to sign “all done”. We think he knows “mamamama”, and likes to jabber away while he’s playing.

His physical development is really impressive.  He has learned how to crawl, and stand up on things.  There is now a magnetic current in our house attracting babies to dangerous things.   And my son has a super-power of destruction.  His favorite “game” is to topple things over, knock them down, and basically leave a path of toppled blocks, uprooted link-a-doos, and overturned baby cars in his wake.  He also likes to push full laundry hampers around the house, eat grass clippings & dirt,  & splash in the water & gnaw the beaks off rubber duckies.

Below is a photo of the shock & awe that occurs daily here.  Note that 30 seconds after this photo was taken, that car was upside down & Buster was on the couch praying Andrew would forget he was trapped in “baby jail” with him…

See videos here, or photos here.

In following our trend, we’ll probably post again mid-August, after our next camping trip.  Then again, we might surprise you…never know these days when we’ll have time to do a decent blog update.