Happy Halloween!

We headed to our community fall festival yesterday afternoon. It was a gorgeous day for it! We hung out there for a while and got some cute pictures and food. I can't wait until Jake is old enough to have fun at events like that (well, yes actually, I can wait, wouldn't want him growing up any faster!). Tonight we got Jake dressed in his costume and took him trick or treating at one of the neighbors houses (we tried to go to a few but only one was handing out candy). Unfortunately Jake didn't take enough of a nap today and was already tired, but we got a few good pictures. Then he hung out in his costume and helped us give out candy for a little while before heading to bed.

We actually ran out of candy this year. Last year, in anticipation of lots of trick or treaters we bought a lot of candy. We ended up with only a few kids coming last year and had a ton of left over candy and we tried to avoid that by not buying as much. Of course because we did that we had a ton of kids come to our door. Oops! I guess next year we will go ahead and go with too much rather than not enough.

In his monster shirt at the Fall Festival

Checking out the fire truck

With the punpkins

Cosmo enjoying the sun today

Our Monkey boy

Finally got a really good smile!

9 Months...and 39 weeks

Another month gone by and now we have a 9 month old. And as of today Jake has been living on the outside world longer than he was in my belly. I still can't believe that it has been nine months, it doesn't seem like nearly that long. Jake is such a great baby and we are so blessed to have him.

This week Jake had some pictures taken. He was a ham a wouldn't look at the camera, when he was smiling, but we got some cute ones. He has gotten to wear his costume a couple of times now and we are planning on taking him Trick or Treating on Sunday (just to a few neighbors houses).

Nine months has brought a ton of changes for Jake.

• He would rather be up and cruising around furniture than crawling
• He follows us around (I ran to grab something from the laundry room yesterday and I came out to him in the Ainstead of the living room where I left him)
• He has 2 teeth
• He is back to waking just once a night to eat and we have even gotten a couple of nights of 10-11 hours of consecutive sleep
• He is starting to stand without holding on to anything
• He LOVES LOVES LOVES going outside
• He is talking more, lots of ba ba's, da da's, and a few ma ba's (no ma ma's yet)
• He now imitates us and thinks its funny when we imitate him

At Gymboree

Eating spaghetti for the first time...he loved it so much he put some in his hair for later

Pumpkin Carving

We finally got around to carving our pumpkin tonight. We had planned on doing it Saturday but nasty weather and a chilly evening changed those plans. Other than the storms Saturday though the weather has been awesome for spending time outside, which works well for us because Jake LOVES being outside. He will actually scream (loudly) if we let Cosmo in or out while we are holding him because he wants to go outside.  Sunday morning we took a walk down to the park and played on the swings and slide for a little while. We headed out to the airport that afternoon to pick up Grams from the airport before going shopping and out to eat.

Jake stood without holding on to anything for about 10 seconds last week. He hasn't done it for that long since but he is definitely working on it. He is also absolutely loving Gymboree. We went last Thursday and while we were waiting for our class to start he was bouncing around and trying to get into the gym to play. Once we were in there he just crawled around and checked everything out. He was much more interested in checking out the gym this week than he was last week. I can't wait to go back this week, it is dress up week so everyone is supposed to come in their costume. I will have to take pictures this week.

Helping me cook

Finally figured out how to get out of the bottom of the excersaucer

The goal was to get Cosmo to sit and Jake to smile, we were 1 for 2 on that 

"What is this?"

"This looks yummy"

Covered in pumpkin slime

Pumpkin Patch

We have had a busy week here! Last Saturday Josh was supposed to be coaching a rugby game that we were all going to go to but it got cancelled and turned into a practice. My friend Bethany and I had talked earlier in the week about going to one of the local cloth diaper stores and checking it out. She is pregnant and planning on using cloth, yea! So it just gave me more time to hang out with her. We went and checked it out and while it is nice for the occasional one or two things, I will still be doing most of my ordering online. I am waiting for the day that more cloth diaper stores can actually have a store front and more of a selection (this store was run out of her garage).

On Thursday I took Jake to Gymboree (the gym, not the clothing store). Back in August or September my mom bought a groupon for a month of classes and the one in Allen just opened this month. The first class is free so we will get to do 5 weeks of classes. Jake LOVED it. There are only 3 other kids in our class and he likes the music and dancing. He just took off and crawled all over the room checking everything out. I can't wait to go back this week.

Yesterday we were gone most of the day. Jake and I headed to April's baby shower in the morning. Jake was fascinated by all the big kid toys that were there so I wasn't able to get any pictures with the very pregnant April. We can't wait to meet baby boy when he arrives, hopefully in the next few weeks! We had a great time visiting before we headed home to meet my mom and Josh to head off to the pumpkin patch. Jake was so fascinated with EVERYTHING at the pumpkin patch. We couldn't get him to look at the camera or smile because he was too busy looking at everything else! We spent a while walking around just taking pictures before actually looking for a pumpkin. Then we took pictures while we looked. Jake liked the hay and kept trying to eat it and pumkpins. He also thought throwing pumpkins or pushing them off the hay or benches was fun. We finally found our pumpkin and then headed to dinner. Jake got to try broccoli for the first time at dinner. He seemed to like it, but did not want to sit in the highchair very long. Hopefully as he gets bigger going out to eat will get a little easier. After dinner Josh headed across the street to Pizza Hut Park to coach a rugby game (which was apparently a pretty impressive setup, Jake and I will have to go next time). My mom and I headed to the mall and Jake got a pair of shoes to wear when it is cold. I'm not sure how he is going to react to the shoes since he has only worn shoes maybe twice in his life. We finally got Jake home and he was so exhausted. Poor kid had a long day!

Pictures!

One of the few smiles we got

Love this picture

Way too interested in all the people and pumkins to pay attention to the camera

Daddy and pumpkin boy

Jake liked playing with the little pumpkins

Yummy

Trying to eat the scarecrow

He had pancakes and a baked apple one day and was covered in food because he just attacked it

Happy Baby

The start of all things Fall

 We were a busy bunch this past weekend. On Saturday we headed up to North Texas for the alumni swim meet and a football game. The meet started at 10 am, so we left the house around 9:15 and didn't get back home until after 10pm. Everyone at the meet loved Jake and he was perfect. He hung out with Josh while I swam then we went out to the picnic and he took  nap in the sling after he ate. We took Jake on a campus tour and headed to the union to get Jake a new North Texas shirt, he grew out of all the North Texas stuff he had. We headed over to some friend's house to hang out before we headed back to campus for the game. Jake loved watching the game and just hung out in the sling most of the time. He finally passed out around halftime. We decided to leave around the end of the 3rd quarter and Jake slept all the way home. He did so great for being out all day. He never got fussy and just took everything in. And icing on the cake, it was an absolutely GORGEOUS day!

On Sunday Grams came over to hang out for the day and brought new clothes that Jake desperately needed! It is so frustrating to have to completely empty out his drawers every 3 months! He had ton of clothes that don't fit any more so I took them all out of his drawers and was amazed at how few clothes he still has that fit! And with the weather alternating between cooler and warmer it is hard to know what clothes he needs.

Hopefully we will be headed out to the pumpkin patch in a week or so to get Jake his first pumpkin, and torture him with a ton of pictures.

At the Eagle in the middle of campus

At the football game

Jake was much too busy watching the game to look at the camera

Trying to hide behind the curtain

Hanging out with Grams on Sunday