Pumpkin Carving

Due to the high frequency of mom's friends birthdays around Halloween, we went to a pumpkin carving birthday party. Here are some great shots from the evening. Leo and I got to play with all of Henry's AWESOME toys while he was napping. Bonus. Then we all had dinner together and Dave made hilarious noises that made me belly laugh. All in all it was a great night. Oh yeah, mom's pumpkin was the one with the cat.
From Mom, I should also mention that Jen made some of the best chili I have ever had. Eric had to leave early to go play soccer so I brought some home for him. He was dancing around the kitchen saying how it was JUST LIKE Skyline chili. This stuff from Ohio I have heard him talk about since we first met. Jen was good enough to give me the recipe so now I can make it sometime, but only if Eric promises to dance around the kitchen again. That was pure entertainment!

more visitors

So after uncle Ben was here my Grandpa Rogers came to visit. He flew into Selinsgrove on Saturday afternoon and we went down to pick him up. We had a fabulous visit. I was just mastering going from the downward dog position to being on all fours. *Note: I have since made major progress on that since then, more on that later.* The weather was really nice while he was here so we took lots of walks and went to the park. Granpa Rogers has a wonderful beard which I really like to hold on to. I am not sure how much he likes it, but he is nice enough to let me do it anyway. He is also really good at blowing raspberries on my tummy which really makes me laugh. While he was here he took some pictures of Mom, Dad and I. These are some of our only family shots, eat 'em up. You will also see that while watching Sesame Street I got a little sleepy and fell asleep in Grandpa's lap. That is a rare honor, I don't fall asleep for just anyone!

Playgroup

So due to the large number of families with small children here, many of them with one stay-at-home parent there are all kinds of kid groups. We belong to The Playspace which is basically a way for kids of similar ages to get together in a kid friendly space and play. Our group is all boys since this seems to have been the year of boys here. I look forward to playgroup all week. They have delicious jingle bell toys and I get to see my friends. It is a good thing this room has rubber mats as we are all starting to move about. I get great traction here and often do my best crawling. Mom seems to really enjoy talking to the other parents a lot as well.

special treat in my toy box

Sometimes my toys are just too exciting for Grendel to pass up. We both especially enjoy playing with ribbon. Every once and a while she gets close enough for me to bang on her. Mom and Dad keep saying to be gentle, I am not sure what that means. Perhaps it is a kind of banging.

my peeps

So it's been a while since you have seen my main partner in crime, Leo. Here we are hanging out at my house. There is even a shot with his mom, Megan. I have to keep an eye on him. He has really mastered the whole crawling game. I am taking notes of his actions though. It is so great just having him down the street to play with. When we are older we are going to rule the neighborhood!

Otto in HD

Dad here. We've been a little remiss in posting due to guests and a leaky bathroom (that is now in full demolition mode). Anyway, to tide everyone over, here's a quick video of Otto taken with my new Panasonic HVX200 HD video camera (with music kindly lent to us by Rick Benjamin).

Note: In the final three shots observe Otto's precise attention to the rules of continuity editing. He graciously placed the toy in his mouth exactly at the cue point I outlined for him when discussing the scene's emotional pull. It allowed me to cut the shots together seemlessly . . . he's a director's dream to work with.

Just for the record, today is the 5th anniversary of when we opened the Bleu Plate. While everyone in town is still so sad we closed I have to say taking care of Otto is so much more fun.

Mom checking in

Ok, so last time I told you about how Otto was doing he stopped sleeping as well. I may be jinxing myself again, but I feel you need to be in the loop. Otto is SLEEPING!! Not crazy things like most 7 month olds are, but for us it is amazing! He has done quite a few 6 hour stints!! I know, six hours, how is that possible?? When not doing 6 hours he often does 4, which is just fine with me. Last week we had a set back and did some good old 2 hour stretch nights. But we think that may have had something to do with learning to crawl just being too exciting. He is also getting ever better at naps. I think now he needs to stretch his afternoon nap out to over an hour but he has trouble doing it. He is grumpy when he wakes up, but I can't get his to sleep longer. When he is ready he will do it. That is what we have learned about him. He got up every 2 hours for the first 6 months no matter what we did. Then all on his own he starting sleeping longer. I think he just needs to be ready himself before he starts something new. He is having a blast learning to crawl. Yesterday he mastered going from all fours to the sitting position. That is cool because he likes to sit and play with his toys. He isn't moving forward too much yet, but I really think it will be any day now. Yesterday I was at the yarn store and he was sitting on the floor at my feet while I was looking at needles on the wall. All of the sudden I looked down and he was standing up holding onto this big basket of yarn looking VERY proud. We don't really have anything at home that is the right height for him to pull himself up on which makes it hard for him to practice that. But he is pretty good! We ordered what seems like a million baby gates for our many stairwells which should be here today. We can see things are about to change soon. Speaking of changing, I am going to run and get dressed before he wakes up. I will have more to report soon.

This weekend my uncle Ben came to visit. We had a blast. We had pancakes together. His were a bit bigger than mine, but that's ok. We went to the park where I showed him all the cool things to do. We went on the swings and then I wowed him with my amazing ability to spin the spinny things. I tried hard not to eat them all the time. Then we met daddy for lunch at Cherry Alley. When lunch was over I showed him all of my cool blocks and how I knock over anything you build for me. I think my favorite part of his visit though was when we went in the Lotus. I outgrew my old car seat which meant I had to get a new one. My new one is SO COOL! It is made by Recaro, the racing seat company. I feel like a real driver in my new seat. Since I am so special uncle Ben thought I needed to really test out the limits of the new seat. Here we are ready for action!

while crawling is good, wouldn't it be more impressive if I went straight to push ups!

So when we were in IKEA and I was charming up mommy so she would buy me toys, she got me this awesome thing! It is full of delicious wooden beads that make great noise when you turn the whole toy upside down in your lap. Plus the wire parts are fun to eat, and when you do it makes you look kind of like the Joker.

7:45

Zzzzzzz

6:30

All dressed and ready for bed.

6:00

Fun in the bath with Hopkins, my favorite frog.

4:45

Helping mom in the kitchen.

3:00

Just waking up from a nap.

1:45

TOYS, TOYS, TOYS nothing better than that.

12:45

Being a little crabby sitting with mom. Still cute though!

11:45

Getting the toys out of the bag is half the fun.

10:45

Time for some breakfast. I took a nap before I could get to this earlier.

9:45

All that smiling wore me out and I had to take a nap.

8:45 am

I dare you to try to look cuter than I do here.