Happy Halloween!

This Halloween we went to a pumpkin patch (see previous post) and bought a few pumpkins. This was the first time I've ever attempted to carve a pumpkin. So I convinced Maddie to do it with me (Alex was a no go on that). We got our carving tools and carved beautiful pumpkins. So, as said previously, I've never carved pumpkins before. I hadn't really thought about how quickly they would spoil. After about 3 days, I noticed that my pumpkin was starting to look a little fuzzy. Then by the next day, the face was melting and fuzzy mold was growing out of its mouth like it had rabies or something. It all happened so fast. The verdict on pumpkin carving....the process was super fun, but not so much fun as to outweigh how gross rotting pumpkins are. No more pumkin carving for me. We will forever-more be enjoying the pumpkins from the outside only.

On Tuesday night, things were busy around here as usual. Paul was cooking, I was getting bottles ready for the next day and Alex was sitting at the kitchen island talking with Joe. She had just said "Hi JoJo" to him and all of a sudden we all three heard "Hi" clear as day. So much so that all activity in the kitchen stopped and we all turned around to look at him. He was just smiling away. He hasn't said anything since, so I'm not sure if it was an accident or not. But it sure sounded intentional at the time. Alex is so happy and touched that the gift of his first word went to her. I think she'll never forget that moment.

We were trying to find some early evening Halloween activity to do with Joe so we could get him in his costume and let him look at all the other kids. As many activities as there are here in The Woodlands, there wasn't anything like that for Halloween. Oddly enough, there were three dog costume events going on....strange. So, we decided just to take him trick-or-treating with Maddie, Alex and their friends this year. Alex was a Candy Corn Witch and Maddie was the Queen of Hearts. Maddie and her friends all went as characters from Alice in Wonderland. Joe slept through most of the walk, but when he woke up, Maddie insisted on carrying him around and taking him up to doors with her.

As you can see Joe went as our dog Maizie for Halloween. The actual costume is a dalmation....and Maizie is not a dalmation, but it was close. We wanted to put a sign on Maizie that said "Eat More Chikn" like the Chick-fil-a cows, but she's not a very good dog to take on a walk so it would have been for nothing. Here's a cute picture of the two of them....guess which one's Joe!

The First Date...

Last Monday, Joe and I visited with my friend Gina and her 4 month old daughter Ava. We took a mighty long walk and did lots of catching up. Ava hasn't been around many babies so she was pretty enamored with Joe. He would smile at her and she'd smile back and then he'd get super excited about that and start squealing. We set them on the floor and he started just talking away to her and even reached out to touch her a couple of times. It was very sweet. I think he's smitten. It was such a nice visit I can't wait to have our next play date.



Joe's newest trick that he's quite proud of is squealing as you can see in BOTH videos. It is just so cute I had to torture you all with TWO videos this time.



Sorry for all the neck cramps you will get on this one. I'm not smart enough to figure out how to flip it.



We will be trying veggies this month now that he's 7 months old...so far we've just tried Avocados since they were easy to mash up. I can't seem to find a baby food grinder around here anywhere and I'd really like to give him "real" food instead of the jar baby food. I'll have to see how difficult it is to keep up. But for now, he's still nursing and taking rice cereal so we'll just keep trying with the veggies. The avocados were semi-successful. He ate what seemed at the time like just a little bit. I think either he ate more than I thought, or the avocado multiplied during "processing." He kept opening his mouth for the spoon so that was good. I did get the nasty face similar to the first time we tried rice cereal though. We'll keep trying. Peas and carrots are next. If I can just keep Paul from gagging we'll be ok.

I can't believe he's 7 months already. He was 7 months old on Paul's birthday. I won't say how many month's Paul is... My how time flies. Joe looks like a little boy to me now more than a baby. And he has such a personality. I just want to bottle him up and keep him like this forever. I say that, but really, I look forward to all the things we have still to enjoy. I'm so conflicted!

Here's a cute picture of Joe and Uncle Jimmy making the same face. This was taken at Paul's birthday dinner last night.

Fall has...fallen?

Day care closed for Columbus day so Joe and I had a day together to run errands. I decided to brave the grocery store. This was our first time grocery shopping by ourselves. Joe did EXCELLENT. He loved looking at all the groceries and people. And he even helped by holding on to the cart (I know, gross, gross, gross). I kept him in my baby bjorn facing forward. He chatted and laughed at all the people. Charming them with his smiles. Even as we were checking out an elderly couple stopped to talk to him. I was distracted and putting things on the conveyor and as I turned around, the lady was right in my face, reaching for his head and gave him a kiss on the forehead. At first I was extremely freaked out...I had always heard that if you keep them in a carrier, people are less likely to touch the baby because they'd be invading your space to do so. Apparently not! But, I soon realized that the lady must have had dimentia or alzheimers and Joe's smiles probably made her day. Joe did his good deed for the day.

Alex had a chior concert on Thursday night. I rushed home to get Paul, Joe and Grandma, got in the car to drive across town to the school only to find no one there. Paul called around and found out that the concert was actually at the High School (about 3 miles from our house). No one told him (or so he says). So we had to RUSH to try to get there in time. And as luck would have it, there was an accident on the highway so we were stopped for a period of time. The whole time, Paul's saying...."and Alex made a point of saying that I've never been to one of her chior concerts because they are always during the day. And now I'm going to miss this one." Needless to say it was a very tense situation. But....alas, we were finally there so we shoved Paul out of the car at the door and we parked and met him in there. I kid you not....we were there about 30 seconds before Alex's group came onto the stage to perform. There had to be some divine intervention on that one. Joe loved the singing but HATED the clapping. The first time they did it he was so startled he started crying for a second. He never really got used to it, but he didn't cry after that.

Paul took pictures as evidence of his attendance in case it was ever called into question.

The Woodlands has so many activities going on during the fall. I'm so excited! I never really paid attention before I had Joe but now I notice all the fun stuff and potential photo ops. Speaking of, we have a word that we use in our house now to describe the level of humor, interest or cute factor of events. That word is "blogworthy." For example, if something happens and we are relating the story to the family, someone will comment, "that's definitely blogworthy." Who'da thunk....

Back to the photo ops and fall activities. This weekend we took Joe to the Taste of the Village and all three kids to a Pumpkin Patch. I must say, the Taste of the Village was kinda fun. They had all kinds of food samples from area restaurants and cartoon characters walking around. The Wells Fargo carriage was there and police cars and firetrucks the kids could climb on.

We saw SpongeBob, Dora, a random snowman, and the creepiest Spider Man ever. He was creepy because he was wearing this old, faded costume and had on undies that you could see through the outfit. I purposely didn't look, but Paul said they were red and black checked. Not good, Spidey. Not good.

The Pumpkin Patch was too cute. We got some cute pictures and a couple of pumpkins to bring home and try out. I've never really carved one before so Maddie and I are going to attempt it this year. Alex said she isn't going to help. Paul almost couldn't get her out of the car at the place....he told her "Ho Ho" needed her so she got out. Anything for her brother. Isn't that sweet? At least now Paul knows what her motivations are.

We had a strange urge to try on his hats one day. He seemed to like this one the best.

Joey - this picture's for you! Joey was #5 on his high school baseball team so that's his favorite number. Paul also pointed out that Joe is the 5th member of the family!

Joe, Meet your Uncle Joey

This past weekend we got to spend some time with my brother, Joey, and his kids, Easton and Lauren. Easton and Lauren have met Joe before, but Joey, his namesake, hadn't. He's been in Iraq since February and was home on 2 weeks leave. It was so good to see him and spend some time relaxing. Here's a picture of them together. (Notice the drool on Joey's shoulder....nice one Joe!)

Joey and the kids went on to San Diego after their stay in Texas. They were going to pick up Caroline (my Sister-in-Law) and take a trip to Disneyland while Joey's home. He heads back out October 12. Everyone keep him and all our troops in your thoughts and prayers! Let's hope the next 4 months until he's home for good goes by quickly for everyone.

Last weekend we took a mini-vacation and the five of us met up with Do, Grandma, Joey and the kids in Grapevine, TX to stay for a few days at the Great Wolf Lodge. If you aren't familiar with the resort, it's a big hotel with a huge indoor/outdoor waterpark inside. They have several of them around the U.S. It was way too cold to go outside (way too cold being about 75 degrees and overcast), but they have huge waterslides, a wave pool, lazy river, a giant fort and an area for little kids indoors. It was a lot of fun. All the big kids (Joey, Paul, Easton, Alex and Maddie) loved the slides. Lauren and Joe liked the hot tub the best. NOT TO WORRY....I only put his feet in....and it wasn't any warmer than his baths are at home. I tried to sit with him in the shallow end of the kiddie pool but the water was just too cold. So after he got his tootsies warm in the hot/warm tub, he took a little nap with Grandma.

Amazing that the noise in the park didn't bother him one bit. Overall we were very impressed with the resort. From the cleanliness, to the staff, to the activites....all very worth it. This was the first time all of us were in one hotel room with Joe. It was tough trying to keep him quiet at night and early in the morning so Alex and Maddie could sleep. And I realized, when it's not your house, you can't just get up and go walking around in your pj's either! Luckily Do and Grandma get up early so I could go bug them.

One of the nights the boys all went to the Texas A&M football game and the girls had "Girls Night (plus Joe)." Lauren didn't really get why Joe go to join us for girls night since he was a boy. But, she quickly got over it when we went down and checked out a game to play. Unfortunately, the game didn't have any directions, but we had lots of fun with the props that came in the box as you can see.

We also played Simon Says. Lauren didn't understand the rules of the game quite yet so she would just go on and on saying "Simon says touch your nose" and "Simon says touch Baby Joe" and so on and so on. Then all of a sudden she'd shake her finger at us ad squinch up her nose and say "Simon didn't say!" even though he really did. We didn't have the heart to tell her that's not how the game goes, and besides that....it was pretty funny when she did it. Another one of her favorite games apparently is Mercy She asked Alex to play with her and Alex asked her what the game was about. She said very matter of factly, "that's where you hurt me and then I say Mercy." Like it was the most fun game in the world. Can you tell she has a big brother?

On the last day of the trip we made all the kids get together for a picture. We couldn't get everyone to be serious so we told them if they took a serious picture, then we'd take one of them being goofy. Here they are.....you almost can't tell the difference.

Here's a cute picture of Alex and Joe watching TV in the hotel room

And this last one is on here because I told Alex and Maddie I wanted a good picure of them but they kept making faces. So I threatened them by saying the next picture was going on the blog regardless of how it looked. Apparently for Maddie my threats mean nothing.