family news – Page 82 – Out Of Their Minds Design

First Halloween!

I’ll be honest, it was miserable! Cold, wet, and rainy, we did our best to get Ian to a few neighbors’ houses, and sprinted home as fast as legs and stroller wheels could take us! Better luck next year! That said, when we got home, it was all smiles again… we even had a gorgeous dusk rainbow that shone brightly end-to-end. Thanks to everybody for the fun Halloween stuff as well!

“Four out of five dentists can buzz off! Hurray!” See this image larger.

“Can I get a ‘to go’ bag?” See this image larger.

Look at that face… I hope he can always remember smiling straight from his heart; it sure does the rest of us a world of good when he does so. See this image larger.

“So… Papa… how many ‘good behavior’ days would it cost me to have you unwrap a couple of these?” See this image larger.

Ian’s costume revealed at last! Yoda from Star Wars! Papa still can’t believe Ian chose this costume! (And neither should you!) See this image larger.

I was going to be Luke and have Ian on my back, but we ran out of time; probably better that way with the weather as bad as it was. See this image larger.

“Padowan, teach you the ways of the Force, I shall. Push this stroller up driveways to candy-hoarding neighbors and defeat the Forces of gravity and hunger, we shall.” See this image larger.

Swinging, Jumping and Taking a Stand

Thanks to Grandma Marcia and Grandpa Dave for transporting the custom-built swing across Canadian lines and delivering it to our door! His face lit right up when he saw that, after all, he’s too big for the older swing we got for him!

Well, he managed to bite his own gum pretty good the other evening when he was so excited to see Papa that he jumped up and down and slammed his chin on the crib. Boys will be boys!

Several times now, Ian has been doing something, kind of minding his own business, and just let go of whatever he has been holding on to for support. And he just stands there… usually for about 5 seconds while Mama and Papa sit there breathless… he usually falls into a sit position right around the time we erupt into cheering him on; and he doesn’t really seem to know what caused all this happiness.

Recently I tried upgrading my mac to the latest operating system and you wouldn’t believe the catastrophes I narrowly avoided. At one point I thought I had lost all of Ian’s pictures and movies and even Melissa couldn’t console me much. At any rate, the computer was recovered and we lost literally nothing, end result… but I gave up on that upgrade and decided to wait a bit. So… we DO have images, hurray!
By the way, the instructions for HOW TO DOWNLOAD IMAGES are now in a link to the upper right up there… under the word “PAGES,” see it? It’ll always be right there so if you need a reminder, just click on it!

Here’s a few more pics!

This is an older picture… I bet it is a month or more, I found it on Mama’s camera, and thought it was cute, had to share! See this image larger.

A shot from the hay ride to get a pumpkin out on a farm! We visited this place with our good friends the Schoenborns! You can see the remains of Ian’s shiner in this shot. See this image larger.

Our serious little man. Sometimes you can almost see what he’s going to look like, can’t you? See this image larger.

You happy to be swinging again Ian? See this image larger.

A real close-up! Again you can see where his black eye is almost done healing! See this image larger.

Ever wonder what Mondays are like with Papa? Here’s a peek! See this image larger.

He’s actually in a toy bin in this shot… these are nice flexible toy bins that replaced the one that hurt Ian’s face earlier. Here, Ian teaches Papa what a football looks like. See this image larger.

Pocoyo! Ian’s developed a habit of standing a few inches from the TV when the only show we’ll let him watch is on. He loves Pocoyo! See this image larger.

First shiner

Ian fell over on a little toy bin that we have in his “safe” area today and really gave himself a good black eye. He cried for a few moments and immediately went back to doing baby stuff, but it was definitely a wake-up call for Mama and Papa. I always wondered how I’d react if he hurt himself, and that whole “Oh you’re fine” thing goes right out the window when the injury appears that it could be serious. (Thankfully it is NOT serious… he just fell down hard right on his face…) Of course said bin is now long gone, replaced by something a bit more forgiving. Something hard to face as a parent: I just said the other day that said bin was an issue… I should have just done something about it. Grrr.

Picture This

Aided by something of the right height as a “walker” Ian can move by himself across the room, standing up; be it a couch as a guide, or a wheeled toy! (Video of that in the next update!) He’s talking more than ever. His eyes became more brown during the day yesterday. He has two front teeth now on top that have cut through, and two more that are close!

Hurray for play! See this image larger.

Peek-a-boo is a little more surprising with Daddy’s camera flash bouncing off the ceiling… Didn’t work out as good as planned, but at least it is humorous.See this image larger.

Time to eat, kiddo! Ian shows off some of his teeth if you zoom in a bit! See this image larger.

Wearing dinner probably sounds like fun… See this image larger.

… but you know what that means, right? See this image larger.

Bath time! Oh don’t look so sad. See this image larger.

Here’s a toy. See this image larger.

Hey, hey! Now you’re enjoying this a little TOO much! See this image larger.

Better just brush your teeth and go to bed… Whoa! Still happy? Fine by us! 🙂 See this image larger.

Taking a stroll

Grandpa Dave and Grandma Marcia also visited in September, here’s some quick pics of that visit!

We don’t get too many shots of the three of us, so I gotta post them when I can!!! 🙂 See this image larger.

On a walk in downtown Rockford; the weather was perfect… See this image larger.

Ian and Grandpa Dave enjoy the scenery… See this image larger.

Where’s the Update?

Wow, time has flown, and so little time to update the blog! (I admit to this being my fault mostly, but what can I say… we keep ourselves busy.) Here’s everything that’s happened in the last four or so weeks… told in pictures, of course.

Back around the first of September, we were up at the cottage, and Grandpa Dave snapped this shot of the three of us. This was Ian’s first real cruise around the island… Video to come? See this image larger.

I’m not sure what the Pentagon thought when their inboxes became full with emails that said “saadssssssssssso4ia3h” but I’m sure they’ll take Ian’s suggestions to heart. See this image larger.

Grandma Sue flew up from Florida to experience Michigan’s fine weather, visit baby Ian and bring this cool toy… spin a letter Ian! See this image larger.

Ian has a range of new smiles… and you’ll be seeing a lot more teeth shortly!! See this image larger.

With new teeth comes ear infections, with ear infections come antibiotics, and, of course, reactions to antibiotics. Here’s a head-to-toe rash… See this image larger.

… but the next day back to all smiles! He certainly knows how to bounce back. See this image larger.

Ma ma!

We’ve decided to make it official… on the evening of August 30th, Ian was exhausted, and as Melissa picked him up he muttered a very sad and tired “Muh, Muuuhuuh!” We couldn’t decide if it was a coincidence at the time… for his language mostly consists of “buh” and “muh” right now… but that was the first time this was the only thing to come out of his mouth.

Since then he’s confirmed it a time or two. He knows who Mama is!

Is he saying Papa’s name yet? Well, kinda. It is weird… he looks directly at me, and says “Puh puh.” But it happens on the inhale. If you kind of suck air in while you’re popping your lips, you’ll get the gist of it.

We’re really shocked by his changes in the last few weeks, he’s made leaps and bounds!

His Mission, Should He Choose To Accept It…

…is to do all kinds of cool stuff in one relatively short video. This one’s about half the size of the park trip video, below. Click on the link to watch!

Click here to watch the video!

Park Trip

Don’t worry video coming soon of all kinds of great stuff! In the meanwhile, those of you with very good/fast connections can download this video of our recent park trip, complete with travel music. Click on the link below and ignore the “loading” percentage. It IS loading, we swear, but this is our longest movie on the blog so far!
Click here to view the Park Trip film starring ian.

Eek Week!

Following a splendid weekend with Grandma Marcia and Grandpa Dave, where Ian exhibited signs of walking with the aid of a mobile ottoman and the lil guy met all kinds of island-folk… things turned a little sour this week. Part of it was our fault… we decided that it was time to stop bowing to each time the lil guy needed attention in the middle of the night, and so began to ween him off of this, knowing that the long-term gain was well worth a week or so of sacrifice. The frustration of this was compounded by the danger of a flooding basement and blackouts throughout this week thanks to powerful storms rolling through the Rockford area, as well as a little bit of sickness on his part. See this image larger.

Today he got his first bruise at daycare.

There were some good moments, however. He continually advances in the “crawl” department, outright taking very crawl-like steps the other day, and pulling himself up as well. One of the more shocking bits was when we discovered he was holding the vertical bars of his crib like those of a prison cell. What made it astonishing was that I pointed with one of my hands and said “move this hand up to here.” He did. “Now move this hand up to here.” And he did. “Now move this hand up to here.” Again, he did. “Now put your hand flat up on here.” (Horizontal top of the crib wall…) And he did. “Now put your OTHER hand up here.” Aaaaand… he did. Granted I pointed at each of these places, but is it me or is he getting smarter, if not stronger?!?See this image larger.

RETRACTION – I am sorry to say that we have gone back to “basic” cable television… the price that was promised to us was something that our cable company could not actually match when the bill showed up. Being that we don’t watch it all that much, we decided to cancel. Sorry sports fans!