Joel is 11 months!

Every day that goes by, we grow to love Joel more. He took a step a couple of days ago, but I'm pretty sure it was by accident. He hasn't shown much interest in walking (unless he's holding on to furniture), but he's a pretty fast crawler. When he really wants to go fast, he ducks his head down and charges ahead without looking up. It's pretty funny.

He's still a mama's boy, but he will only say dada. When Joel is saying hi he points to you just like E.T., and then if he really likes you, he'll proceed to do a salute with his hand straight in the air. He's getting more and more curious, opening doors, climbing stairs, trying to see what we're doing. He's starting to like balls and cars and trains more, and he goes after anything electronic - computer, remote, cell phones. What a boy!

My Dancer

Grandparents Visit

Alex's parents came out for a visit mid-October. The first day they were here, we went into the city and met Alex for some awesome Vietnamese food for lunch. A big rainstorm came through while we were walking around the city, so we hurried back to Reading Terminal Market and got an Amish pretzel to tide us over. Yum!

When we told Nicole that her grandparents were coming for a visit, she said that she wanted to go to a pumpkin patch with them. So that's what we did! They had a little corn maze that we sent Nicole in with her grandparents, and we got some great pumpkins. We headed out to Kids Castle playground afterwards for a picnic.

    

 

 

Auntie Beth and Kerlyn came down from NY for a couple of days, and it was fun to to have them here. Nicole loved having her relatives to play with, and Joel even let them carry him around!

Happy Halloween!

Love, Ladybug Girl and the Lion

Lazy Fall day

We headed to the park one day after Nicole's school for a picnic. Nikki had been asking for a picnic for awhile, so I decided it was time to do it! We went to a new playground near our house, and although the playground was overgrown, I loved that they had a stretch of lawn for us to hang out on.

Joel is 10 months!

This little guy is growing up fast. I keep having discussions with people who can't believe he's only 10 months. He's just so tall, and having that full head of hair just makes him look like a little man. His newest trick is scaling our stairs, and he's getting pretty good at standing on his own.

Joel bites anything and everything, which we're not really fans of. He likes to feed himself, and his favorites are rice biscuits (mum-mums), yogurt melts, and goldfish. He likes black beans and rice, which makes me proud. Joel is getting more cuddly, and is constantly yelling "da-da-da-da!" Alex loves it and asks him questions like, "Who's the best? Who's your favorite?"

Nicole is in Preschool!

Nicole started preschool a couple of weeks ago. She goes to a nursery school at a local church 3 days a week. We were pretty excited for her to start, and she was ready for it. At first she just took it all in and was trying to figure out what exactly preschool was. She loves it, and I'm so happy for her to have these new experiences and interactions with new friends.

Annual Block Party

We had our annual block party a couple of weeks ago, and I think Nicole thought it was the greatest thing ever. They brought in a firetruck for the kids to climb in, they threw candy from the top of the firetruck, and the street was blocked off so they could ride their bikes up and down the street all day long. They had a live band, and did a pig roast and had tons of food. Nicole was just soaking in what all of the big kids were doing and played and danced and biked. I'd say it was a successful party!

Poconos Vacation

We decided to head up to the Poconos Mountains for a week during Labor Day. We were lucky enough to use my Grandma's timeshare, so we had a condo for a week. It was an all-inclusive resort so there was a swimming pool, game room, mini golf, and more. We used all of those things, and were very grateful for the indoor pool when we got rained on for the first 4 days of our vacation!


A tropical storm rolled through midweek, but we decided that we had been rained out enough. We ventured up to an orchard in New York and bought some cider donuts, fresh peaches, and apple pie. We stopped at a cute little town and had lunch at the Waterwheel Cafe. On the way up we drove through some major flooding from the Delaware. I wish we had taken a picture while we were driving through, but it was about 2 feet of water. Alex canoe'd down this part of the Delaware with the scouts, and ate lunch in this cabin that is now halfway under water.


The last couple of days we had beautiful weather so we went to Bushkill Falls. Its' slogan is that it is the Niagara of Pennsylvania. They were impressive waterfalls, especially because of all of the flooding in the area. Nicole loved hiking around and getting soaked from the spray, and Joel was a trooper. He was napping when he woke up in the middle of the waterfalls. You could tell he had no idea what to think, but he took it in stride and thought all of the water was pretty fun.



Our last night there, we went to the playground and had a bubble party (a few other kids joined in), and then went into Stroudsburg to get some dinner and ice cream. It was such a nice, relaxing vacation. And now it's back to real life!

Joel is 9 months!

This kid cracks me up! Joel is such a big boy in so many ways. Crawling around getting into everything, cruising around on furniture, eating everything that he's not supposed to (his current favorite is magazines), saying "da-da," "ba-ba," and most recently "ma-ma," and he just had his 7th tooth pop through yesterday. Whenever we turn on Mickey Mouse, we know we have a good half an hour until we hear from him again. He LOVES Mickey. It's like he's completely mesmerized by him. He crawls up to the tv and stands up and dances during the songs. So cute!

At the same time, he's such a baby! He is completely dependent on me, still wakes up at least twice a night to eat, and cries when I leave him with anyone outside of the family. Our favorite way to tease him is to say, "stop being such a baby." At least we think it's funny!

Joel's model pose

End of Summer

Here are just a few pictures from the end of our summer.

You'll never guess who took a bite out of this zucchini...

Joel in his awesome motorcycle overalls.

Nicole and her robots. Each one was a person in our family. They were pretty awesome. The Nikki robot is far left. She is always the biggest one when she builds/draws. Is she trying to tell us something?


We got some dirt and compost delivered for our yard, and Nicole loved playing on the dirt.


My big boy Joel

Joel is 8 months!

Time is flying, and Joel is most definitely a character! He has the funniest laugh - see video below. The good thing about it is that when I hear it, I know it's my baby!

He's pulling himself up onto anything and everything, and he's just starting to cruise around. Joel LOVES to eat puffs, and attacks them as soon as they hit the table. And, he'll eat anything as long as there's a puff sitting on top of it. We always say he just wants to be a big boy - drink out of a regular cup, eat food with texture, do anything that Nicole is doing. He adores her, and she can always get him to laugh. He's also pretty good at picking on her, taking her things, climbing on her, pulling her hair, waking her up too early in the morning, etc!

Drive just to enjoy the drive

Another one of my 30 before 30's was to take a drive just to enjoy the drive. I never do that. It seems like I only go somewhere because I have to. Having a baby will do that to me. But one day we just hopped in the car and drove. We didn't go far, but we drove farther on a road than we've ever gone on it before. And we found a really nice park to play and have a picnic. All in all, a success.

Gymnastics Class

We signed Nicole up for a gymnastics class at the YMCA. It's a pretty neat facility, with all of the competitive equipment and gymnastics teams practicing while she's there. She gets a bit distracted by it all, but I'm glad that she gets to see it all. She loves to swing up on the bars, and giggles in delight every time she does.

Mommy School

To keep things lively this summer, Nicole and I have been doing "Mommy school" during Joel's morning nap. She'll be starting preschool in the fall, but I wanted to have something fun for us to do together. We've been learning the ABC's, and I got all of my curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler. She has done some awesome things!

I snapped a few pictures when we were doing the letter M. Nicole loved this theme!

Summer visit from Nana & Grandpa

My parents came to town for a few days after a conference in DC. It happened to be the 3 days that were the hottest of the summer - 110 degree heat index. It was hot. But, we just kept going and did some fun things. We went into the city and visited the Philadelphia Library. My mom, dad, and Nicole got to go on a rare books tour that sounded really cool. We went over to the Museum of Art, and rode the trolley around town.

We also went out to the John Audubon House. It was pretty small but there was a ton of art packed in that little house. Nicole got to draw some birds with Grandpa, while Joel hung out with Nana.




To be crazy, we went out to Cape May, NJ on a Saturday. Most of our day was spent in the car in a traffic jam, but once we got to Cape May we ate at the Mad Batter for lunch, and Nicole and Alex played on the beach while the rest of us shopped. We had lots of fun in this crazy hot weather!