Opening presents takes a long time when you have a 10 month old doing it. Jack really liked the wrapping paper and the bows.
The tongue comes out during times of intense concentration.
Glad these toys aren't made in China! Thanks Aunt Tracie!
He FREAKED out when he saw his rocking horse from Nick and Mishaun. It nods its head and wags its tail and makes galloping and neighing sounds. Jack just can't get enough of it.
Here's a shot from a few weeks ago. We haven't had any photo-worthy moments for awhile due to the projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea episodes of late. Seriously, this is so gross. I thought it wasn't supposed to be that bad when it's your own kid...
We all hiked the butte the other weekend. Jack likes his pack and enjoyed his free ride to the top. It was an amazing day! 
We had brunch at Grandma Linda's house and then dinner at Grandpa Doug and Grandma Mary's. Jack had a great day. He didn't care much for the turkey, but he really enjoyed the pumpkin pie, so much so that I was cleaning it out of his ears later that night.
He even got to spend time with his elusive uncle Nick!
Do normal families gather round to play Guitar Hero on Thanksgiving or is it just us??
Well, here it is. This really is the best we could do. Jack HATED his costume (he's a sweet pea, in case you couldn't tell...) and although the costume says 0-9 months, apparently they didn't consider the fact that any baby with any sort of mobility will not allow himself to be zipped into such a restricting little pod. Also, these bozos making baby costumes neglected to consider fact #2: any baby between 0-9 months will be celebrating his or her first Halloween ever and therefore will be shuttled around to various friends and relatives in the name of trick-or-treating. Have you ever tried to buckle a little pea pod into a carseat? The poor kid had to be stripped down to his onsie (that's like underwear for you non-baby people) each time we got into the car. We made it to two places: Grandpa Doug's and Grandma Mary's and then to Jack's friend William's house. Now William was dressed in a sensible outfit (scrubs for babies? genius!) and had been happily playing with his little doctor set while I had spent the last hour wrestling Jack in and out of his pod. After much coaxing, I was able to convince Jack to wear his suit without cramming his legs into the bottom part. He was pretty traumatized by the time I remembered to take a picture and this, again, was the best we could do.
Our little Pumpkin Patch Kids! 
We went to Lone Pine Farm with our friends MaryAnne, Jeremy, and Lily. The kids were very patient and let us take tons of the obligatory pumpkin patch photos.
Jack wasn't sure about the goats at first (they are pretty creepy!), but he warmed up after awhile. 
One thing is for sure: Jack loves to eat! He seems to like everything, especially sweet potatoes. The messier the better! He's also discovered drinking water out of a sippy cup, which was great until we realized that the diapers get soaked very quickly now. In other news, it's been a little hectic around here with me going back to work and Brent starting his fabulous new job and Jack starting daycare. Thanks to some generous family members, Jack will be attending his "school" three days a week rather than five (thank you Mary and Mishaun!!). Starting Jack in the daycare has been a stressful experience for us (the parents), however Jack seems to be handling it all just fine. He likes the other kids, the "teachers" are nice (and they are okay with cloth diapers- yay!) and they have about a million toys... what more could a 7 month old ask for? Also, he's crawling now so that makes his life a whole lot more fun. Not a graceful crawl, mind you, but more of a beached sealion sort of forward movement. Still, he gets from point A to point B and that's all that matters. Suddenly I'm very glad our house is so small-- easier to baby proof!
Why do they even make baby toys? Apparently all you need is a newspaper... (PS: Jack is 6 months old now-- can you believe it?)
This is my friend Melanie's baby, Peter. He was born on Mother's Day and the first time we met him he seemed so tiny next to Jack. We visited recently and little Pete is catching up!
This is just one of those goofy, sqishy, drooly pictures that I love so much!
So we went on a quest for a sun hat for Jack. It seemed so simple, really. Just a small hat to keep the sun out of his eyes and off his little head. Our first stop was Bambini where, to our horror, we were "helped" by the same super-annoying girl who once implied that we would be exposing our child to autism by cleaning our carpets with standard carpet cleaner. Ugh. The only sun hat for sale there was this floppy little cotton thing for $18. Now I'm no cheapskate, but this thing was ree-dick-you-lus! And it was white. Boooring. Went to Rite Aid. Zilch. Next it was off to Freddy's where we found the pictured sunhat in the clearance bin for $2.49. And isn't he so cute in it???
Sorry there have not been new posts for awhile. As many of you already know, Brent was gone for two weeks doing research in central and eastern Oregon and he took the camera with him. Doug and Mary kindly invited Jack and me over for breakfast one morning and we got a few shots of the little man. Thankfully Brent is back now and so is the camera. Oh, and kudos to all the single parents out there.... it was a loooong two weeks without Brent!
First let me say that we do not support the Baby Einstein/Disney corporation, BUT this book was a gift and Jack really seems to like it. His newest "trick" is rolling from back to front and then reading his books. Since he is a child genius, I guess we'll be moving on to Dickens soon....
Lilian Joy was born to our friends MaryAnne and Jeremy on June 10th. Good thing she came early, since she was already 8lbs 10 oz. We can't wait to spend more time with her!
Jack has been becoming more interested in what we eat, so I decided to let him taste a strawberry from our garden. He liked it! But then I found out that you're not supposed to give babies strawberries until they are a year old. Oops.
