A little pumpkin

When we were at the Halloween party on Saturday, Rowan loaned his pumpkin hat to Luke. Kelli snapped a picture and just sent it to us.

I love this little pumpkin head! :)

Family picture

Karen snapped a picture of us yesterday and I love how it turned out!

Trick or Treat!

Luke was so excited to wake up this morning and realize it was Halloween!


We went Trick-or-Treating at Grandma's house - Luke was lucky enough to get some teething biscuits!


We stopped by to see a few neighbors and stopped by the Hultgrens for the traditional hot dog trick or treating. (The kiddos trick or treat for candy; the adults have beverages and get some grilled hot dogs.) Here is a monkey hanging out with a piggy and a zebra.






That was so much fun!

Army crawl

It certainly isn't pretty - but he's moving forward!

Baby Halloween Party

This is what happens when you try to get a picture of a cow, Nemo, a monkey, Yoda, a cat, a firefighter, and a sock monkey all together. (My friend Christie took these and I couldn't decide on just one picture so they're all being posted. I think they just get funnier and funnier and you go along.)









Luke started to get pretty upset with the process at this point.

Fun at the park

Jason and I took Luke to the park this afternoon - he loves it there!


(No, he didn't slide down by himself. Jason helped him and then we let him play at the bottom of it.)

A day in the life ...

Luke's favorite thing to do when we get home in the evening is go get the mail with me. We go down the driveway everyday and he gets so excited. He can't open the mailbox, but he reaches out the handle and tries. Then I give him a piece of mail to carry in and it's like he won the lottery. It's his treasure and he loves to show it off.


I left him in the room after that picture and came back a few minutes later and found this. I guess we should think about baby proofing the house now.


We got tired of the living room so he came to help me in the kitchen. He can move all over the place in his walker and wanted to help me unload the dishwasher.


Then when that got old he helped me with the tupperware cabinet. Apparently it was time to reorganize.

thirty-one

If you know me, you know that I'm not the most spontaneous person and that it can take me quite awhile to actually make a decision. Which is why I shocked even myself by becoming an independent consultant for thirty-one, about 24 hours after I attended a party! (Insert excited/nervous squeal here.)

This all started a few weeks ago at our monthly freezer cooking day. Someone had brought an amazing organizational tote that I found out was from thirty-one. About a week later another friend sent me an invite to a party she was hosting - talk about fate/perfect timing! The party was this week and I fell in love with everything in their catalog. Thirty-one is a great company that sells bags, totes, purses, lunch boxes, and so much more - almost all of which can be personalized. The best part - it's affordable!

After buying some Christmas presents for people - including one for me (thanks Jason!) - I started thinking that this was something I might like to get into. Jason and I talked it over and now here I am:


I plan to start by having an open house to show off all the goodies. I think they would make great Christmas gifts, so stay tuned for info sometime really soon. (Orders need to be in by Dec. 13 for the Christmas deadline.)

If anyone knows that they want to host a party (especially between now and Dec. 13) let me know and we'll get it set up. You can also purchase items individually on my website, or we can have an online/catalog party. (Hostesses receive some great discounts!)

http://www.mythirtyone.com/lfletcher/

So anyways, I'm really nervous, but also really excited about it. Stay tuned for more information!! (And feel free to contact me before then if you want to know anything else or have any questions!)

And because really - what good is a post without a picture of Luke, here are two of his school picture proofs that we got back last week. We love this little boy!

Toy stacker

We've been working with Luke to teach him how to put the star onto the stacker and he finally got it tonight! We thought maybe it was by accident the first time he did it, but it happened more than once. He still hits it more than he can actually get it on there, but he tries!

My how things have changed

This was bath time in the pod when Luke was almost 3 weeks old.


This was tonight when we decided to break the pod back out - just over 8 months old. I think he feels like he's in the pool.

Carving our first pumpkin

We thought that today would be a great day to carve Luke's first pumpkin. Jason did most (ok, all) of the work, but Luke was pretty interested in it all.




Watching daddy scoop out the pumpkin guts


My turn now!


What IS this stuff?

Some pictures

These are just some random cute pictures that were taken over the last week or so.

Mr. GQ


I see you over there ...


So handsome!


Sleepy little boy


Skeleton drummer boy


Doesn't he look so much older here?

242 days (or 8 months) old

Luke is 8 months old today!


He is 21 lbs exactly and we think about 27 3/4 inches tall. He's in 12 month clothes and mostly in size 4 diapers (especially overnight.)

He eats 4 bottles a day (7-7 1/2 oz) and also has 3 meals. Breakfast is typically yogurt, lunch is a fruit or veggie and dinner is the opposite. I've also bought a few of the Stage 3 gerber purees of mac&cheese, spaghetti, and veggie/pasta mixtures. For "snacks" (while I'm cooking or getting his food ready) he has puffs or yogurt melts. He is great at the pincher grasp and getting them into his mouth. He has tried some other finger foods for fun - pancakes, crackers, and small cut up peeled grapes.

Other fun things from this month:
- He consistently says baba and mama. We think that mamama is starting to actually mean something - me and also just that he needs/wants something (which probably equals me anyways!)
- He has started making clicking noises with his tongue/teeth.
- He is working on teeth 5 and 6, but they are moving SLOWLY.
- He can move all over the place in his walker. He especially loves it if we let him do it outside.


- He can rock back and forth on his hands and knees. He seems to have a lot more strength as he squirms about as well. He hasn't managed how to move forward yet, which is actually just fine with me!


Trying to take a picture of an 8 month old was certainly interesting. (And I feel it is only going to get worse!) Apparently there were more interesting things to do than sit in the glider.