Andy at 43 weeks

Taken October 24.



I have titled this sequence, "Small boy with large leaf."




This jacket is supposedly a nine-months size. He's nearly swimming in it.





The leaf gets the edibility test.




People sometimes ask me how many pictures I take to get these. This time I spent ten minutes and took 167 pictures. Generally I don't take quite that many.

Widgeting

I started my blog back before Blogger went to the page elements layout, with the widgets, so I just did everything myself in the HTML. I was quite happy with this, but I did envy the nifty collapsible archive widget, as my own archive list got longer and longer... and longer. I tried copying just the coding for that widget into my template, but that didn't work at all. So I decided to bite the bullet and make the change, after first trying it out on a test blog to make sure I could keep everything looking the way I wanted it.

I found lots of great info at blogbulk.com. The hardest thing was figuring out how to keep my large banner centered without increasing the width of my blog. And I couldn't get it to keep my little blue brush stroke behind the "about me" part, so I took a screen shot and made the whole thing into an image. (Can you tell? It looks fine on my screen.) I also figured out how to make conditional widgets, so not everything is visible on the individual post pages.

I spent a good chunk of two days working on this. In retrospect, I should have waited till after Christmas. I do have another rather time-consuming project that I'm trying to get done before that.

Andy at 42 weeks

Taken October 17.



Another rainy day. I took Andy's pictures on our bed, by the window. (I enlisted Doug's help to make sure he didn't step off the bed in mid-shoot.)






A lot of these were soft and/or blurry, because of the low light levels, and Andy kept bouncing. Looking outside is exciting!

Over the River and Through the Woods

We went out to Ross and Cathryn's house in Gig Harbor for Thanksgiving. We hadn't seen them since last Thanksgiving, but Cathryn sent me an email about a week ago saying, "Hey, are you guys coming for Thanksgiving?" and I said, "Sure, if you want us!"




Going over the bridge (okay, so it's not actually a river).



Kate, in the back of the car, made the observation that the bridge was a lot like the ones that we have in our train set.



...and through the woods...



...to Ross and Cathryn's house! I loved the pumpkins and just had to get a picture.

They hadn't met Andy yet. The girls thought he was adorable and took turns passing him around. We had a lovely meal (with some of the best gravy ever), watched The Princess Bride, played with my pipe chimes, listened to a story and drew pictures, and then cut snowflakes. We also called and sang Happy Birthday to my brother Peter, with Noelle on the piano.



We liked this sturdy wooden rocking airplane. That's some hefty construction.



Noelle and Tsia cutting snowflakes.




Doug helps Kate with a snowflake.




(One of mine.)

We've had a nice weekend, and Kate got to play over at other people's houses three days in a row! (Her bedtime has been pretty much shot. Must get back on track.)

On Friday (his eleven-month birthday) Andy took a couple of steps. Look out world!

Andy at 41 weeks

Taken October 10.



It was raining outside, so I used the baby seat by the window. This does not work quite as well as it used to.



Two little toofers!




He kept leaning way out of the seat, or trying to climb out of the straps. I think the days of baby seat's usefulness are past.




Cute!

In which Kate channels Mo Willems

We are a family of Mo Willems fans. (Well, Andy hasn't really expressed any opinion yet, one way or the other, but I expect he will be a Mo fan as well.) Kate drew this montage of the pigeon and his friends.

>

She lost interest coloring in the pigeon's body about halfway through, and asked me to finish that up for her. Everything else is pure Kate.



I think the duckling is my favorite.

I love this fan-created movie poster that Mo posted on his blog. Ha.

Andy at 40 weeks

Taken October 3. With special guest star, Big Sister!



Andy was sad because he wanted to play with my camera strap.



Still not happy.










I love the Excited Baby face--the "Ooooooh! Ooooooh!" and the flapping. It's just so fun.



I know I ended up with way too many pictures here, but they were all just so cute.





And Kate up (too) close!

Around the Bike Path

There's a bike path near our house that runs alongside the highway for a stretch. It's noisy, but not a bad place for a walk. Kate likes to pretend she's a dinosaur who has a nest in the tall grass. On this Friday afternoon (October 2) we all went out for a walk together. Kate wanted to wear her backpack, for some reason.



I had Andy in the Snugli. (He's snuggly!)




Whatever kind of dinosaur Kate was pretending to be, it's a herbivore.




Andy thinks his sister is funny.




Kate and Dad check out an ant hill.




Kate likes stomping through the tall grass.



I like this one. Kate was so busy the whole time that I could barely get her to look at me.