At Home In The O.P.

Fall-ing

A couple of weekends ago we travelled about 45 minutes west to the quaint town of St. Charles. The river town holds its Scarecrow Festival every fall. Along with the essential craft fairs, carney rides, and nascar simulator, a block-wide park is turned into a scarecrow showcase to through which to wander. For prizes, local groups and businesses enter scarecrows dressed up as everything under the sun including the ubiquitous Jonas Brothers. Even out here Mommy can't escape them.  The most meta was the scarecrow dressed at the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.

Collin didn't have much interest in the straw people, but he loved dancing in the music tent. The crowd was a bit much for us so we headed south and visited Geneva, another cute town along the Fox River.

This past Sunday we went northwest to a farm/park to go on a hayride with our friends the DeMarcos.  Collins hat is compliments of Great Aunt MJ.

BFFs

Here is Collin with his friend, Baby David looking at the fish at the Oak Park Library. Mommy and Collin met David and his nice Mommy, Lynda, at their Monday class.  Lynda and her husband have lived in Oak Park for 10 years so Mommy thanks them for paying the obscenely high taxes to fund the fancy library.  David is a sweetheart and about a month younger than Collin.

Dude News:

• Walking while hanging onto his new push wagon
  
• Occasionally eating solids
  
• Babbling like the village madman
  
• Getting a dose of sleep training (stay tuned for results...)
  

Mommy's View

Variation On A Theme

Quest For Solids 2

Mommy and Baba try so hard to get Collin to eat solids. We get the same reaction when we try to get him to go to sleep. Until he eats solids Mommy has to nurse all 26 pounds of him. He is the most stubborn person we have ever met. We wonder where he gets it...

Hangin' In the O.P.

Collin has taken to riding in his stroller with one leg casually draped over the bar of his stroller. After awhile he switches legs. He is such a cool baby.

Special Day

Happy 1st Birthday to Collin's 2nd Cousin, Aemeliania!  Although they haven't yet met face-to-face, as fetuses they visited Greece at the same time last summer.

Off-Topic: Wheezie vs. Kermit

Grammy Peek-a-Boo

New in the world of Collin:

• Crawling
  
• Wearing Size 24 Months
  
• Play-dates With Baby David
  
• Vehemently Resisting Sleep and Solids (not really anything new)
  

Behind The Scenes at Lloydhorst.com

Here's our Editor-In-Chief, hard at work on a post from about a month ago.

Quadruple Piggy-Toes!

9th Month Check-Up

Stats: All above the 99th percentile for babies at the same age
Weight: 25 pounds, 10 oz
Height: 31 inches

The doctor was surprised to see that he already has 6 teeth. Our healthy guy received a flu shot to hopefully keep him that way.

Cute red sweater was hand knit by Grammy!

Landmark and Destination

In California Mommy worked at a beautiful (and "wolrd famous") place called, The Alex Theatre. She really liked working there and misses her co-workers. She and Collin had lunch with Elissa and Maria and visited Barry, Judith, Mary Katherine, Sandy, and Jack (on scaffolding, yikes!)

New West Coast Friends

Our gracious hosts, the Braatens.


Maggie Driscoll (who Collin actually first met in Pittsburgh but only for a few moments before her naptime).

The dear Painters just back from their most recent road trip. Collin waved for the first time when he said goodbye to Chris! Waving makes it easier to leave the Farmer's Market.

Lovely Rachel

The Fong Family. Jared didn't appreciate it when Collin began randomly screaming.


Katy who gave him a care bear. Collin has a thing for blondes.

Jen and Jess were super at entertaining Collin. He even played with some baby toys that were about to be donated to charity from Marcia Cross, Jen's boss. (Jealous Kylee?)


Kate's family had us over for a delicious dinner. OK, Kate is not a NEW friend. Collin has known Kate since he was 4 days old, but this is the first time she held him. His thunder thighs must have convinced her that he's not so fragile anymore! As you can see from his face he is happy she finally did. Kate's bombshell of a mom.

Collin Is His Own Biggest Fan

Baba had his first day of work today while Collin had his first class with Mommy, Rhythm Rhyme
Baby Time. Unfortunately (mostly for Mommy) it takes place the one hour of 24 that Collin actually likes to sleep. Once the grogginess wore off, he loved the songs and seeing the other babies. Mommy got a kick out of the random babies escaping and crawling to the middle of the song circle, sumo-style.

Back from Los Angeles!

Collin (and company) took a last-minute, week-long trip to Los Angeles. We returned to Oak Park Friday night, and now Collin has baby jet lag. Collin was a champ on the airplane -- except for one Excorcist-esque bout of projectile vomiting. But the other 220 passengers on the plane didn't seem to care that the parents were dripping wet when the plane landed; Collin didn't cry and so he was a great baby in their eyes (and ears).

Updates from the trip to come after we've had time to recover.

Jazz Hands