Halloween

This year Jonah was old enough to get dressed up and walk around, but we figured he wouldn't really get the whole 'Trick or Treating' thing. So I looked around and found that from 4-6pm in Historic Ellicott City all the shops gave out candy. I figured that would be a nice laid back thing to do. We got there and it was PACKED! We had a blast! Jonah was a chicken, a hand-me down costume we got from my friend Melanie, and it was a HIT! He got more comments and people would stop us to take his photo. What a fun Halloween we had!

My cute chicken!

Taking mom for a walk.

Meeting friends along the way.

He figured out the candy thing pretty quickly, not that he got any ;)

Trip to the beach

Jon, Jonah and I finally got down to the beach for an overnight. His parents have a condo in Ocean City and we like to go in the off season so we can take the dogs on the beach (they aren't allowed on the beach during the season.) We had a great time. Jonah had never been to the beach, so the sand and the ocean were new things. It was chilly, but pretty mild for November, so we spent most of our time down on the beach. It was a short trip, but a ton of fun and something we are going to do much more often.

Checking out the sand.

What are those bubbles?

A big one!

Flying kites with dad.

They were doing some construction on the beach, so we spent

a lot of time checking out the BIG trucks. Jonah still loves trucks.

Holiday Fun!

We've been having a busy holiday season. Feels like we have things going on every weekend!

Thanksgiving was fun. My parents came up and we all went up to the Schiavi's (Jon's parent's neighbors) They have a great house, big enough for all of us!

Jonah's place, so cute!

Eating a big Thanksgiving meal, he was a huge fan of the cranberries.

Jonah and Gran Dada

Jonah and daddy

Jonah and I took a trip to the Festival of Trees. We had a great time, there were all types of Christmas trees, a great model train, Merry go round, moon bounce even a pony ride. I think all of Baltimore decided to go the same weekend we did!

Jon and Jonah met some friends to go to the Baltimore Symphony and Orchestra's Nutcracker (for kids). Jonah LOVED it! Jon said Jonah was absolutely fixated the entire time. The show lasted about 40min and the dancers did a shortened version of all the Nutcracker songs. They said it was fabulous and would recommend it to everyone!

Busy Fall!

I am starting to understand why people who have toddlers don't email or call you back sometimes for quite awhile, they are too busy chasing around their crazy kid and when they do have some down time, they're probably unconscious. Jonah has really become such a little person and so much fun! I know I said he was fun before, but it just keeps getting better and better and busier!

We've had quite a busy fall. Below are some of the things we've been up to.

Visiting Museums! : We went to Port Discovery Museum with some friends and their son Connor who is 3 weeks older than Jonah. It is a childrens museum with a TON of stuff to do, a good part of it is better for kids older than Jonah, but there was plenty to see and do, especially in the water room.


Watching Auburn Games!! : Since I am a northern girl, I've had to ask friends to get me some Auburn gear for Jonah. My co-worker grabbed me an outfit while she was down visiting friends and we have a hat from Ms. Colleen (aka Swales!) in the mail as we speak...so we have been in our team colors rooting for our team!



Becoming obsessed with trackers! (as we call them). It started with Jon taking Jonah and the dogs over to the college we live next to, to see the construction of a new building. The love of machinery had begun, then he took him for a ride on the riding lawn mower. After that it was all over. Now every single time we go outside, he points at the shed and screms 'Tak ta! Tak ta!', since we call it a tractor. I've gotten around it somewhat by telling him mom doesn't know how to drive the 'tak ta'. Hopefully he'll buy that for awhile longer.



Visiting farms : We met some friends at a pick-your-own farm to pick some apples and enjoy the day. We had a great time, we got lots of apples to make apple pie and homemade applesauce and got to see some huge pumpkins. He, of course, saw a tracker and insisted we go check it out (big surprise).

Playing outside : Playing in the leaves and eating sticks, yum!

Loves the water!

Games! : Starting his own games, such as hiding under his learning tower. Another one that I can't ever get a photo of, is him hiding himself around the corner of the cupboards and then walking around the corner and saying 'boo!'. He loves for me to jump around and scare him. It just totally blows me away that hes started to initiate these games on his own. Its so cute!

Fall time

Jonah is really getting around now and starting to talk a little more. He definitely knows the word 'up', which is what he says when he wants me to pick him up which is all the time! He also says 'hat', 'hot', 'nana' for 'banana' and then his own versions of lion and blueberries among a few others that you have to kind of figure out.

His personality is definitely coming out, including some mini-tantrums, which I was hoping wouldn't start till closer to 2yrs old, but I guess not :) Hes still a really happy and easy going baby for the most part, he'll just definitely let you know when he doesn't get something he wants.

Here are a few pics we've taken lately. We just recently got his 4th haircut! and its SO short, but I actually like it a lot. The kid has so much hair!



The next few pictures are when we went to a 'pick your own' farm and picked apples and pumpkins. We had a GREAT time and will be going back again in a week or so to get some big pumpkins. We got a bunch of apples this time around for apple pie and homemade apple sauce.

Walking, talking, signing and being sassy

Its been forever since I've updated the blog...Jonah is getting so big so fast! He is already 14 1/2mo and it getting quite the personality. He is walking a little bit, but not totally yet. He will stand up and walk a few steps, but chooses to crawl when he really wants to get somewhere. However, we took his lion 'walker' toy he got for his 1 yr bday from our friends Tony & Betsy and tried it outside. He just took off! It is so cute and he will go a lot longer then I thought. Today we walked all the way down our long driveway and all the way over to the neighbors, he thought it was the best.

We also went his friend Pierce's 1st bday party this past weekend and they had this great 'play area', Jonah is a huge fan of opening and closing doors, probably because we have so many baby gates in the house and he gets to do it all day long ;)

He has become such a sasser too. He will head towards something he knows he not supposed to do and before he gets there or does it, he'll stop, look at me, smile and then shake his head 'no' and then proceed to do it anyway. Hes gonna give it to me, I just know it.

Just a cute picture of our happy little man. He is just something else. He now knows how to sign 'please' and does it all the time for things he wants. He'll point at something he wants and signs 'please'. He also says 'up' all the time..he'll crawl over and stand up, hold his arms up and say 'up'. Its his favorite word and my favorite thing.

Jonah's first steps

Jonah's been super close to walking for awhile now. He kind of took a step or two the other day and that suddenly inspired Jon to decide it is time for Jonah to walk. This morning he seemed really close, so Jon decided he would get out the video camera, just in case, and get Jonah walking. Well he did it! These are his actually first official steps, at least, more than just a 1-2 down type of things he did yesterday.

I love how my mother-in-law and Jon are holding out food to get him to do it. We do feed our child normally, he doesn't always have to work for it ;)

Baby Signing

We've been doing baby signing with Jonah since he was about 6mos. He started signing back when he was around 9mos, his first sign was 'dog'. I've recently been trying to make small movies of his signs and send them to my sister, who teaches baby signing, so she has some examples for her classes to see.

The last few weeks he has been picking up a new sign almost every day. It is the absolute coolest thing and I'm so glad that we decided to do and have stuck to it. It is SO much fun when he learns a new sign and can tell us what he sees/hears/wants etc. The other day he signed 'fan' when we were out somewhere and I thought he had made a mistake and said 'thats not a fan' and then realized that he was pointing to a fan that was way up in someones balcony that I hadn't even noticed. SO cool.

Below are a few I've been able to get on film. Cheese is one of the newer ones. Some of the signs he does now are: mommy, dog, fan, more, all done, cheese, ball, tree, brush teeth, hat, shoes, and eat.

I just realized the videos don't quite fit..I will try and fix that soon...

Jonah is 1 Year Old!

My tiny beautiful baby just turned 1 year old. Its absolutely crazy how fast this year has gone. He is so much fun, but I do miss that tiny snuggly baby since hes now way too busy wanting to crawl around and play with his toys to snuggle up with mom anymore. For his party I rented a shelter at the state park that is right next to our house. We had a fabulous time!

Jonah's friend Connor

The McCurley crew

My friend Melanie helped me to make Cookie Monster cupcakes. They were super easy and turned out so cute!!

The Fam

Allison and Emerson

Thor and Gavin

Jonah's first time having sugar...oh boy!

Hmmmm..I think he likes it.

The party!