Halloween!!

Halloween isn't until tomorrow, but we found an excuse to get JJ in his gnome costume a few days early.  Friday we checked out a fall festival at a nearby drop-in child care center.  People seemed to like his costume - especially the beard and the boots!  Great handiwork, Nana!!

Tonight we (i.e. Daddo) finally carved JJ's pumpkin.  JJ helped by stirring the pumpkin seeds.

He wanted absolutely nothing to do with the pumpkin guts!

But he liked the finished product and was pretty intrigued by the candle.

 Spoooooky!  Happy Halloween!!

Duck Pond

A few weeks ago we discovered a duck pond about 15 minutes from our house.  The ducks here are crazy! They are always ravenous and not at all shy about begging for bread.  JJ is very brave and lets the ducks eat right out of his hand.  

Today when we visited the duck pond, all the ducks were out on the sidewalk waiting for visitors.  

They quickly followed us down to the pond for some delicious stale bread.

Daddo wanted to see if the ducks would eat bread off his body.  Sho' 'nuff.

Pumpkin Farm!

Daddo took JJ and I on a surprise trip today.  All we were told was be ready by 9:15am and wear sneakers.  Around 10am we arrived at Evergreen Farms in Elgin, TX, October headquarters for pumpkin-themed fun! They offer a Pumpkin Hunt, Pumpkin Launcher, Pumpkin Maze, Pumpkin Golf, Pumpkin Pond, Pumpkin Train, Pumpkin Pump, and Pumpkin Spinner.  We did the age-appropriate stuff and JJ loved it there.  His favorites were being pulled by the tractor (he kept saying "chugga choo-choo"), hunting for mini-pumpkins, and riding the "train" (3 carts pulled by a tractor around the farm).  And, of course, he was excited to pick out a pumpkin to take home, in addition to the two mini-pumpkins he acquired on the pumpkin hunt.  Lots of pictures below!  We capped off the excursion with a bbq lunch at Meyer's Elgin Smokehouse, allegedly the best bbq in Elgin (a town with probably 2 bbq restaurants).  Yum!

Video Montage

JJ's grandma put together this really cool video with clips from JJ's 1st birthday through 18 months of age.  I tend to get a lump in my throat by the 1-minute mark (sappy mommy).  I've always loved a good video montage.

JJ likes watching himself

Here's a little video of JJ watching himself record a video of... himself

JJ in July

Here are some recent pictures of JJ.  First, having brunch at Blue Star Cafeteria with Uncle Eric and Aunt Jess (who took the pictures).  We asked JJ where his nose was, and he showed us by picking said nose.

Here he is looking slightly more mature (except for the food smeared all over his face).

Last week, Miss Ana took JJ to LocoMotion, the inflatable play place. We have taken him there several times as well but hadn't discovered the costume room!  Leave it to Ana to get him in a costume and capture some cute photos.

And since I've been pretty bad about keeping up with JJ's baby book, I thought I'd list some of his current favorite things.

What JJ loves right now:

• The pool, sprinkler, pouring buckets of water on himself or anything having to do with AGUA!  (He says "agua" but not "water.")  Often he will pull my bathing suit out of the drawer and hold it up saying "Pool! Pool!"
• Red grapes.  He gobbles them up these days.  For some reason he calls them "boota."
• Smoothies.  He demands one almost every morning by doing the smoothie dance and saying "moo mooie, moo mooie."
• Running on top of our bed.  A potentially dangerous pastime, we recognize.  He says "book-a, book-a, book-a" while he does this.
• Dancing, especially to the theme song of "Jack's Big Music Show," and doing the so-called "dop-a-dee dance."  We don't know where that one came from.  He also likes the Britney Spears song "Til the World Ends" and sings along to the "oh oh oh" parts.
• Cars.  He loves to watch cars drive down our street.  He calls them "ca-car"s.
• Tickling people.  His technique isn't great yet, but it's cute to watch because he says "tickle tickle tickle tickle" in a high-pitched voice.
• Books.  He's pretty into books right now.  Two of his favorites are the "uh-oh" book (a book about cats that involves a broken vase: uh-oh) and the "no-nina" book (which contains a picture of a moon, aka nonina).
• Brushing his teeth.  Mostly he just sucks the toothpaste out of the brush.
• Giving kisses.  Well, maybe HE doesn't love this, but we do.  He will usually kiss us on command, on the lips no less.  He also kisses pictures in his books, stuffed animals, photographs of people, and images on our iPhones.

As you can see, this kid has a lot of interests :)  I'm sure I'm forgetting some big ones, so maybe Daddo can add to this post later.  Time for bed.  As JJ says, "Nigh-nigh!"

Summer Fun Collection

Here are a bunch of pictures from the past month or so.  We went to the Austin Zoo, a petting zoo, LocoMotion Inflatable Play, and our own backyard.

 Trying out his new sand and water table.

 Helping Daddo build his playhouse.

 Water fun!

Traveling petting zoo at the farmer's market.

LocoMotion!

Driving the "car-car."

Slide!

 Ball pit!

Austin Zoo.  Kind of a dump, actually, but if was fun watching JJ feed the deer.