Beautiful weekend for celebrations

On Saturday we received two "prank" phone messages, one on Cortney's cell phone and one on our answering machine.  We're not talking heavy breathing here.  Worse, they were, quite simply, the Michigan State Fight Song.  We overcame the horror of said messages quickly, or at least by 5:00pm.  We won't dwell too long on the victory, just long enough to rub it in for the State fans that LOST on Saturday.  Now, if the State players had even a touch of the athletic talent that Calvin displays here, it might have been a different story...

Sunday was an all together different kind of celebration.  For months our church has been planning an "all church supper" to celebrate the beginning of a new season and a new stewardship kickoff.  We have to admit that when we heard they were planning said supper to be held in the great out of doors in the middle of a Michigan October we were skeptical.  We were, however, pleasantly surprised by the Indian Summer weather, with sun and 70 degree weather.  This was a celebration not only for the church as a whole, but for Cortney and her committee, which was in charge of planning and putting on the event, and her fellow deacons, who were challenged to bring in and host at least 300 of the church's almost 2,000 members.  Well, the event, complete with meals served at the tables and a live band, went off without a hitch, and over 500 members attended!  Cortney hosted 14 people at her table alone, and Jon found himself acting as part of the entertainment - not with a piano, with Calvin.  Most people cannot resist cooing at a cuddly baby!  As our pastor noted to us over supper, many people have begun to refer to Calvin as the church's baby.

And what is celebration without cake?  Since Jon's birthday is October 10th we also took advantage of the beautiful weekend to sneak in double birthday celebrations.  On Saturday night we celebrated with Jon's parents, and enjoyed a wonderful post-game tailgate style dinner (mmm...) and a fantastic homemade carrot cake (Jon's favorite).  On Sunday night we celebrated with Cortney's family, where Jon shared the candles on a yummy chocolate ice cream cake with Curtis, who shares the same birthday.  So we have a wonderful football team (shh...don't burst our bubble just yet), a wonderful church, and wonderful families - that was a lot to celebrate.

Happy October!!!

We're ready...where's the candy???  Although summer is also fun, with the sun and warm weather, we also find ourselves loving the fall.  There's football and tailgating, plus the colorful leaves are really starting to come out now around here and that makes all three of us smile.  Well, actually, it seems to make Calvin drool, but that's because everything makes Calvin drool these days.  His doctor says it's not teething (thank you), baby salivary glands just kick into overdrive right now as they explore everything with their mouths.  Well, you've all seen how much Calvin enjoys this new activity.  We are entering this new season with two other new things for Calvin.  The separation anxiety you already know about, and the other is his ability to sit up.  This was a real surprise for Cortney, who had him propped up on his pillow watching the Aquarium "TV" when he sat himself up to better reach the buttons.  Equally surprising was the fact that he stayed in that position and played for several minutes.  These days he can sit completely unaided for about 30 seconds (not much, we know), but he can sit in his circle pillow and play for about 5-10 minutes, probably because the pillow helps keep him from tipping to either side and allows him to expend his energy on things other than balancing (like, for instance, grabbing the dog's tail and trying to eat it).  There are some pictures of him doing this in last week's album, his sixteenth week.  Happy October everyone!

Happy autumnal equinox

Or, in other words, welcome to the first day of fall.  We rang in the new season with style, or geeky fanaticism in lieu thereof (like mommy like baby, evidently).  We started the day with our usual pre-game tailgate, the only difference today being that Calvin was awake for the majority of it.  It would appear that as the days get shorter and shorter, Calvin's daily alert time gets longer and longer (or, more likely, it is due to the fact hat he is sleeping more at night).  Following the pregame party we headed home, again as usual, to watch the game on TV.  And, again, Calvin was awake for the majority it, allowing us to introduce him to the finer points of football, including singing cheering, how to tackle dad, and how to denote a key play (see photo).  The only question we have to ask is this:  what quarterback was wearing jersey number seven last week, and why did he give it back to Henne this week?  At least we won.  

But aside from the ending of summer, today marks another ending/beginning;  as of today Calvin has officially outgrown his bassinet.  And, try as we might to get used to the idea of him sleeping in the next room, we find ourselves incapable.  Mind you that this is purely a selfish situation - Calvin has no trouble sleeping alone in his crib in his nursery and does so for every nap, but we are very used to him being only an arm's reach away and are not ready to give up that feeling of safety and security.  Nonetheless, he has most definitely outgrown the bassinet, which comes with a weight limit of only 15lbs (in fact, he's been sleeping in there "illegally" for nearly two weeks now).  Today we racked our brains to come up with a solution to this self proclaimed crisis, and the answer presented itself in the form of a larger bassinet.  Not imaginative, we know, and, most definitely, not brave.  But we must choose our battles, and this is not a "man versus self" style battle that we choose to take on.  It's not worth it.  And besides, where's the fun in that?  So, at least for a few months longer, our family will continue to enjoy nightly sleepovers.

Birthday Tailgate

How many Michigan fans have an October 10th birthday? We had four to celebrate at the tailgate today: Jon, Curtis, Bobbi, and Tom and Carrie's baby, who is to be delivered on Monday! Cortney made some tasty peanut butter brownies, and planted maize and blue candles for each of the birthday folk in them. Of course, that wasn't the only food on the menu.  Judi's sweets are, of course, always the best.  Bobbi brought the tastiest taco dip ever (we've requested that again for next week), and someone else brought pretzel jello - never heard of it, but it was really good.  Cortney's mom's chili and Charlie's grilled hotdogs were the party food du jour, and were a welcome warm treat during the cold snap. This was the first football Saturday of the year to really feel like fall, at around 50 degrees. And to think that it was 80 degrees just a few days ago!

Notice that the only discussion here is of the tailgating menu.  We won't be discussing the game.  After all, Halloween isn't for another few weeks, so there's no sense in scaring everyone now. 

Honk if you love hooters

The Toledo Zoo had an Oktoberfest celebration like Detroit's, but Toledo was asking for $40 per person for their party. So we passed on that, and just plain went to the zoo for the animals. Jon had a great time as usual watching the hippo pool (they even climbed out of the water and trundled around for awhile!). In contrast, the meerkats were scampering about. We wonder if they are aware that their enclosure is right next to the white lions courtesy of Siegfriend and Roy? Being a Sunday in the fall, attendance in the Africa section was low, but they were still serving delicious flame-broiled burgers on demand.  Most unique about this visit? The penguins were honking. Listen for yourself:

Not captured on the video is when a couple of them would hide under rocks and make an entirely different, guttural sound. Were they having a good time, or just sneaking around?