Photo Shoot - month 4

We can't decide if it's fun or annoying that it takes this long to get the proofs from Calvin's monthly photo shoots.  It mght be fun, since having to wait two weeks to get them back means that he has had two weeks of growing which, at this stage anyway, means having a chance to "look back" on that time when the pictures arrive.  It might also be annoying, since it means that we don't have the pictures when to share with all of you when we post all of his other monthly updates.  In any case, here are some of our favorites from the four month photo shoot, only a couple of weeks away from the five month shoot

 

Halloween identity crisis!

I'm a dinosaur? I'm a lion?

I'm a giraffe!

Play peekaboo with Calvin!

The title says it all.

Halloween down on the farm

Thankfully last week's snow turned out to be just a teaser, and today a bit of true fall visited the area:  bright blue sky, wispy clouds, temperatures nearing 60, and a light, crisp autumn breeze.  We were on our way to the grocery store to stock our pantry and deck our front porch with pumpkins when we decided to completely reschedule our day in order to enjoy the beautiful fall weather.  What were we thinking, trying to buy pumpkins from the grocery store when there is a famous pumpkin patch literally two minutes down the street from us???  So instead of cleaning and lazing about after unloading groceries (sans pumpkins) we headed off to Wiard's Orchard for Calvin's first taste of this fun fall activity.  What an amazing way to spend a fall day!  There were animals (which Calvin is too young to pet), basic carnival games and activities (which Calvin is too young to take part in), and, of course, fresh cider and donuts (which Calvin is too young to ingest).  What Calvin could do was play with pumpkins, and this he found fascinating - until he found it exhausting, after which he merely conked out and slept through the rest of our visit.  But whether he enjoyed it or not, we did, and we even came home with a small family of pumpkins (not from the national chain store, but from our local centennial+ farm) that we chose directly from the patch (the Halloween equivalent of cutting down your own Christmas tree, just warmer).  And fall really lends itself to beautiful pictures the way that no other season does, so we also came home with a plethora of photographs, a favored handful of which we have posted in Calvin's nineteenth week album to share (yes, those are just a handful).  We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Baby proofing (or lack thereof)

We had visitors today.  Actually, it would be more truthful to say that Calvin had visitors today - it's rare that anyone comes solely to asee us anymore.  At least we recognize and freely admit this fact.  So, to start again, Calvin had visitors today in the form of our friends Amy, from around the corner, and Becky and, most importantly (you see how this works, don't you?), her daughter Liesl.  It doesn't seem that long ago that Liesl visited us for the first time and tested our baby equipment and our dogs, but believe it or not it was actually months ago.  Lots of them.  And today she wasn't testing our equipment, she was pointing out our lack of baby proofing (yes, folks, the outlet covers are not going to cut it).  She gleefully traversed the entirety of our house, graciously pointing out flaws as she went.  It went something like this "oh, I guess the crystal can't go on that shelf" and "wait, did you close the bathroom door?" and "whoa, I didn't realize how many cords were behind the TV, did you?"  Yes, we have our work cut out for us.  And with the way Calvin is going we had better get it done sooner rather than later.