Determination...

As I mentioned in my previous post, Jaxson gets around pretty well these days.

Here's a quick video clip of him moving across the floor to get a scrap of paper that caught his eye. Enjoy:



He's not fast, but he gets it done.

We're going to have to vacuum a lot more often...

Trick or Treat 2K6

It's been a while since we updated. Sorry about that.

There's a lot to get caught up on...but it would take forever. So, I'll skip to the interesting stuff.

Tuesday night, we went to our friend's house, The Henke's for their Halloween Party. They talked with a lot of the families on their street and arranged for us to take our kids out for their first Trick-or-Treating excursion. It was our weekly Life Group get together. Many of us have small children (many less than a year old) that had never been Trick-or-Treating before.

(Begin Aside)

A thing about Trick-or-Treating--aren't we basically teaching our kids to beg for candy from strangers? At some point, I'm going to give Jaxson the "Don't-Take-Candy-From-Strangers" Speech, and I guess I'll have to add the "...except on Halloween..." caveat in there somewhere.

(End Aside)


So, anyway, we decided to take our son our for some Halloween Begging-for-Candy Fun. We had bought him a chicken costume a few weeks prior. When we tried it on him at home, he absolutely hated it.

Here's a picture of him not enjoying his costume:

In the above picture, he's fighting to get out of the costume. We thought that Halloween night, he'd be in it for about long enough to take a few pictures for Gran and NoName to see, and that'd be it.

Come the Big Day, he'd mellowed about the whole "dressing up like a chicken" thing. It didn't seem to bother him at all. If anything, he seemed more confused by the idea. Check him out:

Doesn't he look perplexed?

We assembled all the first time Halloween-ers for a group picture. Oddly enough, the three boys were all animals, while the lone female was a strawberry. Here's the best picture (it's hard getting four 6- to 11-month olds to look at the camera at the same time):


Left to right, we have: Chicken: Jaxson Hall, Dog: Caleb Hill, Kermit the Frog: Braden Henke, and Strawberry: Halli Brandt.

After 30 minutes of photographs (remember, we're all first time parents), we headed out for Trick-or-Treating. Jaxson did really well. It was really cold, and he hung in there like a trooper while Mom and Dad did the begging. The people whose houses we visited were really nice, and one guy even had Gummi Savers. (Thanks, dude. Jaxson's dad loves Gummi Savers.)

We visited about 10 houses, and headed back inside to eat. Cortni had made Halloween-themed finger foods, which was a lot of fun. I'd never had pizza with little fingers on it before, but I must say--it was surprisingly good.

The Henkes also hosted a Jack-o-Latern carving contest. Each couple was given a pumpkin, and asked to come up with the most creative use of the large, orange gourd. Here's ours:

(If I had all that stuff inside me, I think I'd get sick, too.)

The Pumpkin Carving Contest was a lot of fun. We couldn't decide who won, so we left it up to the Internet to decide. (Go to this link, and leave a comment to cast your vote. Vote for Two! Two. 2. Dos. Two. 2!)

Anyway, we had a great time. Thanks to Adam and Cortni for volunteering to host, and for cleaning up after us.

Another thing...Jaxson's so mobile lately. It's really neat watching him roll, push, scoot, and quasi-crawl his way to something that he wants in the floor. He's really getting around pretty well.

The other day, he found a page of stick-on labels in the floor. Like anything in the floor, they were HIS. Once he got them, they went straight into his mouth. Tara didn't see him get them, but she did manage to get a picture of the aftermath:

Although it looks like it, this photo was not staged. He ended up with stickers all over his face...and he was as happy as he could be.

What a funny kid!

Next week, I'm going to be travelling to Michigan for work, and Tara's Dad, Papaw Chucky Ben, is coming to stay with them. It's going to be long, lonely week for me. Jaxson does new stuff almost daily, and it's going to be tough missing all that for a week.

I've asked Tara to post a picture each day, so check back here often to keep up with the latest.

I know I will.

Until next time,

Norman

Voted yet? (Pssst...Two.)

qAustin Update...

I know you're curious what ol' qAustin's been up to...well here's a couple of photos showing what he did when he came to our house a week or so ago.

Here's a BEFORE picture:

A DURING:


Another DURING:

And an AFTER photograph:

Sing it with me:

Silent Q!

A - U - S!

T - I - N!

qAustin! qAustin! qAustin!

(Did you do the rhythmic clapping? I know you did...)

Later,

Norman