Turkey Day

So I'm sure you are just dying to see the adorable pictures of Fred plowing his face into a pumpkin pie? And all of us in our cute sweaters snuggling on the couch. Or the fellas taking a snooze while watching football. Me too....

We have no pictures, because there are none. The closest thing we got to a Thanksgiving was the turkey baster like nasal aspirator we used to get the gunk out of Fred's nose. All of us were at home with a bad cold. I don't think anyone even made it out of there jammies. We hope for a do-oever Thanksgiving day soon. The sniffles seems to be subsiding and hopefully we will be in full holiday mode.

Quick Stats

Sorry this is boring since I have no pictures, but a few quick things...

the 9mo. check up took place and weighing at 21lbs. and 2oz & 31inches long is Fred the horse. I feel he's huge well at least 90% for length and 50th for weight.

I also realized I've never mentioned that crawling (well belly crawling) is a trick that we are very advanced at. Mobility = freedom and he loves every second of it. Also yesterday and once today Fred is able to pull himself up to stand - Very exciting, except for the fact that it looks as if he wants to climb as well... oh boy oh boy. Pictures should be coming soon!

Halloween Prep

I still can't load any new pictures...I'm working on it believe me! But here is one of our pumpkins - I call it ode to Fred with squinty happy eyes, nice big wide mouth with two bottom teeth. I think he liked it - well he sucked on it, so I think that's a good sign of approval.

Its Not Easy Being Green

Since having Fred, environmental issues, freak me out. Seriously, I had a meltdown during the summer when I heard that the polar ice caps had shrunken to an all time low, that they had almost completely melted, ad while I would like to blame the tears on hormones, I worry about what kind of environment my kids (& their children & so on) have been brought into. So Fred and I got on the G-diaper system. They degrade within 150 days in a landfill, are made from sustainable & recycled products. However many know of our saga that they clogged our sewer (they are designed to be flushable) yet the company was amazing and are giving us a years worth of free diapers (the plumber's bill was rather significant). I've been switching over all our household cleaners to Seventh Generation products, trying to buy more organic products (God bless Trader Joe's - I seriously think I should open a franchise of one). I got Stan this book for His birthday called Living Like Ed, by Ed Begely Jr. It is really interesting, and has increased our desire to get off the grid. (Create our own energy in solar panels & wind). I think the best part of the book is realizing that he is neighbor's with Bill Nye the Science guy - Hollywood cracks me up. Stan is beginning to look at hybrids for his next car & I'm thinking I could maybe get away with an electric for my next car (several several years off). All of this knowledge has sort of spurred on our pipe dream to build our "forever house". Did you know that you can insulate with recycled denim & newspaper composit? How cool is that! I'm trying to cut down on our waste but have been slow to get a compost pile going. We've also been looking into rain barrels. I guess the reason I'm spewing all this goofy granola, hippie, eco-nutter info is that I'm so annoyed with the energy lobby's tv ads! I hope as a society we can look back on them like cigarette ads. These pictures are from awhile ago (I'm re-looking at what I can post since I still can't load pictures) Aunt Kelly gave us this awesome t-shirt for our grassroots movement - by which I mean that Fred sat in the grass and pulled it out by the roots.

Hey Gramps...Watcha Doing?

We love Grandpa Ed.

How can Gluttony be a sin when it's this cute?

My son the Glutton. He is eating us out of house and home. We are talking about 12 - 16 oz of solids at a meal! Babies his age, I was told eat about two jars of food at a meal if that, which is around 8 oz. Fred easily can double that. For instance let me share what he ate for dinner last night:
4 oz. of Chicken Dinner (its a blend of sweet potatoes, chicken and apples I blend together)
1 1/2 oz. of lentils
1 oz. of carrots
3 oz. of peas
2 oz. of multigrain infant cereal
1 oz. of pears
1 oz. of peaches
probably about 2 oz of applesauce
a kiwi (around 2 oz)
Cheerios
juice from his sippy cup
and after all that he nursed before bed time! I don't even know if we have ever seen him full. He never turns his head that he doesn't want food, he'll keep eating Cheerios (I tried this game for over an hour till I finally gave up). And because I'm making almost all his food, I feel I live my life in the kitchen. I'm constantly making batches of sweet potatoes, or spinach, or fruit. There's all the cleaning, cutting, blending, and then clean-up - I swear by the time I finish one batch its time to feed him again. The ice cube trays are always in use freezing green beans or beats or whatever. I'm getting ready for him to just eat big people food because once I'm finished making him dinner, I'm making us dinner and it is crazy! I think we are packing on the pounds too. I'll be anxious to see where we are at when we go to the doctor's in a couple of weeks. He's still really long, but he now has the Philips cankles and his wrists are getting fat! He's certainly putting his two bottom teeth to work chomping on the Cheerios and chunks of fruit. I guess he's in need of all this food to power him, since he never seems to stop moving and is army crawling everywhere! He's speedy and tenacious to get to where he wants. Still it'll be a lot easier once we can go to all table food.

Election Day Baby!

Look at how Fred has aged through out this campaign! The young one is on the day of the primary, the other picture of him coming out of the polls!

Technical Difficulties

I have a few other pictures to post about Fred before my reserve dries up due to not having anymore memory or disk space on my computer. I need to get an external hard drive so I can down load the pictures from Halloween - because you know I would have been writing about that sooner it being my favorite and his first. But for the moment to quench your Fred longing take a look at my buddy's blog about our recent adventure to South Bend for a Fred Fest - so fun! Fred did amazing in the car which I was nervous about because the last time we did that drive coming home from summer vacation, lets just say by the time we got home, my car interior needed serious cleaning, the car seat needed cleaning, Fred needed a bath and rode home through the last part of the journey with out close and Stan would only breath through his mouth. But this time we had no such issues which was awesome for me since I was doing this on my own. I have other pics to post and will do so as soon as possible.