What the...???

I woke up this morning, and Mommy put THESE WEIRD CLOTHES on me...

Then I went to meet up with my friends for a hayride and they were ALL wearing weird clothes...

Mommy said she's see them later...what the heck is going on here???  I'll report back in a bit if anything else strange happens today...

Never Enough Fall

I hope no one was worried about me in this blogless past week.  I was busy enjoying the fall -- again!  You might think it was just more of the same old colorful leaves, pumpkin picking and hayrides, but this past week was so full of new things for me, you wouldn't believe me if I told you.  Luckily, Mommy and Daddy took pictures so I can show you!

I tasted lots of new things, like my foot...
an apple...

sand...

and frosting!  I knew I wasn't supposed to put my hands into Gigi's cake, but I was soooo close, I just coudn't resist.

The toys at the library taste pretty good, too.  I hung out there with Emily and some other friends a few times last week.

Sam found a "spyglass" in Mommy's bag.

I went to the playground with Mommy and Daddy and checked out some of the equipment.

I don't think I'm quite ready for this slide...

But safe on Daddy's lap, this one is lots of fun!

I heard that Jackson hung out at my place one afternoon, while his mommy and daddy were moving their stuff to his new house.  But I never saw him, because I was napping when he arrived, and then he proceeded to go down for a FOUR HOUR NAP before I woke up!  I know he was there, because Mommy took this picture of him in my Jumperoo.

ND Emily came to visit, too, and her mommy brought us COFFEE!!!  ND Emily is pretty smart, she showed me how to pull the safety bumpers off of the TV stand.  Now I love to play with their rubbery goodness!

I went on TWO hayrides...one on a very cold, windy day last weekend...

And the other one today, in the beautiful and warm sunshine!

Mommy carved our pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns and roasted their seeds to eat -- yum!

In this week of doing new things, I also perfected my clapping skills.  I can now clap on demand...if I'm in the mood.

And the BEST new thing I did this week?  Attend a 90th birthday party for Gigi, my great-grandmother!

Here is Mommy with some of her cousins (Christy and Lauren) and Gigi.

This party was THE BOMB!!!  I mean, I already told you that I got to eat a lot of frosting.  AND I got to hang out with Grandma and my newest cousin, Robbie.

I happily spent some time with my fun Aunty, who lives in Gloucester.

Aunty is Gigi's sister.  I love these ladies!  I don't get to see them enough, though.

Okay I'll try to be better and increase my posting frequency, but this week is Halloween, another hayride, a visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house, AND my 9 month check-up -- I'm going to be a busy little boy!  I hope I don't have to get any shots...

Outdoor Activity

Fall seems to be a great time for doing all sorts of fun stuff outside.  One day last week, Mommy and I played under the maple tree in our back yard, and she took all sorts of pictures of me amongst the colorful leaves.

Almost 7 years ago, Mommy and Daddy had something called a wedding.  And one of the presents they received was a gift certificate for The Publick House in Sturbridge, MA.  Let me repeat that they received this gift 7 years ago!!!  And they never used it.  And it expires in about 3 weeks!  So, that meant it was time for a car ride to Sturbridge.

Old Sturbridge Village was our first stop, and we met Rebecca and Joshua there, with their parents.  The village is a sort of live museum of a New England Village in the 1800's.  There were animals and people in costume and lots of old buildings.  I even got to go to school with Mommy!  I paid very good attention to the teacher.

Then we went to The Publick House for lunch, where we also met up with Cate and Michael and their parents.  I have to tell you, Baby Cate is a bit of a bruiser...AGAIN she tried to pull my hair and bite my head, but Mommy protected me better this time.  But Cate sure is cute, isn't she?  I mean, despite the manhandling and all.

The Publick House was SO MUCH FUN!  We had our own private room where we could yell and crawl and loudly laugh all we wanted.  And the food was so so yummy -- I ate real people food, and LOTS of it.  The butternut squash/roasted corn bisque was exquisitely pleasing to my as young palate, as was the pureed squash that I enjoyed from Daddy's plate.  And I LOVED the corn bread!  In fact, I think I'm changing my name to Cornbread.  I was so well-behaved, and I mean, seriously, this was my best restaurant experience EVER!  Except for the part when I gagged on a piece of fuzz that I found on the carpet and forcibly vomited out most of my lunch.  But Mommy caught most of it in a burp cloth, so we were all good.

Outside the restaurant was a Harvest Festival.  I danced with Mommy to the sounds of a live band!  Also, there was this really weird looking guy walking around...I didn't know what to make of him.  People said he was a scarecrow, but I wasn't scared.  I really wanted to pull on his dangly things but I didn't know what would happen if I did...

Here are Becca and Joshua with their parents.Michael and his daddy got to ride on a train!As we were leaving, Mommy gave me a bit of a sugar cookie from The Publick House Bake Shoppe.  OH, yum.  Heaven is licking the sugar off of a little crumbly disk.  I was sooo tired at this point, though, it was all I could do to keep putting the cookie in my mouth.

J Cubed

This afternoon we went to ND Emily's house to watch the ND football game.  ND Emily has 2 little kittens and one really big dog, all of whom were quite tolerant of me "petting" them and climbing on them and even pulling on their paws and tails.

We had some very yummy lasagne and cookies, and I got stuck inside a cube.

Just before we went home, Daddy and Emily's Daddy started yelling really loudly at the TV.  I never heard some of those words before.  They sounded angry, but it wasn't at us.  We were just playing.  I wonder why they were so mad?

I love this weather!

On Wednesday Mommy and I went up to Boston to visit a few friends.  First we saw Mommy's ND friend Courtney and her new baby Brielle.  

Brielle is only 8 weeks old.

We went for a nice sunny walk through Inman Square, and I ate my first cookie at Rosie's Bakery.  A Snickerdoodle!  Not a whole one, Mommy helped me finish it.

Later, Mommy and I went to see Amy, Matt, Cate, and Michael.  Cate is just a few months older than me, but she can totally kick my butt.  She bit my head and pulled my hair, and then we took a bath together.  I can't show you those pictures on the blog, though -- too much blackmail potential  for when I'm older!  I can show you this one of me with Ollie, who I LOVE!

The next day we went out to eat at Sound Bites with Courtney, Brielle, Amy, Cate, Andrea, Rebecca, and Joshua.  I ate some French Toast and a bit of a blueberry muffin.  I forgot to chew part of the blueberry in the muffin before I swallowed it, though -- and it got stuck in my throat! Don't worry, I just puked it out and went on with my business.

Which included admiring Brielle.

After breakfast we went to a very cool baby store called Twinkle Star.  There were lots of toys in the play area, including my favorite, a mirror with a bar mounted at just my height!  I loved climbing on it and looking at myself.

The whole time we were out and about in Boston, the weather was warm and sunny.  Today was no different, and it was a special day because Emily's mom made some carrot cake cupcakes to celebrate her first birthday!  OK the real day is not until next week, but I didn't mention that to Emily's mom because I wanted to eat the cupcake NOW!

Emily ate her cupcake.

Don't you think Emily should gel her hair with frosting every day?

Today Mommy and Daddy also took me back to Flamig Farm to see the animals.  We were supposed to go with Emily and her friend Kaitlyn, but I napped through most of their time there and so we just went later.  Speaking of napping, my good buddy Jackson napped almost ALL DAY today -- totally missing the farm (although he did get some cupcake).

I like the donkeys.

And the llamas.

AND the ponies!

Fall

For the past few weeks I kept hearing about how this thing called "Fall" was coming and how wonderful it was.  I know Spring and Summer were pretty awesome, but never having experienced Fall I was a little bit nervous -- would it be anything like Winter, where I was ripped from the cozy dark warmth of Mommy's belly and laid naked and screaming on a cold metal scale under bright flourescent lights?

No, no, no, Fall has been nothing like that unpleasant journey!  It's been full of festivals and colorful leaves and apple picking!

Take last Friday, for instance...Jackson, ND Emily and myself decided to take our Mommies apple picking at Bushy Hill Orchards.  We hung out on the porch, playing and eating some cider donuts while we waited for the tractor to take us to the orchards.

It was a BIG tractor, the biggest one I've ever seen!

There were lots of different types of apples to choose from.Emily wasn't shy about chowing down.

Jackson posed in front of some of the trees with his mommy.

We all got quite a lot of apples to take home with us.  Mommy has already made me some applesauce AND some apple crisp...yum!

Mommy and I stopped at ND Emily's house on the way home.  She has the cutest kittens, Leo and Daisy.

And Gus is the most ginormous dog EVER!

Mommy and Daddy also took me to some festivals this weekend -- we went on another tractor at the 4H farm!

AND I got to see my cousins at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  We celebrated Grandpa's birthday with chocolate cake!  But I didn't get to have any.