We had a Halloween gathering on Saturday – basically it was an excuse to dress up babies and laugh at how cute they are. Here is Jack in his dragon outfit:



My mom made it for him and it was wonderful. She also made a tiger for Mac:



Baby Jake showed up as a devil with wings – too cute:



And here you can see that the adults did not dress up, except for my mom who is wearing my dad’s navy uniform from Vietnam:



And here are Jack and Mac together, shortly before Jack started choking Mac and then knocked him to the ground:



I think I will have more pictures from my dad’s camera, so I’ll post more later. I also have a few shots of Jack and Joe carving pumpkins.

Jack loves to go out to eat. He likes banging spoons on new tables, staring at other people until they become uncomfortable, throwing stuff on the floor that has to be picked up by the waitstaff instead of eaten by a dog. You get the idea. Luckily Grandma Gloria and Grandpa Tom are happy to oblige him. They take him to Nello's when he spends over at their house. It's a good place to go because it's loud and most people don't mind the squalling that comes from our little munchkin.

Here he is in all his out-to-eat glory:



Another of his favorite activities is going shopping. He doesn't care where, as long as there is a cart and stuff to look at, preferably hanging from the ceiling. Once again, the grandparents score big with Jack and take him to Target.







As you can see, Jack is developing quite a little personality. Is he snapping in that lost shot? I'm not sure, but it really wouldn't surprise me.

On Saturday, Jack donned his most patriotic outfit and did some more shopping, this time at the bookstore:



He loves books right now. I read to him every night but it's only recently that I feel like he's completely following the story. Right now our favorite book is called "Is Your Mama a Lama?" The only bad part is that the story gets stuck in my head, and I find myself repeating it when Jack isn't even around. ("Is your mama a llama? I asked my friend Fred. No she is not, is what Freddy said.")

And of course, he loves to crawl around and explore. Here he is with his new guitar:



and hanging out in the entryway:



That's enough for now. I have to prepare myself for the Halloween extravaganza this weekend. Get ready to see the cutest little dragon in all of babydom.

We got the pictures from Jack's evening at Gloria's school carnival. He was the king of the party, as always. But before I get to that, it's important to show you Mr. Attitude:



Apparently he thought he was the cat's meow with his little foot up on the table. No surprises there.

So here he is with some kids from Gloria's school:









In this last one he looks a little dazed. Maybe it's just the scary guy behind him.

There are more pictures from shopping and eating, and of course I still have a few park pictures to post! As Joe mentioned, I have a lot of blogging to do….

Ok, that's a lie. I ALWAYS have words. But still. This has got to be one of the best pictures of Jack I've ever taken. We went to get pumpkins today and he was so excited with his own little squash. In this instant I can see the little boy he will become. For all of his babyhood, Jack has resembled other people in my family and Joe's family. We catch glimpses of other people every now and again. But right here, Jack looks like Jack.

I have other pictures from today, but this one deserves a post all to itself.

As promised, I have a few pictures to share of Jack digging around in the sand. Once again, at first he had to make sure it was okay. The look on his face here makes me imagine he’s saying “Ew, it’s dirty…”



But then he sees other kids are playing in it so it can’t be all bad:



Then he gets bolder, grabbing handfuls:



and sliding his hands underneath:



Here is an action shot with the sand slowly trickling out of his tiny clenched fists:



From above he looks small to me:



He had a grand time digging in the dirt and only tried to put it in his mouth once. I think he determined it didn’t taste so good.

He spent a little time standing up and enjoying the view:



Little kids kept racing by him to go down the slide, and you could tell he was trying to figure out how they moved so fast. But then he would get distracted by something shiny:



We had a fun time at the park and as long as the weather stays this way I can see us going back quite often. You can get an idea of how dirty he is once I loaded him in the stroller to head home:



Last night Jack spent over with Grandma Gloria and Grandpa Tom. He went to the school carnival and apparently had a great time with all the kids. As soon as I get the pictures from Gloria’s new camera I will post them!

Today Jack and I ventured over to Encanto Park to play on the swings and in the sand. As always, he starts every activity being slightly aprehensive:















After a bit of coaxing, however, he was ready for some serious swinging:

















He even checked out some of the other kids. Although I think he might be a little shy:
















Here's a closeup - by this point he had turned himself sideways in the swing:















In the end he was, once again, happy as a little goat:

















I have more pictures of the sand, but I'll save those for tomorrow. He really enjoyed digging around in the dirt. And I could tell he was amazed by the other children walking around. I think maybe he's trying to decide if that's a good idea or not.

Jack comes from a long line of beer-lovers, so it's no surprise that he is fascinated with a simple beer bottle. (No alcohol was consumed by Jack during filming. The same cannot be said for Joe.)





He tries with all his might to get someone to give him a beer. No luck so far.

I think I mentioned a while back that we hired a part-time nanny named Jenna. She is wonderful with Jack and today she took him to the park where he played in the sand for the first time. She reports that he loved it after making his initial face of indecision. Next time I'm going to send my camera with them so she can take some pictures.

I am also happy to report that molar #1 has finally broken completely through. It has been an arduous 2 weeks of drooling, fussing, and general malaise. Jack woke up at 6:30 this morning (for you non-parents that is like sleeping in to me), and he was cheerful as a little goat.

Nine teeth down, 11 more to go…..

Monday morning Jack and I set out for a trip to the zoo. Unfortunately Jack is not in the best of moods these days due to molars that take about 6 million years to come in and allergies that make his little nose all stopped up. He is slightly crabby, as you may be able to determine from some of the looks he is giving me in these pictures.

Here he is regarding the tortoises:



To give you an idea of the look on his face, I went around front of the stroller:



He's holding a cookie. And he's still surly. He didn't even eat the cookie, he just waved it around:



In the children's zoo area I tried to place him on a piece of farm equipment and take a cute little picture. He was having none of it. I tried setting him on the seat, he cried. I tried standing him in the hay, he cried. I tried setting him on the footboard, he cried. Big fat tears every time. So I put him back in the stroller and took a picture of him next to the farm equipment:



I think he was mad at having to be near the farm equipment, so I whisked him away.

His favorite part was the kids playing in the fountain:



He's not quite big enough to go running around in the water, but maybe by next spring.

If you look closely at this picture you will see my mom's name listed for being Zoo Auxiliary President:



As you can see, Jack is not impressed. He was quite ready to go home, thank you very much.

I was having some camera/computer problems over the past few days, but I finally got it working this morning. Of course there were tons of pictures in the camera, so I'll space them out over the next few days. Otherwise this post will be a million pages long.

One of the books I read suggested that in order to get Jack ready for eating with a spoon I should give him a bowl and spoon and see what he does. These aren't even all the pictures I took, but these came out the best.



It seems like he understands the concepts of the spoon, but he can't quite get it all together.











Inevitably, he tips the bowl over and then puts his entire hand inside to get the cereal out.







And lastly, this is what it looks like in the end:



Luckily his bath was right after the meal, so I scrubbed him down good as new. I am constantly amazed that some women are able to keep their babies clean all the time. I should ask them what they feed their kids – it must be clear noodles or something. Jack is always a mess. No matter what time of day it is I can almost guarantee I can find food on his body somewhere. I'm not too worried about it though – he seems to be surviving even with a slight yam coating every now and again.