Pumpkins And Rocks

Since both boys are growing so quickly, we took some time on the 17th to get some photos taken by Angie Ray.  She and her family are our friends, so G was off and running when her daughter arrived at the park.  While he played with his friend, Angie took a few extra shots of the little one.  Here are a few of our favorites:

I took this one of Angie in action.

On the 18th, G participated in Jump Rope For Heart to raise money for the American Heart Association.  Ollie and I attended and danced to the great music, while Chip and his friends jumped rope and hulaed hoops.

Our lives continue to revolve around soccer, and we love it.  Here is G in action on the 21st:

Ollie is getting more and more curious about food, but he has wanted to use adult cups for some time now.  Here he is "drinking coffee," after I had finished my morning cuppa on the 22nd:

On the 23rd, we made our weekly trip to Winnwood, where, as usual, he was loved on by his many honorary "grandmas."  This photo gives an example of the way he looks by the time we leave and how he feels about it.

Since G's school had early release (what we used to call "half days") last week, we tried to do some special things each day, like go to the park or have a friend over.  On Wednesday, we went to Tellus Science Museum.  He is very interested in rocks and minerals, and he wanted to go do some research in their excellent Weinman Mineral Gallery.  He chose three rocks to take in with him, and the curator of the museum, Julian Gray, was kind enough to examine his samples.  It turned out that he had chosen one sedimentary rock, one igneous rock, and one metamorphic rock.  To top it off, Mr. Gray confirmed that one of his rocks did, indeed, contain a crystal.  The photo below shows his reaction, an enthusiastic "Yesss!"

Here are the kids, minus one fossil hunter (Lily), unearthing a dinosaur.

G was allowed to choose two samples to bring home from the museum store.  He wanted some gold and a crystal, so he chose the gold-colored fool's gold (pyrite) which looked cooler than the real gold flakes they also had, and he chose a beautiful piece of quartz as well.  When everyone else left, we stayed behind to enjoy the beautiful weather and have a picnic lunch on a bench.  All three of us were hungry, so we took our time to eat and relax for a while.  Here are my babies with G's new finds:

Now, here's something that hasn't happened since we don't know when:  G fell asleep on the ride home!  Of course, when we got home, Mommy wasn't going to disturb the quiet of two sleeping boys, so she left them in the car and came upstairs to enjoy the peace and quiet until Daddy got home and they woke up, which all happened at about the same time.  It was a fun day, and G had lots to tell Daddy.  While Ollie had slept on "Auntie" Danielle's shoulder most of the time, he had a good day, too.

After that day, I spent several days in full-on Halloween Costume Mode.  I wanted to get both costumes done in time for events on Saturday, which I did just in the nick of time.  I will share photos of that in our next post.

Eight Months - A Comparison

Oliver has turned eight months old!  Since we have had so many comments about how much alike the boys look, we thought we would do a scientific study.  Here is the result:

G at left, O at right

So what do you think?

As far as behavior, we consulted our blog from eight years ago.  We found that Chip was eating a lot of food by this time, while Ollie is still exclusively breast-fed (unless some piece of food accidentally gets into his mouth while he is investigating the things we give him).  We were surprised to recall that G could not get to sleep without crying, because that is becoming a pattern with O to a much lesser extent.  We also noticed that it was not too long after this point that Gabesie learned to crawl.  We were wondering whether Ols is a late crawler, but it looks like he is right on par for being one of our children.

Okay, I am staring at this photo, and I have to admit that they are starting to look alike.  Ollie has redder and curlier hair, and I think G's ears were flatter, but other than that, I can see that they are related.

And just for fun, here is a collage using our first ever blog photo, and to this day one of my favorite photos of Gabriel ever.  Both boys are exactly seven months old in these photos (except current-day Gabriel, who is eight years old in the photo).  We will let you guess who is who.

Reunited And It Feels So Good

This is going to be a very Ollie-centric post, but G hasn't sat still for long enough to get a good pic!  Also, we had the film camera at his soccer game this past weekend, so we will have to get those photos developed before we can post them.

Although I don't normally keep a milk supply on hand because I hate to pump, I had a little issue last week and needed to pump a small amount (in the middle of the night, OF COURSE).  Since Ols loves to grab my glass when I'm drinking water and drink some himself, we thought he might like to try a sippy cup.  This is part of the baby-led weaning we are doing.  More about that in a minute.  We bought this great sippy cup and let him give it a try.  He loved it.  If he is going to be exclusively eating breast milk, I am going to continue to nurse him, but it was fun to try something new.  Here is video of him with his new cup.

So, baby-led weaning isn't actually weaning from nursing, as in the American sense.  It just means introducing real food as Baby is interested, in addition to nursing.  There is a great web site here that explains it.  We aren't doing it exactly as the web site suggests, since we are holding back potential allergens and dairy until he is about one year old.  We also have some homemade organic mushy baby food on hand, just for practice with tastes and textures.  Basically, we are not concerned with when he starts eating other things and are going to let him start on real (not mushy) food whenever he is interested.  For example, to quiet him last week at Winnwood, I grabbed a chunk of canteloupe and let him chew on that.  He bit pieces from it and loved it.  It kept him entertained for quite a while!

As you can see in the photo below, he isn't exactly hurting for calories!

I made him this onesie.  I call it his "Halloween formalwear."

Last weekend, my friend Tanya came into town to visit our mutual friend Morena.  We all worked together at SciTrek over eight years ago, and this is the first time I've seen Tanya since (I saw Morena briefly a couple months ago but only that once).  We do keep in touch on Facebook, but there just isn't any substitute for the real thing.  While Morena got a little work done at the zoo, Tanya, Matt, Ollie, and I walked around inside the gates.  We even fed the giraffes, which I have wanted to do since they started offering it last year.

Me, Tanya, and Morena together again after eight years!

Tanya finally gets to meet Oliver.  He loves her.

Afterwards, Matt, O, and I went to meet our friend Stephen, another friend from SciTrek whom we haven't seen since it closed.  Again, we keep in touch on Facebook, but it was so nice to sit and have lunch and chat face to face.  We did not take any photos, as we got too excited about the food at Noodle, but it was a great time.

Friday night, we watched The Muppets outside at G's elementary school.  As with any of our school functions, it was great fun with so many good friends.  Here is my friend's daughter with her movie night disco wear (I was so upset that I left all of our glow sticks on the kitchen island!):

L is a creative girl!

It got a little chilly, but Ollie was just fine in this beautiful cardigan that my friend Jan made him.  He was a little too squirmy for me to get the top and bottom button, but he was perfectly warm and comfortable as it was.

Saturday brought the most challenging soccer game yet, but the Pumas came from behind to win.  G played offense for a bit in the second half but finished out the game in goal.  We were very proud of him that his coach trusted him in goal for such a close game.

Saturday night, we went to an adults-only dinner at Elevation to celebrate Danielle's birthday with a bunch of friends.  Sunday, we celebrated Quincy at Stars & Strikes for a bowling party.

We found a few minutes on Sunday evening to file our taxes (we had filed an extension so we could figure out a question we had) and put up the Halloween decorations, and I had found a few minutes on Sunday morning to cut out all of the pattern pieces for O's costume.  We didn't get too much done this weekend, but we had a great time!

Running With My Little Buddy

Gabriel and I went for a quick run at the park today.  We did a 1.34 mile figure-eight around the baseball fields.  We had a really good pace for our very first non-race run together - between 10 and 13 minute miles.  I forgot to stop the running application on the phone, so I can't tell what the overall pace was.  It was less than 20 minutes total, and G jogged the entire time.

It was a really special time for me.  We actually talked.  He actually shared things with me about school and soccer.  He actually ran next to me, instead of way in front of or behind me.  I am eagerly looking forward to our next run together.

Rollover

Oliver rolled over from his back to his front today.  While M says he's done this before, I have never seen it.  I went into the nursery after his nap, and he was peeking up at me.  So cute.

G's First Race!

The Chipster made us so proud this past weekend, because he ran his first race!  Actually, it was the first time he had ever gone running at all.  He and Mommy ran the 12th Annual Cobb County 5k to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.  There were lots of participants from his school, so he thought that it would be cool to see some of his friends there.

As it was the first time he has ever gone running, he said that he really learned a few things about how to run and how to set a good pace.  He also learned an unexpected lesson about why one shouldn't run on the sidewalk - he tripped over a fire hydrant!  Thankfully, Mommy didn't have to carry him to the finish line, as that was only about a half mile in.

Besides my joy at being able to run with my firstborn child next to me for the first time, the highlight of the race for both of us happened at the very end.  As soon as we saw the finish line, we both had the same idea to finish strong.  G found some major energy all of a sudden and started sprinting.  Well, I wasn't going down without a fight, so I tried to keep his pace.  As we happened to be in a sparse section of other runners, everyone at the finish line started cheering for us.  It was exhilarating, funny, and really pretty difficult.  Thankfully, Danielle happened to be standing at the finish line taking photos for our school, so we can't wait to see what she captured.  G actually beat me to the finish line, so my tagged foot must have crossed the start line a little after his, leaving my official time about three-tenths of a second ahead of his.  As soon as we crossed the finish line, I grabbed him in a big bear hug and jumped up and down; I was so proud of him.  Then, he collapsed on the ground and I had to drag him off to the side before we went to collect our goodie bags.

Here are our results:  Chip was 4th in his age group (almost won an award!) out of 6, and 184th overall out of 248, with a time of 39:48.85.  He beat an 8- and a 12-year old in his division, as well as a few people in each other time group (even a 20-year-old!).  Most importantly, he set a PR (personal record), which is the race goal of most runners.  In the 30-39 age group, I finished 34th out of 47, and 183rd overall, with a time of 39:48.51.  I beat a 25-year-old, so that was something.  It's always good not to come in last!  (We did see the woman who came in last, though, and she was very happy, and we had fun cheering for her.  Even the last place finisher can be proud of finishing!)

We could not be prouder of G for doing his best and trying something new.  He has a mommy who is over the moon about having a new running partner who will run up the hills with her!  Now that we have three runners in the family, we can add a new family activity to the list - that is, as soon as we fix that flat stroller tire...

Two very happy and proud racers.

Best Evenings

Ours are spent on the soccer field. Watching G grow and accomplish, enjoying great weather, and just relaxing... This is the life.

The First Sign Of Halloween

I made Ollie a shirt using an iron-on transfer I found on Etsy, and he got to wear it right away.  I also customized two more onesies, and I will post photos of those later.  Here is O in his cute new shirt:

  
And just for kicks, here is a super cute photo of O and Papa from the soccer game last Saturday:

I went with Bun to get fabric for the kids' costumes on Sunday, so the plan for this week and weekend is to get the Halloween decorations out and get started on the costumes.  The weather is starting to cool just a bit, and we are starting to get hints of fall weather.  It is starting to feel like fall fun is in the air.