10 Months and Moving!

Hello all!

We hope everyone's having a lovely fall. Ours has been wonderful; it's just going too quickly!

Our fall has been happily dotted with lots of family visitors. Baba visited us the first two weekends of September. We're lucky enough to get visits from him each time he has to come to Boston for meetings. He'd never miss an excuse to see Lewis! We took a trip out to the beach while Baba was here, spent time with Lewis's cousins, barbecued, and mosied around Bucks County. It was lovely. At the beginning of October, Papa John and Uncle Tyler visited us as well! Mike and Jake got in a couple rounds of golf with their dad and bro. And, we had some great meals, chats, and games. It was also lovely! And, we're always lucky to have Jake, Michelle, and the girls closeby, mostly for their company, but also for Michelle's photography business! She took the fabulous fall pictures on this post!

The other treat that we've had this fall has been having Auntie Fobo live with us for a couple months while she prepares to move to Mozambique. Norah has absolutely loved having her company during the day. We've played endless rounds of Big 2 at night! Lewis now expects an aunt around to play with him during the day, and he's quite put out if he ever finds himself just stuck with mom one day. And, we've been completely spoiled by our live-in nanny who has provided lots of evenings of babysitting to cover her "rent"! I genuinely think we'll go through a bit of shock and withdrawal when Fiona leaves in mid-November! We LOVE having her here!

As for Lewis, he just keeps getting bigger and cuter!!!

Our biggest, latest news is that he took his first steps on Friday, October 23rd. Norah had a number of mom friends over for lunch. Just before everyone left, Lewis let go of his fire truck that he loves to push around and walked about 4 steps over to a basket of toys. Auntie Fobo and Mommy spent the rest of the afternoon getting him to walk to us. He realized it was a game and that we got very excited when he cooperated!!! Daddy got a walking show too when he got home. Now, Lewis doesn't seem to have converted from crawling to walking yet; he's still just as happy to get around with his little monkey-crawl. But, soon!!!

While we're on the subject of important dates for Lewis, I wrote down a few on a scrap of paper the other day, realizing that I didn't want to forget any of them.

July 10 (-7 months) - Stood up in his crib and then promptly began standing up everywhere and cruising.

July 25 (7+ months) - Started saying "Dada"

Aug 1 (7.5 months) - Cut his first tooth - The front-center-left one on the bottom (that's the official name of that tooth...I'm pretty sure!) Lewis had been teething on Didi's gold bracelet all week, and it finally poked through.

Aug 16 (8 months) - Once all our summer company was gone, we decided to let Lewis learn to sleep through the night, and he did from here on out!

Sept 23 (9 months) - Lewis's 9 month doctor's appointment. He weighed in at 20.75lbs, which meant he had finally dropped down to the 50th percentile for weight. Still 50th for height too at 28.25 inches.

Mid Sept (9.5 months) - Got 3 more teeth! The top two and the other bottom-center one! Those ones weren't so fun for Lewis as they were coming in!

Oct 23 (10 months) - Took his first steps!

Other than that, Lewis is still our sweetest, most happy little boy! He is very active; Mommy has had to come to terms with the fact that he's not a snuggler at all - he just wiggles away from her. He is very interactive, but he's also an observer, always looking around and taking everything in. He loves to jabber away...ba ba ba, wa wa, da da da da, ga ga, etc. As mentioned, ma ma ma ma ma is mainly for when he's feeling a little tired or hungry. Fiona tells me that he now even says it when I leave in the evenings. Lewis loves sitting in the shopping cart at the grocery store. He still loves going for jogs with Mommy - it's his downtime! He is eating more table foods now. Chopped up banana, pear, and steamed zucchini are all favorites. He loves yogurt but doesn't seem to like cottage cheese. He likes hummus. And, he's a full-blown meat eater now too. He is still a good napper usually. For a while, it seemed like he was starting to wake up a little later in the morning and then not need his morning nap. But, now we seem to be back to the old schedule - a 2 hour nap in the morning and a 2 hour nap in the afternoon, jog in the middle of the day, and to bed by about 7pm. It's great!

He is a little minx, as we call him! He loves getting into everything! We recently moved the gate that blocked off our dining room across the room so that it just blocks off the kitchen. Well, Lewis has been very excited that he now has access to the dining room - more area to explore! Favorite new games in the dining room include finding the cheerios and eating them off the floor, pushing the little side tables around the room and knocking them over, pulling the outlet covers out of the socket (I don't know how he manages to do that!), and actually pulling the whole outlet plate back away from the wall. Hmmm...we're going to have to do some work on this room!

Favorite games in the living room include pushing his fire truck around and around, playing his new keyboard, pushing Mommy's desk chair around the room and sometimes knocking it over, trying to pull anything off Mommy's desk (especially her cell phone!), racing to escape out the front door every time it's opened, and cruising everywhere. It's so fun!

As for Mom and Dad, we're doing really well. Mike's still been really happy at work. The world of Neosporin is treating him well! I finished the big work project I was doing, so that has been very nice. I also started a new choir for the season that is keeping me quite busy. Sweet Michael has been a very understanding and supportive dad since I've had concerts or rehearsals for either the big choir or chamber choir every weekend for the last month or so. I'm really finding it fulfilling, so that has been wonderful.

Our other excitement has been a few trips that we're busy planning for. The first is over this coming Halloween weekend - we're headed down to DC. Aunt Cat will be visiting at the same time, so we can't wait! And, Lewis will be sporting his new little bumble bee costume for Halloween! :-) Gogo bought him a little bee hat, and Mommy made the rest of the costume! Over Thanksgiving, we'll be heading out to Boise to see most of the Wasdens! We absolutely can't wait to be with everyone! And then, we're taking a 3 week trip to Malawi and Zimbabwe over Christmas to see most of the Ellis clan. Norah is a little terrified of all the spiders she'll be seeing, but we can't wait for Lewis to growl at the lions and play with the monkeys! :-) It will be a very exciting trip!

Love and hugs to everyone!