Watch out, Colts

James wanted me to send this to the Indianapolis Colts' head coach, Jim Caldwell, and tell him that he is currently a free agent.  James thinks the Colts need all the help they can get.

The Leaves They Are A-Changin'

After living in Seattle for 5 years, I had forgotten how much I enjoy the changing of the seasons.  Seattle pretty much only has two: Summer and not-Summer.  Although some people say Wisconsin only has two seasons as well (Winter and Construction), we have really been enjoying the change from summer to fall. 

Uncle Jason's pumpkins

A nice Fall day at the park

Longing to go outside and play in the leaves

Supporting IU football (but really just killing time until basketball season starts)

Modeling his new Gryffindor scarf (and finally getting to play in the leaves)

On a walk with Dada

Rocking our blue hats.  This is what we do on bad hair days.

Fall foliage in Madison

James thought he spotted an early appearance of a snow leopard.  It was just Boo.

Another thing that we love about fall is that it brings the birthdays of some of our favorite people!  Happy birthday to Dada (9/22), Pa (10/11), Gigi (10/14), Grandma (10/17), and Aunt Jill (11/29).   Aren't you all glad I didn't add years?  ;)

7 Months

This photo shoot was exceptionally difficult because someone wouldn't sit still.

 Lately, we've been seeing a lot of this

 Followed by a lot of this

 (glimpses of his backside as he scoots away). 
He's still not crawling much, but has really perfected his army crawl.

 

Regardless, James was excited to take some pictures, as seen below

 

The tumultuous relationship with Teddy continues... 

 James was a little rough on his birthday sign this month. 
Here's the "after" shot:

 As far as milestones go, James has started to feed himself (when he's in the mood), which is fun for him, but messy for me.

 He prefers the 2 spoon method for quicker food shoveling.

Also, he's very, very close to moving from hands and knees to a sitting position all by himself.  He kind of sits on his hip with one hand on the ground.

PS - I've created a new page to show the little guy's monthly pictures side-by-side.  Click here to take a look.

October 10 on 10

Today I took part in the 10 on 10 project.  Once a month on the tenth, participants take a photo an hour for ten consecutive hours to document the life and beauty among the ordinary things of our day.  Click HERE or on the button to the right for more information about the project.  Enjoy!

Day Trip to Dubuque

On Sunday, the three of us traveled to this darling city

 To see this cool guy

and to meet his girlfriend Melissa, who is really cool, too.  

She's next to Nick in the picture below

We had a great time touring this adorable city that borders both Wisconsin and Illinois.  James was a pretty good trooper, despite only sleeping all of about 5 minutes the entire day (seen here)

I think it helped that he received royal treatment from Daddy and Nick

We recently read that Dubuque is the San Fransisco of the Midwest, and it lived up to the hype.  They have a "cable car' in the form of the Fenlon Place Elevator, which was built in 1882.  Although Melissa and Nick assured us it was safe (I believe their words were "I think it's safe"), we opted just to take pictures instead of going for a ride on the world's shortest, steepest scenic railway.

But we did drive to the top of the hill to take in the view (and some additional photos)

 Same pic, but with some B&W action

 James was gazing at the horizon, longing for some sunglasses like the big boys

 

Dada came through

 A big thank you to Nick & Melissa for the hospitality!  We hope to visit again soon.