Fun at the Fair

On Wednesday this week, Spencer, Daddy, Mommy, Uncle Jesse, and "Auntie" (Best Friend) Sam went to the Turner County Fair!

It was a lot of fun!

The week before, he went to the Sioux Empire Fair with Daddy, Auntie Sam, Auntie Allie, Mommy, and some of mommy's friends. In Sioux Falls, we watched a band, walked around and looked at animals, pet a miniature horse, napped, and enjoyed watching carnival rides.

This week, Spencer participated in a few more activities. He got to see more animals, and try to pet them (including pastel chickens (he didn't try to pet those) and a camel).

Daddy and Uncle Jesse played a fast-pitch game, and won SJ and Sam matching twin elephants! Yay!

Spencer also played the duck game and won himself a toy monkey!

He enjoyed some homemade ice cream, "played" Bingo, watched the rides, and laughed a bunch at daddy and Uncle Jesse.

Sam took a bunch of pictures! Here's a few to share!

Funny little toothy boy.

Spencer has been a hoot lately! He's really quirky, so he makes me laugh a lot. Okay, maybe it's just me, but I think he's really funny. You should check out some of the videos on his youtube channel. I'll provide you links below:

First Popsicle

Silly Daddy & Spencer (good for a laugh!)

Hiccups

Coffee Table Drummers (co-starring his best friend, Grayson)

Arguing (another laughable one)
And... I found his tooth!

Yesterday, Spencer's first tooth broke through! Yeah! It is the lower left front tooth. Then, this morning, after his nap, I noticed his SECOND tooth had broken through! That was the top right front tooth. Ah!

He has been moving a lot lately, which is crazy! He doesn't crawl yet, but he, as he has for quite some time, bounces on his bottom all over, and now he also scoots on his tummy backward. He inchworms too, which is super fun to watch. And then, he scoots on his butt, too. Sometimes, I think he might not crawl until after he walks.. just like I did!

He also eats mostly "table food" now, and has been for a while. He loves eating what we're eating (if he can), including things like chicken noodle soup, or grilled cheese, cereal, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, and yogurt! I think yogurt is his favorite, but he also loves to feed himself peas. It's really cute. I can't believe how crazy fast he is growing!

In fact, he will be 9 months old on Monday. HOLY MOLY. That just seems... absolutely incredible. He'll be 3/4! And with that in mind, we're already working on planning his first birthday party. It will most likely be family and a few friends (which he does have, thanks to daycare and church!), and possibly be a pool party. I guess it just depends on the cost associated with a bunch of kids swimming. Our place is not big enough to have a party here, so I've been looking into other options. I know it seems far away, but most of his family live far away, so it only makes sense to plan ahead and get it on the calendar! I'm thinking the party will be Saturday, November 5.

He's been sleeping through the night (almost every night) for like a month now, too? I think? And loves pulling to stand, especially in the bath tub (UGH, but when he does, I take him out and tell him bath is done). He also loves walking alongside the couch. And shaking his head no.

Tonight, he waved many times in a row at me and Uncle Jesse! Yay!

Adventures at the Zoo!

Today, Spencer went to the Great Plains Zoo! My friend Jenna has been itchin' to meet our little man for quite some time now, so she and her friend came up from Marshall, and we met at the zoo.

I wasn't sure how Spencer would like the zoo at first, because animals there can be pretty boring (at least at this zoo it seems) when they're really hard to see far away. But, luckily, that wasn't always the case, and he seemed to really enjoy it!

The exhibits he enjoyed the most (or so it seemed anyway) were the Spider Monkeys (which he watched very intently, tracking their movements and kicking his feet), the petting zoo (which we got a video of) and the tigers (which we also got a short video of).

He seemed to enjoy it so much that he was awake nearly the entire three hours! He slept for about a half an hour in his stroller, and then was awake and participating. He (and his daddy) is sleeping right now, though, making up for the big lack of sleep earlier in the day.

Jake and I decided we're getting a family pass in a year or so, so that he can enjoy the animals more frequently.

It was a great day!

Oh, and Jenna got him a tiger onesie that he'll be modeling in the next few days, hopefully.

You are what you eat, my little social butterfly.

Jake was awesome and ordered a food processor with his reward points from work. I decided this weekend, I would get on the ball and start making a bunch of baby foods to store up for SJ, since he's eating them now, twice a day.

Well, too bad he's terrified (SJ, not Jake, haha) of the noise, all of a sudden.

Anyway, here's what we've gotten done so far:

Zucchini

Squash

Avocado

Pears

Peaches

And here's what we have left to do:

Eggplant

Cucumber

Carrots

Celery

Green Beans

Peas

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Sweet Potatoes

Mango

Papaya

Apples

Bananas

Nectarines

He won't be trying all of them right away, some we'll hold off on (like tropical fruits, for example). I eventually want to do radishes, turnips, beets, parsnips, and asparagus too. Oh, and cherries, strawberries, blueberries, plums, watermelon, and grapes.

Here are the foods he's tried and loved (he's really loved anything we've let him try) so far:

Carrots

Peas

Sweet Potatoes

Green Beans

Squash

Avocado

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Pears

This afternoon, we made a trip to the grocery store, where I discovered that Spencer is somewhat of a social butterfly, today anyway. He was smiling and talking to all sorts of people, so they would talk to us, and we were there for about an hour. He made friends with the produce man, lady, one of the sampler-passer-outer ladies, the check-out girl, the check-out girl in the register behind us, the bag-boy, three elderly ladies in aisles, one little girl, and a teenage boy in the gravy section. Haha.

Now he's talking to himself in the mirror in the living room.

One year together.

We have known about Spencer for over one year! We (Jake and I) found out I was 3 weeks 5 days pregnant on February 22, 2010.

We celebrated with our baby boy on Wednesday, the 23rd, though he didn't obviously understand. I treated Jake to Olive Garden, and SJ came along. Why the Olive Garden? We went there for lunch the weekend after we found out, and we spent our lunch time discussing our thoughts, hopes, and visions for our future child. So, I thought it'd be fun to go back.

It was. It was amazing to sit there together... with Spencer, in his car seat, looking at him, and visualizing new things, like when he learns to dribble a basketball, or chasing Wendell around, or running and hugging his daddy's legs when he gets home. Jake said "I hope he talks like you do." Haha.

We also took family photos together in the photobooth... also known as our bed. We just lay on it and do self portraits. Here's a favorite of mine:

Let's see... what else. OH! Yesterday evening, I was taking photos of SJ on the bed, and he rolled from his tummy to his back twice! I went to get the video camera, and of course, he just decided to scream at it for seven minutes or so. I did get a nice video of him puking on the bed, woohoo.

Shortly after, he was in his bouncy seat. I was wearing a ponytail, and I flipped it toward him, and he GIGGLED. Yup, he's laughed for a long time, but I kept doing it, and it was a rolling giggle... over and over and over. So, we called and left Jake a voicemail of Spencer giggling. :-)

That's all for now. He LOVES being at daycare with Jillian, Grayson, the other kids, and I. It's pretty wonderful.

Oh, and he has his own activity center now. He also loves that.

And, he's waking up.

Safe.

Someone was watching over our little guy yesterday.

My friends, Jillian, Marybeth, and I were shopping yesterday for ugly sweaters for our holiday party. We had Grayson and Spencer with us in Jillian's van. Before we went to pick up Marybeth, we were going to put Spencer's car seat in the very, very back of the van, so that Marybeth could enter through the sliding side door and we could just try to finagle his car seat in and out through the back hatch. Half as a joke, we decided to let Marybeth sit back there and crawl in and out, and also, for practical purposes, to make it easier to get Spencer in and out.

On our way back from shopping, Jillian's far back passenger window imploded. For no reason at all, that we have been able to tell. We didn't hear or see anyone throw anything. We figure it was a heat/pressure difference, from the warm interior to the super-cold exterior, but we just don't know.

It makes me feel sad to say that I think God was watching out for Spencer, keeping him safe from the imploding and flying shards of glass, because Marybeth was back in the spot where he should have been. Obviously, God was watching over her too, because she was facing away from the window when it happened, and the glass that fell upon her body did not harm her. I don't want this to be read as "I'm glad Marybeth had to go through that instead," because that's not at all what I mean. I hope you realize that.

We were all freaked out, completely, and baffled, but everyone was safe. Thank Heavens. Unfortunately, Jillian and Robert will need to replace their window. But, it could have been worse, too.

But, I can't help but wonder, would Spencer have been safe, had he been back there? In his rear facing car seat, with his face exposed, and his mouth wide open (because he has a cold and has a hard time breathing through his nose), would those flying shards of glass hurt him? I imagine they would have flown right into his face, scared him, landed in his mouth, where he may have swallowed them. Would he really be okay? I just don't know. I get chills and tears thinking about it.

But, as I said, we're blessed. I think God was watching out for both Spencer and Marybeth. Well, all of us, really, I suppose.