Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from these sweeties! Peter Pan and one of the Lost Boys.

More Halloween pictures to come once I've gotten caught up on everything else that's happened in the last month!

Uncle Benj comes for a visit!

At the beginning of October, my brother Benj came to Knoxville! We were so excited to have him visit, especially because he is only the 2nd of my siblings to come to Knoxville at all (the other being Mark, who is only 3 hours away). We had so much fun! On his first day here, we went downtown, saw a little bit of campus, went up in the Sunsphere, and had dinner on Market Square. 

(I stole a lot of the pictures throughout this post from Benj because I kept forgetting to take my camera and/or charge the battery, and he got some great shots.) 

first off, how cute is this boy??

Sunsphere!

downtown from the Sunsphere

and campus from the Sunsphere

dinner at the Tomato Head. yummm

 

We caught some fun square dance music on Market Square afterwards.

The next day we met up with some other family members in Chattanooga, and that day is going to have to get its own post. It will be coming soon.

The day after that trip, we had a quieter day just hanging out at the apartment, though we did go grab lunch at Nixon's Deli. Benj has a friend who used to live in Knoxville and told him he needed to eat there. It was actually our first time too.

On his last full day here, we did a little hiking in the Smokies. We decided to go to Clingman's Dome because we'd never gone before. Clingman's Dome is the highest point in the Smokies and they have a large observation tower where you can get some amazing views. And then, since it's on the Appalachian Trail, we decided we'd better hike a little bit of that as well. We loved this area. It was so different from the other sections of the park that we've been to...totally different trees, wide open sky all around... It was a great experience!

Because of the high altitude, it is always colder at Clingman's Dome, and the day we went was unseasonably cold to begin with. We were FREEZING when we got out of the car! Then we discovered we had forgotten Jamie's jacket, so Thomas gave him his sweatshirt and tied himself up in a blanket to keep warm. We were a pretty ridiculous looking group. :) Fortunately we warmed up quite a bit once we started moving.

 
 

 

view from the top

Jacob and the observation deck

If you look closely, you'll see some white paint on one of the trees close to the left side of the picture. The entire Appalachian Trail is marked with these blazes.

view from the Appalachian Trail. It was stunning.

The next day Benj headed back to Las Vegas. It was SO fun to see him and to get to show him around! Looking forward to next time. :)

7 months

I am getting behind on blogging, but I'd better get this post in before I go back and catch up or it will be too late.

Jacob turned 7 months old on Thursday!

I'm amazed I caught a smile at all because the poor boy was sick. That is also why he was wearing pajamas all day.

New this month:

• army crawling. He isn't crawling with his belly off the floor, though he will get up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth, but he has been dragging himself around for the last couple weeks and is getting quite fast at it!
• his first real sickness. He got a bad croupy cough and it lingered for over a week. I took him to the doctor on Thursday and he was prescribed a steroid. It was extremely difficult to get him to take the medicine. Today was the first day he seemed mostly back to normal. He had been a hoarse, fussy, clingy, non-sleeping mess there for a while. His pitiful little cry made me so sad. :(
• At 7 months, Jacob weighs 18 lbs, 14 oz. (Jamie was something like 21 1/2 lbs at this age for comparison's sake.)

Because it was just rice cereal, it is hard to tell what a mess this really was! He's still not very interested in food. He will gnaw on my food if I let him (he enjoys apples) and he will chew on things in the fresh feeder. Occasionally he'll let me put a spoonful of something else in his mouth. To be honest though, I'm not really trying that hard because Jamie had no interest in food whatsoever until 8 1/2 months and then it just one day took off.

pre-crawling push ups

He tried to crawl off the chair while I was taking his 7 month picture.

happy birthday to me!

I turned 29 at the end of September. I can't believe I'll be 30 in less than a year! Crazy crazy.

My day mostly consisted of taking care of two little boys and included a trip to the dentist for Jamie, so not the most exciting birthday ever. We did have some fun in the evening, though, with Mexican take-out, presents, and cake.

I told Thomas I wanted 3 things for my birthday: 1) 8+ hours of uninterrupted sleep, 2) no stinkbugs in our apartment, and 3) no whining from Jamie. I got none of them! But I didn't really expect to and I did get some really nice gifts, including a blog book from my in-laws and a photo album that Jamie chose with pictures of the boys in it.

It was a pretty good birthday, overall.

Jamie also chose some flowers for me.