Beautiful weekend for celebrations

On Saturday we received two "prank" phone messages, one on Cortney's cell phone and one on our answering machine.  We're not talking heavy breathing here.  Worse, they were, quite simply, the Michigan State Fight Song.  We overcame the horror of said messages quickly, or at least by 5:00pm.  We won't dwell too long on the victory, just long enough to rub it in for the State fans that LOST on Saturday.  Now, if the State players had even a touch of the athletic talent that Calvin displays here, it might have been a different story...

Sunday was an all together different kind of celebration.  For months our church has been planning an "all church supper" to celebrate the beginning of a new season and a new stewardship kickoff.  We have to admit that when we heard they were planning said supper to be held in the great out of doors in the middle of a Michigan October we were skeptical.  We were, however, pleasantly surprised by the Indian Summer weather, with sun and 70 degree weather.  This was a celebration not only for the church as a whole, but for Cortney and her committee, which was in charge of planning and putting on the event, and her fellow deacons, who were challenged to bring in and host at least 300 of the church's almost 2,000 members.  Well, the event, complete with meals served at the tables and a live band, went off without a hitch, and over 500 members attended!  Cortney hosted 14 people at her table alone, and Jon found himself acting as part of the entertainment - not with a piano, with Calvin.  Most people cannot resist cooing at a cuddly baby!  As our pastor noted to us over supper, many people have begun to refer to Calvin as the church's baby.

And what is celebration without cake?  Since Jon's birthday is October 10th we also took advantage of the beautiful weekend to sneak in double birthday celebrations.  On Saturday night we celebrated with Jon's parents, and enjoyed a wonderful post-game tailgate style dinner (mmm...) and a fantastic homemade carrot cake (Jon's favorite).  On Sunday night we celebrated with Cortney's family, where Jon shared the candles on a yummy chocolate ice cream cake with Curtis, who shares the same birthday.  So we have a wonderful football team (shh...don't burst our bubble just yet), a wonderful church, and wonderful families - that was a lot to celebrate.

Happy October!!!

We're ready...where's the candy???  Although summer is also fun, with the sun and warm weather, we also find ourselves loving the fall.  There's football and tailgating, plus the colorful leaves are really starting to come out now around here and that makes all three of us smile.  Well, actually, it seems to make Calvin drool, but that's because everything makes Calvin drool these days.  His doctor says it's not teething (thank you), baby salivary glands just kick into overdrive right now as they explore everything with their mouths.  Well, you've all seen how much Calvin enjoys this new activity.  We are entering this new season with two other new things for Calvin.  The separation anxiety you already know about, and the other is his ability to sit up.  This was a real surprise for Cortney, who had him propped up on his pillow watching the Aquarium "TV" when he sat himself up to better reach the buttons.  Equally surprising was the fact that he stayed in that position and played for several minutes.  These days he can sit completely unaided for about 30 seconds (not much, we know), but he can sit in his circle pillow and play for about 5-10 minutes, probably because the pillow helps keep him from tipping to either side and allows him to expend his energy on things other than balancing (like, for instance, grabbing the dog's tail and trying to eat it).  There are some pictures of him doing this in last week's album, his sixteenth week.  Happy October everyone!

"Warning: Never Leave..."

We attempted our second date night A.C. (after Calvin) tonight in honor of Jon's upcoming birthday, but Calvin had other plans. It seems he believes he is at the 7-month-old's separation anxiety mark well ahead of his time. We met at Macaroni Grill and managed to just receive our appetizer when we got the phone call that Calvin had been a screaming mess ever since Cortney left, and was inconsolable. Fortunately, Macaroni Grill is set up for to-go orders just as well, so Cortney raced back to her babysitting parents while Jon waited for the dinners. Sure enough, Calvin calmed down right away for Cortney, and remained calm the rest of the evening. And we can't help but note the irony that, as we sat eating our date-night dinners, Jon glanced over to where Calvin was cooing away in his umbrella stroller watching us, and all Jon could see of the stroller's warning label was: "Warning: Never leave..."

Everything, yes everything, goes in the mouth

If you peruse Calvin's 16th week photo album at all you might notice a recurring theme.  We don't want to spoil the surprise, so we'll just give you this hint - "no, Calvin, that will not fit in your mouth, but nice try."

 

 

 

Trying out segues. Ways.

Today we officially started the process of moving to a new house.  Of course moving to a new house would first require buying one, which first requires finding one and, more importantly, selling ours.  Anyone want a really cute 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch?  We didn't think so.  The good news is that we have at least four years before we need to be moved into the school district we want for Calvin, but we are looking to move in the next year or two, before our fixed rate mortgage is up (literally and figuratively).  The sad news is that moving means we have to say goodbye to our first house and our first neighborhood - both of which we have really loved right from the start.  Yes, moving can be difficult...

...but not with the Segway!  No, with the Segway moving is simply a matter of leaning - forward to go forward, backward to go backward (duh).  A perk to moving is our realtor, who is not only very fun, helpful, and caring, but who also happens to have a Segway at her office for clients to try out, and try it out we did.  There is no better non-calorie burning way to travel short distances for sure.  Cortney laughed so hard she almost fell off the thing...

...but we all got home safely just the same.  And, while our achievement for the evening was trying the Segway, Calvin's achievement was trying out books.  We read to him several times a day and lately he has been reaching for the pages while sitting on our laps during a book.  So tonight we gave him his soft bath book to try out.  He definitely got the hold right - grabbing it with both hands, one on each side - but aside from that his foray into literacy was less successful, as he mostly just shook it or stuffed it in his mouth.  Hey, everyone has to start somewhere...