17 Months Old

Taft turned 17 months old this week. He is doing great. He is walking and running everywhere. He is trying to talk more but still no words that we can understand. He does say "momma" if he gets upset and can't see me. "Hey" is still a very big thing for him and "no". Of course no is used for no and yes. He loves Yo Gabba Gabba and when he sees it coming on he says "gabbba gabbbada". When I whisper something to him he does his babbling in a whisper tone also. Very cute!
He is eating well and growing. He is wearing a size 4 diaper, size 24 month shirts, and 12-18 pants depending on where they come from. He has not started to climb yet. He will climb down from somewhere if you put him there but he doesn't climb up yet. And that's OK.
He LOVES to be outside. He loves to swing and just run. Thank goodness that we live on a very quite street because he loves to run down the driveway and right into the street. We have a group of big boys that play ball in the street and he head rights to them. They just laugh at him.
He loves that he can walk backwards now and we clap for him every time that he does it. Of course, he claps for himself too. He has started to run and hide behind things when he hears me coming. It's pretty funny that he thinks that he can out run me. He has also started to try to do a flip. He only makes it half way. He still loves his tricycle. His legs aren't quite long enough yet but he sits on it to watch tv.
I hope to get some new photos of him this week to put up. Maybe the weather will be good this weekend to go outside somewhere nice for photos.

The Great Pumpkin (GP)

Yes - the Great Pumpkin came to visit our house last night. I didn't know about the GP until my friend, Casey, mentioned that the GP comes to visit her daughter. After Trick Or Treating, she got to pick a few pieces of candy to keep and she gives the rest of the candy to the GP. The next morning, if you're lucky, the GP will have taken your candy and left you with something even better.

I did a little research into the GP. Nobody ever sees him but Linus always believes. Linus says that you can write a letter to the Great Pumpkin but you don't ask for anything specific. You just wait and see what you get. Linus also said that this is the difference between the Great Pumpkin and Santa. He said that Santa gives away toys because it's his job and it's expected of him, whereas the Great Pumpkin gives away toys because he feels he is fulfilling a moral obligation.

We were happy the that GP wanted to fulfill that obligation at our house this year and hope that he continues to come visit for many years to come.

Taft's letter to the GP. Nothing specific.

Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba

The Thanksgiving Charlie Brown video

And a Gobble til You Wobble shirt.

Trick Or Treating Is Done!

So the Trick Or Treating is done for us tonight. Taft is still pretty little and not really old enough to enjoy all the Trunk Or Treating in town. Maybe when he is old enough to eat the candy we will think about going to those. Still it was fun just walking around the block to a few houses. He was very good and kept his hat on most of the time and his little fishing pole draped over the side of the stroller so that people knew what he was. A few people tried to get him to take the candy from the bowl but he was not about to touch it. We picked a few things that he really likes like Reese's and Kit-Kat's. He even held a Kit-Kat from the first house until we got home. It is a little melted and gross now.

We left candy outside for the little ones and hoped that no one child would take everything. They were pretty good and we kept candy in the house for our three neighbor girls to make sure that they got some when they came over.

Here are a few pics from the night...

Our neighbors little girls. Cate, Alex, and Sarah.

Pumpkins Are Carved!

We were going to carve pumpkins last night but we got behind schedule and Taft was ready to go to sleep. I thought that maybe he would be in a good mood after his nap today and want to sit in his highchair and play with the pumpkin parts, but he was only happy walking around and checking in on the progress that Mommy was making.

Daddy and Taft with a pumpkin top.Taft with his lid and in another cute Halloween shirt.
Mommy drawing on the face before she carves.
Bunny Pumpkin, Trevor, and Taft Pumpkin
Taft and Bunny

If you know Taft, you know that he takes his bunny everywhere. Bunny has started to wear holiday clothing to fit in to the seasons as they change. So - it seemed only right that Taft and Bunny get a pumpkin.

Candy Is Ready!

Candy is READY! What more can I say? I love these little skull bags that I found at Target today already on clearance since tomorrow is the big day. I did have to add ribbon to spice them up a little. You know - candy presentation is just as important as the candy itself. =)

Taft's Halloween Costume

Since finding this adorable fisherman costume on the internet and placing the order, the idea of where to take cute pictures of Taft in it has been swimming around in my head. I finally remembered that Washington Oaks State Park had a very shallow stream and bridge in the gardens. We packed up our fishing gear, camera, and lots of extra water and juice since it is still in the 90's here. Washington Oaks is another place that on weekdays there aren't a lot of people. There was one nice older gentleman that offered to take a family photo for us and of course we said yes. We were lucky to get all the photos in about 15 minutes so we could take the hot costume off, get back in shorts, and head to the playground at the park to swing and have some refreshing juice.

Here he is. Fisherman Taft.

Verdego Pumpkin Patch

First things first, the definition of a pumpkin patch in a coastal town is a little different than other places. We have a bunch of hay on the ground, hay bales and fake scarecrows, and pumpkins. Also - in some of the photos you can see that it is surrounded by palm trees. Something about palm trees and fall just don't seem to go together. Kinda like no matter how many Christmas lights you put on a palm tree they still look stupid. Plus - it is still hot. Almost 90 degrees. Taft was hot after leaving and sucked down three cup fulls of juice to cool off. No flannel shirts here.
The Verdego Plant Nursery is about 2 miles from our house. They have a great selection of plants but it was our first time to visit the pumpkins. All the proceeds go to the school system so that is nice. Large pumpkins $9, Small pumpkins $7. We only bought one. If we need more (last year we each had one) we will travel to Wal*Mart to pick some up.
We thought that Taft would enjoy being able to run around. There is one way in and one way out. It is a very small area and since we went during the day on a weekday, almost no other patch visitors. Very safe for him. He is the type child that does not like sand or grass to touch his skin. He was very unsure about the hay. I, of course, am allergic to hay so I didn't want a lot to do with it either. He stood there without moving for about 10 minutes and then figured out that he could just go. Then he was off. We should have tried family photos before he realized this because he then did not want to be held down at all.

Standing in one place.

The Verdego Advertising Pumpkin

This was his favorite pumpkin. He kept hitting it and went back to it over and over. We did not buy it. It was in pretty bad shape and we needed to get our money's worth. I'm not paying $9 for an non-carving pumpkin.

Another little boy took this pumpkin off the hay bale. Taft saw him and tried his best to put it back.

Not wanting to touch hay.

One of Taft's favorite things to do now is to hide on one side of a chair and play peek-a-boo as we run around the chair trying to catch him. He found that this large hay bale worked great also.