Columbus Day

OK...this is my family on Columbus Day.

"When was Columbus Day?", you ask. No one cares about Columbus anymore unless you work for the Feds and get that day off work. Therefore, this makes me "no one". This is perhaps one of my favorite days of the year because it is a Monday right before the weather tends to take a nasty turn and I get to enjoy it with my family and no one else is out on the town.

In honor of our dearly departed Columbus, we went to Lake Arcadia and had the beach all to ourselves. It was the best day. Alex (or Gage for that matter) had actually never been to the lake, so he was in awe of:

1. Those white birds, "like on The Little Mermaid" that we call sea gulls, but are totally not.

2. Sticks.

3. That water that keeps moving.

4. Campfires--but not burnt marshmallows. Apparrently burning a marshmallow is a sin.

5. LOTS of sand.

6. That weird guy hiding in the bushes and looking at us. Oh, wait, he was just a park official cleaning up cans. Whew!

We made sandcastles and Alex used his "staff" all afternoon. It was the PERFECT day!

Feed Me!

This is Gage's first bite of solid food. Yummy, rice cereal!
This blessed event ocurred about 3 weeks ago...as you will notice, Alex would not be left out of the excitement. He was very proud of himself (Alex, not Gage).

I will say that Gage is not as ravenous an eater as Alex was as a baby. My poor arm couldn't shovel food fast enough for Alex. Sometimes he would grab the bowl and try to pour it into his mouth if I wasn't going fast enough.

Gage is a different animal altogether. He thinks food is okay, but is not altogether interested even in the bottle...or any other food source.

He does, however, think the spoon is exciting. No, the spoon interests him - not the airplane noises I make or the way I unconsciously and compulsively open my mouth every time I give him a bite and couldn't stop myself if I tried. He has a sweet little silver baby spoon engraved with his name from a friend of ours, Renee, from Church.

He grabbed that little spoon away from me, looked at it, and actually was able to shove it into his mouth with some food still on the spoon! All of this on his very first time to be spoon-fed. Then it was Gage's turn to be proud of himself, my little utensil-using prodigy.

Perspectives in Art

Yesterday David let Alex play with my camera, you know, to see what things would interest a 3-year-old enough to take a picture. He's not a bad little photographer. I won't post the pictures of my knees or rear end.