Much to Be Thankful For

WE WON THE BABY FOOD CONTEST!!!! Thanks to everyone who checked out / rated / commented on the video! I received a thick letter in the mail on Monday that said (among other things), "Congratulations and give Joey a big hug because he has been selected a face of Earth's Best Generation Pure in the Earth's Best Most Memorable Baby Feeding Moment Contest. Out of the hundreds of videos we received, Joey's enjoyment while eating our wholesome and nutritious foods is truly representative of this pure generation of healthy little eaters!"

As a winner, Joe will be featured on the new Earth's Best website in January and we receive a month's worth of diapers/wipes/food! Hurray!!! Special thanks go out to the two stars of the video, Joe Daddy and Joe, and also thanks to Uncle J for watching about three different versions of it and giving feedback along the way.

I came in to wake Joe up from a nap and he was lounging with his feet up. All in a day's work, I guess, haha!


Now that he can crawl well, get into everything and stand/climb, he tries to get into the fridge. I have a great video regarding this, but for now, here's a picture:


He outgrew his froggy baby bath tub and has moved on to a big inflatable duck. If you squeeze the beak, it quacks! He's so spoiled! Joe loves baths, though... he likes to pretend he's in a rain shower or just lounge in the water.


My mom's sister got Joey a Harley onesie and Harley wooden puzzle. It's now Joe's favorite toy in the living room. He loves picking up the pegged pieces and chewing on them and banging them on the table. Thanks, Annie! Maybe one day, you can show him a real motorcycle!


Joe is growing up and becoming more independent every day. But, he still loves his time with mommy and daddy.



I will leave you with my favorite video from the past couple of weeks. As you saw in one of the previous pictures, Joe has learned how to get into the refrigerator and while recording it, I asked him if he could figure out how to do something in particular. Twenty seconds in, the magic happens. He's so awesome!



Oh, I forgot one thing... Joe is going to meet his first ever blood relative (other than Joe Momma and Joe Daddy of course). Joe Daddy's Momma (Joe Grandma?) is going to stop and visit while she's on a business trip in NYC and see Joey for the very first time. I'm cautiously optimistic. But, seriously, how could you not love these faces? Fingers crossed!

My Movie Stars

I had mentioned in a previous post that I was entering Joey in a contest. It's the Earth's Best Most Memorable Feeding contest and the winner gets a month's supply of diapers/wipes/food. Earth's Best is heading into their 25th year as the first maker of "pure" baby food on the market. Well, our video was approved and made it into their list (of about 150 videos). They will choose 25 winners as the "25 faces of Generation Pure" who will be featured on their website starting in January. Winners will be notified mid-December. We'll see what happens! Here's our entry:

New Discoveries and Funny Hats

Joe is now standing all the time on anything he can get some leverage on. He's pretty fearless and will reach up for anything on his tippy-toes with no hands holding on. Aunt M is coming to see us for New Years and I've been saying that maybe he'll take his first steps while she's here!


Joe and I went to visit a friend and see her little girl Sofia on her 3 month birthday. Joey tried to put his hand in her mouth and bonked her once in the side of the face, but overall he seemed to be gentle with her and they enjoyed looking at each other. It's love.


After much speculation on my part, I was finally able to catch Joseph "in the act" of turning his crib mobile on and off. Sometimes I thought I heard him doing it, but as soon as I would come into the room, he would just plop and roll around and pretend like "nothing to see here folks!" But this video makes it official:



After multiple requests and much harassment from friends and family, I finally got a couple of good pictures that show off Joey's teeth. Feel free to click on them to get a 'close-up' look.



Finally, I leave you with these cute pictures of Joe and his daddy in some hats that I got for free recently. They came from our favorite local Mexican place. Ole!

Not a Baby Anymore

I don't know exactly when it happened, but somehow Joe went from being a tiny little baby to a little boy. He can feed himself his own bottle, he can feed himself Cheerios and he can pull himself up to standing. Here he is using the coffee table to stand up:



We just finished baby proofing things based on a fast-crawling floor-level Joey and we are now trying to baby proof a whole new set of things (tops of coffee tables, bookshelves, etc). We can barely keep up! I think the closest we've come to danger is that Joe may have eaten about half of a kleenex tissue.

Joe's got two teeth on the bottom now and it looks like one is trying to come in on the top too. He's done pretty well dealing with teething pain by chewing on everything and kind of humming/moaning while doing it. While doing this, he and his daddy came up with a new game -- **NOTE: There's some problem with the video/audio matching up, but you can still get the idea:



I saved the best for last -- I introduced Joe to blocks a few days ago and for some reason, he thought it was HILARIOUS. So, enjoy the sound of Joey-laughter!

Baby Batman

We learned on November 17th of last year that I was having a boy, but before that we had been referring to the little one as "Baby Batman" or "Little Batman". Joe Daddy told me that was a good name "be he a man or a woman". It should come as no surprise that for Joe's first Halloween, he went as Batman.






We went to about a dozen houses and everyone was thrilled to get to see a little baby all dressed up. I was surprised that Joe was such a good sport about everything -- I thought maybe he might not like wearing the mask or something, but he had a great time mask, cape and all. Although Joe is too young for candy, he did get to play with some playdoh that he was given and Joe Daddy was happy to take care of the candy-eating for him this year. I had a great time escorting my superheroes through Gotham and I look forward to all the Halloweens to come!

Ol' Chomper

Three big advancements the past few days include being able to sit up on his own, being able to crawl the regular way and having cut his first tooth! The tooth is on the bottom in the front and he has used his new exploration skills to crawl all over the house and try out "ol' chomper" on everything.

Crawling into the bathroom to try to eat a toilet paper roll:


Trying to eat his crib bars:


And trying to "read" (eat) his favorite book, "Baby Animals":


He really is crawling all over the house now. I took a similar video from the last post so that you can see the progress:



Today is Halloween and we are going to take Joseph out for his first (short) experience trick-or-treating! He's going as Batman. Pictures and stories of this adventure next time!

Boot Scootin' Boogie

I took Joe to the pediatrician for his 6-month appointment, but he had a very slight fever (99.9) and a bit of a runny nose, so we postponed vaccines until next week. Other than that, he's still hovering at 20lbs which puts him down to the 75th percentile for weight. His height/head are still in the 99th percentile so the pediatrician told me that he's probably going to be taller than Joe Daddy by an inch or two. My brother is 6'4" so tall boys run on my side of the family.

I realized that it's been over a month since I've posted a video so I took one today! Enjoy!