1st Birthday Party

Autumn begged us to let her have a costume party to celebrate her first year. She said that all of her friends had been dying to be stuffed into their big, puffy, awkward and mostly hooded costumes a couple of weeks before Halloween.

So we granted her wish...and how did Autumn respond? By being a grumpy, whiny, and clingy mess for most of the day. As it turns out, having a bunch of other babies and toddlers playing with your toys at your house, all dressed up in ridiculous costumes, is not all it's cracked up to be. Autumn actually went to sleep about an hour before the party ended. Such a party animal. The day did warrant some great photo opportunities, however. Thanks yet again to Doug Jones (of www.imagesbydougjones.com, obviously).

Monkey Abigail

Tigger Ainsley

Amber and Carly

Bamm Bamm and Dough Boy Sam

Cheerios make the birthday girl smile...for a little bit at least

Ben and Shark Blake

Lady Bug Carly

Batman Dax

Superhero Mena

Sam really wants Noah's paci

Sink bath after cake

Chicken Little Vivienne

Whose hair is this?

Autumn spent the better part of her day last weekend looking like this....

Today I got to spend the whole day with her because Mrs. Rachel can't work on Rosh Hashanah. Such a bummer for me. Anyway, we went to the mall to play in the new Looney Toons kids area. What a cluster that place is...and on a Friday? Autumn didn't mind a bit, that stuff is right up her alley. Anyway, I was looking through the pics I snapped on my phone when I came across this:

This was taken right after she unsuccessfully attempted to swan dive off of a tot-sized bridge. Apparently she doesn't mind crash landings either. But again, check out that mop on her head! Strangers and friends alike have been commenting on how much hair she has fairly often these days. I'm not really sure where she gets it -- I was bald until I was like five, and I'm pretty sure that five is about the same age Brian started to go bald (sorry Bri, but it's almost true). Even now, a pony tail of my hair is about the width of my pinky finger -- and that's now that it's started to regrow after losing so much of it postpartum!

And for a parting shot --  Aunt Sara snapped this pic on her phone on the way to watch the Broncos lose (again) last weekend.

 

Go Broncos?

One less than one

What the hell!? Who stole our baby and tried to fake us out with this wild-haired, toothy, walking (almost running) and almost-talking little person? Ok, so I know that I claim every month that time has flown, Autumn has changed so much, is becoming so amazing and will soon be driving and going to college, but seriously...this month it feels like she has completely metamorphosed into a true kid. Even though she was a fast crawler, and into everything, just a short month or two ago, it somehow feels so much different having a smurf-sized walker in the house. Crawling is now only reserved for those desperate times when the grass is too long for walking, and for those super desperate times when we make her wear skinny jeans that sag to her mid-thighs and restrict her range of motion. I'd say that she's been a full time walker for at least the past two weeks, but I guess it's been almost two months since she took her first steps. She's playing around with the idea of running too, but thankfully can only take a few successful running strides for now.

Wouldn't you think that all of this new mobility would cause our "big" eater to double her daily intake? We would have thought that. On the contrary, however, Autumn seems much too busy for food these days. She's actually become a little picky, and even when she really likes something, she tends to find it much more worth her time to throw the food on the ground for Wally to eat. It's really annoying. She tends to like most veggies, hates quinoa, loves bananas, loves eggs, really loves string cheese and mac n' cheese, hates cottage cheese, suddenly hates mango -- you get the idea. There doesn't seem to be much consistency, or predictability, in this area. She's even refusing bottles before bedtime on occasion. Thankfully, she's kept all of her thigh rolls and muffin top. These both need to stay at least until Halloween. She's going to be Bamm Bamm Rubble.

Speaking of Bamm Bamm; Autumn still really enjoys picking up, pushing and/or carrying heavy objects around and slamming them on the floor. At Dax's first birthday party last weekend she took a liking to his baby walker. When she got bored of walking around and using it for it's intended purpose, she optimally positioned her hands on either side of it, made a huge grunting/straining noise, and lifted the damn thing off the ground. This was right after I had just told Dax's dad Duane that we often think she's kind of weird.

As of today, Autumn has two words that she uses in context -- "uh oh!" and "hi". Is "uh oh" even a word? She started saying that about three weeks ago. It was "uh oh" for everything. "Uh oh", I just dropped my last bite of food off my tray and Wally's eating it. "Uh oh", I just walked into the office and totally F'd up the printer. "Uh oh", there's that same tree in the front yard that has been there all my life. So, if "uh oh" is a word, does it count if it's used for everything a baby needs to make a comment about? If not, then we'll count that she started saying "hi" today. I'm not totally convinced that she would do it without prompting though, and that's fine. I feel like the longer she goes without really talking, the longer we can hold onto that little part of her that's still a baby. Unless something totally explodes in her little brain this month, I have a feeling she'll be heading into her second year with a very little vocabulary.
Oh, but she does appear to be soaking in the receptive language. She started pointing a few weeks ago too (see? A lot really did happen last month). She loves pointing at the ugly pine tree in front of our house. Every single time we go by it. If we say, "where's the tree?" she'll point to the closest one. She'll also point to her dad and Wally. I'm starting to see where her priorities lie, as she will not point to mom. Mrs. Rachel says that Autumn can point to her eyes and nose, and put her arms up and down on command...but we'll believe that when we see it. When we tried to get her to do that this evening she blew some raspberries and ran for Wally's bed. As you'll see below, that is her absolute favorite hangout these days. Sick. When she's not covered in her own drool and messy-eatingness, she's completely drowning in dog fur. I guess we'll keep her anyways.

Why is my mouth always open?

Add caption

Busted! Trying to go behind the TV...again

Hats are lame

These sideways pictures are killing me. I keep adding them hoping someday I will figure it out.

I am totally mesmerized by the camera...and dinner scraps on my shirt

Now I'm possessed, but it'd be easier to tell if this damn thing wasn't sideways!

Brush yourself off and try again

This video is testament that our efforts to instill a "never give up attitude" in Autumn has already started to pay off. We finally caught the new dance moves on video. Enjoy.

10 months

A day late, yet again. With the start of work, a new fabulous roommate, and a concert at Red Rocks last night, it just wasn't going to happen. I think that the most fitting word to describe Autumn this month has to be "hilarious". She has been such a spaz, and we are laughing at her, and with her, constantly. She's been making weird noises lately and then cracking up at herself, laughing after she farts, or while she's pooping (TMI, but you know it's funny), laughing in the car for up to 20 minutes straight, laughing at Wally, etc. She's also got this amazing little drunk person thing going when she "walks", which is still not real walking. So many things to keep the laughter going these days.

Here's what else is happening with the budding comedienne:

--Her belly and thigh rolls continue to grow, despite all of her new upright activity. Today after she was done with lunch, she was sitting in her high chair and slapping her hands on her belly (while laughing, obviously). At least she's  not self conscious about having more to love. She's still wearing the same clothes she's been in for a while (mostly 9 months and some 12 months), and size 3 shoes.
--As of today, she has some new dance moves. I tried my best to catch them on video, but Sara and I were laughing too hard to get the video going in time. So now, instead of just thrashing/jumping up and down, she started swaying her head and torso side-to-side. I think it's one of those, 'had to be there' things.
--Taking multiple steps in a row, sometimes. She is capable of getting herself about halfway across the living room on two feet, but only if her hands are too occupied to be used for crawling.
--She's very vocal, but not talking. She'll still follow me around and say "mama" when she's really tired, but she also still does that to Brian, Sara, Mrs. Rachel, and even Wally. Every once in a while she'll say "uh oh" when she drops something too, but that's not talking in my book either.
--She's loving her crib these days. It used to be that if we put her in her crib when she wasn't tired, she'd start screaming for us within about five minutes. Now she'll roll around in there, wrestling her stuffed bear blanket, for up to an hour before either falling asleep or getting pissed. In the mornings she will sit up in there and talk to her 'friends' or herself for up to an hour too. I didn't wake up until 8 this morning, and we're sure she had been up since 7 at least. Let's keep that one going.
--Still loves her food, this one. Sometimes we ask ourselves how Autumn manages to keep her fuller figure with how active she is...and then we remember this.

I'm Dad's Mini-Me

I have two teeth!

Squatting is a new fave

So is standing by myself

And, I'm out!

Go Broncos!

To kick off what is sure to be another mind-boggling football season, tonight Autumn begged us to let her try on her size 2T Broncos cheerleader outfit that we bought for 50 cents at a garage sale. We tried to tell her that size 2T is for two-year-olds, but she insisted...and the damn thing fits! I swear she grew an inch taller and gained an inch in the gut area at daycare today. Ah, daycare. Today was my first day back at work for the school-year, so daycare will once again become her main life source Monday-Friday. I'd say it's a huge bummer, but we'll get to do this summer thing all over again every year until I win the lottery and can stop working all together. That's not so bad. 

So, as I was saying, Go Broncos! Try not to suck too bad this year -- you've got the cutest, and chunkiest little cheerleader on your side.

If the game gets too bad, at least we've got pots and pans!

I'm kind of like a bull, you can sometimes corral  me if you've got a red flag

And she's off!

Well, sort of. Since this blog is the only form of baby book that exists in this house, we need to document some official business. Autumn took her first steps today, at least that we know of. Having just returned from our first weekend away from her (a wedding in Park City!), we are slightly suspicious that this momentous occasion could have actually occurred under Brian's parent's watch. But we'll pretend that it definitely happened today.

In all reality, it wasn't too exciting. Is it bad to say that? For the past month I had been really hoping she would postpone the whole walking business for a while. But a week ago, when I realized that a new school year is just around the corner, and those first steps seemed to be as well, I officially changed my mind and decided that I'd much rather her take her first steps in front of my own eyes. This would be much more likely to happen if she took her first steps before I went back to work. So anyway, I think the reason it wasn't that exciting was, actually, for a few reasons.
For one, she has been standing for very long periods of time on her own, and recently seems able to stand up from almost any position, without holding on to anything. Second, it's not like babies (or ours at least) take steps and just take off running. Earlier today she was standing in the bathroom and took a small step in a forward direction. I wasn't convinced, or that impressed to be honest. Then I went over to Heather's for a bit so the babies could entertain each other. Other the hour that we were there Autumn took two more single steps and even did two consecutively. That was the point where I decided to record this day in history.

So, let's review. Autumn took her first, rather unexceptional, steps today. She did not take them over the weekend while we were enjoying our time without her, and she is definitely not walking. Big kids walk, and she will not be one of those until she is one, at least. Maybe 12.