Happy Halloween

Amita was a red hot chili pepper for Halloween (the vegetable, not the band!). And for the first time in 8 years of marriage, Aaron and I got to hand out candy to trick-or-treater's! Amita helped once she woke up from her nap and she spent the afternoon looking cute in her costume.

Now, you've got to believe me when I say we're not that into Halloween... but somehow, we ended up with a whole lot of free outfits that are really only appropriate in October... so we decided to live it up and dress Amita in them before the month is over. I don't want to be the weirdo with the Christmas lights in April... or the mom dressing her kid in Halloween clothes at Christmas!

Look out... it's Amita-stein!

Amita of the Caribbean!

Amita-phobia!

It's the Great Pumpkin, Amita!

Oooooooooo.... it's spoooooooky ghosts!

She might be grandma's little pumpkin... but she sure has mad scientist hair!

Baxter was incognito on Halloween!

Mama and the cutest little pepper in town.

Amita and her boys, relaxing after the big holiday is over.

Cousin Larry Appleton

We got to spend last weekend with Cousin Piper, not Cousin Larry Appleton! And Piper is doing such a great job cruising around, it won't be long until she's doing the Dance of Joy like Balki!

It was Piper's first birthday and we spent the weekend in Minnesota helping celebrate. Since Piper got out of the NICU and Amita was born, we've been lucky enough to get the girls together every three months. It's always great to see family... but it's been especially fun watching how the girls are growing and changing. And for us, it's like a little window into the future. We know that whatever Piper is doing now, Amita will be doing in 3 more months! Seems like we'll need to get started on our babyproofing sometime soon...

Here's a picture of Amita squirming on the floor. She's not exactly crawling... but she's definitely moving around!

A picture of the birthday girl!

The girls on a double stroller ride to the park. We all enjoyed the warm days over the weekend and got out as much as we could.

Let them eat cake! I love how dainty Piper was about the whole thing!!

Hanging with Auntie and Uncle!

Taking a break from squirming to pose for mama.

Cute as a Bug

Amita is always in motion, and the above picture of her doing an impression of a hummingbird cracked me up! We got to enjoy Indian Summer and get a few last wearings of all our favorite summer clothes before the fall weather arrived. And now we are gleefully digging out sweaters and fleece jammies - I love the turning of the seasons!

We took Amita to her 9-month checkup last week and she was 27 1/4 inches tall, but weighed a few ounces less than at her 6-month checkup. The doctor says she's healthy and strong and that we shouldn't worry (easy for him to say), but that we need to feed her as much as possible for the next month to try to get her weight back up. So we're moving her to a higher carb diet... sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, avocados... all with her favorite, applesauce! Hopefully that helps change the trajectory of her weight gain.

Here are a few more pics of Amita from the past two weeks.

Hanging out with Daddy on our anniversary. We had the day off from work and kept her in daycare. Eating breakfast out together was awesome!!

Giving a Great Grandma Morehouse face...

Going Rogue! We finally have a responsible vehicle for hauling around a child and her many accoutrements.

The face she makes before she says, "BAH"!

Trying Daddy's hat on... seems a little big yet...

Swing Time

Indian Summer has arrived! After two weeks of rain and cold, the sun is back and with it, some gorgeous fall weather. We decided we had to get out and enjoy it as a family, so on Sunday we took a hike at a park that just happened to also have some playground equipment. We tentatively tried Amita in one of the swings... and she LOVED it! She made such joyful noises - it was an awesome afternoon.

Here's the two of us enjoying the morning sunshine this weekend.

Where's Amita? There she is! One of her favorite games!!

Hiking with Daddy and enjoying the fall colors along the trail.

Kicking her legs out on the swing.

Remember our yard that was graded and covered with straw? Well... thanks to the aforementioned two weeks of rain, it now looks like this! Not too shabby. We still have the most WT yard on the block, but at least it's improving!

Cheerio(s)

The novelty of Amita's tongue has worn off and now she is only sticking it out about half of the time. That allowed me to capture some pictures of her without it last weekend. She is doing great and continuing to grow (mostly up, not out!) and I found myself buying her 12 month old pants for winter... gasp! Hard to believe we're getting close to that milestone already.

And speaking of milestones... we're starting to try finger foods with her as well! She is perfecting her pincer grasp which means she is ready to start feeding herself. I don't think there is a corresponding milestone for parents - I know I'm not quite ready for this... but here it comes, ready or not!

Here is Amita inspecting Cheerios for the first time. She wasn't sure at this point what to do with them, other than to squeeze them in her fists!

But she eventually figured it out and started to get them in her mouth. She is a Bubb after all, and she likes to eat!!

Amita and her two furry playmates!

Hanging out with daddy and watching the Lions game. Is that someone getting on our 3-0 bandwagon in the background?!?!?!

Tongue Tied

Amita discovered her tongue on Thursday and figured out that she can stick it out when she wants to. It was a constant source of amusement for her and us all weekend long!

That fun aside, our hope that she was done teething for a while has been dashed - it continues in full force. We are now trying the healing powers of an amber teething necklace. It seems to have helped some, but today Amita was still pretty uncomfortable. Hopefully, her latest chompers bust through quick so she (and we!) can have a break from all the excitement.

Here's Amita having fun with her #1 guy...

Fish lips never looked so good!

Her tongue was literally out of her mouth most of the weekend. It was actually hard to get a picture without it!

In other news... the next phase of our yard is started! We had 100 cubic yards of topsoil delivered last week and everything has been graded out from the driveway and sidewalk. That means that about half of our front yard needed to be replanted with grass. That also means it needs regular watering, so we're hoping for more rain than we've been getting!

Here's a view of the sidewalk and tree now that they aren't sticking up out of the yard like islands!

One of the cool features that our yard will eventually have is a wash for water to flow underneath our sidewalk. I have been working in my "free time" to pick rocks from our yard to use in the landscape. The good news is that we had enough to fill under the bridge...

... the bad news is that after 2 wheelbarrows full of rocks, this is how much we have left! We're guessing that it will take at least 9 more loads to complete the project. We need Amita to hurry up and learn how to walk so she can help!!

Two-th

Amita has been teething and it always seems to get worse on the weekends. This past weekend was no exception, so Aaron and I spent it trying to soothe and distract a rather grouchy baby. And then, like so many weekends before, we waited for teeth that never came. Until today. Apparently, Amita has decided that growing one tooth at a time is inefficient... so she sprouted TWO teeth today! She got her two front teeth (and it's not even Christmas!) which brings her grand total up to six. She has three teeth on the bottom and three on the top. I guess we can start giving her corn on the cob now!

Amita also enjoyed the official start of football season last weekend. She was excited to get out her Lions blanket. The cats were pretty thrilled too (that's the lump behind Amita!).

She also got out a pair of booties for that other team...