Skillz

Quick talent show. Dead lifting and precision building.

Trick or treat

A little something...

Please!

This kid is amusingly polite. He pretty much never says no, he covers his mouth sometimes when he coughs (unprompted!) and the other night he went into the bathroom, pulled off a few sheets of toilet paper, blew his own nose and then threw it away (again, all unprompted!).

Oliver has really picked up on saying (as in, signing) please these days. That is great, but he uses it whenever he wants something, and what that something is is not always clear. Often combined with the pointing we can figure it out, but he is so diligent with his "please"!

can stacking

One of this guy's favorite things to do here and there is to stack canned food. He is actually pretty good at it, too!

Picking apples!

We went to a you-pick apple farm yesterday. My first time doing that and it was awesome. Oliver had a good time, too. First we picked some late season raspberries and he picked up pretty quickly on what we were doing and started to help himself to them. Same thing with the apples. He was really enjoying getting his very own whole apple!

Hoffmaster State park

We went camping at Hoffmaster State Park this weekend. It was quite nice and really pretty area. We had a great sunset last night, too. Oliver was being funny because he picked up a stick and then ever few steps he would bend over to make a mark in the sand before moving on.

boxes

This kid loves containers these days. Boxes. Clothes baskets. Toy boxes. All of them. Here he was sitting in his toy box just throwing all the toys out to make room for himself. Pretty funny.

Lake Michiga

It is still crazy to me how big Lake Michigan is. It often literally looks like the ocean - especially in this part where there are actually really nice beaches. Well, today was a pretty windy day, so there were pretty good waves, too.

Dinner talk

31/52 Workin' (and video!)

As I put this one up I was thinking that I should really start to take a picture here or there of something other than the kid.  But then again, most anyone who looks at these would probably prefer to see the kid.

He is really having a good time living with our friends and knows where to find J when he is working in the office here.  Yesterday he went in there to find him, but J was gone so he just went in, closed the door on me and made it his own.  Pretty funny (and video below).

Video of this:

30/52 Sunday Mornings [et al]

Cell phone pic this time around!

And some videos!  I don't remember if this first one has made an appearance yet, and I don't feel like going back through blogs to look.  :)  

While in CO, he became a little climber...


He is finally getting into his little walker toy. Got going a bit too fast for himself a few times and was distracted by a dog, too. Maybe we should look into shoes...


He all of a sudden one day kept finding Sara's water in the house and dunking his whole arm in it. Apparently he has really turned a corner and is really loving the water...

Gorilla Trekking

I was given a GoPro for graduation just in time to go to Africa.  Here is the first round of videos - gorillas!  I was surprised how wide of an angle the camera is, making much of this look further away than it was.  This was in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda.  We had a pretty good hike and saw the least habituated group.  Enjoy!

Silverback charging us.  This was intense.


This one is long - includes what we hiked through and what not. Most of the real fun starts at about 11 min, but one just takes a leisurely jaunt by us at about 6:50.

two videos

So many of you have probably seen both of these (or shorter versions), but not all I don't think.  Anyways, they are good enough for another watch in my completely objective opinion.  This kid seems to be changing crazy fast these days.

He has learned to pull to a stand outside of his crib now (and sometimes tries to climb in), mostly because he wants to snag his pacifier.  He is only supposed to have it when he is sleeping, really, so I usually take it away.  I was video-ing this time because I think it is funny to watch him reach in and grab the pacifier, but could not believe what he did at the end of the video.  He was not remotely tired at the time, so I think he may have known what he was doing...



In this one, he just started to mimic the animal noises, which was also super cute. Seems the goat is easiest for him right now.

(massive) photo/video dump

So here are a bunch of photos and videos from my phone and what not.  Good times!  First the photos:

We got a bike trailer, which is great fun. This was from the first ride - to get ice cream!

We took Oliver on his first multi-night camping trip. That also went well. He was a big fan of washing rocks with his mouth and getting a ride in the hiking backpack.

This is how we roll when out to eat:

He still sleeps funny. Very often. Here he is with his rump up in the air.

Speaking of sleeping, he has mastered standing in his crib. He was very pumped about this and it severely impeded naps for a bit there. Here he is being all proud of not napping:

But then he also like to celebrate a good nap by standing:

Or a good night sleep by just sitting all calmly with his dual pacifier friends:

He has graduated to the normal tub (no more whale tub thing! [and yes, that is a red mark on his head from head butting the tub]):

Over night this kid has decided it is great fun to get into all kind of trouble. Here he is celebrating finding mom's card box:

Now for some good 'ol videos:

This is an older one, and is longer than it needs to be. We got some coconut yogurt, and he was a huge fan.


Here he is trying to crawl:


Kind of crawling:


and then standing (notice the key head movements to find the edge and the clutch mouth-hold)!:


This was the night that made us stop using the whale tub for baths:


and here is a classic falling asleep at dinner video:

Giggles

This may be my favorite video yet.  Pretty funny.

photo/video dump

This has been a busy week it seems, so I am pretty late on this.  On Thursday for half of the day there was snow visible on the ground so they closed daycare early and then didn't open at all the next day (despite no snow or ice on the ground).  I am slightly bitter still.

Anyways, here is this week's picture and a bunch of other photos and videos I have around.  Cheers.

I like this one a lot because he fell asleep while eating and just held onto my thumb like that.  Pretty cute.

A few short videos:

He loves standing these days:


We have one of those collapsible colanders and I was collapsing and expanding it. He thought that was great fun.




These two are funny because he was not terribly emotive that day. From a while back.

crazy week

This has been a crazy week.  First full draft of the dissertation is due today.  At the start of the week I hadn't had an intro or conclusion yet.  Still don't have a full conclusions.  Sara has been on service.  Oliver got his first stomach bug, complete with puking, and was home from daycare for a day and a half.  But here is a pic for the week...

Also, here is a funny video of Oliver standing up on his own (with some help balancing). I love his little grunts.

Scooting.

Oliver does not yet crawl, but today he learned that he could scoot across the hardwood floor while sitting.  It was pretty funny.  Here is a pic and video of it.

Oliver loves to read.

Oliver is a voracious reader already. He is super pumped about it, too.

this kid...

Oliver has been pretty funny lately.  He turned 7 months just the other day... crazy.  Here is a photo from the other day and a few videos I took of him this morning when he was just firing on all cylinders.

If he slept pretty good (which is not nearly what I would consider good sleep considering how many time he wakes me up) he will wake up really happy and just play by himself for a bit.



For some reason he loves his changing table sometimes. This is when I was trying to get him dressed today:



Then when we were playing on the floor a bit later (note how stylish he is here - 3 shades of grey and baby leggings!!):