Toadfrogs and Elephants

Alex seems to have no problems when I drop him off at Mother’s Day Out. I think there are plenty of babies and adults to keep him entertained.

For a first, he was super excited when I came to pick him up today. That warms a mom’s heart.

Alex started off the day not too happy:

But then he found lots of things to put in his mouth:

Then the day got even better when Maren and Elise came for a visit. I was very sly and got rid of an entire storage container of maternity clothes. Maren will need them this winter and I will definitely not.

Alex was definitely worn out after all the playing. He took a 3.5 hour nap – the past two days have been nothing more than 30 minutes at a time. When he woke up he practiced his crawling a little – meaning he got up on his knees but only rocked:

It is starting to get colder so I decided to return to running. I think the last time I ran was when we lived in the apartment or maybe when we lived in Anderson. Alex was a trooper and promptly fell asleep:

The wind hurt my house! We had really strong winds today. A couple of branches fell out of a tree onto our neighbor’s garage – tearing out his cable lines and landing on ours:

Upon closer inspection, I realized there was damage to our house – the stress on the cable lines pulled the trim off the house, but our cable stayed on through it all:

Wade is my hero. He fixed the side of the house and we are good to go. Our neighbor doesn’t appear to have done a thing to his.

Wade, Alex, and I drove to Paducah last night and finally made it after way too many hours of traffic, rain, fog, and a very unhappy baby. Today was much better. We started off with a trip to visit Grandma while Wade caught up on sleep:

Have I mentioned that Alex is fascinated with shoes and feet? Right now shoelaces are a favorite:

Then we all headed down to the riverfront for BBQ on the River.

Paducah is Paducah so it shouldn’t be surprising that we ran into all kinds of people: Wade’s Aunt Sara, quite a few of mom’s friends, and the Upshaws:

Then Wade and I headed out for dinner at Patti’s and Amy’s wedding. There was a huge rain storm that held off just long enough for most of the ceremony.

Then we had some cake and did a little talking:

More wedding pictures here.

Mom and Lissy were more than happy to babysit. I hear they had quite a bit of fun with Alex’s new Halloween pajamas – they glow in the dark.

Today was swim class! Only Rebecca and Elisabeth joined us so we had a very small class, but a lot of attention from the teacher. Alex put his hand on Elisabeth all by himself:

Then it was packing and driving for Paducah:

No matter how grumpy Alex is Madison always seem to make him smile. Alex was working up a good cry when Madison walked in the room. Then he was content to sit and watch her. Finally Madison consented to a little petting:

We ran out for a quick dinner at Habanero’s and then it was back to work on the bathroom. Wade hopes to have a mostly usable bathroom by the end of the night.

Going into Alex’s room after a nap is always interesting. Sometimes he is very happy and sometimes he is super grumpy. Today he was all smiles:

We spent the afternoon playing with toys – he grows bored of them quickly so we move around a lot:

After Alex was fast asleep Nate arrived to help move the washer and dryer upstairs – the bathroom is getting closer and closer:

After trying out two walls and rehanging the pictures numerous times – the wall is done and the erroneous nail holes have been repaired. (FYI – the pictures are actually hung straight, but I evidently can’t take a picture very well.)