Family, friends and Thanksgiving

Neo and his Daddy Jesse in Seatac

Blue or orange, hmmm...

Ball pit! 

G.G Namur, Keelan and Todd all looking up at a suncatcher.

Table set for Thanksgiving at Steve and Janny's.

Cousins Jimmy and Bre.

Keelan enjoyed Amanda's necklace!

We had an amazing Thanksgiving weekend this year! First we did a stop by to our storage unit that recently arrived from Shanghai, and I got to dig through all my winter clothes and take out what I wanted. Then we stopped by Seatac for a quick play date with Jesse, Gisele and baby Neo who was born two days before Keelan in Shanghai. They moved back to Washington to be near family for a while, kind of like us! After their hilariously cute play date we drove down the road to visit Keelan's G.G Namur and Grandfather and stay the night. It was really special to have some time with them because they couldn't come for Thanksgiving dinner in Gig Harbor at Todd's uncle Steve's bed and breakfast. We had dinner with Steve, Janny, Cathy and Todd's cousin's Amanda and Peter, along with his girlfriend. The morning after our fantastic dinner, Todd's cousin Chet and wife Sally came for a short visit with their kids Bre and Jimmy. Keelan was super impressed watching the 'older' kids play and it was really cute to see them interact. On our drive back to Bellingham we stopped by Tacoma to see my good high school buddy Annie and her sweet pup Taku. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pics of them! All and all it was a fantastic weekend!

Keelan development updates... he is walking with a push toy and around holding onto the walls a little more everyday. He also has started calling me Nana, or sometimes it sounds more like Narnar, but not much headway on actually saying Mama :-S He's sleeping (mostly) through the night, but still is really hit or miss on the daytime naps. 

family visit, exploring trails and first snow

We were so lucky to have BOTH Sharon and Chad stop by Bellingham for a quick visit. Chad was speaking at a conference in Vancover and Sharon had a milage ticket to use up, so we were thrilled to have them here for a couple days in the beginning of October. (I just uploaded the pics from my phone!) 

Todd and I have been making a point to explore some of the amazing parks and trails around the area, there are so many! It's been a lovely fall, and pretty warm too, so we're trying to take advantage of it. 

Lastly, we were driving towards Mt. Baker to explore some trails around the area, and on the way... Keelan fell asleep. So, we decided to just drive up the mountain. It didn't take long, and it was so beautiful. There was already so much snow covering the trees and the mountain. Todd was super excited because we just bought our season passes! So this was the preview I guess :-) Thankfully, we had Keelan's snowsuit in the car so we hopped out of the car and let Keelan explore his first snow. Todd gave him a little to eat (which he wasn't too happy about) and let him touch it and sit in it. Get used to it kid! If Todd has anything to do with it, you'll be on the mountain yourself by 4! 

10 months is awesome!

At 10 months now, Keelan's comprehension of language is really starting to show. He is also starting to play games with us a lot more and is a pretty fun guy to hang out with!

So far this month:

-Played "chase" with Daddy around a toy storage bin, crawling around and around looking to find him.
-We took out each of his stuffed animals and he pointed to the eyes and nose of each.
-We ask, "Wheres' Mommy/Daddy's nose?" and he will point or grab our noses.
-We say, "Kiss Mommy/Daddy!" and he will give us a big opened mouth kiss, sometimes he will even purse his lips. I just started to ask him to kiss pictures of babies in books and he will!
-He made the sign for 'bird' and said "caw, caw, caw" while doing it.
-Started dropping or throwing his toys so that we will go get them.
-While watching a baby Einstein movie (which doesn't happen that often), there is a stop light changing from red to green and puppets in cars driving by while the narrator says, "Stop.. Go!"... Keelan said "Go" along with the narrator multiple times!

He's such a gem :-)

Teeth, pumpkins and haircut

So, I am fondly remembering my teaching wordpress blog layout and am getting frustrated with how limited blogger is... but that's besides the point! What is new with Mr. Keelan? He's cut his top two front teeth and starting to really bite me... ouch! He's starting to look pretty cute with his rabbit like chompers though :-) His sleep habits are slowly getting better, he now will sleep from around 7:30 PM to 6:30 or 7 AM, waking up maybe twice or once if we're lucky. He's napping about an hour to an hour and a half in the morning and around 40 minutes in the afternoon. Still fights sleep during the day (there's just so much playing to do!) He's a BIG eater, I'm talking 3/4 cup of baby oats and half a banana for breakfast! He still nurses around 5 times within 24 hours. As Todd says, "He's a gem." He is such a 'happy-go-lucky' kid, smiling all the time, doesn't fuss much unless he's really tired or hungry. He'll bump and bruise himself and won't even cry, just brush it off and keep on truckin'. He got his first haircut (byebye adorable baby curls that were slowly turning into a mullet, I will miss you) from Tracy and didn't bat an eye until she got the sissors out, the buzzer didn't bother him at all!

We've enjoyed an unseasonably warm and sunny October here in Bellingham and had lots of time to explore the parks. We also drove to a nearby farm to pick out Keelan's first pumpkin (and take the cliche' baby + pumpkin patch pics) and pick apples, okay and eat some apple donuts coated in sugar.

This is the week before his first haircut, you can still see some of his curls.

A very uncommon fussy pic of Keelan, but you can see his expressiveness.

Keelan getting his first haircut from Tracy!

First bangs since high school, maybe it was my 'turning 30 crisis.'

Checkin' out Rocket donuts downtown Bellingham

My little farm boy :-)

Not the most flattering photo, but you can see one of his top teeth!

Again, not the best pic, but here are his botton teeth.

This one cracks me up, "bell or camera? such a hard choice"

Enjoying some basil flavored ice cream at Mallards.

Bellingham, WA!!

So, after a crazy transition of shipping and moving our belongings and car, we've made it safe and sound to our new home city, and state of BELLINGHAM, WA. Todd was amazingly lucky to be found out of stacks of applications and hired to teach at the only PYP elementary school in Washington state, the Wade King IB World School. We were thrilled to say the least, and are excited to start our new home here.

On the Keelan home front, many things have happened! He is crawling, standing up on furniture, blabbing away and slowly learning to be a better sleeper (emphasize the word, slowly). When he was learning to crawl he was a ball of energy and I thought I would never be able to sit down again, but now he has started to calm down a bit, much to my pleasure! He sits and relaxes on my lap when I read him stories, and cuddles up with me in the morning not wanting to move around much. We're starting to develop our routines like story time at the library, walks around the park and dropping Daddy off in the morning (the joys of one car). He's had a cold this last week and has discovered he hates having his runny nose wiped, but loves to wipe it on my shirt.. umm, not my favorite thing. We've sectioned off a room in the house we're renting that is pretty much fully baby-proof, so he can have free reign and move about as he pleases. Anyhow, I'm glad to have some semblance of a routine and normal life after crazy last few months! Here are a few pics from a walk around lake Padden... after I dropped our camera in a giant puddle earlier this summer, it hasn't been the same :-(