haircut time!

Thought you all might enjoy pictures of Casey's first haircut. He was pretty good throughout as long as he could see his mom.


bangs daddy can be jealous of.


"Wow, I can see!"

Happy Holidays!

We decided to try to do a Christmas picture of Casey and I thought it would be cute to put the Santa hat on him. Well, this is the first and only shot. Nice to have such a cooperative kid.

Full disclosure: We tried to get pictures with a nice holiday sweater but he wouldn't sit still for 2 seconds. Guess an outfit change is not an option in Casey photo shoots, so we're happy we got this one.




And here he is chewing on the baby Jesus from our wooden nativity set we decided he could play with. He usually has a wise man in one hand and a sheep in the other.



And I promised some more videos, so here are a few. He's doing so many interesting things, we could probably just set up a live "Casey-cam" so everyone could keep up. (I know some of you would probably enjoy that).


Nice little stroll across the kitchen!





Casey's magic act (and notice his little one-knee crawl/walk. Should be abandoning that for full-time walking soon, but it's pretty entertaining)





Going to see Grandma.





He's been working on these rings for a while and seems to have it now.

Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Birthday Casey! Step aside, he's comin' through!

We had a very nice visit from Casey's Nebraska Grandma Ruby this last week. She was here for Thanksgiving and Casey's 1st birthday. It was wonderful that it only took a few minutes for him to shine up to her (hadn't seen her since he was 3 months old). We had a plentiful Thanksgiving feast as usual (Casey even had a little of almost everything-just mashed up a bit) and we all enjoyed the parade! Then a quiet birthday celebration Saturday with presents, naps, and cupcakes for all! We're planning a trip to the beautiful drive-through light show at the Newport News Park tonight. More videos to come in the next week or so--he's doing so many new things but I don't want to put them up all at


Full from dinner


Parade watching!


Love that smurf balloon!


Wow, fire!



Took him a minute to decide it was ok, but then he lit into the cupcake.


Clean up on high chair 1! (I know, I've seen much worse 1st b-day messes)


Opening presents (well, playing with boxes and eating paper at least)


Yes, mommy is responsible for the bows on the head.




Nice shot with Grandma at the Virginia Living Museum (everybody looking at the camera AND smiling)


Christmas tree at the Living Museum


yucking it up at the table at snack time


An actual calm moment!



A nice stroll across the kitchen smiling at Grandma.

c-c-c-cold at the b-b-b-beach!

a "no-look" picture from the front seat on the way to Myrtle Beach.


Looks more like snow than the beach.




Smiling at Mimi!





just relaxin'

OK, Look out!

We've actually seen a couple short unassisted steps in the last few days. Casey is also standing for longer periods of time and is enjoying his new push-walker.

Pumpkins and monkeys!

We went on a very short trick-or-treating expedition to just a few places. Casey got a banana, organic pear juice, and cheerios. Mom and dad got chocolate, Nerds, and scones.










OK, so they're not Clarence York Volkswagon-sized pumpkins, but you get the idea! Didn't want to scare the kid his first time out. Unfortunately, the pictures of Casey "helping" with the jack-o-lantern got accidentally deleted, so just imagine him peering inside the half empty cavity of the pumpkin and not being overly impressed.












A few pictures from Casey's Thursday play group.

The definition of a "snapshot"

I get a kick out of this picture. Casey looks like he's relaxed and ready to settle in. But he was really in this position for a total of 3 seconds. It's amazing how he zooms from one thing to the next. Annette sees this in action all-day long and I don't know how she remains standing by the end of the day.

Hats off to mommy!





First shoes!






.

10-months and "climbing"

Well, Casey hit the 10-month mark last week and we are still amazed at everything he does. He eats just about whatever we put in front of him. He has tried many veggies, tofu, pineapple, bananas, green beans, navy beans, black-eyed peas, squash, cheese, hamburger, cheerios, graham crackers, rice cakes, yogurt, grapes, avocado, plus all the mushed baby food from the store.

He's crawling around everywhere very quickly, chasing cats, and standing up next to anything he can grab. Walking may be just around the corner. He's sleeping 10-11 hours each night (so we can actually watch a movie once in a while after he goes to bed!).


Casey's new Husker hat. Cuteness can't even save the team this year.



Our porch photo sitting--such a sweet little fella!


fun for everyone.


kind of degraded into a flower-eating session.


in the "big" tub.


climbing into his basket


Belle is always so patient.





He's getting really good at this (so the gate is up most of the time)

Passing the cold

Casey got his first major cold last week and is still really congested and coughing but overall is in good spirits. Napping has been a little unpredictable, but his night sleeping has been fairly normal. We think he got it when he and Annette went to a play group for the first time. Guess that's just the way these things happen. Maybe he'll go back this week and give the cold back!

Annette and I are both trying to fight off this cold too. I'm singing at Rosh Hashana services at a local temple next Monday night and Tuesday morning (5 hours of services) It's just a quartet, so I'm the one tenor--and it's a TON of music (120+ pages), but after our first (and only) full rehearsal, it promises to be a beautiful service.
Shana tova! (Happy New Year!)


Pretty good mood for a kid with a cold.



First sip from a straw



One of three gates we now have!


He already plays better than daddy!


"How do you turn this thing on?"


"No, seriously. Turn the TV on!"


Are the cats really that distracted?


Always helping around the house (usually Lily is in the basket)