Family photoshoot: Fall 2008

This was a quick, semi-impromptu photoshoot with Heather's sister, Marci, that turned out great, especially considering we were racing against the setting sun. Well, that and the fact that October isn't exactly one for holding still.

Taking Care of Busyness

If I had to describe October Taylor in two words, those words would be CUTE and BUSY. Let's start with the cute photos:

And now, the busy photos:

He LOVES the dishwasher and, especially, the fridge. His favorite feature of the fridge? The little button that turns the light off when you push it. The fastest you will ever see him move is when we open the fridge door when he's on the other side of the room. If we close the door before he gets there, he cries as if we just slapped him in the face.

He became mobile earlier than we were expecting and I hadn't gotten around to putting child locks on the cabinets. Tober was nice enough to remind me on a daily basis until I got it done:

Even though he wreaks havoc on our house, his active personality is actually very endearing.

And, at the end of a busy day of mischief, he sometimes just passes out before he has a chance to lie down.

Adventures in baby feeding

Okay, so I haven't blogged for a while, so there are going to be multiple posts in a row. Here are some photos and video of Tober getting started with the wide world of solid foods.

Here he is at 6 months old trying to figure out how to swallow rice cereal:

Shortly after this video was taken, he went through a phase where he decided he didn't really want to swallow solid food. He would just hold his mouth open and stare at us. Not upset, but not swallowing either:

Okay, in this video he's a little upset:

He finally got things figured out and eats pretty well now. We finally figured out that he eats much better if we give him a toy or something to play with while he's eating. He's now 10 months old and is a big fan of finger foods. The problem is, he seems to enjoy smearing food on himself just as much as he enjoys eating it. Take, for example, his first experience with Spaghettios:

And here are a few more mealtime shots:

Halloween for the undecided

If your name is October, your first Halloween is a big deal. We couldn't decide what costume he should wear, so we tried a few different options. This first one isn't really a costume, per se--
just a cute halloweeny outfit:

This Tigger outfit was given to us by a nice lady in our ward. And the wonderful thing about Toby is that he's the only one.
He's . . . the only one!

Heather couldn't resist dressing him up as a rugby player, especially since she could accent his ensemble with a mini New Zealand All-Blacks ball (a gift from her brother, Eric):

Out of season, we know, but he won't fit in this "Santa's Little Helper" outfit come Christmas:

This costume is either "hunter" or "military" (note the dog tag) and came from another nice lady in the ward. Yes, the Crocs are camouflage as well:

If only we had a mini-Harley to go with this outfit:

In the end, the costume we chose to go with was the one we borrowed from Shayne's sister, Karissa. October looked extremely cute in it, but we had to wake him up from a nap to go to our family parties. This is clearly written on his face:

He looks a little happier in this family shot:

For the occasion, Heather decided to get all Betty Crocker and created these amazing mini-pizzas and cupcakes:

Awesome pictures from Marci

Heather's sister, Marci, is amazingly talented and somehow is able to almost capture how cute October actually is:

We love this one because is shows how he likes to rotate his tongue in his mouth:

This is a common expression when he is excited about something:

And this is a commone expression when he's just chillin':

This one shows off his chubby little fingers:

And this one shows off his flair for fashion: