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:

September

Just when you think your son can't get any cuter, you end up with photos like these:

We are entering the wild world of solid foods, and the results are a little hit and miss (more on that later):

Shayne has been having a ton-o-fun performing in "Forever Plaid"

Shayne volunteered Heather to make some of the props used in the show, and she ended up taking on the role of 'props mistress.' They even listed her as the props person in the show's program. Here is one of the record covers that Smudge uses during his monologue:

Heather's mom helped us with the huge project of making these arm bands for the Calypso number...

...and here's the finished product. Heather got my fruit hat from the person who threw Emily Seamons' baby shower:

This is an in-progress shot of making the gold records...

...and what they look like on stage:

In addition to Forever Plaid, Eclipse had a few shows in September. This is us after a concert at the Spanish Fork Arts Festival. October's shirt says, "I'm with the band." His face, on the other hand, says, "It's way past my bedtime."

The day after the concert in Spanish Fork, we did a fireside at the Assembly Hall on Temple Square, which was pretty darn cool:

Here's Toby with a couple of other kids from our ward:

And here he is watching a Bears game with his dad:



And, finally, a video of Toby frolicking with his dad's hat:

August

Apparently we caught October by surprise when we snapped this photo.

His pack-n-play has a bar that has little elephant heads hanging from it. It's a little creepy if you ask me, but he seems to enjoy it. They are velcroed on, so he reaches up until he can get a good hold and then...


...he rips off the severed, shrunken elephant head.

And that makes him happy.

Look at that cute little naked baby!

Kevin & Joni Huff (the same people that blessed all of our lives with Toby's awesome, powder blue suit) sent him this onesie when he was born.

We think he's the cutest baby in the whole ward.

If you've looked at our other posts, you'll know we're big fans of re-creating shots of October from when he was really little. Here's another example: