The Bean

J.J. has earned many nicknames in the 11 months he has been alive. Some include The Dude, Dudeage, J-Ger Bean, Bean, and The Beaner. He is one of the coolest little babies in the entire world. He smiles and laughs all the time, dances to Ally's "funky rock and roll" (as she calls it), crawls all over the place, puts anything and everything into his mouth, and has recently begun saying a couple of classic baby words! We all love him so much. His crazy hair and wild headbanging (he'll ram his head into you if he's really excited, shake his head like crazy if he knows you are going to try to extract something from his mouth, and crawl around shaking his head back and forth with such force that it throws him off course!) keep us entertained all day.

Here are some photos of the little guy in November...

Headed out with two rulers from the office...he loves having things in each hand that he can bang together

Notice the hair...

Our little happy guy

Ally and J.J.

The infamous "hug or headlock?"

One night he just kept making this face and breathing really fast...

...then I realized he was mad because I wouldn't give him the spoon!

Jay and J.J.

October 2009

October came and went quickly with many exciting events. We had several house guests for the Chicago Marathon weekend including Jenny and Lynn who ran it! It was a great weekend and I was so excited to start and run the first 10 miles with them. We are all so proud of you girls!

As you can imagine, most of the month was filled with Halloween activites and festivities. We visited an apple orchard, a couple pumpkin patches, countless Halloween stores and headed down to Indy for trick or treating. Here are a bunch of photos from the month....

Matt and Ally braved the cold and made signs to cheer on the runners!

They were positioned at mile 10, where I stopped and walked home with them.

Ally and J.J. talking a bath at Grandma and Grandpa's

Visiting Matt's school for Halloween. J.J. loved this guy!

Matt and his friend Ethan as football players

Ally finding her "perfect pumpkin" at the pumpkin patch

J.J. and Jay checking out the livestock

Ally conversing with a monster

Ally was crazy about milking the pretend cows...only later when we asked what her favorite part about the pumpkin patch was, she told us it was "making the cows go pee-pee"

Ally on the train

J.J. trilled to have an apple from the apple orchard

J.J. being very cute (and yes, that is a halo of drool around the neck of his sweatshirt)

Ally overwhelmed by apples

Peter the pumpkin-eating dinosaur at the apple orchard

J.J. and Matt visiting with a goat

Ally liked "this cute little fella"

Jay putting strange things on J.J.'s head at the Halloween store

The three kids...

Ally watering the massive pumpkins Grandpa grew in his garden!

Ally with a neighbor girl on Halloween

We are ready to head out!

Ally taking a break in her heels (they only lasted one block, thankfully)

J.J. as Tigger

Princess Ally

Princess Ally showing off her candy

J.J. playing in the leaves at Aunt LoLo's house

Last Lake Trip of 2009

We headed up to Birch Lake one last time (for the season) for Labor Day. As always, it was wonderful to spend good times and great meals with family. The highlight of the trip this time (for me at least!) was the massive amounts of minnows swimming around and under the pier. I can't recall ever seeing so many in the water in all the years (28) I've been up to Birch. It was really cool.

Here are some photos of my family and Ally's steadfast attempt at catching some minnows. At one point, I think the entire family was out on the pier trying to net some of those sneaky guys! My cousin Connor was finally the hero, using Grandma's antique popcorn popper (much to her dismay) to do the trick.

Grandma feeding J.J. some lunch

Ally and Meg with some pretty cool hats

Aunt Paula and J.J.

Laura and J.J.

Uncle Dave, Mom and I laughing at someone's attempt at catching minnows

Ally tying up her minnow net

Ally pulling up her minnow net, for the 5th of 108 times

Ally convinced that the stick that floated into the net is really a minnow

Connor showing off the first little fella he caught...he then proceeded to catch around 85 of them

Random Summer Photos - 2009

It has been far too long...

Here are some photos from the summer with a promise of more to come...

Ally and Matt building "Shreky Castles"

J.J. working on his standing

J.J. just being cute

Ally being a princess

Ally in my Cubs shirt playing baseball - with a pink bat, of course

Celebrating Grandma's birthday

J.J. trying cake for the first time...he was crazy for it!

Ally's now-famous "Hug or Headlock" move

Ally's trip with Pooh Bear and dad to the Farmer's Market

Ally shuckin' corn