Eleven like Heaven

Hooray!  It's November.  Another month and this little boy will be a solid year.  Is that even possible?!

This month has been so much fun!  We got over the "getting back down" hurdle early on, so this little boy is constantly standing up and down against pretty much any surface he can find.  His favorite, of course, are the legs of any unsuspecting person he can get his little hands on.

Yay!  He also started crawling on his knees earlier this month.  Hooray!  He just keeps getting faster.  It is so fun to see his personality (and mood!) come out in the ways he crawls.  When he gets a look of determination on his face, I could swear he's goose stepping over to me ("Don't you walk away from me when I'm talking to you!")  He also has his playful crawl, usually accompanied by grins over his shoulder as he tries to run away.  There is, of course, his sad or fussy crawl accompanied by a generous dose of whimpering.  Then, another favorite, is his tired crawl where he slowly makes his way in random patterns, making screechy noises ("I'm having so much fun and oh, no, I'm not at all tired) and rests his head every so often.

Now that November has made its appearance, so has colder weather!  I guess we couldn't avoid it forever.  Atticus is loving the fallen leaves, but we have to be careful or else every leaf in sight goes in his mouth (Hence the binkie!) 

Boo!  An unfortunate milestone took place early this month when I was walking with a friend.  I had not buckled him in to the stroller (I know- terrible decision!- I gave in to "baby pressure"!)  Atticus arched his way out and went right onto the road.  His poor little chin was bleeding, and one of his teeth looked loose.  Oh, how I worried.  Thank goodness these little guys are so tough.  He had a couple other bruises, but, thank goodness, they healed very quickly.  Still, it was a good lesson for this new momma.  No more giving in to baby pressure!   

 We're still lovin' bath time with this sweet, handsome little man.  He has had a rash on his tummy, though, which has had us a little worried.  Probably just the changing season...

 We also celebrated Atticus's very first Halloween!  We had big plans to take him out and about, but ended up sticking around at Grandma Toni's, instead.

 Here's our lame attempt to dress up as Jurassic World.  Atticus is a Dinosaur Expedition Team member (compliments of Grandma Toni- the day he was born, I might add!), Dane dressed as Owen Grady and I'm a bangless Claire Dearing. :)  Ah, well.  We tried!

 Though we didn't go out on Halloween, we did ventured out with Atticus a few days before for some tame trick or treating at the Traverse Outlets.  He LOVED watching all of the kids passing him by.

 Before all of that excitement, however, we've spent plenty of time at Grandma Toni's,

 And we've spent plenty of time with Grandma Marti and Grandpa Bob.  Bob loves to have Atticus "play" the piano.  He's quite the prodigy!

They both have October birthdays, so Atticus had a great time helping them open presents.

We've also been able to make it over to Farm Country a few more times.  Thankfully, he's now starting to take more interest in the animals (especially the ducks.) Our first visit he seemed to only care about putting his mouth on the fences and bars.  Did I mention that these fences are pretty much all covered in savory farm animal substances?... Bleh!  

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But my favorite development of all has got to be his new smile.  Just on Sunday (Nov. 1) he started smiling with squinty eyes.  It is the most adorable thing.  Hopefully we'll catch him at it one of these days.