Demoted

This week in history, we reached William the Conqueror. This means that William gets to be king (he is William the Conqueror after all). Elijah is now a prince.

Recess now frequently involves the peasants working the fields for their lord. One noblewoman today was interceding on behalf of an unseen peasant. She requested and was granted, by William the Conqueror, a holiday per month for the peasant, but upon reflection decided that 12 days off a year was insufficient. I didn't catch the final resolution.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A bit late, but we're especially thankful for this little guy:

Reading with Daddy

Elijah loves being read to

In Action

Reading

This month, reading books has become a favorite activity for Elijah. He loves to sit and read stories over and over.

With this, he has developed book preferences; for example, out of the books currently in the office, his favorites are "Goodnight Gorilla," "Snuggle Puppy," and "Brown Bear, Brown Bear." When given a choice of which book to read, one of these three is almost always chosen.

This is accompanied by a newfound respect for paper. Whereas he used to shred magazines, catalogs, or any other paper we'd hand him, he now carefully (relatively speaking for an eight month old) turns pages.

Gardener

A view from the office couch

Crawler

Elijah is liking his life as a crawler.

The sheer act of crawling brings a smile to his face.

It's great!

And crawling brings with it the added benefit of being able to access previously unreachable spots.

To brighten your day..

Disneyland

For my birthday, we took advantage of Disneyland's birthday deal and enjoyed a family day of fun.

Elijah liked all the sights and sounds; the carousel got laughs out of him. Mostly he observed his surroundings with bright, wide eyes.

Waiting in lines was great because he got to walk!

Elijah was a happy camper the whole time, napping his way through Haunted House and Pirates.

Late afternoon, my mom picked him up so that Dustin and I could enjoy the rides that had a minimum height requirement.

It was a happy way to spend my birthday!

Apple Peels!

For my birthday, I got an apple peeler/corer that makes wonderfully long curlicue peels.

Helping Garden

On Saturday, Elijah and I spent time working on the patio, attempting to get the garden in order.

Elijah liked the pot of dirt.

Playing with Gourds

Elijah's new fall toy is a basket of gourds.

Baby in Action

Elijah learned to crawl this week. For most of the week, this has consisted of crawling 2 steps, sitting down, and repeating. But yesterday, he figured out how to go across a room. He thinks it is pretty funny to crawl to Mommy or Daddy, although crawling is more difficult when one is laughing.

Going for the book

Must look at the camera

Detour to crawl to Mommy

Back to the book

Success!