Happy Halloween!

This year we decided to dress Joe up as something super relevant: an educated voter.

Just kidding! (but he did accompany us to early voting).

With the way he flapflapflaps his arms like a bird and splashsplashsplashes in the tub, he had to be a bird or a fish. In keeping with the family's love of beaches, rivers & lakes, we decided to dress him as a fish!

We had a halloween picnic at a park with lots of friends!

That's Sam the Monkey & Holden the Giraffe. They're my buddies.

Joe got his own pumpkin!

And his Aunt Nancy gave him some special jammies for his first halloween!

Do you know what a 4 month old can do?

They can go to football games and once they get confortable with a seat in the shade and ear protection, they can sleep through the whole thing. 

They can start day care, and make lots of new friends. One day at drop-off, I was holding Joe & saying "Have a good day, my sweet boy," and Wendy, his caregiver, said, "He sure is," in agreement.

They can stay home with a sitter for a night and let their mom go watch their dad rock out.

They can have a favorite toy to keep them company in the car. Meet MonkeyJay. Frank thinks that he looks like our friend Jay, and he's a monkey.

Little MonkeyJay (left) and Regular MonkeyJay (right)

They can go to the doctor and be in the 15th percentile for weight and in the 65th percentile for height, little stringbean.

They can dare to grow up.

One week

Four months

 They can hang out with their big brothers & act tough...

...or be very sweet to their aunts.

They can be difficult to photograph because they like to move,

and smiling for the camera isn't as much fun as singing.

4-month-old chatterbox from teampeveler on Vimeo.

Most of all, 4-month-olds are really fun.

For more pictures of Joe's fourth month click here.

There's a business idea in here, I swear.

Since Erin doesn't work in an office, the following happened to me instead. 


Years ago I went to a LWV event. The organizer let me take a little "Votes for Women" bag that was a centerpiece. When I came back to work, I used it to carry my breastpump parts to the sink to wash em. Women's Lib!

Sometimes I put the pump parts in the microwave to kind of get the water off of them/disinfect them a little (the logic being that microwaving works to disinfect sponges). I put the parts in the bag & put the whole thing in the microwave, thinking that there wasn't any metal on there, it should be fine. It, um, caught on fire a little. This was in a teachers lounge where a student set a ream of paper in the microwave once & it caught on fire, a fact that was pointed out to me by the Board of Ed. member who walked in when he smelled the burning. He thought I was burning popcorn (luckily) and didn't actually look at the contents of the bag as I pulled it out of the microwave & threw it into the sink. 

Since then I have been using a manila envelope, but this morning I grabbed another bag to use. On my second trip to clean the parts I realized that it's a "We Can Do It" t-shirt that was re-purposed into a bag. 

Apparently I cannot get away from women's empowerment when it comes to keeping my breast pump supplies stored. We should really design a line of supplies with that theme....

Video Roundup

 Joe cannot be captured in photos anymore. He moves & talks way too much for that.

Evidence of the near constant babbling:

Morning Chatter from teampeveler on Vimeo.

Like his parents, this kid likes to MOVE:

Joe starts his fitness program from teampeveler on Vimeo.

And because he's only going to let me do things like this for so long:

Elmo! from teampeveler on Vimeo.

(if you like these, we have about 4 more hours we can show you!)

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling...

Joe has been working on rolling all week long. Lay him down, and he lifts his legs in the air, and they fall to one side.

almost rolling from teampeveler on Vimeo.

He's been scooching around in his crib, too; when you put him to bed with his head facing the wall, he wakes up rotated 180 degrees.

Yesterday, we were getting ready to go to the tailgate and I laid him down on the bathroom floor. He had flopped over to one side & I took a picture to send to Frank, warning him that it wouldn't be long until he rolled all the way over.

Little did I know that it would be mere seconds!

Way to go, Joe!

As an added bonus, last night Joe slept from 8pm, to 8am without a feeding! He woke up around midnight, and all he needed was his pacifier & a few pats. He's been working on falling asleep on his own in his crib, too. He's a pretty awesome little guy!