No photos, only video to share

And here is some more crawling:

And here's some footage of Mara and Daddy goofing around. She is pretty sleepy (only had 1 nap before noon) so she's not in the greatest mood... but she seems to be trying to cheer Daddy up with a gift of her binky?

And last one. Please ignore that I accidentally hit my daughter with the ball. I was trying to steady the phone before I passed the ball. Mommy fail.

Happy Halloween!

I've spent this week recovering from food poisoning, and rediscovering my inner creative child.

My work holds an annual costume and pumpkin decorating contest, and I happened to have a few pumpkins lying around, courtesy of my Mom and a trip to the Farmer's Market. Isn't this pumpkin beautiful? It's always nice to have a helper.

She ate baked and pureed pumpkin today, and got through half of it!

She loved touching the inside of this pumpkin, and pulling the newspaper into place for me. Here's the finished product:

Which probably would have done great in the pumpkin contest except for this...

Someone else thought of a cheeseburger, too! (Although he used a real burger and cheese). My friend, Kelly, made this amazing fish tank!

And there were some traditional carved pumpkins, too.

But I surprised myself and decorated a SECOND pumpkin, which ended up being my favorite!! (And winning the $50 first prize). Is it ironic that this was actually Zack's pumpkin?

Oh, and want to know how I transported it? Sometimes you have to think outside the box..

Anyway, sorry, I know this blog is about Mara. Whom I used to get some cuteness points with my costume...

Hey, it got me 3rd place. Not too shabby considering I'm velcro'd together in brown felt. Mara is an owl, I'm a tree (I had an owl hole on my belly), and my arms are the limbs and I have a little bird sitting on my shoulder. We have another party to attend tomorrow, so we'll be repeating this getup.

Happy Halloween!

By Request: More Crawling Videos

I think this one (above) we are just playing around, but
Graham-pa made a special request for some more crawling videos, so here you go!

10 Months

Someone was still recovering from a fever and illness this week. Daddy time sure does make it a lot better.

It's amazing how much has happened in the last 3 weeks! Pushing herself to a sit, scooching around, and now full out crawling!

She is such a wonderful, sweet little person. Now that she's crawling, she will make her way over to me if I'm on the floor and climb into my lap for snuggles. Or she'll crawl over to Zack on the computer and tug on his pant leg for some attention (or in an attempt to stand up).

She definitely makes sure that she gets her "workouts" in many times a day - making Mommy or Daddy walk her around to strengthen those baby stems.

My little love. Here's a few shots with the fisheye. :)

Thank you, Shirley and Paw Paw for the Halloween card! Mara helped me get the mail yesterday and it was a nice surprise.

Guess who is MO-bile

Pretty incredible!

Zack had to stay home with Mara yesterday afternoon and all today because she's been sick with a fever... but very happy and playful. He said her crawling improves every 30 minutes. And she'll crawl over and pull on his pant leg when he's at the computer.

Mara also can say "All done!" although it comes out Ah Dah. She also apparently called Zack "Daddy Da Da" yesterday! Yes, those words, he says.

One more video, but this isn't for those with uneasy stomachs. We had to give Daddy some alone time this evening after having been on Mara-watch for the past day and a half. We went to PetsMart to see the cats, birds, and fish (and buy dog food), then to the bookstore, and then here:

Autumn Spirit

My goal for this month was to get Mara to a pumpkin patch! I just HAD to take the obligatory baby-in-a-pumpkin-patch photos. Buuuut, the closest one I heard about where the pumpkins are still on the vine is 45 minutes away... so I think we'll save that trek for next year.

My Mom and I took Mara to the Farmer's Market yesterday, instead, and picked out a Zack pumpkin, a Chrissy pumpkin, and a Mara pumpkin. 

Some pumpkins were WAY bigger than Mara!!

"Geeeez, that's a big pumpkin!"

Some were bigger than Mara and Mommy combined! (Forgive the squinting, the sun was bright!)

I like this photo -

Mara wanted this one:

And this one:

Aaaannnnd this one:

"Huh? I can only choose ONE?"

"'Hey over there... What's yours like?"

"Whoa, Mom! Too small!"

In the end, we found some pumpkins we liked.

Distracted plenty of other customers with smiles and laughs.

All in all, a very happy little 10 month old.

Oh! Speaking of which, she just fell asleep so the 10 month photos will have to wait until later.

Happy Autumn!

Mara's Perfect Pink Ball

How's this for cuteness?

Mara can roll the ball to me... although she does it by kind of waving her hand at the ball or smacking it, and it makes its way over to me again.

"What? It counts!"

How's THIS for a cute face?? 

We're also thinking Mara may be a lefty?? We're not certain, but she tends to use her left more than her right, and considering my Dad, Graham, Paw-Paw, and my Nana are lefties, it would make sense, right? I mean, left? :-)