Happy Halloween!

 Happy Fall and Happy Halloween from the Lewis Family!

Maya Jacquelin? MJ?

So we are still not 100% sure of the name, but we are settling into MJ, or Maya Jacquelin for now...

Like Xander, it is a blend of "old and new" and can adapt to suit our little girl's personality as she grows.

We are already learning just a little about her personality!  Already, she is strong, and athletic- kicking all the time with lots of acrobatics to surprise Mom at the oddest moments!  She does not like to be pushed around, and is likely to kick back it you poke her.  She is making sure she doesn't make it too easy on us.  Erin has had to curtail quite a lot of aerobic activity lately to keep the contractions away, and has had both nerve discomfort and hip discomfort already.

Ah, but, it is a sweet thing to know she's on her way, growing stronger and already establishing her place in our family, and in our hearts.

Xander has been practicing with a new baby doll that Grandma Kathy sent.  We don't let him play with the doll unless supervised, and we are really really gentle with the baby.  Each "introduction" is pretty short, and he has been really good so far.  As time goes on we'll allow him more and more time with the baby doll, but want the idea that she is special.  Hopefully, by time MJ comes along Xander will be a pro at holding and caring for a baby sister.

Xander turns one and a half!

This is the last chance we'll get to be really excited about "half birthdays", so of course, we had a lot of fun with it! Of course we took more photos!

Watch me Catch!

Watch me Learn!

Watch me "ham it up" for the camera!

Watch me Bicycle!

We Even Got Xander a REAL bicycle- although he is still figuring it out!

Xander's latest stats:

Height 32.75"-    a little under the 75th %ile... he's either slowing down, or getting ready for another growth spurt!

Weight 27.6 lbs - 75th %ile - yep, that's our kid, He does love to eat!

(One question is whether Xander will hit 30 lbs before Mom gains that much for #2?  Let's hope not!)

Head    - 90th %ile.  The kid just has a big head.  It runs in the family.  Hopefully he'll grow into it.

Language skills: Xander is a regular mimic and loves trying out new words and sounds.  It's amazing how fast he picks things up. Sometimes he'll just babble on for minutes at a time, especially in the car.  His favorite words are Dog, Doggie, Otto, Ball, Big Ball, Bounce, Bang, No, Mommy, Daddy, Dee-der (Xander), Jack, Up, Snack, Agua (Water), Pizza, and Outside.  He has a recognizable vocabularly of approximately 100+ words, is starting to form basic sentences and I swear he understands everything we say.  We're learning more and more that his vocabulary is larger than our ability to interpret it!

Body: he can point to his key body parts (head, hair, eyes, ears, nose, booggers, mouth, hands, fingers, belly-button, feet, toes) and likes to find them on others as well.

Xander is finally getting more interested in stuffed animals and books, but still prefers playing with sticks, rocks, balls, and blocks.  Xander can kick a ball around the room, and even catch a ball in the air!  He's getting better at shape puzzels, but still has a little ways to go before he can work them on his own.  He's pretty good at playing with friends, but is too quick to take things away if he wants them, doesn't like to give things up, and in general, needs to improve his sharing skills.

Much to our joy, Xander still loves listen to and make music and loves to dance.  He is starting to get more interested in art projects, although the best part of markers is putting the top on and off and on and off...

Xander has become quite jealous of Mom's attention, so it's a very good thing that we have regular playdates/babysitting opportunities with Leah and Jack.  We'll have to ease Xander into the idea that he has to share Mom's lap with a new baby!

The out-takes

It's a lot harder getting an 18-month old to hold still than it is a younger kid... Xander's photo shoot (above) took a full 2 weeks to capture (complete with a boogery cold and a bruise on his face). We thought the out-takes were hilarious, so here are a few to chuckle over.

Zoo day

This past weekend, Jake and I took Xander down to Denver to check out the zoo. My favorite was the Hippo. Jake's was the birds. Xander liked the lions, and the squirrels.

 

Baby Girl's First Photos

Profile of Our Little Girl, sucking her thumb!

10 little Toes

And the answer is...

PINK!  We have a healthy little girl on the way.  Couldn't be happier!  Pictures and more coming soon!

Crested Beautiful

We had a wonderful weekend with Gandma Kathy in Crested Butte.  The leaves were beautiful, the days sunny and warm and the evenings cool and crisp.  It was the perfect fall weekend.  We headed up on Friday morning and arrived in the early afternoon.  The drive up was very pretty, Kenosha Pass was past peak for the aspen, but still beautiful, and Monarch Pass was stunning.  We relaxed for a little, but by that evening I was feeling stir crazy, so set off in the Jeep to drive up Red Lady mountain to check out the trees and the sunset.  It was a nice ride in the Jeep, not real tough, and very pretty.

On Saturday we packed the whole family up in the Jeep and headed for the Crystal Mill.  We drove out Schofield to the Devil's Punchbowl 4X4 road.  This road is notorious for a terrible accident 30 years ago where an entire family in a Suburban plunged off the cliffside.  I had walked down the road with Mike Ogburn during a previous trip to scope it out, and felt confident that I wouldn't have any trouble with it, as long as we took our time.  The trail follows the crystal river down a steep gorge, the devil's punchbowl itself is a series of waterfalls.  The photo I have doesn't do justice to just how pretty this was.  If you look carefully at the photo on the right you can see me down in the river taking photos.

We stopped on the way to the "town" of Crystal and the Crystal Mill for some beautiful portraits in the warm golden light.

The Crystal Mill itself really was very nice.  Erin and I were both hoping that we would get a chance to explore the millworks and see how it operated, but it was on the other side of the river and it didn't seem like visitors were encouraged to go inside.  Nonetheless it was a great photo opportunity and I am very pleased with the picture that I got there.  After looking at it I thought it would be really interesting in black and white too.  Let me know what you think.

After our visit to the mill it was past time to head home and get the little boy home for a nap.  Erin spent some time doing some homework and I decided to head for a run. 

One of our hopes for the summer was to hike through the Maroon Bells Wilderness, you can do a day hike from Crested Butte across to Aspen, and we were really interested in doing that.  Unfortunately it didn't pan out, but I have been really interested in at least doing a little exploring in that area.  So, I headed out for West Maroon Pass.  It was about a 4 mile run one way, with 2500' or so of elevation gain.  I was getting a pretty late afternoon start but I really hoped that I would be able to make it to the pass.  Just as I started out, I met a couple and their 1.5 year old son who had done the entire hike from Aspen that day.  They looked tired, but thrilled with their accomplishment, when I told them it was only 100 more yards to the trailhead.  It was a really inspiring way to start my run, and started me off with a smile on my face.  The trail was glorious traversing the high alpine meadows and the afternoon sun cast a beautiful glow across the mountain peaks.  I was starting to get a little nervous about time, I didn't want to be stuck out after dark, but as I was starting to think I needed to turn around soon, I rounded a bend and saw the pass close in front of me.  It was a surprisingly easy last push to the top and I spent a few moments enjoying the view.  There was a group of campers setting up for dinner down the other side of the pass and I enjoyed the distant sounds of laughing and camaraderie from my perch high above them.  Just before the sun set  behind the mountains, I left the top of the pass and headed back down the valley.  I got back to the trail head still with plenty of light left in the sky.  It was one of those runs that is good for the soul.

The next day Kathy and I took Xander for a hike to Judd Falls.  It is about a mile hike in and very pleasant.  The falls are beautiful and there is a nice overlook to enjoy them from.  The light was no good for photos of the falls, but we took some time to get a couple of pictures of Xander instead.

In the afternoon we decided to head out towards Pearl Pass in the Jeep.  We had a dinner reservation at the Ginger Cafe so we didn't expect to make it all the way to the pass, but we thought we would head out a ways.  It was a very nice drive, and gave us a chance to do some exploring in a new direction out of Crested Butte.  We even made it back in time for our dinner reservation!

Grandma Kathy spent lots of time playing with Xander during our trip, and was able to teach him how to catch.  Now, he is certainly no pro yet, but he has started to be able to actually catch a soccer ball when you toss it to him!  So exciting.  Xander had lots of fun showing off his new skills.

If you have been following our blog for a while, you also know that Erin has really been wanting that "perfect" aspen shot.  This was of course a great opportunity to try to get it, so naturally every time we saw a promising stand of aspen we stopped for photos.  We got lots!  Now the trouble is narrowing down which one is THE one.  Here's a sampling of some we particularly like.

Let us know what you think!

It was an incredible weekend that we all really enjoyed.  Fall is probably my favorite season, and I can't imagine a more perfect fall weekend.

-Jake