Jude Meets California. They fall in love.

Jude had his first trip to the Golden State October 14-17.  This was his very first chance to be exposed to the entire California Hey clan, and I believe that he handled himself pretty well.  Although he isn't yet old enough to play "What note is that?" or make ear-piercing comments about the Colts, he seemed to fit right in.

It was so special for him to meet Grandpa and Megan for the first time.  Jude made friends with both of them instantly, and I can't wait for him to see everyone at Christmas again. I am so lucky to have a family that has so much love to give.

Megan took some amazing pictures of him.  She is an extremely talented photographer, but as I said to my mom, it doesn't hurt that the baby is really.  frigging.  cute.

Baby up in the air!

The Uncle Series 1

The Uncle Series 2

The Uncle Series 3 (Forest Gump and Lil Forest)

The Uncle Series 4

Grandma presents Jude with measuring cups...

Oooooohhhh....measuring cups.

Don't even think about it, Grandpa.  These are my cups.

Victory!

Jude and Grandma in their pjs.

Mommy, these guys are so funny.

California knows how to party.  See you in 2 months!

Annnnnnnnd.......

..... the baby gate is up!  "Crawling" isn't quite the right word to describe what Jude is doing.  He can back up and pivot - no problem.  In the past day or two he's been working a funny little inchworm thing, but he's not moving terribly quickly.  But the paranoid mom in me knows that he'll pick the moment when I have my back turned to decide to take off.

Sully is just grateful that it's the kind of gate that has a door so we can use a bungee cord to hold it open when Jude is asleep. 

Mommies' Day Out!

Yesterday was the first time we have been out and hired a REAL babysitter.  Not a friend.  Not someone who was doing us a really nice favor by watching our first born child.  A babysitter named Andrea.  Okay, it's not like we found her on Craigslist, she works for Liz.  But we paid her in real dollars.  The excuse, you ask?  Sarah Denney and Ben Johnson's wedding! 

Liz and I left the house at around 1pm and headed out to the wedding.  The day was amazing...record-setting temperature of 84 degrees.  Since the wedding was outside, we got to take advantage of the great fall day.  The leaves were changing, and all through the ceremony they fell from the trees around Sarah and Ben.  A completely magical day.  Then around 4, we headed over to Gale Woods Farm for the reception.  We didn't even call Andrea ONCE on our drive over to the reception.  Full disclosure: she did text us around 5 to tell us that both of the boys (Sully and Jude) had been fed and walked. Fantastic!

While Andrea was taking care of Juders, we were posing for pictures with our friends Donna and David . 

 The woman who took our picture was a little crazy.  Who knows how we look, but the scenery is great!

 And the bride wore cowboy boots.  LOVE IT!

We did leave the party around 8pm to come home and relieve Andrea, but we had a GREAT 7 hours out.  She didn't have any trouble getting him to sleep, and all was right with the world when we walked in the door.  Jude slept until about 715, so it looks like he had a good time hanging out at home with Andrea.