13.1

Quinlan's Mom participated in the Zooma half marathon on Saturday morning. It was very exciting and full of first time experiences. Q got to eat off of a buffet for dinner Friday, he got to walk around at a resort (Hyatt's Lost Pines, very nice, wish we could have stayed longer and taken advantage of some of the resort amenities), and sleep in a hotel room.

The morning started off early when we got up to do all the pre-race prep activities.

Q listens intently while Mom tells him she will be done in only a few hours
and will see him soon.

Mommy is ready to go.

Q waits patiently for Mommy at the finish line. He got a Cheerio stuck to his chin and was very proud of it.


Look, Mommy finished right when she said she would, and we watched her race
over the finish line.

Mom did awesome; Dad and Q were both very proud of how well she did.

Q reminds Mommy that she needs proper nourishment after running so far.

Look at Mom's official time. If you can't read all of the numbers it says from start to finish she ran 13.1 miles in 2 hours, 1 minute and 1 second. Of the 1494 people who signed up to run, Mom was the 75th one finished. Of the 1401 other women, Mom was the 67th one in, and of other people in Mom's age bracket, she was the 19th person to finish out of 259.

Way to go, Mom!!!!!

Art

Q has always enjoyed the art of eating, I call it art because he sometimes likes to pretend the food is paint, and he makes mini-masterpieces on his tray.

Quin eats pretty much everything we put in front of him, with the exception of the poorly cooked brussel sprouts I gave him at Thanksgiving, but come on! There are really only a few people who like brussel sprouts anyway. The new change with food is that Q is much more motivated to eat when HE gets to take the food and put it in his mouth. He tries to do this with the spoon at times but still loves the good old fashioned hand-to-mouth shove-fest.

It takes a lot of concentration to get that spoon up to that little mouth.

You can see by the drops coming out of his mouth and the blob on his nose that self-feeding is not always that easy.

Here we are in the aftermath of a different meal. Notice the stray vegetables that stick to his face and the avocado hair gel used to make interesting new hairdos.

Of course, no matter where it goes, or how it gets there, eating with Mom and Dad is always fun.

Everything's New and Fun

Jared and I have had a really nice couple of days at home with Quinlan. Traveling, visiting family, and spending time with others was wonderful. It's amazing to see Q interact with others--he's such a little social butterfly! He has a smile for everyone, and he looks to each person to be picked up. However, I think both Jared and I, and even Q, enjoy being home in our space--he had to check out each and every toy on Thursday morning, to make sure it was still there and good.

He keeps trying to do new things--opening doors (scary!), emptying the dishwasher (really, more like playing with the dishes), gardening, eating breakfast tacos (yum!). His new favorite word is "dat!", though he eeks out "dawh" (dog) and "eeaho" (into the cell phone) with surprising accuracy. He's getting loud, too--just wait, soon he'll have a voice to rival his mama's!


I think the coolest thing about this picture is what happened before taking it: he had 2 plastic spoons, and he dropped one of them in the watering can. Then he tried to use the other spoon to retrieve the first. It was so awesome to watch--you could just see the wheels turning!


Emptying the dishwasher at Pops' and Nona Stina's house. Yeah, I earn my keep.


Learning how to garden with Fossil


Breakfast Tacos!


Lemme out of here!!

We'll post some other pictures from traveling, but this is a pretty accurate representation of all of the new, fun, and exciting things Q's been up to. We're headed to his first birthday party today. A coworker of mine has a daughter turning two, and there will be a petting zoo! I'm sure Quin'll love both the party and the animals.

Still Traveling

Today, Quin and his fam relocated to yet another house to visit with his Mossil and Fossil while here in PA. He was very excited to spend time with more people. He is never at a loss when he is with people; he loves any level of attention that he can get.

One of the interesting parts of traveling is being in other houses. I don't expect people to baby-proof things, and I hope that Q listens when we tell him to stop or move away from something. This is how we experienced the stairs and had all sorts of fun.

Today, when we got to Mossil and Fossil's, Q was thrilled to find that there was some furniture that seemed just right for him. Now he can sit on the front porch and look like a little old man rocking.

Traveling

Quinlan traveled with his Mom and Dad up to Pennsylvania (and New Jersey) were they celebrated Pop Stevenson's 90th birthday. It was a great gathering, with many branches of the Jones family represented.


Q's great-grandmother Mom-Mom, Q's connection to the Jones.
The trip up went very well, with a flight from Austin to Houston and then a connecting flight from Houston to Philadelphia. The torrential rain in PA kept us in the Houston airport a little longer than expected, but it provided Q a chance to nap. Flying free as a lap baby went very well until the turbulent landing churned up all of the snacks Q had eaten during the 4 hour flight, causing the little man to throw up all over himself and his Mom. She handled it much better than I would have, and we managed to get him cleaned up and changed before getting off the plane. Katharine had to wait until we got our bags from the carousel to do a quick change in the airport bathroom.

The birthday boy (Great-Grandpa Pop) and a collection of family members.

26 people gathered at the gorgeous home of Judy and Rob Cope. Their farmhouse, originally built in the late 1700s, provided Q a first chance at attempting a flight of stairs. This video was shot on a second attempt, after Katharine sent me to go find the camera during his first attempt.



We drove back to West Chester to spend the night with Nona Stina and Pops. Q doesn't seem to care where we are, as long as there is food.

Spring is fun . . .

Spring is certainly in bloom here in Austin. The wildflowers are popping up, and the weather is getting warm. We tend to skip degrees like warmer. It was cold (and snowy a few weeks ago?!?), and now it is sweaty warm. You can't beat 80 degrees. I'm not complaining about that, and I miss the Jeep on these window-down-while-driving days, but it seems like an interesting jump on the thermostat.

Q, is, of course, just going along each day, loving life. Katharine has been running outside more, and she frequently protects herself from the sun's powerful rays with a hat. Q likes to take the hat and hold it out to someone who will put it on his head. He usually wears it for a few minutes and then drops it somewhere on the floor. Of course, he does the same thing with his own hat when you take him outside and want to protect him from the sun, which could be strong enough on his pale skin to make him whoosh away into a pile of ashes.

Here he is with his Momma's hat, standing up at his car from the video. He likes hitting the horn. I hope that doesn't translate into a cranky driver in a few years.

Since it has been so nice, we are trying to get him outside more and let him experience the world a little bit. He doesn't seem to mind anything and is crawling around with great abandon, picking up leaves and acorns and who knows what else. He has even been pretty good about not eating things too much.

Look at all of these leaves, oh, and the grass, and the rocks, and the bricks and the dirt and the ants and there is so much stuff everywhere to look at! It is so much fun!!!!!

On this particular evening, Katharine had gone for a run, and then came home and attempted to clean off the piles of leaves from the driveway. They have gotten quite bad in some spots, and she filled up one giant bag in only a few minutes with really only scooping them up.

Q seems to be ready to help. We have been working on cleaning up but wow, was he ready to jump right in there and help with the leaves. It's almost enough for me to want to warn him off, you know: "Be a kid, have fun, you will work for the rest of your life!"
But really, I can't wait for that extra help.
I can already envision the job chart.

Driving Lesson Number One: Steering

Not sure if this bodes very well for when Q starts driving, but it seems we are slowly approaching our next milestone. One of Quinlan's one-year birthday presents is this little car, which makes lots of noise and also has a bar to help balance the little dude when he stands up. He loves it.




He is so much fun.