Last full day in Seattle

We took Mitchell to the Seattle zoo today. They had a beautiful rose garden...perfect picture opportunity!

He enjoys being carried around on our shoulders. So much easier to see what's going on!

He liked seeing the animals - live and bronzed! :)

We also did a 'food tour' today in Pike market. It was lots of fun! We got to sample 26 different things from various vendors. We'd highly recommend it to anyone coming to Seattle! Mitchell was particularly fond of the salmon :)

Seattle - so far!

I have decided that I need to give my son MUCH more credit. He did WONDERFUL on the 4 hour flight! Of course, it helped that the plane was only 2/3 full, so we had our own row. I had an arsenal of toys that I had brought along. I gave him and and let him get completely bored with it before bringing out the next! I've stored them away for the week while we're here and will use them again on the way back on Tuesday!

Jacob and I at the 1st ever Starbucks. It was pretty old fashioned, but the coffee tasted the same!

Mitchell liked it too! (just kidding...empty cup)

We went to the top of the space needle to see the Seattle scenery. It is just beautiful!

We took a boat ride in Puget Sound too. We'll have lots more pictures to post later!

9 months old!!!

We had to cheat again this month and take the picture one whole day before Mitchell turned 9 months old. Think he'll change much in a day? You never know!!!

We have our 9 month doctor's appointment next Wednesday, upon our return from Seattle. I've been weighing Mitchell periodically on our home scale and think he's in the neighborhood of 24.5 pounds, which isn't a whole lot more than he weighed at 6 months (23.8 lbs), so we'll see if our doctor's prediction was right. She predicted that he'd actually be on the charts in weight by 9 months.

Bare Bum at Bath Time

Here is a little video of Mitchell before bathtime. Warning: it contains nudity :) He is still very water obsessed! In fact, my latest challenges include trying to keep him out of Tex's water bowl and the toilet (grose!). The new rule is to not only beg Jacob to put the seat down when he's done, but now we try to close the top when we're done too!

Things will only get more and more interesting, I'm sure!

Notice on the video how he's getting pretty good at Da-da- and Ma-ma. He don't think he's quite figured out exactly what they mean yet, but we're getting closer!

Happy Anniversary!

It's our third anniversary! Hard to believe it's been 3 years already since the big day! I put a little slideshow together of some of my favorite pictures (it's less than 2 minutes long).

Each year on our anniversary, we take a little vacation to celebrate.

Year 1 - Greece & Italy

Year 2 - Vancouver and click here to see what I looked like one year ago today!

Year 3 - We leave for Seattle on Friday! Jacob is teaching a training there this week, so Mitchell and I are flying out on Friday and staying until Tuesday. Honestly, I'm terrified of the 4 hour flight. Mitchell is an angel on the short flights to Chicago and Minneapolis, but FOUR HOURS! Ugh! Wish me luck!!!

Our little helper

We had a very uneventful weekend and we LOVED it. It took us all weekend to get our lives back in order, cleaning, dishes, laundry, etc. Mitchell has become quite the little helper. He is still a challenging little man during the night (especially the last two nights), but he's a happy little fellow during the day! He's officially getting his 4th tooth...the top left front tooth. The jury is still out on the size of his teeth. Will he have big ol' horse teeth like his mom or little tiny teeth like his dad? Maybe he'll get lucky and get somewhere in the middle? :)

Home again!

We had a wonderful trip to Wisconsin. Mitchell spent all day Tuesday with Aunt Kel, while I taught my class downtown. They were playing outside when Mitchell experienced his first bee sting. :( She said that he didn't even cry! Apparently, he was more bothered by the ice that she tried to apply to it than the actual sting. My mom is allergic to bee stings, so we kept our eye on him a little closer for a few hours, but thankfully it didn't seem to affect him.

Mitchell spent Wednesday with Grandma and Grandpa, who drove him to the airport to meet me to pass off the precious cargo for the flight. :) I'll post more pictures from the trip later!

I can hardly get a picture in anymore without Mitchell crawling after the camera. :)

That is, unless he has already gotten himself into a precarious position. :)

Apple Orchard

Aunt Kel has become a great concierge on our latest trips to Wisconsin. Last time she took us to the zoo -- this time to one of the local apple orchards.

We had such a great time! Mitchell really enjoyed the trip, especially the hay ride (below)!

Isn't this picture just priceless!?!? He was having the greatest time playing with all of the apples as we were picking them.

They even had a little playground and petting zoo area. Mitchell and Grandma had fun swinging!

After we finished picking apples, we headed for the raspberries. We let Mitchell play with those too....but they were MUCH MUCH messier than the apples! He was covered in yucky red goo! It didn't really bother me, I knew he'd clean up...but if any of you are Jon and Kate + 8 fans, it's the sort of thing that would've thrown Kate into a hissy fit!

New fall clothes are fun!

I'm having fun putting Mitchell in all of his new fall clothes! We've worn the same ol' summer outfits over, and over again! It's kinda sad...I used to be a clothes bargain addict, but now I can't even remember the last time I bought something for myself! Oh, well...shopping for Mitchell is more fun anyway :)

You never know where you'll find Mitchell these days.

Earlier tonight he crawled under my bar stool while I was eating dinner. I wondered if he'd be able to get out on his own, so I filmed him :)

He had his Red "Chiefs" Friday shirt on! First home game this weekend, but we're heading north to Wisconsin/Minnesota instead! I have training there on Tuesday and Wednesday, so Mitchell and I are flying up tomorrow and staying 'til Wednesday. We are very excited! Only thing that would make it better is if Jacob was coming with us!

K-State Baby

Mitchell had his first trip to Manhattan over the weekend. He was wonderful on the drive to and from! He and I donned our Wildcat gear...we couldn't quite talk Jacob into it! Apparently purple isn't a manly color? :) You can't read the onesie very well, but it says K-State Baby!

On the way home from Manhattan, we stopped off to do some weekly shopping at our nearest Walmart. They had their bicylces on end of season clearance, and I've been begging for a bicycle for some time now. We tried them out and decided to buy me one (Jacob already has one). I was all excited until we realized that we'd driven my car rather than the Pilot, so we didn't have a way to get the bike home. Jacob questioned how much I REALLY wanted the bicycle and said that I had to prove how much I wanted the bike by riding it home from Walmart. So to give you a laugh of the day, I wanted you to picture me, a 30 year-old lady, riding an obviously brand new bicycle through the Walmart parking lot in her K-State jersey. Ha! I'm sure people were a little concerned about my mental state...and they might have been right! J/K. Now all I need is a child-seat attachment on the back and Mitchell and I will be good to go :)

Let me out!

Isn't this picture pathetic? :) I took it last weekend at the pool in Lincoln. He has become quite a momma's boy lately and did not like that I was on the other side of the fence (literally). Oh, poor, poor little guy :)

What a CRAZY week?!?! I officially started a new position at Ernst & Young. I'm now in charge of our campus recruiting for the Kansas City office. Fun change, but change none the less! It's been a rougher transition than I anticipated. I'm having a hard time wrapping up my client related work to make time for the new non-client serving position.

We have our annual Ernst & Young K-State recruiting tailgate tomorrow. I think Mitchell and Jacob might join me for the drive and then run and visit a friend during the actual tailgate. Mitchell is not much of a fan of long car rides, so we'll see how that goes! Wish us luck and be on the look-out for a post of the little guy in some Wildcat gear! If he's anything like me, he'll swear up and down that he's not a wildcat fan like his mom for his entire young life....until it's time to go to college, and then have a drastic change of heart! (Sorry, Mom!) Ha :)

Costco Nightmare :)

Mitchell scored himself a new little fall outfit from Costco tonight...here's the story. Mitchell and I made a quick trip to Costco tonight after I picked him up from daycare. We happily talked and sang through the isles, probably looking like idiots to those watching :) We had just picked up the very last item when Mitchell started to get his alarmed "pooh" face. I lifted him out of the cart to allow him a little more space to do his business, when all of the sudden the pooh came through the top and bottom of the diaper! Oh, no! I left the cart where it was and rushed to the bathroom. Luckily I had an extra diaper and wipes with me (which I'm now going to have to restock because it took me every single wipe that I had to clean him up!), but the outfit was NOT salvagable. It was VERY soiled and couldn't even be respectfully wiped clean. When he was tiny, I used to have a spare outfit on hand at all times...but I thought those days were over! What choice did I have but emerge from the bathroom with Mitchell in diaper only! Ah! How embarrassing!?!?

I contemplated rushing out of the store without purchasing my items, but then remembered that I had picked up a new fall outfit for Mitchell that I could quickly put on him. Luckily the store was not very crowded, and I received a couple of "oh, I've been there before" pitying looks from other moms....but we proceeded to check out in diaper only. Honestly, I was kind of glad that I was dressed in my nice work clothes rather than my raggedy weekend clothes, like normal. On lookers might have thought that I brought Mitchell to the store like that!!!

You know how when you buy gum at the grocery store, they ask you if you'd like to keep it out or throw it in the bag? That's what they did with Mitchell's little outfit! :) As soon as we purchased it, we quickly changed into the new outfit and exited the store with none the wiser.

I'll probably giggle a little bit everytime I dress Mitchell in this outfit! :)

Labor Day in Lincoln

We finally made our first trip to Lincoln, Nebraska to visit my family! My Dad is one of eight children and my Grandpa and my other seven aunts/uncles and their families live in or around Lincoln. As you can imagine, our family gatherings are pretty big!

Here's a picture of Four generations of Michel...ending with a Mitchell. Get it? :)

We have somewhere around 30 cousins and many of my cousins now also have children...including my cousin, Erin that has the cutest little boy, Nicholas (below). He is 3 months older than Mitchell (actually born on Jacob and I's wedding anniversary coming up later this month (9/24)!) Nicholas and Mitchell played so well together. I remember seeing pictures like this of myself and my cousins 30ish years ago...isn't the circle of life incredible?!?

After a long, sweaty day at the Family picnic, Mitchell was all too happy to get a bath.

Yep, that's Kel. She made the trip down from Wisconsin for the family gathering! We were happy to see her...and we'll get to see her again in a few weeks. I have another training in Minneapolis in a few weeks. Yeah!