Fall favorites

These are some of our favorite Fall pictures that weren't on the sample blog...

Fall picture sneak peak...

If anyone in the Charlotte area ever needs a photographer, Allison Hinman's your gal! She did our maternity shoot, newborn shoot, and now our fall/7 month shoot. We love her and she is amazing with Porter! She put a couple previews of our fall pictures on her blog, www.sacredfirephotography.com, and we love them! I'll post more when we get the CD. Thanks Allison!

8 months

Porter,

Today you are 8 months old. You have turned into an eating, babbling, rolling, laughing, eating, clapping, waving, signing, eating, noise making little cutie pie! {Did I mention you liked to eat?} Your daddy and I are smitten, which I think you're becomming a little bit aware of ;) You love to be held and you sure do have a way of making it known! 'Opinionated' is one of my best words to describe you right now. We love that your personality is really starting to come out and we can see what things, people, and foods you like and those you aren't so fond of. You sure are keeping us on our toes and I'm only guessing your plans don't include much down time anytime soon. We love you little buddy!

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

{"Yeah", you LOVE clapping!}

{Not much is safe around you anymore ;) }

More, please!

Teaching Porter some beginning sign language has been so fun, and I think he's catching on to some of it. He's doing great with signing 'more' when he's eating. We're saving our pennies for groceries if this is any indication of what's to come...

A real date night...

First date night (whole night) away from little guy...check! Thanks to my sweet sister, a free night at the Marriot downtown, and some birthday money, we successfully enjoyed our first night away from Porter and just the two of us. We were able to enjoy a dinner out, sans highchair and puffs, but it was a little hard to keep the conversation off of all things under 2 feet tall. What can I say, we love the little guy to pieces! However, sleeping past 5:30 am...amazing!!! Bad news, in all of our excitement we forgot to take pictures, oops. Oh well, our memories will have to suffice for this time!

Date night crasher

There's only one person I can think of that I would be ok with crashing our date night, and it's this little cutie...

We broke out of the house last night to celebrate Sean taking his 3rd CPA section and went to Birkdale to walk around and have dinner. Our dinner at Fox and the Hound was wonderful and our company was even better! He's so much easier to take out to eat now that he can sit in a high chair and eat his own food. He loves it! (I won't tell him his Puffs were nowhere near as tasty as chicken nachos, ignorance is bliss right?)

He even managed to stay happy long enough to allow for ice cream time (he made us go!). Our date nights are quite different now, and we couldn't be happier! 

Pajama addiction

I am certain that one of my favorite things in life is little boys in their jammies! The snuggly cuteness {I know, he'll be so embarrassed of his mom later!} of a sweet little boy all ready for bedtime hugs simply melts my heart, and my little big guy is no exception!

My little jumping bean

I swear to you, this boy is {never} still!! I love it :)

Rainy day playtime

Playtime has become a favorite time around here! Watching Porter try to find ways to get the toys he wants, without being able to crawl yet, is hilarious! He wiggles, twists, turns, and kicks and somehow always maganes to end up where he wanted to be. I love his determination! I am thinking we might have our hands full later on though :)

Pumpkin Patch kind of day

Today was wonderful! We (all three! of us) got to spend the day at Patterson Farms pumpkin patch. If you haven't been (and live near Charlotte), go! You'll love it. We went for 'Porter', but I won't lie, I think I had more fun than he did. We got there a little late (which has become our new 'on time') and I was worried we would have missed all of the events. But, the staff was so nice to give us our very own puppet show and tractor ride...

Patterson Farm

Puppet show (Porter LOVED it!)

Tractor ride (Porter was not the biggest fan of the tractor ride, maybe in a few years)

We also got to see the farm animals and even pet some of them. I have always loved goats, and apparently so does Porter! The goat jumped on the fence and he stuck his hand out right away. My boy might be a little too brave. He saw goats, sheep, horses, peacocks, chickens, ducks, emus, turkeys, pigs, donkeys, and a rabbit...

He even sat still long enough to get his face painted! Yes, his shirt turned quite orange. Little boys are supposed to get dirty, right?!

At the end, we put him in the field with the pumpkins (adorable!). He picked a favorite and kept it the whole time. Yes it is on our front porch now. Could you say no to that face?? We had a great time, and I'm already looking forward to bringing him back next year when he can run and play with all of the animals!

Sweet potatoes for dinner

Porter has gotten extremely curious about his food lately! With every bite, he is trying to grab the spoon and beat you to his mouth (makes for an interesting feeding, read: mess!). I decided to finally just give in, give him a spoonful of sweet potatoes, and let him go at it. I'm hoping it got some of the curiosity out of his system (wishful thinking, I'm sure). The video doesn't even hardly depict the mess, but you get the idea...