The Binker Files

7 months & 8 years old!

Lots to celebrate around here lately.  Today, our sweet baby Arlo turned 7 months old.

My friend Deb gave me the fantastic stickers to mark each month of Arlo's first year, the 7 month sticker lasted just about one second before he pulled it off and started eating it.

This is pretty much what he is doing these days, looking for something interesting, grabbing it and sticking it in his mouth.

He chewed the sticker for awhile before going for the camera.

Even bigger news is that sweet little Silas is now 8 years old!

His only wish for his big day, besides Harry Potter legos, was to spend the night outdoors, even if it was raining out, and cook sausages over an open fire.  His wish came true!

We drove to Acadia National Park on Thursday in the pouring rain, but just as we made it to Bar Harbor, the skies cleared and we had three days of perfect, if strangely warm, weather (it felt more like early September than late October).  As requested, we woke Silas at 2:36AM on Friday morning to let him know he was officially 8, he said it was probably the best birthday ever.

It really was a great weekend for all of us.

Legos by head lamp light, there was a lot of this going on.

Arlo's toe jam after camping for 3 days - Levi begged me to include this photo.

 

 

Happy Birthday boys, we love you!

Fall

Time is passing a little too fast for me right now.  I feel like summer just ended, then I realize we're almost a month into fall.  Before winter is here, I thought I'd post a few photos of our autumn adventures, which we look forward to all year long, like our annual pilgramige to the Common Ground Country Fair.

 

As daily NPR listeners, one of the the highlights this year was a stop at the Maine Public Radio booth, where we met both Josie Huang & Suzanne Nance and arranged for a future tour of the radio station.  Silas was a little disappointed that he didn't get to meet Diane Rehm though.

We also picked a lot of apples, this time with Nenny & Opa.

Besides the usual fall stuff, we'd had some great new experiences, like spending a little time with the cutest baby snapping turtle (which Nenny found outside the local Hannaford's grocery store),

and finding a Spring Peeper for the first time ever:

And a fascinating afternoon at the Great Salt Bay Farm in Damariscotta, learning about the Wabanaki People.

And wierdly warm weather that led to an early October swim, the last of the season I dare say.

And, of course, we have the constant excitement of seeing what this little one will do next..

Big changes

In the last two days, Arlo has learned to sit all by himself (for a few mintues anyway),

tasted his first bite of non-milk food - homemade applesauce (which didn't go so well),

and started talking - baa-baa!

Way to go, baby boy!  He is almost as excited as we are.