Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Or, if you're religiously inclined, Happy Reformation Day! Sola Scriptura and whatnot!

We're so, so sorry for our prolonged absences with blogging. It works like this: Jessa's home all day with Eli and the camera, and gets lot of pictures. However, she's holding Eli about 85% of that time, and the other 15% she's doing things like going to the bathroom and frantically trying to eat lunch before he wakes up. So she doesn't get around to blogging. Eric is at work all day sitting in front of a computer--a prime blogging opportunity, even if that isn't exactly what the church is paying him for--but has none of those good pictures to put into the blog, which is why you folks come here in the first place. Yeah, we know, it's not the writing.

So today is one of those rare days when Eric remembered to email pictures to himself at work to use in a blog entry. There are lots of them below.

Eli is now about a month old (4 weeks yesterday, and one month on Friday). He's doing all kinds of amazing baby things. He's starting babbling just a little bit--little baby noises. He's also in almost-complete control of his head--you don't have to support it at all. He's always had good neck strength, but now he's almost independant with it. His face is much more expressive, and we have a feeling that he's working up to his first genuine non-gassy smile any day now.

He still has some pretty painful digestive stuff going on...it seems to be some combo of gas and acid reflux. We're hoping to find a way to fix that, because it's clearly uncomfortable for him.

A lot of you have asked: What is Eli for Halloween? The answer is, nothing. We couldn't think of a place to take him in his costume, so we couldn't justify spending money on a costume he would protest having to wear. He IS, however, wearing a steady rotation of halloween-themed baby clothes.

On to the main attraction, the pictures. At the top you saw a picture of our jack-o-lanterns. Jessa carved the three little ones, and Eric the big one. Fun fact about Denver: the squirrels eat your jack-o-lanterns. This is about 5% amusing and about 95% infuriating. All the jack-o-lanterns look like they have a flesh-eating disease on their face. Our neighbors have one with the entire face eaten away, and just a circle left.

This one is Eli trying out his crib. The bedding is courtesy of our own personal seamstress, Aunt Selena. Eli LOVES the dots.
This is a shot of Eli in his Aunt Ashley-provided Halloween onesie. There are several Halloween outfits in rotation.
Mom and Eli swinging at Washington Park. This picture was taken in the very beginning stages of an epic hours-long meltdown. Never, ever wake a baby for a photo opportunity. Ever.
This is just because I know Eli will someday be grateful for each and ever bath photo we post on the internet for the entire world to see. I'm thinking middle school is when he'll be most grateful.
And another bath shot. The child has the pout DOWN...he has the most devastating pouty face you have ever seen.
Finally, this is a shot of Washington Park, our favorite walking haunt, at dusk.

Happy Halloween everyone!