I'm walkin' (bonus post: the sheer joy of yogurt)

Mark your calendars, proud grandparents, we officially have a walker. Tyler took his first few steps in the airport when we got back from Denver on October 14th. He would walk from here to Santa Monica if he felt my hand on him, but when I took it away, it was as if I was pulling his confidence away as well. However, he persevered and now I'll leave him in a room to go get something, turn around, and there he is, big grin on his face. He still looks a little like he's had one too many on a cruise ship and he takes his fair share of diggers, but at least we haven't experienced any face-crashing, blood-drawing accidents yet (knock on wood). He loves to grab my finger and lead me around the house and the neighborhood. I think we've explored every inch of our home as well as the neighbor's (note to our neighbors: if you see something moving in your bushes or fenced in backyard, do not let out the guard dog or call the police, it's just tiny T exploring your fine greenery or chasing a cat). He's also learned to stand on his tip-toes and open doors, just like the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park (quite a surprise for John who thought he was safe in the bathroom with the door shut - heh, heh. Here he is in his "walkin' pj's," sans one sock.

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Now, if I were an artist with a gallery, I'd title this sequence "Exploring Yogurt" and charge $1,000 for it (you can't tell here, but I dug yogurt out of his ears several hours later). Yum.

Beach fun in November???

While the rest of the country puts their summer clothes away and digs out their sweaters, we got a serious dose of summer these past few weeks because of the Santa Ana winds. It was AWESOME, and we even got to share our great weather with Uncle Gary and Grandpa and Kookie. Here are a few photos from our many trips to the beach (3 times a day is not unheard of at this point).

Push me higher, Grandpa!

Sure, it's harder to drive the buggy on the sand, but who needs to drive when you can enjoy it just as much by putting sand in the trunk?
Tyler poses as the sun sets - nice sandy legs!
We met our friends Emmaline and Caroline one night for the sunset. Caroline and I enjoyed a little wine, while the toddlers enjoyed chewing on plastic cups.
And they snacked on sandy crackers that they happily shared.
I love this photo of Caroline and Emmaline walking out to the ocean as the sun sets. So sweet!

Happy $#@*&^% Halloween

Aaaarrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!! I have been trying to upload photos to this stupid blog for the past two hours and it just isn't taking them. $%#*!!! So, instead, you can just click here and see all the photos that I uploaded to another site that actually WORKS! Halloween was busy, we had two parties on Monday, one for the Mommy and Me class and one for our Mom's Club. The M&M party was more fun for Tyler because he got to stuff his face full of all sorts of yummy treats. Other than that, it's just hard being a dinosaur that can't quite walk on his own yet. There's a lot of crawling around and sliding since polar fleece doesn't exactly have the best traction. On Halloween, we went to El Segundo with Rebecca and Stella and did the Halloween Frolick - very fun to see all the little kids decked out in their costumes and may I add that costumes now-a-days are WAY better than we had as kids. I saw a baby shark and octopus that were both just adorable. The adults, however, seem to be using Halloween to dress up as skanky as possible. Please, do nurses really need fishnet stockings and push-up bras? Anyway, we came home from that and went trick-or-treating to all of 8 houses and it was just sort of lame. 50% of the folks on our street don't have their porch lights on and I felt weird trick-or-treating at the people's home that I don't know because they know Tyler's not the one eating the candy. Next year maybe I'll put T in fishnets and dress him up as the youngest transvestite ever. That would certainly scare his dad a bit!