Crickey!

Maybe Quentin can be the next Croc Hunter :) He loves to wrestle with his new toy gator that we named Ba-Chomp Agro Rupon (there are two TV references in his name, take a guess and I will let you know if you're right).

Tornado touches down in Hanson, MA!

An ankle biting tornado named Quentin is destroying anything and everything in his path. This is what he did to his room in about 10 minutes this weekend. Over the past week he has decided that walking is his primary means of transportation. This now means he has a better view of things to pull down or pull out. Our new favorite activity is to pull out all of the cookbooks. He has also broken two wine glasses.

we're falling apart

we're still here but we're falling apart. in the past two weeks our printer, media card reader, and digital camera have all died. and the boy had a 103.6 degree fever on thursday and friday. so pretty much we haven't done anything exciting, and even if we had, we couldn't take pics anyway!

"beach"

so we have this town "beach" - it's a pond. we don't have a pool and it's not worth driving to the ocean for the 20 minutes Q will tolerate it, so the pond works just fine. we went yesterday and he had a grand ol' time. he even went in the water up to his shoulders until every kid's least favorite words were yelled out by the lifeguards ("adult swim, all kids out of the water!") after getting booted from the pond, Q checked out some sort of tag-game some bigger kids were playing. several "big boys" (i.e. 5 year olds) came over to see Q and deemed, in their expert opinions, that quentin is big for 1 year old and isn't ready to walk on sand. brilliant.

turn the seat around...

love to hear percussion. oh wait. nevermind :) -

big day for quentin. we turned his car seat around so he is forward facing like the rest of the world. he really seemed to enjoy it. especially the leg room!

...a kid so happy

he doesn't even want to ham it up for the camera. that's what you get. -

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we took advantage of the free time on the weekend (and the sales tax holiday in massachusetts) to finally put together a little play area in the cellar for Q. his crap was taking over the rest of the house, especially post-birthday, so now we have a play room for most of that stuff to live in. we had given him the foam floor tiles for his birthday and bought the furniture yesterday at ikea. an old yoga mat (and by old, of course, i mean brand new in package from when i purchased it 5 years ago with great intentions of doing yoga in the living room) came in handy to wrap around the pole smack in the middle of the area.

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his eyes got so big when we brought him down there this morning, like he didn't know where to even start. he was rolling around in all the toys like scrooge mcduck. he wore himself out and had to take a nap break!

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and the best part - now that he can be down in the cellar, we might actually get the rest of the stuff from the move unpacked and organized! woo hoo! i smell a tag sale coming on!

what do you get when you...

take 92 of these

and 2 of these

and 2 of these

and 1 of these

and 1 of these

and mix them all together with a toy store worth of birthday toys?

Because my Mimi says I don't have enough toys

Quentin felt he did not get enough toys for his birthday. So, he made us get him this wagon that his friend Lilly had at the Jersey shore. He loves going for wagon rides around the yard!

The Wiggles

I admit it, the first time I saw the Wiggles I was a little frightened. That was before I had a child. Since the birth of Quentin, I see the Wiggles in a whole new light and I like them. I like them because Quentin likes them, and that's a good thing. We just set-up a CD player in his room and he was really being a pain when I was changing his diaper. So, I put the Wiggles CD on and a calm happiness came over the boy. So I say "Huzzah to the Wigggles" :) Here is a link to one of our favorite Wiggles songs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePrP8t56eww

oh boy. we're alll beat.

quentin is officially a toddler. the switch from crawling to walking as primary mode of transportation is occurring. and he is all over the place. you can't keep up with him. he's everywhere, and in to everything! we've started calling him "the tornado" because he just leaves a path of destruction everywhere he goes. he loves to pull my cook books off the shelf in the kitchen (southern living annual recipes 2003 is his fave.) there are toys EVERYWHERE in our house. he broke a pig statue in our living room. anything on a shelf that he can reach is toast. and he wears himself out too. we used to put him down to bed at 9ish and he would stay away playing and jumping in his crib for a little while. lately he's passed out around 8:15. and he's napping like crazy! i think a growth spurt is coming!!!

hard = hard

jeremy and i have become obsessed with guitar hero 3 since playing it at the beach back in june. i beat the easy level easily and the medium level surprisingly fast. but hard is so freaking hard. i'm not sure i'll ever even beat one song. ok back to real work.

are you talkin' to me?

quentin may or may not be talking. he babbles like crazy. his newest sound is "mamamamama" which he always says with a smile, though not always while looking in my direction. not sure if he knows what it means though. i am not ready to declare it his first word without more definitive evidence that he knows what he's saying. but maybe...

the stats

Q had his one year doctor visit on friday (before he was technically one. oh well. though it was a leap year so it kinda works, right? no? whatever.) here are his stats:

• length: 30.5 inches (74th percentile)
• weight: 23 pounds, 6 ounces (61st percentile)
• head circumference: 47 and some squiggle centimeters (75th percentile)

i think he actually weighs a little bit more, but he was too squirmy on the scale to get an accurate read.

one year old!

who can believe it? i sure as heck can't! you can reread mommy and daddy's accounts of one year ago today.

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we had a small barnyard-themed party here today. quentin loved seeing all his family and friends and loved being the center of attention. he was so confused when we all sang happy birthday to him, like he found it amazing that we all knew the words to the same song. he thoroughly enjoyed his birthday cake (see below) and starting grabbing fistfuls of cake as soon as it was put in front of him. he was so ready for a nap, even before the cake but he just kept eating and smushing anyway. we tried to take the cake pan away a few times because we thought he was done, but he would grab at it to stop us. and despite the obscene number of toys he got today, he was most amused by the pig balloon. i didn't take many more photos than the ones already posted, so we'll have to wait for someone else (i.e. mom) to send me the ones they took of the decorations, presents, cakes, etc.

you come a long way baby!

we love you Q!

we want cake. where's our cake?