November was a busy month for us. I've already posted about Matt's birthday, 12-month doctor visit, and Thanksgiving, so I'll recap some of our other exciting adventures from this past month and then share some more photos.
Most weeks we had a mix of play groups or dates and library story time. Towards the end of the month we tried out a couple of new to us programs, a tot play / story time and a musical program, at neighboring libraries, and it seems we now have a couple of additional options. Matt outgrew our Thursday morning play group, and that space's play group for older kids isn't at a good time for us, so it's nice to have something else to do in the cold winter months to come.
Trying out the "shaky eggs" (aka egg shakers) at our usual library story time
The weekend after Matt's birthday we decided to take a little day trip. We went up north of the city to an apple orchard where we ate warm apple cider donuts and checked out the farm animals. After a quick lunch in town we went out to the beach and walked along the sand for a bit, watching all of the people and dogs out and about.
Listening to the music
Sampling cider donuts
Trying to pat the bunny
Not that impressed with the tractor
Unsure about the chickens wandering around
Feeding the goats
Chasing off the geese
Walking on the beach
Playing in the sand
Always a favorite mode of transportation
More playing in the sand
On Veteran's Day one of my friends had the day off from work, so we met her at the local state park for a walk. Afterwards we played in the leaves.
Matt enjoys a good stick
The Tuesday before Thanksgiving we met up with a friend near the nearby NFL football stadium to explore some things in that area. We took the nature trail around a cranberry bog, and then we checked out the giant fish tank in the Bass Pro shop. After our friends headed off, Matt and I finished some Thanksgiving food shopping at Trader Joe's and then hit the line for Santa (photo to come later).
Enjoying his new favorite food, clementines (The band-aid was just to keep him from scratching a little bit of rug burn he had from to a too late attempt to shift direction; he's all right and surprisingly left the band-aid alone.)
Look, a fish!
Trying to take it all in
The cleaning man rubbing the nose of the friendliest fish (whom he made "wave" its fin at Matt)
Matt and his buddy watching the diver
The weekend after Thanksgiving we made a little shopping excursion to some local business. We took Matt shoe shopping since he had outgrown the one pair we had. He didn't find trying on shoes anywhere near as interesting as playing with the wooden maze and staring at himself in the many mirrors. We also took him to the toy store, where he wanted to dump out the toys so he could play with the boxes they sat in instead.
Checking himself out at the shoe store
So, what else has Matt been up to? Well, he is continuing his efforts to make the cat like him.
Her preferred position is still just out of reach.
Matt is enjoying playing with blocks and similar toys, stacking them in towers or connecting the Mega Bloks (aka "baby Legos").
He is also playing with a farm set we're borrowing from some friends.
He has discovered he can push buttons and enjoys his new power.
Matt finds the patterns made by light, whether sunlight through the windows or light from a flashlight, to be fascinating.
... whether that involves sitting in them...
... or wearing them on his feet as funny-shaped shoes.
He tries to steal the broom from me when I'm sweeping up the cheerios from under his chair.
My "helper"
Practicing for quidditch?
I'll end with a video taken one Saturday afternoon. This is just Matt being Matt.
I'll post again soon on Matt's 13-month birthday.
