11-11-11

Axel turns 9 months old today (I guess it should have been 11 considering the date, but I'm fine with 9 for now).  It's been a full month...with a few unexpected adventures.

I think I totally missed an eight month update for Axel baby so he has made all kinds of advancements in two month's time.  He is a pro at crawling now...and pulling himself up on everything...he has started using furniture to move himself around while standing.  I think he might be an early walker.  He loves to clap, sway and dance to any music.

He started feeding himself most of his meals...shoveling fistfuls of food into his mouth as fast as possible.  He loves most of the food I've given him - fruit, veggies, meat, bread...but he still gobbles up the baby crackers and puffs.  

I'm just loving seeing his personality coming out more and more. He is a serious guy and busy...he loves to explore and play.  Of course he will indulge you with a little laugh if he feels like it...but Tobi can usually make him laugh and smile...and she loves to do that.  "I guess I really love my brother, don't I?" Yup!  I guess we all really do!

Due to not one, but two snow storms in October we have already been getting our fill of snow. 

The first snowfall was just enough to be a fun kind of novelty...

We built a few (little) snowmen....

  but that snow all melted by that afternoon.

The second snowfall was just a few days later and left close to 300,000 people without power in NH.  We were among the not so lucky and we lost our power for about 5 days. 

 

Sunday morning we woke up to a lot of snow and no power.  So we decided to head out in search of a cup of coffee and a little warmth.  Well apparently we weren't the only ones.  This was about the 10th Dunkin' Donuts we passed...

I decided to snap a picture because all of them had lines like this of people out the door.  This one had no drive through but the ones that did had cars out to the streets.  I saw someone on facebook comment that America really does run on Dunkins.  At least Manchester NH can't run without coffee...

We finally ended up at Starbucks after lunch and running some errands.  Even then we had a 20 minute wait in the drive through...but really in was warm in the car and I had to feed Axel anyway...

We spent one night at home but Ben needed power to be able to work since he is working from home now...so we moved in to Ryan and Sarah's for what we thought might be a day or two...but ended up being three or four...

Thanks to them we were cozy, warm, clean...and Ben had what he needed to work there to.

 The kids got some good cousin time in...

Tobi got to go trick or treating for the first time (Axel too, but he was less in to it than his sister.)

Tobi went as Rapunzel (or as she would say, Tangled).  The long hair was courtesy of Auntie Sarah's crafty creations...

 

Speaking of crafty creations check out the angry birds..and Kirsten the American Girl doll (also made by Sarah).

Axel had his horse coat on...but somehow he was most often mistaken for a chicken!

Anyway, we survived just fine.  We are so fortunate to have family so close by...

It is nice to be home.  It's nice to have lights, heat and water again.  Every time I thought about complaining about how long it was taking to get power back or how inconvenienced I was feeling I thought about those who lost their homes in the earthquake/tsunami in Japan over 8 months ago and still don't have a place to call home, never mind all the amenities...or those in Haiti who had so little to begin with and lost everything in the earthquake there.  It seems all to easy to take these things for granted...