Happy Birthday Aunt Miriam!

October is filled with many birthdays for us! We helped Aunt Miriam celebrate her birthday on the 9th. We met the family for dinner at the Olive Garden. Below: Teddy enjoyed some finger food while we all ate: After dinner, we went to the Gibson's house for cake and presents. Below Aunt Miriam models one of her new gifts: No one can pull of a snuggie like my big sis! And only Aunt Miriam and cousin Maggie can work the snuggie on the "red carpet" like this: Below: Maggie shares her snuggie with Uncle Shae: and Teddy: Uncle Jamie celebrates his birthday on October 14th. I'm not going to say which birthday this will be.. but let's just say its a big one!! Pictures from his birthday dinner will follow, but Teddy wants to wish his uncle a very Happy Birthday!

Teddy says he is ready to go "bird dogging" for chicks with you again Uncle Jamie!

Having fun rain or shine!

Teddy sporting his new hair do:

He really does have a tough life:
Teddy's probably not going to be thrilled with this picture when he's older... but it's still tasteful, right?
Last weekend Teddy wanted to show support for his team (OK- for one of his teams) as they were in the playoffs.

He wanted to support them even if he IS outgrowing his outfit! Those "shorts" look more like bloomers!

We took Teddy to the Botanical Gardens again. The weather has finally cooled down and it was beautiful! They had all of their Halloween decorations up, so we found lots of photo ops!

(above) Teddy and I pose with an octopus

(above) Shae, Teddy, and the frog take time out to read

(above) Teddy and I with a creepy unicorn

(above) Teddy with the pumpkins

Teddy and his Daddy

(above) Shae teaches Teddy the "look away" pose
OK, so the real honest reason we went to the gardens again... they are having their Chocolate exhibit! Yummy

(below) Teddy and Shae inside a replication of a cocoa plant... which happens to be the female organ of the plant... everyone needs that picture, right?

If you look carefully in the background of this next picture, you will see some rainbow flags. We unknowingly took Teddy to his first Gay Pride last weekend. We're already working on teaching him tolerance and acceptance of others and their differences!

Teddy enjoyed lunch and football after our visit to the gardens:

On Tuesday Shae decided to treat us to a picnic on the lake. He packed up all of the food and loaded up the car and we were excited to take Teddy on the canoe for the first time.

Unfortunately mother nature did not cooperate. Below you can see the raindrops falling on the lake. They started as soon as we got out there. (if you know our track record- the last two times Shae has taken me out on the river on his boat it has POURED on us).

So, we called off the canoe ride and headed back in. But not before we snapped a few pictures!

And we moved our picnic inside! It was fun and Teddy got to play.

Here's a short video showing how much Teddy enjoys his ball pit.

(No he does not have any pants on in that video. It was a long day, it was close to bed time, and his shorts were sort of hard to get over his thighs!)

One last pictures of Teddy and Shae... napping of course:

Fall is here... finally!

We tried to get some "autumn" pictures of Teddy at the entrance to our neighborhood. It was late in the afternoon though, so we didn't try too hard. Maybe next time we'll sit him on the ground by the pumpkins. We are so excited it is finally cooling off down here. We even get to break out our long sleeved clothes! As usual, Teddy has been a busy boy. He continues to get more and more fun to play with every single day. He is crawling all over, pulling himself up to stand, and "cruising" a little bit. He loves to feed himself finger foods, and his favorite seems to be peas:
Teddy says, "Give peas a chance!"

Teddy is my little buddy and goes with me everywhere. He is such a good sport and is so much fun to have with me. The other day we were at Target and I couldn't resist putting this on his head and snapping a picture: We are really fortunate to have several playgrounds with in walking distance of our house, and now that it is finally cooler outside, Teddy and I have been enjoying them. He really seems to like the swing:

Teddy's hair is getting longer, and we continue to experiment with "hairstyles." I tried to spike it the other day by combing it back while it was wet. Check out the look:

Yikes! Not exactly what I was going for!

Oh my, 30 minutes later it looked ever funnier:This past weekend was fun for everyone at the Hoschek home. Teddy had babysitters TWO nights in a row because one of my oldest friends, Wendy, got married. We had a great time at the rehearsal dinner and the wedding, but I think Teddy had even more fun with his babysitters. We are so thankful for our family for helping us out! Friday night we took Teddy to Aunt Miriam and Uncle Jamie's house. Teddy was one of five children (my sister had a neighbor's son at her house as well). They ate dinner together, went to Jack's baseball game, and played and played. My sister texted me this picture Friday night with the caption, "Teddy has already learned how to feed his veggies to the dog." (Wonder where he'd get that from!)

Below: Teddy and Caroline at Jack's baseball game: When we got back to pick up Teddy, he certainly looked comfortable on his Aunt Miriam's lap:

Saturday night my parents came over and Teddy had a blast playing with his Grandma and Grandpa. We wanted to get a picture of Shae and me actually dressed up to go out, but when I saw the picture later I had to laugh:

Gotta love the ball pit and toys in the corner of our "dressed up" picture! Later on we snapped our own shot:

Sunday afternoon we enjoyed the beautiful weather by taking a blanket out to the grassy field behind our house. Shae was very excited to try out the jogging stroller:

My hero:

Teddy and his mommy hanging out:

(below) Teddy getting tickled (a regular occurrence):

Apparently both sides of the family can be credited for Teddy's "double chin":

Teddy had his 9 month check up with the pediatrician and Shae was able to join us:

Teddy is doing well... obviously growing VERY well! His new stats:

Height: 28 inches

Weight: 21 pounds

Cheeks: immeasurableWith Halloween approaching, I have been looking for a costume for Teddy. Of course he is going to be a teddy bear! Here's the head from the costume I found:

It was very cute, but I had to take it back because it was a little too snug around the waist and the cheeks!!! Guess I better look for a bigger size!

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Lastly, one more picture of Teddy and his daddy: