FALL COLORS

Someone's cool "Andy Goldsworthy-esque" leaf sculpture in Cheesman Park

Too Cool for School

We love fall :)

Just a Little Boy and his Best Friend

Playing TAG

Cool Dude

Big Boy Sitting in a Tree

This past weekend was beautiful and PERFECT for fall color pictures.  We had big plans to take Rome to the Botanical Gardens where there was a corn maze and activities for children.  Unfortunately, Travis and I both woke up at 2am with what we quickly determined to be food poisoning :(.  It was pretty much the worst 16 hours of my life.  When we figured out we were both sick, and looking like we were going to be sick for quite a while, we wondered what in the world we would do with Rome when he woke up.  There was no way we were legitimately capable of caring for a child.  The joys of living away from family, let me tell you!  It was one of those days I would have given anything to have my Mom here...both to take care of ME and my son ;).  Luckily, we have great friends here and I called up our friends who live a block away and they were quick to reply and happy to take Rome for the day.  Whew!

To share a funny story - as I was curled up hurling into the toilet (FYI - I am not a quiet puker), Rome thought I was trying to be funny and came up beside me, looked inside the toilet and then said "wuggggghkkkk, wugggghkkkk" and acted like he was puking and then looked at me and laughed.  It's the little things...

Luckily on Sunday, Travis and I were able to drag our undernourished and dehydrated selves to Cheesman Park for a photo shoot of Rome in the fall leaves.  We were blessed with another beautiful fall day to enjoy and an awesome leaf sculpture right in the middle of the park...very cool!

BATH TIME WITH LITTLE TRAVIS

I decided the other night after bath time that I wanted to do a reenactment of my favorite childhood photo of Travis in his hooded bath towel.  Rome has well outgrown this towel, which is why you can only see the upper half of the picture ;).  That, and it's hard to get him to stand still at this age to pose identical to Travis' picture.  I did my best and this is the outcome comparison.  I mean, look at those two faces.  I don't think there's ever been any question, but in case there ever is - this is my proof that Travis is indeed the DADDY to the (other) boy who stole my heart!!

KEYS!!!

Ok, so keys have become Rome's newest obsession.  No, I'm serious...I think we have a key addict here.  Everyday on the way to the car and on the way home, he will obsess over the keys.  "Keys, keys, keys" he will say over and over again.  I usually give in and let him play with them in the evening because they easily keep him occupied.  However, lately it has become an obsession.  He can reach the keyhole on the front door if he stands on his tippy toes, and he tries and tries to get the key into the hole.  He was trying so hard the other day and just couldn't quite reach the knob, so I gave him my bike lock to work on.  After an hour of methodically focusing on getting the key into the lock over and over again, it was time to go in for dinner.  This threw us into a downward spiral of the biggest fit he's thrown to-date.  There have been two all-out tantrums that have put this kid in his bedroom for needing to cool it, and this was one of them (the other one was because I gave him a broken cracker).

The focus...notice his left hand moving as well (his dad does this, too)

Oh, we stopped to look at an airplane!

Back to business...

OLIVER CHARLES

Meet Rome's newest buddy, Oliver Charles Jacobson - born on September 7th!!!  I was the first guest to meet this precious little angel.  I fell in love instantly.  He's absolutely perfect!  This past weekend, we took Rox and Brad out a lasagna and watched the Bears game with the happy family.  It is sooooo precious to see Rome interacting with little babies.  He was giving Ollie kisses and was very gentle with him.  To my surprise, he's actually very engaging with little ones.  He also has a little boy at daycare (exactly one year younger than Rome) that he likes to entertain by clucking his tongue and waving at.  It melts my heart to see him this way and makes me want another one really bad.  

Oliver about 2 hours after he was born

Rome and Ollie

All decked out in his Bears gear - how cute is he?!?

Kisses!!!

TOUR DE FAT 2012

You guessed it...it's that time of year again!  Tour de Fat...or shall we say, Tour de Freaks :).  We Bostics love this holiday.  It's even better than Halloween because there's no rhyme or reason to anyone's get-up.  You can have a theme (which I like to do) or you can be completely random.  It's a bike parade, it's a music festival, it's a gigantic beer tent, it's a carnival.  It's everything!  And it. is. FUN.  This year, I was inspired by the Beatles LOVE performance in Vegas and decided to do an aquatic theme.  I was a jellyfish, Rome was a Pirate (he was supposed to be an octopus, but my sewing skills have slacked since my hippie-clothes-makin-days), and Travis was Scuba Steve!  Oh, the fun :)

Our crew

Now that's what I call a "hoop"ty

More pirates!  On a ship!

Whoa!  How does he ride that thing?

The cutest little pirate there ever was!

Really capturing the essence of the jellyfish in this one ;)

BIG BOY IN A LITTLE ROBE

Ohhhh, he'll probably hate me for this one later, but how can you not laugh at this picture?  After bath time, we decided to try on the ol' Elmo robe to see if it still fit.  It doesn't ;).  Please tell me you see the pee stream in this picture?!?  If not, look again!!!

MAROON BELLS

Against our better judgement, we decided to head up to the mountains for Labor Day.  Actually, considering it was a popular holiday, it wasn't that packed where we were.  We booked a nice room in Edwards, just west of Vail.  We took our bikes along, knowing there would be great trails around.  The first day, we went to Beaver Creek for Oktoberfest.  We tried to ride our bikes up the mountain, but after Daddy took us up one mountain going the wrong way, we decided not to make the 2-mile trek up the other mountain.  We took the bus instead, which Rome was equally happy with.  After Oktoberfest, we went back to Edwards and found a great local brewery (Gore Range) for dinner.  On Saturday, we took a day trip to Aspen with the sole mission of finally seeing the Maroon Bells.  The Maroon Bells are the most photographed mountains in North America.  They are absolutely stunning!  We took a bus to the trailhead and decided to hike back to Crater Lake from there (reminiscing of Oregon's Crater Lake, of course).  The only problem was that because we brought the bike and Burley, we left behind Rome's hiking carrier.  Oh well, we decided to make the trek anyway...a lady told me it was only an hour and a half hike.  Oh, wait...did she mean one-way?!?  Yep!  We took turns carrying Rome on our shoulders for about a 6-mile loop.  We were getting some crazy looks, but we're troopers...it's how we roll.  It was worth it...see for yourself.

MY SHADOW

I love these pictures.  The sun was just right today at the park and as we were walking along, I noticed that my little shadow (literally) was following me, so I decided to capture it.

BEST FRIENDS

As much as I complain about Nollie these days and threaten to put her on Craigslist (settle down, it's just a threat), I could never, ever, ever take her away from Rome.  They truly are the best of friends.  The other night I was in my own world cleaning up from dinner or something and noticed that Rome was being quiet.  I turned the corner and found this.  I mean, if that ain't love, I don't know what is.  Rome will randomly walk up to Nollie and just hug her out of nowhere.  He also gives her kisses good night.  I love his kindness and playfulness toward her.  It's a special bond, and one I hope lasts long enough for him to remember.

THIS FACE!

Ok, so Rome has started making this face.  A lot.  I'm not in love with it, but there is part of me that thinks damn, that's cute.  It's his new way of expressing his frustration (which is non-stop these days).  Not unlike me, this kid is an open book.  If he's mad, you're gonna know about it.  If he wants you to shut up, you're gonna know about it.  We were just at daycare the other day and another Mom was picking up her kid and she was talking to Lisa about the day and apparently Rome had something to say and everyone was supposed to shut up and listen.  He made this face, while throwing his arms in the air at the other mother and yelling "eehhhhh!  no, no, no, no".  Luckily, it was at another mother who has the wisdom of knowing that this is, indeed, a normal kid.  I know he'll grow out of it, but I also want to remember this expressive face and phase of his life.  I get it...it must be extremely frustrating living in a world where you understand most of what is happening around you, but you can't respond appropriately by expressing yourself through verbal communication quite yet.  We'll get there, but until we do....eehhhhh!

SUMMER HUT TRIP

Aaaaaahhhh!  One of our most treasured Colorado gems - the "hut trip".  We could never thank our friends Courtney and Ozzie enough for introducing us to the 10th Mountain Division Huts.  What a treat!  If you've been following the blog for a while, you know this wasn't our first hut trip.  This was Rome's 3rd tour.  This time, we rented out two of the cabins and had about 15 adults and 5 kids.  It was an absolute blast and always nice to escape the city livin' for a weekend (not to mention the record-setting heat wave we've had this summer)!

Daddy showin' Rome some grillin' techniques

My lover boys

Rome and Finley - they both look like "what'd I do?  it wasn't me, I swear"

Hiking

Momma took over carrying for a while so Daddy could rest his knee

Love this face

Deep contemplation...

What up dude?

Rome trying to make a friend...she doesn't seem interested.

Bah!

Yes, that's a beer can.

ROME - 15 MONTHS

Rome Robert Bostic AKA Mr. Independent.

I love you more and more each and every day.  You are becoming so grown up and it's harder and harder for me to let go of the "baby" in you.  You are still an inquisitive little monkey.  You love to see and touch new things, and you still put most things in your mouth for a taste, although you're getting better at knowing what is meant for eating and what is not.  You now know the word "no" quite well.  In fact, you use it when you know you're doing something wrong.  You'll look at me with your mischievous grin, then start to do something (like put sticks in your mouth) and then look back at me like "just kidding...wink, wink" while you shake your head and say "no, no".

You're starting to make animal noises.  Doggies are your favorite.  Anytime you see a dog you say "woof, woof".  Actually, anytime you hear a siren from inside the house, you say it too.  We actually just recently figured out that you're probably barking at sirens because that's what all the dogs do (they're so much smarter than we think)!  Here's a list of other words you're saying:

Doggie, Stick, Tree, Truck, Thank You, Please, This, That, Bus, Airplane (only happened once, but sounded like airplane), All Clean (when brushing the sand off your hands), Snack (referring to any type of food)...and more.

However, you mostly say "eh, eh, eh" while pointing to something.  You also like to sing and hum.  You sing in the car and in the stroller and you hum whenever you walk.  You've always been my little caveman, and you still make those prehistoric sounds too.  Just recently, you've been exploring your soprano voice and screaming at the top of your lungs when you get excited.  I know, I know...it must be a lot to think about all at once.  Putting one foot in front of the other, looking at a whole new world from a new level, discovering new things, and trying to tell me what you want all at the same time.  We do our best at communicating and when we can't communicate effectively, we just try to make each other laugh instead.  I hope that's how we stay forever.

I love you Mr. Independent!  And if you do, indeed, stay independent forever, I'll just keep encouraging you and I'll be right behind you every step you take...hanging on to that sweet little baby in you that changed my life forever.