Bewitching hour at the park

Yup.

I finally remembered to bring my trusty camera along on one our many spontaneous after-dinner trips to the park.

Oh how I adore that golden hour, when strands of red hair appear flaming copper, tree limb shadows are freakishly lengthened, little hands are outlined in gold, and these fingers of mine cannot resist snapping that shutter release button...over and over and over again.

Strolling down the bike path, framed with mighty oak, maple, ash and beech, this little guy was in his element...that is, surrounded by rocks to throw, sticks to turn into guns, and a long path along which to sprint.

Nothing, I repeat nothing, makes this little boy happier.

And nothing makes this mama happier than the times that she actually thinks ahead to lug her camera along, capturing beloved golden images of fall evening memories that will soon be buried in piles of drifting snow.

Little hands keep getting larger...legs keep getting longer...

I cherish my childhood memories of evening trips to the park with my dad, siblings and nearby friends. I hope that these boys will grow up to do the same.

I know that we are certainly cherishing these new memories we are making as parents.

Lately...and cupcakes.

We've been keeping busy around here.

Doing fun things, like playing football

Climbing slides with serious determination

Crawling everywhere, at light speed...why work on walking when you can get there much faster crawling?!

And I had a fun girls' day out doing a cupcake tour downtown.

The weather cooperated in a lovely, brisk, blue-sky, fall-ish kinda way.

We started out by getting hot coffee to warm our chilly fingers, and found ourselves subsequently sipping and marveling at our colorful bags (no, we really did spend at least a few minutes marveling).

This tour involved walking to five different bakeries or cupcake stores throughout the city. We started out here, where we were tricked into eating vegan chocolate cupcakes. Yes, I will grudgingly admit they were still quite tasty.

As we strolled through the city, with the fall breeze in our faces, warm coffee in our hands and tasty sweets in our bellies, I thoroughly enjoyed snapping photos of whatever pleased my fancy or caught my eye.

It was fun and refreshing to stroll along the urban sidewalks child-free, responsible only for my self and my camera. It was fun to feel like a tourist in my own city, to appreciate with a new eye the beauty, bustle, excitement and architecture of city life.

One thing I love about wandering aimlessly (aside from tripping on curbs and narrowly missing swerving cabbies) with my camera is that it forces me to see things with a newly critical and admiring perspective.

We made four additional stops on our tour...

Between snapping city-scape photos, and fighting to get the best cupcake flavors (joking...kindof), I didn't manage to take photos at every single stop on the tour.

This one, though, definitely had to be captured...Sprinkles, perhaps one of the first trendsetters in the cupcake-crazy community...

Yes, your eyes did not deceive you...that is a cupcake ATM. Why oh why did I not give that baby a try? (Perhaps because my stomach was already splitting trying to fit six cupcakes inside). Still, kicking myself...how many people can say they obtained a cupcake from an ATM machine?!

Our tour ended us here in this tiny little store-front pastry behemoth

This one is known for it's savory cupcakes (owner's motto was something along the lines of "if you can eat it or drink it, it can be made into a cupcake.")
Here I encountered my first savory cupcake experience.

I'll admit, it was met with a fair bit of skepticism on my part (a BLT cupcake? Really?)

but it was really quite delicious.

That's not actually frosting on top...

It seemed to be some kind of cream cheese/mascarpone topping with chives.
Cornemeal textured cake (with a very subtle sweet aftertaste) with crunchy bits of bacon throughout. Not a shabby taste bud experience.

Thanks, Groupon, for a fun cupcake adventure (that I probably would have never otherwise undertaken). 

9 months!

Yup, it's that time again. Time for the quarterly update, in which I (belatedly, since he just turned 10 months) recap the past three months with photos and such.

As per usual, the past 3 months have flown by. This guy just had his 9mo checkup, and weighed in at 20 lbs. He's not quite as tall as his brother was at his age. I have nothing witty to say about that. It's late, I'm tired, it was a long day at work, and I just want to get this stinking blog post finished already!

Here's where we left off, after the six-month update, when this little guy was blissfully happy just hanging out on his tummy, and his mommy was blissfully happy that he couldn't do much more than that.

Sigh. Gone are the days of immobility.
With your first you applaud each milestone, with your second you maybe/kinda/sorta wish they were a little bit delayed. Sheesh, I shutter to think what I'll be wishing with the third child! :)

This little guy is still as happy as can be.

He's still doted on by his big brother (except for when he's crawling full speed ahead for the tower he's in the process of building). This is his "crawling full speed ahead with my eyes on the prize" expression, by the way

This is his "Fun, I'm getting strangled by my brother again" expression

Ps - never has his big brother looked more like his mamma than in this picture!

This is his "advertising for my aunt" look

And this is his "I'm about to get into mischief but I'm so cute you just might forget about it" look

He's started to do this kinda cute, but mostly scary smile where he wrinkles the bridge of his nose.
Yes, I'm sure it's a face only a mother could love...but I'm sharing it with y'all anyways.

Summertime continues.
We've been busy doing summertime things.

Still chewing on inanimate objects

And of course eating new (edible) things every day too.

Still loving bathtime

Still hanging with the cousins

Photo cred: Auntie E

Still falling asleep on his Oma

and his mamma (yay!)

And all around a lot more of getting into things he shouldn't

And yet, still my adorable baby-boy. True, he is proving to be more strong-willed and impatient than my firstborn son...I am probably in for it in the next few years rest of my life.

But...c'mon. Lincoln. STOP IT with the gummy smile.

Now for the cliche - I can't believe you are almost a year old. Slow down child.