Lagging...fall in Barrow

Been a while since we have posted (thanks for the reminders! Let's me know people actually look at the blog :) ) Anyhow, we spent a WONDERFUL and SUNNY long weekend in Fairbanks. Andrea visited twice during this week, now Marty has been here for the last couple of days. He was lucky enough to see another polar bear while he was here. Gage is doing great and looknig like he is JUST about to crawl. He is saying mama a lot more and seeming like he knows what he is saying....but he says dada a lot too (I like it when he says this, particularly at 6am when we cannot shut him up...I tell Ken that he is asking for him ;) ). New this week is the "B" sound...lots of ba ba ba's. It is funny- he seems to have varying interests in babies: Brenna he is crazy for, Elmo, is seems he could give or take (though he did grab her by the collar and drag her over to him when she took his mango!). Feeding is going MUCH better-- he really likes the banana cereal (though, suprisingly, he was not crazy about the bananas...but I have heard you need to try "new" tastes a few times until they take). I could NOT get him to open his mouth to peas! So, well, not even a new taste to work up to... it didn't even matter if I warmed them up! All 6 teeth are through. The right upper tooth is a bit behind the left...and he kinda looks like braces may be in order ;) But I suspect they will straighten out when more come in. We finally broke down and disassembled the swing. It hadn't really "swung" him in a month or so...(too heavy) so it was just taking up space in our living room, which is rapidly filling up with baby toys. But boy, it was great when he was little!

That is all for now. Marty and Ken are out watching birds. They have been gone a while, so maybe they are seeing some cool ones. We saw 7 tundra swans the other week-- they were HUGE. It was really cool...they were sleeping, so they just looked like big while lumps on the tundra. The white-fronted geese are surrounding our house and Gage loves to watch them from the diaper changing table :) The picture of sleeping Gage is from Annie (his babysitter)-- she has a little home studio and a great camera and lights...one of the many perks of having Annie as a babysitter is professional grade baby pictures! Thanks Annie!

PS- Siqiniq is Gage's Inupiaq name :)