It’s been a long time since I last posted (we went to Florida for a vacation) but I’m back and ready to blog again. We had a lovely time in FL visiting family and friends. I hope to have the photos on Flickr later this week. Anyway, Xander is blossoming and it seems like he learns to say a new word every day.

So… the word of  the day is UP!

Now for the random picture of the day:

Xander raking leaves before our trip to FL. Yes, we put him to work!

The leaves are 2 weeks behind schedule this year for whatever reason. But they are peaking right now and they’re beautiful! A month and a half ago, Nick bought a little stick tree on clearance at Home Depot and planted it in our backyard. I’m astonished it’s still alive because the directions said to water it daily for a year and we’ve only watered it like 5 times! In addition, it blew over during a wind storm last month and Nick can to tie it down with rope. Alas, it has survived and is now displaying beautiful orange leaves. See a picture I took this morning of a leaf I picked from one of its branches. I think I’ll use it as the picture for this blog! It’s marvelous!

Leaf from our tree, Nov. 2nd, 2008.

Nick's pumpkin. I love the ear hole!

Halloween has come and gone. Overall, it was fun (especially for Nick who is the Clark Griswold of Halloween decorating) but it did include a freakish accident. Xander climbed out of the crib. Well, actually he FELL out of his crib. Head first. I, luckily, was in the next room and heard the bang and the immediate wail. I knew instantly what had happened. The whole incident freaked us out but we’ve taken extra precautions so it won’t happen again. Xander has a horrible, raised bruise on his forehead to remind us that stuffed animals and bumpers in the crib are a no-no. After that, things got better. Nick wrapped yellow CAUTION tape all around our house and cars. He downloaded Halloween songs to play on our portable stereo. And he had a blacklight and strobe light pointed at our house. Oh, and he dressed up in a gorilla costume. <sigh> Xander, on the other hand, refused to wear part of his cowboy costume– the boots and the hat. So he just wore jeans and a flannel shirt. We did manage to snap a couple photos of him in the complete get-up before he ripped off the hat and whined about the boots. He enjoyed wandering around in the dark and seeing all the kids dressed up (though he didn’t like it when kids wore masks. He cried.). Later, we went to a neighbors house to have a few Buds and watch the children play. I hope everyone else had a happy Halloween, too!

He's a cowboy! YeeeeeHaw!

Xander's boo boo

Happy Halloween!

Our cousin Lauren (who was my lovely junior bridesmaid back in 2003) recently performed in a talent contest in Australia where she lives. She did super-awesome!! Here’s a clip for her performance.

I wanted Xander to be a monkey for Halloween. He is a monkey after all… loves to climb, loves bananas etc. Old Navy had an adorable monkey costume (complete with a banana hanging out of the pocket) in stores so I traveled to 3 Old Navy stores trying to find the correct size. Sold out, sold out, sold out. I ended up buying it online and paid 8 dollars in shipping fees. It was worth it, right? NOT! Xander hated the silly thing… he cried and ripped it off each time I attempted to dress him in it for pictures. So I returned it. And I had to get creative. What can Xander wear that looks like a costume but doesn’t feel like one? Hmmmm…

TAKE IT OFF!!!!!!!

Our Canadian friends, Mark and Meghan, flew in for the weekend for some fun and Xander-loving. Oh, and some festivaling, golfing, shopping, margarita-drinking, skyping, Sesame Street-watching, washer-playing, breathalyzer-testing, and lots of monkeying around. The photo below best summarizes our 4-day weekend with the Wrights.

Leigh, Mark, Meghan, and ?

My childhood pal Alicia came into town this weekend for a wedding so we met up on Saturday so she could meet Xander and taste some Bud. She, along with some friends,  sampled some of the world’s finest brew during their VIP tour at Anheuser Busch thanks to the coolest brewmaster in the world (aka my lovely husband Nick). It was a lot of fun spending the day with her and Xander thought she was pretty cool, too!

Xander meet Alicia

Friends for over 20 years! Gosh, we're old!

The leaves are turning (mostly yellows so far, still waiting for the orange and reds!) and the temperatures are cooling off (only highs in the 60s) so perhaps that’s why I’m in the mood for change. Ask anyone from my childhood and they will confirm that I had a tendency to rearrange my bedroom furniture at an alarming rate. I like change. So yesterday I rearranged Xander’s furniture and I love it! FYI: it’s only the 4th time in 19 months. And today I’ve begun the process of changing servers for my Vivien Leigh website. For the past 9.5 years it’s been hosted by Yahoo. Sadly, Yahoo is behind the times and lacks the utilities and functions I now need. I was amazed when I browsed other servers available. Their help forums, control panel tools etc are so amazing compared to out-of-date Yahoo Webhosting. I’m sad to end my long history with Yahoo, but it’s time for change. I feel it in my bones. My site is up for renewal Nov 1st so I’ve begun the long, dreaded process of backing up every single file on my site. I have multiple databases that need backup as well. In addition, I’ll be learning some new things since I need to make a ‘dump’ of my  of mysql processes, change nameservers for my domain, etc. My domain name vivien-leigh.com will still be under Yahoo but the new server HostGator (I’m a gator at heart) will be the home to my site and files. I’m a bit nervous something will mess up and I’ll lose a portion of my site… but I’m backing up an entire copy of EVERYTHING on my home computer so that shouldn’t happen, right?  Anyway, I have a couple weeks to complete the transfer. Wish me luck as I’d hate to lose nearly 10 years of work! Also, I just checked and my Vivien Leigh site has had 950,000 hits since March 15th! Hope to reach 1 million by the end of 2008! The rest of the month is also busy… childhood pal Alicia is coming into town this weekend for a wedding so he’ll FINALLY get to meet Xander. And then our friends Mark & Meghan are flying in from Canada the following weekend. The annual Apple Butter Festival is coming up and a big, important GATOR game Halloween weekend. Oh, and Halloween. We got Xander’s costume in the mail yesterday and Xander cried when I put it on him. Uh oh. We’ll see if I can put it on him, tear-free and snap a photo or two for our e-card that I’ll design and email to everyone on Oct. 31st. Send me your email at leighuf @ gmail.com if you don’t think I have your email. Oh, and we’ll be in Florida in 3 weeks!!

Every year I make a trip to the historic Saint Louis Downtown Library for Vivien Leigh research. During the year I generate a list of books and articles to hunt down for the sake of my lovely website. So, I informed Nick that I wanted to go this Saturday for my annual library trip (convenient because the Gator game was scheduled at 7pm that night). So I packed my school bag, grabbed my library card, kissed my family goodbye and off I went. So what did Nick do with Xander while I spent half my day turning on lights in the library’s closed-stack, darkened aisleways and lugging around a growing tower of books? See below. Looks like they had a ball!!

Xander's 1st time to CHUCK E CHEESE'S!

Mommy & Xander at Eckert Farm

Saturday we went to a Eckert farm in Illinois to pick out a Xander-sized pumpkin and  to enjoy the farm activities, like the petting zoo, pig race, funnel cakes, and pumpkin picking. We actually didn’t go out to the pumpkin or apple orchards (which depart via John Deere wagon every 15 minutes) but we did enjoy everything else at the fun farm. This year, Xander was able to partake in more activities than last year. And he didn’t cry during the pumpkin canon! He liked playing with the gravel rocks and petting the sheep (which he talked to by saying “BAAAA!”). He giggled when they ate food from his hand, and loved petting their heads quite hard (like he does to our dog Kali). We took our wagon to the farm and Xander loved pushing it around (a fellow farm-goer loved the “2 Fast for You” license plate that hangs from the back). He sat comfortably during the corn field maze and wanted to chase the loose doggie that roamed the farm. Xander’s favorite word is still ‘doggie.’ He calls for our dog constantly. If I put her out back to run around our back yard, he’ll yell at the back door .. ‘doggie, doggie!!!’ Anyway… our early October weekend was a fun-filled and adventurous family-affair.

feeding the sheep

exploring the corn maze