Walt Roberts is here!

This morning, our friend Noah and his wife Julie gave birth to their second child, Walter Douglas Roberts.  He's a healthy eight-pounder, and he and his parents are doing fine.  There are some pictures on their blog, noahandjulieroberts.blogspot.com . We're hoping and praying that Walt will grow up as happy and healthy as James is.  

Speaking of James, he is quickly approaching his first birthday.  This Saturday, the relatives visit, and he will get to have some cake.  At the risk of spoiling the surprise, I hear there is a Noah's Ark theme.  

James continues to learn new stuff every day.  Now that the weather is better (it rained for a solid week here), we have been going outside again.  James has learned to kick a ball, which is impressive in and of itself, but it also shows how well he has mastered walking.  Here we are in the driveway, kicking the ball cousin Hannalee got for James this summer:

James also enjoys pushing things.  We went strolling around the Home Depot the other day, and James pushed the cart for me.  He couldn't reach the handle, but he pushed from the bottom of the basket quite well.  He also pushes his own stroller when we go to the neighborhood playground.   Pretty soon, we'll let him loose with the lawn mower.  

Today James learned how light switches work.  Daddy demonstrated 'on' and 'off' a couple of times, then held James up and let him try. James quickly mastered the up/down motion, and proceeded to create a strobe-light effect in the bathroom.  He would still be doing it if Daddy didn't get tired of holding him up.  James is getting heavy.  

Speaking of which, James's eating technique has improved tremendously.  He keeps things in his mouth now (he used to let about half of every spoonful dribble out onto his chin), and he is chewing quite well with his two teeth.  Meme (Daddy's mother) got James some crunchy snacks, which have helped him improve his chewing.  Now he eats them all the time, which is good, because it keeps non-food items (shoes, cellphones, the cat) out of his mouth.  We were kind of worried that constantly feeding him high-calorie formula to bulk him up would impede his normal-food-eating development, but he seems to be doing fine.  

Less than a week until James is a year old!