Apologies for the lack of posts. Thanksgiving weekend was great and we had so much going on that I didn't have time to keep up-to-date. Grandpa and Abuelita arrived on Wednesday night and Cindy and Dennis came on Thanksgiving Day. Once again, Jeff insisted in a gigantic turkey -- 23.35 lbs, to be exact. It didn't quite outweigh Ian, who is probably around 24 lbs these days. Ian didn't seem too excited about Thanksgiving dinner until Abuelita gave him some of the cranberry sauce. This year I made a new recipe that has Grand Marnier in it. Ian made a face because it's pretty tart, but he opened his mouth wider than I've ever seen him open it for anything!

In terms of development, Ian is definitely able to take one or two tiny steps. He stands like a sumo wrestler, very steady on his feet. He can clap his hands while he's standing. The newest thing is that this week at school he started to stand up all by himself without holding onto anything in the middle of the room.

The weather is getting colder out, but it's pretty warm in the classroom, so while all the other children are in long sleeves and long pants, Ian is in his underwear, sweating like crazy. One of the moms in the older kids' room said that she loves seeing Ian standing there with his chubby thighs -- she just wants to take a bite!

Ian is also very clear on when he doing something he's not supposed to do. One morning over the weekend, Abuelita and I were up early with Ian and he was crawling around the kitchen. He went around the island and I couldn't see him, but I could hear him banging on the garbage can, so I just said, "Ian!" and a little head poked around the corner and looked at me and he mad the noise he makes when things aren't going his way: "Uuuh!" Then he disappeared again, so I said it again. Once again, he poked his head around and said, "Uuuh!" But then he stopped going back to the garbage can. He now likes to open cabinet doors. He doesn't take anything out, but he does enjoy opening and closing doors. His other favorite thing is pushing chairs around. He likes to walk around the kitchen pushing a chair, bar stool or his high chair. Actually, he'll push just about anything around. He likes pushing his blocks around on the floor while crawls behind.

He is very talkative (and LOUD) these days. Constant stream of babble when he's in the mood. Also still very huggy and kissy when he's the mood. I bought some animal hand puppets for his birthday party (that's right -- in 2 weeks!) and tested them out on him. I took the monkey out and he was smiling at it like it was his baby. Then he leaned over and kissed it on the face -- twice.

He's also a real attention-hog. The other day we were on the train and he started to fuss a bit (he loves the wagon wheel snacks and gets mad when we only give him Cheerios), but a man walked by and Ian looked up and smiled at him. When the guy just kept going, Ian went back to fussing. Too much.

He likes to do this sort of fake laugh and if you do it back, he laughs harder. He also likes it when you growl at him. I'll post some photos and video later. There's a good one of him laughing. Here he is eating (and spitting out) his pancake this morning and then doing that fake laugh: www.alanfeng.com/flora/2005-12-03-04.MOV.