9 months!

Leo is 9 months old today!  What a milestone!!

That means he has been outside as long as he was inside.

We all reckon it has been a pretty eventful 18 months.

Here is our three-part family portrait for September.  Taken at everyone's favourite moment of the day - when Dad gets home from work.

In Bruges

Leo briefly visited Belgium - country number 7 - on his way back to Kosovo.  Except we managed to get virtually no pics of his time in Bruges.  Here are the only 3 I have.

Being a good boy on the canal boat ride.  He hardly wriggled at all!

Hiding behind this giant beer.

Looking good and chubby on the hotel bed.

Business Class Baby!

Leo looking very comfortable in the business class lounge on our trip back to France earlier this month.

Hmm - business class travel and courgette tarts in French restaurants.  What is becoming of this boy??

He-Man

Leo looking a bit like He-Man with his blonde locks and muscly arms.
(old pic - taken over a month ago)

Gourmet Leo

Leo reckons that looks alright!

He had lunch at a French restaurant last week.  His selection was a courgette tart, which came with compliments of the chef.

Mozzies from Kossie!

A mosquito got Leo while he slept the other night.  And she got him good!  At least 20 bites on his face and arm - only one side.  I found her in the morning and squashed her, then stuck her head on a toothpick at the entry to Leo's room, as a warning to all the other would-be blood suckers.

As a result Leo looked a bit scary with his spotty face.  There have been a notable lack of kids running up to say hello to him in his pram.

I'm trying to reduce the redness with a few home remedies.

Banana skin.

Baking soda.

The flight was alright!

Leo is getting good at this flying business.

He took his 19th flight - from Brussels to Pristina - the other night.

Here he is telling his little mates all about it.

I scream, you scream

Leo screams for ice cream!

Leo, you have been a good boy and eaten all your zucchini.

So now you get to eat some ice cream!

When it was all over (and all over his hands, face, chair, jumper) he looked at the empty stick and cried and cried!

Fish Alive!

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - once we caught 10 fish alive

6, 7, 8, 9, 10 - then we let them go again!

We had a great day of fishing last week with Meme and Pepe - even better because at the end we let all the fish go again!  (not enough for lunch - they were only little ones!)

Leo looked totally the part in his floppy fishing hat -

But he was a bit shocked to realise that fishing involved pulling the poor little fish out of their homes, so he was happy to see them all flop back into the lake.

8 months

Leo had his 8 month check-up this week and his stats are

weight: 8.1 kg
length: 71 cm
head: 45 cm

So he's spot on and growing well.

We celebrated with a family outing to IKEA.  We forgot to pack his pram, which we realised 40 minutes into a 1 hour 15 minute trip.  So we had to improvise with a car seat in a trolley.

Leo didn't seem to mind too much.  Although we looked like a family of weirdos.