Yesterday James turned nine months old! Man how time flies! He has his well baby check up tomorrow. I wonder how big he is now! Saturday we went to the Mall of America to have 9 month pictures taken. They turned out so cute! After pictures we went to LegoLand and Annika played for a while. We usually do that while we're waiting for the pictures to print. Then we headed to Red Lobster to have dinner with Nana and Papa. Annika was thoroughly fascinated with the tank of lobsters. She kept calling them crabs though. Almost the whole time we waited for our table she was standing by the tank watching them. After dinner Nana and Papa came over to our house for a little while. It was past James' bed time by then so he went right to bed but Annika got to play for a little while.

Our real excitement this weekend was our broken water heater. We had water, but it wasn't hot! And of course the replacement part was over $300. We weren't sure if it was covered under warranty since our owner's manual said we had a 2 year parts warranty and our house is 2 years and 3 months old. But when we went to the manufacturer's website it said there was a six year warranty. Apparently our manufacturer bought a few others in the last two years and switched all their products to the longest warranty. Score for us! Of course, in order to keep our warranty we had to have a licensed plumber install the new part for us so it was still $176 to fix. Oh well. That's still better than $300+.

Sunday the kids and I went to Michelle's house for a Halloween-themed playdate. This party was supposed to be the weekend before ut so many people we sick or not coming that we rescheduled to this past weekend. And at the same time Michelle moved it from 3pm to 11am since it was on a Sunday now instead of a Saturday. Guess who forgot the time change and showed up at 3pm? Yep, me. And Lisa. I felt so silly. Michelle was gracious enough to host two parties that day and let us stay for a couple hours to play. The kids had a great time. They played with play dough and with Little People and with a doctor's kit and lots of other great toys. Earlier that day Annika came up to me and said "Jessie is my best friend ever." Jessie is Robyn's daughter who was there too. So cute. And yesterday Annika told Daddy that she played with Emma at the party. It's so cute and interesting watching Annika navigate her social network, making friends, playing nice, etc.