earthquake

I just experienced, for the 2nd time in three years, the eerie feeling of an earthquake. At first, you think you're getting dizzy, and reach out to stable yourself on something. But then you see everything else moving around you, and you realize it's not you. I was at work. There's comfort knowing that I didn't make this up - that others felt it too.

Anyway, the magnitude was 5.8 and the epicenter was in L. A. (Chino Hills). We're ok, and all is well at home. It just makes you realize not to take anything for granted.

Click here for more info and a map. This is now bookmarked in my 'favorites'.

PS - you know you've lived in SoCal for too long, when after assessing that everyone is safe, I think, "wow, the surf is really gonna be up this afternoon!" :-P

Who is this child, and what happened to my baby?!

Anyone for tea?

two bugs in a rug

On most days, Emma and Parker play well together. She rolls the ball to him, he drops it and rolls it back. Kinda like this:

Added bonus: if you listen closely towards the end, you'll hear emma toot!


cooperative parker from Eeks on Vimeo.

But on other days, he is stingy with his love, and doesn't grace us with his attention. Kinda like this:


grumpy parker from Eeks on Vimeo.

9 month stats

I'm a little late posting these, since the emster is closer to 10 months old, but better late than never!

We had our 9-month appointment a few weeks ago and it went very well. No shots, hooray! She had her anemia test, all is well. She weighed in at 18lbs 6oz (37th percentile) and was 27.5 inches long (42nd percentile). Shrimpy over here is still in her infant seat, and probably will be for another three months! Hey, at least we're getting our money's worth. :)

She also scored very well on her 10-month ASQ infant development survey - receiving a 100% score for problem solving! You go girl! (she gets that from her dad)

Her favorite thing to do right now (besides standing/walking) is READING. This girl looooves books. We read lots of different kinds, and she likes them all. There's usually a stack we go thru every night before she goes to bed. She especially loves 'Goodnight Moon', 'Pat the Bunny' and the pop-up books. I hope she developes the same love of reading that I had as a child.

Someone's getting a little artsy fartsy over here

Just sharing the favorites that my photography class decided on from this week. :)

Party tricks

I am finally able to capture all three of em's latest tricks on camera! This one's for you, mom.

Oh, and Parker loves the camera as much as emma does. He HAS to be in all the shots. :)



Party Tricks from Eeks on Vimeo.

Princess TuTu

Just another one of mommy's silly photo shoots. This time we had a purpose. As part of this week's photography class homework, I needed to experiment with my exposure compensation function. Not technically stellar photos, but I think she looks pretty cute. I just wish I could get her fingers out of her mouth!

(Oh, and mobile-baby-in-a-tutu pictures are REALLY hard. I broke a sweat taking these!!)

not camera shy

Lately Miss Em's favorite activity is crawling, pulling up, and cruising along furniture/toys, etc. She really likes her LeapFrog table because she hits a button and little lights and music start. The minute she hears the music, she starts dancing. It's so cute - kinda like a dolphin swimming (if you can picture it).

Of COURSE the minute I try to catch it on video, she doesn't do it. So you won't see it on this clip, but the ending just goes to show you her second favorite thing: the camera.



camera face from Eeks on Vimeo.

Happy Independence Day!

I don't think we've ever crammed in this much fun activity in one weekend! I don't have pictures of everything, but we had a neighborhood parade, a BBQ at a friend's house, breakfast with a co-worker, swimming in the baby pool, dinner at the neighbor's and some good naps for both of us. Whew!

Our neighbors, Pascal, Barbara and Sophie (2yrs) made the centerpiece of the neighborhood parade - a giant George Washington float! It was a huge hit!

At our friend's BBQ, Emma was particularly sweet on Kyson. She was trying to give him a kiss in this picture! :)

The BBQ was basically a big playdate. Lots of babies within months of each other! From left to right: Hutton (1yr), Audrey (9mo), Winter (7mo), Emma (9mo) and Ky (9mo).

Emma is showing Kyson her favorite book. She tried to get his attention the whole time, and he was just fascinated that she could crawl.

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da

This one's for you duda.


da-da from Eeks on Vimeo.

standing proud

"Hey mom! I'm a big girl now!"

"I can't believe I used to fit in there!"

"How about....I pull everything out and you put it all back?"

9 months!

Wow, my baby is 9 months old already. She's acting more and more grown up each day. I enjoy watching her explore her surroundings and learn new things every day. She's a blast. I can't believe she's been out for 9 months after being in for 9 months! :)

She also crosses her legs all the time, it cracks me up.

June 2008

Well, shoot. I had hoped to load a few videos at once, but I'm only allotted 500MB a week if I use Vimeo. Until I figure out how to get the rest of them up there, I've uploaded the best one. But stay tuned...there will be more!

Emma's personality has just exploded. She loooves giving you zerberts, she loooves having you "walk" her around the house. She loves playing with her socks, and with Parker's toys. She can pretty much wave "bye bye", although sometimes it's more of a clenched fist - kinda like she's saying "rock on!"

I can't believe she's almost 9 months old!! She can pull herself up and just TODAY she converted the army crawl to a real crawl! And finally, this girl is in tooth city! Another tooth is popping through on the top (also on the right side). Girlfriend is gonna be lopsided for a while....

She's such a joy. I miss her at night when she's asleep, and can't wait to see her in the mornings. I can't believe how lucky I am to have such an amazing family! (aww....sniff sniff).

Walkin' and Laughin' from Eeks on Vimeo.

Kick up your heels....

get ready for a video marathon!!

Banner Weekend for Two Popsicles

Wow! What a busy last few days. June 12th (Thursday) was Parker's birthday. He turned 8. Happy birthday P-funk!! Friday (the 13th) was my birthday. Happy Birthday me!! Sunday (the 15th) was Father's Day!!

We sort of combined celebrations this weekend, so that everyone could get something they wanted. Parker got a few of his favorite loooong walks on the beach. I think I lucked out the most. Mommy (that's me) got some sweet cards, beautiful flowers, a new coffee mug (thanks Mandy!) pedicure and some photography classes, some key lime pie, dinner from my two favorite restaurants and a fire in the backyard chatting with neighbors.

Saturday we went down to the Koehler boat show (and this was mostly for daddy, although Em and I got a kick out of it too). Anyone who knows Roger, knows how much he loves boats. I think we picked out a couple favorites that we'll take any day of the year. Technically speaking, this is the second year that we all went down to the show. This was the three of us last year:

And this year:

from emma with love

**Make sure you play this with sound!

Fingerpainting

In an effort to make some father's day masterpieces, we decided to try a little fingerpainting. Umm.....yeah. As if trying to do this with an infant very much in the oral stage wasn't hard enough, trying to a) keep her from falling over on the concrete b) keep her from ripping the paper to shreds and c) trying to take pictures without getting paint all over the camera made the task almost impossible. I felt like an octopus. At one point, I had my left hand pulling the paint top out of her mouth, my right hand snapping pictures, and my left foot keeping her stable.

I think we'll revisit this again a little further down the road, but in the meantime, I hope you can catch the humor in this situation! :)

The fun part actually came afterwards when it was clean up time. My water baby absolutely loved playing with the hose. And even after the water went up her nose more than once, she kept going for it again and again and again.

Just SCRUMPTIOUS.

Parker's a good dog

Emma was on the ground and I started to film her as she did her army crawl. Well, Parker wanted in on the action, so he sat RIGHT in front of me, with his tail in Emma's face. She couldn't get enough of this moving furry thing and kept grabbing at it. I had to keep saying "good dog, Parker" so he would keep wagging his tail in her face! :)

Parker's Tail from Eeks on Vimeo.

And then my pooor meeeeatballlll.....

You gotta love IKEA. I have rediscovered this place as a fun place to take kids. They have a mother's nursing/changing room, and the restaurant makes it easy to dine in! We go there for the swedish meatballs, and this saturday wasn't any different.

Except.......for Annie Oakley over here. This picture was taken right before Emma saw the plate of meatballs and grabbed it in a flash. Boy, is she getting QUICK! The two adults with her were slow on the draw, and the plate came crashing to the floor. Meatballs everywhere! Luckily, she found it fairly amusing and didn't get hurt. IKEA was nice enough to replace our plate with a new batch.

Oh, and I think their $20 highchairs are the best ones I've seen yet! Too bad we already have one, or I would totally get it.

Katherine Oppermann 1910-2007

Emma is named after two very special people. Her first name is taken after my babysitter growing up, who was like a second mother to me (see here).

Her middle name is after my maternal grandmother. Kay was an elegant, classy and loyal lady. She passed away in November 2007 at the age of 97. We hope that Emma inherited this longevity.

Last weekend, we took another road trip up to Santa Barbara (side note: this trip was MUCH easier once I reclined her car seat all the way back. DUH!) We had a quick weekend visit with family, introducing Emma to her aunt and two cousins.

My grandmother was one of four sisters, and the last one to pass away. So we decided to pay tribute to her and her sisters with the help of some beautiful floral wreaths, lily petals, a nice captain, a gentle sailboat ride and the Pacific Ocean.

Cousin Eric
My aunt Kyra and cousin Katie

Me and mom



We had a visitor. A local harbor seal wanted to know what was going on! :)

Sisters