Testing, testing

I rented a portrait lens for a week (insert drool here) , so of course I wanted to try it out on my favorite subject. It's hot here now, so we enjoy being outside (in the shade). Enjoy!

Visit from Poppa!

Poppa came to visit us last weekend, and we had fun taking the ferry over to Coronado! We've never done this before, and it was fun - Emma really liked looking out over the water.

Like father, like son, like daughter. :) Thanks for coming to visit us - we had a great time and can't wait to see you next month!

Chronicles of the Hyper-Organized

Ok, so maybe the title of this post is a little misleading. I'm not really all that organized, let alone hyper-organized. But I do love a challenge!


Living in such a small space forces one to try to be as tidy as possible, and even more so - utilize wall space so that you can free up your surfaces. I thought I had found the perfect solution for organizing our daily ebb and flow of errands, doctor's appts, travel schedules, classes, work events, visitors, birthday cards, invitations, coupons, recipes, yada yada yada. I had my eye on this collection from Pottery Barn (ok, it was more like I reeealllly wanted it), but I couldn't justify the $400 price tag (for exactly what you see here).

So, I put my old college thinking cap on, and hopped down to one of my favorite places - IKEA. I put together a similar (albeit simpler) system that works pretty well. Grand total? $58.73. Not bad eh? (you can click on the image for a larger view).

Extraordinary!

After Roger was gone for a whole MONTH of July, we celebrated in style with several visitors. The first group was the fabulous Aunt Linda, Uncle Bruce and Cousin Ben. We had a great time visiting them at their hotel pool and hitting the beach. Emma had a blast swimming and eating sand.





Chillin' with my sippy

One of the highlights was our first trip ever to the local favorite, "Extraordinary Desserts". WHOA. This place is awesome. It's an old foundry converted into a modern restaurant with so much cool stuff to eat and take pictures of. We had an extraordinary breakfast, followed by some extra-extraordinary desserts, and I am now extraordinarily bloated! Does this make you salivate, or what?

in, out, in, out, in, out

So basically, Emma's latest obsession is mastering the difference between "in" and "out". This provides for hours and hours of endless fun. During bathtime, we use stacking cups, and she has figured out how to get the small cup inside the bigger cup and so forth.

I hid her paci inside the 'secret' hatch of her LeapFrog table. When she discovered it, you would have thought it was covered in gold. So here's a little preview of our in-out-in-out escapades.

And excuse the stage of undress. It was a hot day, and we were rockin' out to The Who.


Hide and Seek from Eeks on Vimeo.

conversations with a 10-month old

signs, part 1 from Eeks on Vimeo.


signs, part 2 from Eeks on Vimeo.

Sign update

I don't have any of these on video (yet) - but Emma wanted to let you all know that she is officially signing. Aside from waving 'bye-bye' and 'so big', she can do the signs for 'fan', 'fish', 'dog', 'airplane' and 'bird'. A few of these get combined from time to time, but she gets very excited to communicate to whoever will listen. :)

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!