Cousin Dinner

My 2nd cousin, Oliver, and his wife, Kristin, came over for dinner a couple weeks ago. They brought their darling baby, Clara, who is about 2 1/2 months old and just the cutest little thing. Sophie and Clara developed some nice, tight 3rd cousin bonds during our little dinner party. :) Our good friend, Juliet (friend and also former roommate of another 2nd cousin, Laura -- we're all about cousins in my family!), also joined us for dinner. It was a lovely dinner group. Oliver even blogged about it here.

Anyway, been meaning to post a few good pics we took that night, so here they are!

ps - And make sure to check out our new Video of the Week. It features Oliver performing his most recent karaoke hit, "Tonight We're Gonna Dance." It's a beauty!!

Oliver giving Sophie an airplane ride

Sophie loving every second of it

Oliver gives us a grin between dodging the drool bullets Sophie spit at him

Clara keeping a close eye on her dad -- what are they doing up there??

Sophie makes a bee-line for little Clara

ATTACK! ATTACK!!
About 8 hands rush to save poor Clara from Sophie's loving "pats"

And from a few weeks before the dinner fun... at Clara's blessing
trying to get a pic of the 3rd cousins -- sorry about the head-chop, Oliver!

Standing Tall

Sophie has become quite proficient at standing up these days. She pulls herself up onto just about anything she can reach. Eeks! I turn my back for about 5.25 seconds and when I turn back around she'll be standing up next to something else -- you never know what will be next! I caught some of her recent standing escapades on film.

Giving herself kisses in the mirror

"Is that you back there, Mom?"

So cute. :)

Har-har-har, I tell the funniest jokes!

Sophie LOVES strings. Strings of any sort. The drawstrings on my pajama pants & hoodies, the strings on the computer chair cover (as pictured here), her favorite striped ribbon and any cord (strings, cords - basically the same thing, right?). She's gotten so good at waving strings around that we're pretty certain she has a promising future in rhythmic gymnastics!! I can see her now, doing a split jump in the air while artfully waving a ribbon-baton-thingy spelling out "S-O-P-H-I-E" in the air!

Sophie and her mad ribbon skills in 15 years. Little Baby, Big Chair

Jail Bird!One of her favorite posts - standing up next to the secretary. She just barely fits under the desk top!

Joys of Solids, Part 2

Lisa previously posted about breaking Sophie into solids, specifically, demonstrating how much (or little) she likes particular foods by measuring the amount that ends up on her.

However, there is another gauge that can be used, and it's much more entertaining. It's called "the face-ometer." After eating something she doesn't like, Sophie has this ability to make her face implode! I'm serious! We caught it on memory-stick last night, so here it is for you all to enjoy.


It's so funny, I just might have found a reason to feed Sophie peas at least once a day!

Good Times

As Bryce mentioned, my friend, Jenni, came to visit and we had such a fun time. Bryce blogged about some of the things we did, but he failed to mention some very important ones...

Friday night Jenni and I bundled up, left the baby with Bryce (thanks, Brycie!) and went out on the town! We walked along M-Street and browsed some of the fabulous stores there, including one of my all-time favorites... Lush!! Oh, how I love Lush. It is the best best best place! I hope you have ALL been able to enter a Lush establishment. If not, get in your car and go check one out!! They sell "handmade cosmetics" including the most fabulous bath bombs, bubble bars, and massage bar thingys. They even sell this super cool solid shampoo that you rub on your head. Odd, but nifty. Oh!! And this really cool soap that is the consistency of jello. The best part about it is that they will show you demos of all their products, so you can try them all out! Everything smells soooo good. It is heaven for your nose. Jenni was very sweet and noticed that I was drooling over the Wiccy Magic Muscles massage bar, and before I knew it she'd bought it and given it to me! Well wasn't that just the sweetest thing eva?!

We also checked out one of my other fave stores, The Walking Company. I used to frequent this store all the time when I lived in Boston and would walk to and from work every day. It's so nice to have a pair of cute walking shoes that you can wear both walking to work and at work. Most of the time, though, the penny-pincher in me couldn't justify the usually-very-steep price tags on said cute walking shoes. However, luck was a lady in Georgetown and this super cute pair of Earth Shoes was on a deep discount sale, so... I couldn't resist. I have been briefed on the proper way to break them in and will keep you all informed on the dramatic results that I'm sure are just around the corner from correcting my posture with footwear! (Yesterday I also found out that my mom used to own a pair of Earth Shoes - oddly enough, when she was pregnant with me! Who knew?!) Here's two pics of the shoes I bought -- only the ones I bought are brown.All in all it was a great shopping experience. As Bryce would say, fun was had by all.

I really got to run here, but I can't end without also including a pic of the totally cute tote bag Jenni made while here! Sophie got really sick about the second Jenni's plane landed in Baltimore and so we had a few low-key days to try to help her quickly recover. We turned one of these days into a tote-sewing day and Jenni came up with the cutest fabric combination. Some pics for you visual peeps: And last but not least, we started Jenni on the blogging addiction while she was here! No one who enters this house is safe from The Blog. She's a newbee at the whole thing, but has promised me great things... ;) Hooray for yet another blogger!

And with that I can no longer ignore the mounds of dishes that are now positively screaming my name from the kitchen... Signing off for now!

I Love This Picture

Sunday afternoon Jenni & I went to the visitor's center at the temple and checked out the new[er] Joseph Smith movie. When we returned we were greeted by this welcoming committee...

THEY ARE SO ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE!!! Oh, sometimes I can hardly stand it!!

Tricks to seeing the Capitol

Lisa's college roommate Jenni visited us this weekend. She was great fun to have here, and was just the motivation we needed to get out and do stuff. We made our rounds on Saturday - unfortunately I was drafted into shoveling the church in the morning, so we got to the Capitol too late to get on a tour. We squeezed in plenty of other activities though!

Here's one shot from each place we visited:

The Supreme Court


The Library of Congress (Jefferson Building)


Even Sophie loved the ceiling here!


The Botanical Gardens
(I saw the infamous "Snake Plant" - AKA Mother-in Law's Tongue)


The Capitol (exterior)


The Capitol (interior by Senate gallery)
Thanks to Senator Reid (D-NV Majority Leader), the Senate was in special session to vote on the non-binding anti-troop surge resolution passed by the house on Friday. That means the Senate's gallery was open to the public! We got tickets, got inside, and got all the way to the doors of the gallery, and then they adjourned and we weren't able to go in. We did get a Capitol Policeman to open a door so we could look in the room anyway. Those interns/staffers were pretty miffed about having to work on a Saturday so they closed up shop very quickly. So much for that "new work ethic" the majority party promised (brought to you by Rants-by-Bryce).


All-in-all, a great weekend with Jenni! Thanks for the visit - we loved your company.

Telecommuter

How can something that sounds so right turn out to be so wrong? Easy, add me to the equation!

Yesterday, I got permission to leave work early because a high priority paper I was going to work on was going to come in from the proof reader "around 4pm." Because we wanted to spin this paper around as fast as possible, someone needed to type in the changes that night. I was volunteered. Sounded fine to me - leave work early, then finish working at home.

Lesson: to determine your productivity at home, multiply how long it will take you to finish a task normally by 2.3.

I received a pdf of the document, complete with hand written changes, around 8:30. That was an omen. Because of the amount of changes to be made to the document, I really thought it'd be easier to just type the whole thing anew. Not having a soft copy of the original helped propel me down this path. I worked until midnight then went to bed.

Murphy's Law takes effect here: if something can go wrong it will.

Sophie got sick and woke up about every 2 hours all night. At 5:30 I tried to get her to sleep on my chest, but both of us ended up getting frustrated. She was probably trying to find a soft spot for her head, but my bones kept getting in the way. I was just trying to sleep but she kept squirming. Then I realized Lisa was a little under the weather, and finally it dawned on me that I was sick too!

Since sleep wasn't an option, I decided to get a head start on the document. I admit I laughed to myself about how surprised my co-workers would be having the finished document in their inbox by 9am - then I could take the rest of the day as a sick day.

As I sat down at the computer I realized 3 hours of work the night before had me less than 1/4 way done. So I started trying to type faster. Have you ever had a finger cramp? Me either - until today. Apparently after all my shoveling yesterday, typing was just too much to ask.

So I decided to take a break and put Lisa down for a nap, then Sophie. I couldn't resist starting a batch of Cris' baked oatmeal to surprise Lisa when she woke up. (She was)

After breakfast, Lisa started a flurry of cleaning to prepare for Jenny, our guest for the weekend. That mandated a break to shower, and help with the cleanup. Long story short, but noon I was barely halfway.

Then my co-workers started checking in for updates - someone finally sent me the original soft copy. Amazing what changed - in the first 9 hours (on and off) I had typed half the document. In the final 3 hours I did the same amount.

Except I got interupted by our Boy Scout Troop Comittee Chairperson who urged me again to cancel our scout meeting tonight. I gave in - but then had to spend a half hour letting everyone know. I had two paragraphs left, but put it off for a half hour. (Great sense of prioritization, don't you think?)

I went back and forth with my colleague a little to finalize the document and finally signed off at 5:55PM. I telecommuted and worked a 12 hour day! I would (almost) never do that in the office.

My take-away - while I loved being home, I think I need to develop a real discipline to be able to work here! It'll come in handy when school starts.

Look Out, Harry Potter!

Let's see... it must have been about 3 years ago that I walked into work one day and found my very own golden snitch resting atop my computer. Life is grand when you have good co-workers. Anyone who has ever worked with less-than-ideal co-workers knows this to be true. So anyway, life was grand at this particular job. One of my very favorite people also happened to live her work life in the cubicle station kitty-corner from me at that lovely repository of information that is Baker Library. Well, let's re-phrase that... it wasn't exactly the library at the time, more like the library's garage perhaps. But that's something that Nicole (and Bryce) will understand and probably nobody else (who reads this, at least), so on with our story!*

So this favorite co-worker of mine left a true-to-life golden snitch on my computer! I'm sure it gave me good luck and it's had its own special spot in our entryway ever since we moved here. Recently, we found another fan of the snitch... Sophie! She ADORES the snitch. If you notice, it was the toy that convinced her to climb to her feet so that Bryce could capture her standing on video (the current Video of the Week in the side bar). And it's also the perfect church toy b/c she'll sit there and squeeze it, bite it, scrunch the wings, etc. quietly! Hours of entertainment.

Anyway, mostly I just wanted to say hello to Nicole, if she's reading this. :) We're thinking of you -- especially anytime little Sophie has the snitch in hand! Just wanted you to know that your awesome gift continues on!! Look out, Harry Potter -- you may have a run for your money at the next Quidditch try-outs!

*Ok, thinking of a few other HBS'ers out there who will recall the "garage" of which I made reference... You know who you are, Lunch Bunchers! Happy Wednesday to you all!

The Joys of Solids

We've been having a [messy] fun time introducing solid food to Sophie. So far her faves include bananas, sweet potatoes and pears. She's big time on the pears.

I've discovered that mealtimes are exponentially messier when Sophie does NOT like, or is indifferent to, the food we're trying to feed her. As these pics will reveal, Sophie is a little less enthusiastic about peas and peaches. She is quite sure that peas especially are meant for, not her mouth, but rather her eyebrows. Lovely.

Sweet Potatoes
always a hit. she is her mother's daughter for sure.

Squash
if she must, she must.

Peas
violently abhors the stuff. will mom not take a hint??

Been a While!

Feels like it's been too long since I last posted... and that's most likely b/c it HAS been too long. Wow. Surprised I didn't suffer some kind of withdrawl from my un-posting-ness. But we're back in the saddle again.

Much to say, where to start? Well, last week Sophie and I went on a fabulous trip to visit loads of family and it was grand fun. We saw Marci, Matt, Sam, Lindsey, Mom, Bryce's Mom, Dad, and Laree! Wowzers. That's a lot of peeps! A photo journal from our trip:

Sophie & Sam having dinner! Sophie was completely fascinated by Sam. Anytime she would catch a glimpse of him she'd start chirping and laughing like he was the greatest guy around (which is true, of course!). Here, Sam attempts to feed Sophie...

Sophie trying on Sam's cool hat

During our baby photo shoot Part I - the cutest polar bear you've ever seen!

Aunt Laree introduces Sophie to the joys of the Ipod
Cuddling with Grandma on the swing - Sophie LOVED the swing.
Sharing Sam's toys
Photo Shoot Part II - how adorable is this?!
Aunt Lindsey & Sophie have a tete-a-tete

So that was our trip. It was great fun (except for that tiny little part where Sophie didn't sleep the night through for the entire week... until our very last night there) and we can't wait to see everyone again!

When we returned home from Boston we were greeted by my sweet Bryce and the incredible shower he re-did. I tell you what, it is like a completely new bathroom now! You should all come to visit us just to check out the bathroom. A work of art. And I'm not kidding. Bryce also cleaned the house top to bottom just before we got back and I don't think the house has been that clean since... well, ever. Sophie and I have done a great job of settling back in and getting it all dirty again. :)

And this is plenty long for one post. Stay tuned, folks. Got lots more coming your way!

We've lowered the crib

I know to most people, the subject won't mean much. However, those in the know will realize immediately what it means - Sophie pulled herself up today!

While we were getting ready to go to church this morning, Sophie was crawling around on the floor and decided she wanted to see inside her laundry basket. She grabbed the side and got into kneeling position. I stepped into the basket as a counterweight, and I think the landlord upstairs could hear the thud from Lisa and my jaws hitting the floor as Sophie promptly pulled herself into a stand and then grinned happily at each of us.

So of course I grabbed the camera and tried to recreate the moment, but she of course refused to cooperate. I think she realized playing with my tripod would require much less effort than standing again. See the clip below.

After church we kept trying and finally found the right combination of toys, obstacles and encouragement to get her to stand again. This is of course the video of the week, but after it is replaced, it can be viewed here.

Now that we've taped it, we'll follow my second-cousin-in-law's advice and push her to the ground from now on!

Tim "The Toolman" Taylor would scoff

But I think Al Borland would cut me a little slack.

So Lisa and Sophie went away for a week and I decided to use the week to make one improvement around the house. It was a no brainer - I talked to our landlord, and she happily agreed to buy the materials to upgrade our bathtub's surround. Though the photos will probably make it clear what I'm referring to, our bathtub is also our shower, so it has plastic liner on the walls that were, um... Well, if a photo's worth 1,000 words, here's a two page essay on what we had:


I started immediately when I got home from work on Friday night so that I could shower by Sunday morning (the glue and the caulk need to cure for 24 hours). I quickly realized I would need some help installing the panels so I did what anyone in my situation would do - I called my home teacher and asked if he could drop everything and come help for an hour. He was smart enough to still take his wife out to dinner, but he and his wife stopped by afterwards and stayed - for a little longer than three hours - until it became aparent I would not finish in one night.


We had three complications. First, I wasn't sure how to remove the water spout - was there a hidden screw, did I just need to pull harder? We called three dads and finally got an answer - use the monkey wrench and twist! While I did that, Brad measured where to cut holes for the water spout, etc. Second problem - we realized the tub was severly sloped. We broke out the level to guestimate how much to adjust our measurements by so the surround could be straight across the top.


That leaves the third problem - we didn't have the right tools to cut holes! We improvised using a utility knife, large drill bits - including spade bits, and a saw on my swiss army knife. We finally put the adhesive on the back and mounted all the sides and I sent Brad and Kim home. After they left, I sat down to read the installation instructions (I know, a little late in the game) and they suggested letting the adhesive cure for 24 hours before doing anything (i.e. caulking). So much for that Sundy morning shower! I was glad to go to bed though!

Bright and early Saturday morning, I ran out to buy some gap filling foam - cool stuff! You'll note the big hole on the corner of the tub in the photo above. There was a matching hole on the other outside corner, and an old light socket that also needed to be filled in. While filling the holes, I realized the adhesive needed to be reapplied to some areas, so I came up with the contraption below, using the shower rod, to hold the siding in place while the ahesive cured so I could go on a ten mile hike at Manassas National Battlefield Park - will have to blog about that later.


When I got home from the hike, I started caulking - and ran into my second delay - the gap between the tub and the bottom of the siding was about 1.5 inches at the edge. There was no way I was going to get a vertical gap that big filled in one night - add another day to the project and another day I'd have to trudged to the church late at night to shower. I took Sunday off to visit my brother in law Jim who suprised me, and my second-cousin-in-law Oliver, Kristin and Clara - that's a story in and of itself that Oliver has already told! Monday night got back to work with a vengeance. I filled holes and cracks that had appeared in the caulk, sanded a plastered and sanded again the old like switch hole, washed all the fixtures which had been soaking in a water and vinegar mix to remove water stains (wire brush and elbow grease removed all the paint) and finally finished about 2 am, when I trecked to the church again for my shower. Wednesday night I just cleaned up the mess I had made in the bathroom, as well as the rest of the house. Not wanting to shower before Lisa saw it, I made my fourth trip to the church for a late shower.

When Lisa came home, this is what was waiting for her (add the shower curtain in your mind's eye). I think it's a significant improvement. So did my landlord, who offered to reduce our rent as a thank you!


Last but not least, here is a more dramatic side by side comparison:


I this this is a record for the amount of links in one of my posts!