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Sunday, November 29, 2009

Lasagne



Tesla is such a great eater. Tonight we started out with me feeding her some baby food. Now I made all of her baby food with the exception of cereal's. We have been transitioning her away from the mushed items to chewing items for the last couple of weeks. The last two nights Tesla has not been opening her mouth for me. I was thinking that it was because Jason usually feeds her while I'm making dinner so she just wants Papa to feed her. But it seems that she just really wants to feed herself. After about 10 minutes of struggling to get her to open her mouth I put a peice of the lasagne on the tray and she immediately started feeding herself. It's pretty cool to see how much she likes different foods. Once she was done eating her lasagna, and garlic bread (only about an inch of bread total) I gave her some applesauce and yogurt. That she let me feed her. Once dinner was complete I had to hose down the high chair while Jason wiped all the food off. This whole feeding yourself thing is pretty messy!

Friday, November 27, 2009

Thanksgiving 2009


Yesterday was Thanksgiving. We celebrated at Amy & Mike Salvatore's house with our friends Greg and Chris Vander Rhodes and Amy & Mike's family. In all there were about 20 of us. It was a lovely time. Tesla enjoyed every minute of it. The kids were running around and there were so many people to sit on, pull on and watch. Amy & Mike have an older house (est. 1750) and it has fireplaces in each room. The one that Tesla really wanted to get to was about 8 feet long and 5 feet high. Big enough to make a meal for crowd. Big enough that Tesla could crawl right in, which she tried to do all night. My back is still toasty from sitting in front of the fire catching Tesla as she drew near.

There was so much food! For the first time we did not bring any baby food for Tesla. She ate Turkey and carrots and corn bread and all kinds of goodies. She was so good! We took some video of Tesla playing on the floor, but we don't have any pictures from this one.

Well time to make dinner, I can hear the family stirring upstairs!

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Chillin'!


Have I mentioned how adorable my little girl is lately? Today I went to Stroller Strides. On Wednesdays we workout at a place called the Sportszone in Derry, NH. There's a soccer field that is completely inclosed so we can let the kids out. I was totally anxious to let Tesla out so that she could show everyone how well she crawled. Well at first she sat by me and played with a toy on the ground then she decided to go be social. She crawled over to one friend Amy, then noticed Chris and all the kids around her, who were having snacks. So she crawled on over to Chris, and preceded to sit in her lap and eat Teddy Grahams out of her hand. Never checking back with me, or calling out to me, nothing. Just hanging. I asked Chris if I could take a picture of them together. See how Tesla's right foot is blurry, it's because she's just kicking it back and forth, chillin'. How cute!

Monday, November 23, 2009

How To Baby Proof Your Home

Tesla started crawling last week. This week she has taken off!!! She figured out that you can leave the rug in the living room, and now we are quickly learning what is not baby proofed and what is okay. Since we're moving anyway it's more of a matter of just putting things away and packing them up if they have no place to go, which is easy enough. We did of course already baby proof all of the outlets in the house. It's amazing how she just goes straight for it. Why when you have a million toys surrounding you are you interested in the one thing you can't have?

Certainly makes me think about how to organize the house in Washington. I'll have to really think about this since the kitchen is attached to the great room in a way that it's easily accessible by little feet. I am looking forward to being able to plop her in the high chair and put her up to the island to help me cook! That will be a lot of fun.

Anyway I googled, how to baby proof your home, and found this article:

When you bring your baby home from the hospital, suddenly the fireplace you once thought was so cozy becomes a potential hazard. There are many products marketed to parents to baby-proof their homes, but you don't have to buy every one of them. As with most parenting issues, the best solutions often rely on common sense.

Below are iVillage's 17 most popular and practical ways to make your home safe for your new arrival.
  1. Crawl through your house to get a baby's-eye view, and remove anything that is either dangerous to your baby or precious to you.
  2. Turn down your hot water heater to 120 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent burns.
  3. Secure cupboard doors with childproof locks -- but don't expect them to work all the time (some babies are more wily than other!). Put dangerous items (e.g., cleaning solutions, knives) in high cabinets, far out of reach of children. Leave one easy-to-reach cupboard open and fill it with plastic containers or pots and pans that are safe for baby to play with.
  4. Cover all electrical sockets with plastic plugs or, better yet, replace the cover plates with childproof ones.
  5. Take the sharp edges off your fireplace or furniture by covering them with throw pillows, quilts, blankets, or foam rubber. Murphy's Law dictates that falls will happen in the worst-possible places.
  6. Put a hook-and-eye latch high up on your doors so that baby doesn't end up anywhere he shouldn't be (like the basement or outside).
  7. Make sure every area of your house has a smoke detector and a carbon monoxide detector. If you need help or information, call your local fire station.
  8. Remove refrigerator magnets. They frequently fall off the refrigerator when the door is slammed, and they are small enough to pose a choking risk.
  9. Program your phone's speed dial with the numbers of your pediatrician, the poison control center, your spouse at work, and your ambulance service (if you don't have 911). Let your baby-sitter know the numbers are there.
  10. Keep a bottle of ipecac syrup on hand (up high or in a locked cabinet, of course) in case of poisoning emergency. This syrup is derived from a plant of the same name, and it triggers vomiting (not all poison cases require vomiting, so be sure to check with a doctor before administering it). Call your local poison control center for an emergency reference card. Let your baby-sitter know where the syrup and card are.
  11. Keep older siblings' toys separate, either in their room or in a playpen, so that your baby can't get at them.
  12. Make sure your baby monitor works and is within range. As a test place a ticking clock near it. If you can hear the tick-tock from the other end of the monitor, you can be sure you'll hear the baby.
  13. Keep hot liquids away from baby. Whenever you're drinking coffee, tea, or other hot liquids, be sure to keep the drink far enough away so that if it spills, your baby won't get burned.
  14. Never leave your baby alone in the bath. Babies can drown in just inches of water, so always stay next to your baby when you're bathing her (or when you're near a pool, the toilet, or a bucket of water). If the phone rings, let the machine get it -- or buy and use a cordless phone.
  15. Don't expose your baby to smoke. Secondhand smoke can cause illness now and serious health problems down the road.
  16. Ask a professional. In many areas, professional "baby-proofers" will come to your home, install protectors and locks, and look for hazards you might not notice. Because they are so quick, they can be inexpensive. Ask your pediatrician if there are any reliable, inexpensive baby-proofers in your area.
  17. Get a good stain stick to clean anything that your didn't baby-proof.
Read more: http://home.ivillage.com/cleanandorganize/organize/0,,7f92,00.html#ixzz0XjNvPvUt

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Portsmouth, NH


Picture of Portsmouth Taken of of Internet

We went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire today. One of my favorite places to visit. It's a very picturesque town with lots of little shops, and eateries. We went to our favorite BBQ joint called Muddy River Smokehouse. My mom had gotten us a gift certificate to it, and we wanted to use it before we moved to Seattle. We also went to a little park and had a bit of a picnic with Tesla. It was so cold though that we tried not to stay outside to long. Her little nose was as red as Rudolph's! After the park we visited a fabric store that has some of the most beautiful fabric. I bought a couple of yards of fabric to make new bibs for T, she's growing out of all of the bibs that came with outfits. We ended up home by 5, but had a lovely day walking around and visiting Portsmouth.

Baby Sitting

Bill & Bobby
(3-16-08)


Yesterday, Jason and I went to a surprise birthday party for Chris. Chris is generally our default baby sitter, not that we've actually been out more than once, with out her, but I would naturally think of Chris if I needed a baby sitter. Chris and Greg love watching Tesla and Peter and Sarah, love playing with Tesla. Well since the party was for Chris we couldn't have her watch T, so we had Bill and Bobby come up. The night before Bill had come by for dinner and Tesla did not fare well. She's seen him a bunch, at least once a week, but for some reason on Friday she was having no part of him. She had never cried so much. Well thankfully on Saturday everything went really well. Bobby sent me messages throughout the night to let me know all was well, and Tesla was sound asleep when we got home. She slept until 7:30 this morning and was in a great mood. All that worry for nothing! Bill and Bobby are welcome to babysit anytime. Wish they'd move to Seattle with us!

Friday, November 20, 2009

We're moving!

Well almost two and a half years ago, Jason and I put the house on the market and left Redmond for good.... Turns out not so good. We're moving back to the house because it's still on the market. It's unfortunate because we want to live in New Hampshire and we love all of our friends and the community that we've created here, but there's a reality, we can't afford to pay the mortgage and the rent any longer and the best thing to do is move back. Our plan is to live in the house for at least two years but more likely five. We'll do a bunch of improvements and then try again. This time we'll continue to live in the house while it's on the market. We won't be playing this waiting game again.

Although we are not happy about the move we're going to make the best of it and enjoy the beautiful house and gorgeous property. We have plenty of space for visitors so please all feel welcome.

I'm pulling my hair out!


You know sometimes technological advances are just a pain in the rear. I have been struggeling for a couple of days to add a slide show to the bottom of this blog. The slide show will show pictures that are on the blog as well as pictures that I upload separately. That way I don't have to keep adding new posts just to add old pictures. Anyway, I finally open an account with Picasa Web Albums and am able to create an album and put a few pictures on. (You can only add 5 at a time, so I added an additional 15 at this time.) I then login to the blog account and add the widget, however it's not recognizing my username, which you would think that it would be my login name for Picasa, nor will it take my url, or my html direct paste. So finally I think well maybe it's because I have the settings to private. Nope, they need me to add an additional user name for that particular album and then I can add it to my blog. Ridiculous. Well anyway the good news is I figured it out, and now there's a slideshow at the bottom of the blog that has a few more pictures but will gain more in time.

Now on top of it, I'm still struggeling to figure out how to do anything but just play my videos taken with the camcorder. That will have to be another day, it's just to frustrating.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Tesla meets Santa


Tesla and Santa Claus

We took Tesla in her holiday outfit to see Santa. Grandma got her a beautiful outfit, I made her a little shawl and plopped a head band on her at the last minute. Typically she wouldn't smile for the camera, (she'll smile for me if I take the picture but not for others), but we did get a very cute picture of her looking up at Santa. Right after she took a good look at him she looked over at me and completely melted. Totally worth it though. I had been told that after Thanksgiving that there are insane lines to see Santa so we decided to do it before so we wouldn't have to worry about it. Plus it means we get to look at it that much longer!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Tesla Crawled

Today Tesla crawled for the first time. She has been scooching herself around the room, but today she actually got on her knees and moved them in sync with her hands to get someplace. It was pretty cool to see. Of course she went right over to the coffee table and grabbed some books off of it. Time to start moving everything to a different location. I figured that I would wait until I knew that she was going to get into anything before moving it because otherwise we would be living a tidy life before it was necessary. I mean who wants to be tidy???

I am having difficulty uploading video's from the camcorder. I am going to attempt to do it again, but not sure it's going to be possible. Jason did order the broken part for the camera so we might have it fixed in a couple of weeks.

Cool Mom Picks

So one of my favorite websites to look at every day is called Cool Mom Picks. It's a blog in which they pick 2-3 items that are mom or baby related, and you can follow the links in their commentary about the item and buy the item. I love looking at everything. I check it out everyday. It's the ultimate in window shopping because I can do it anywhere because of my beautiful blackberry. Anyway they just came out with a holiday gift guide, and if you put their button on your website or blog they'll enter you to win a raffle. So here's their button. If you want to check out the site you can follow the link by clicking on the button.

Holiday Gift Guide

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Tesla's Hiccup Video

Tesla and Auntie Bubbles



The video does get lighter, you can hear in the beginning that I ask Jason to turn the light on. The lighting in our old apartment was just not up to par for documentary making.... I don't know how Michael Moore does it.

Tesla and Papa Video 2-26-09



Sorry, this one is super dark, but it's really cute. When Jason hold's Tesla up to the camera and she starts to cry I make the same sound in the video when I watch it. You just want to pick her up and make everything better.

Tesla at Night 2/18/09

Friday, November 13, 2009

Tesla's First Video



Finally got a video to load. This was taken the day after Tesla was born. Some of you have seen this one before but I thought I would post it anyway. Enjoy!

Favorite Images





Well since the camera's broken I have been taking video's of Tesla but I can't seem to upload them to the blog for some reason, so I thought I would upload some other photo's to share. These are all taken by my friend Sarah in Metheun. These are just some of my favorites.

Jason is in New York for a couple of days visiting Janet in the hospital. Janet had knee replacement surgery. She was just moved to the rehab facility and is doing well. We did not go down, although we wanted to because of it was going to be a little busy and Janet had mentioned she would be worried about Tesla coming to visit her. Understandable.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Firestation Tour



We went on a great tour of the Derry Firestation yesterday. The kids had so much fun meeting the firemen and sitting in the trucks. Most of them were a bit young for it, but you know a free activity is totally worth going to no matter what! Here's a couple of pictures of Tesla at the firestation. I should have one more coming from another friend who took pictures. When you don't have a camera patience in getting the pictures is something you have to learn.

Family Jump


Tesla, Papa and Charleigh

Well this week has been a busy one. Monday we went to the farm with some friends, but the Saturday before that we went to a family jump session that was held by Stroller Strides. The jump session was held by a company that has a small warehouse that you can rent filled with inflatable slides, inflatable castles and so on. Tesla's clearly too young but we went anyway. She had a lot of fun, watching everyone and playing on the floor with her pal Charleigh. Papa also held her in some of the inflatables and she got the idea of bouncing. The have a free time play several times a week in which the kids can come from 10am to 2pm and bounce for just $6.00.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Thank Goodness for Friends with Cameras

In order left to right: Adrian, Tesla, Grant, Nate

Today, Tesla sat up on her own for the very first time. I was just reading in the What to Expect the First Year that around this time a baby may be able to get into a sitting position on their own from their stomach and I could not figure out how she would do it, and Voila! She did it. It was pretty cool to see, because she was completely not impressed by it but I was.

I also went to a petting farm (not really a zoo, it was a farm stand with animals you could feed and pet) with Tesla, Grant, Adrian, Nate and their respective mom's. Tesla does not do well with animals. She pretty much was screaming the whole time. I'm going to have to go back there to get her over this fear. She's very afraid of cats too. She pretty much starts whimpering as soon as a cat comes into the room and it turns on to full on hysterics very quickly, which for a kid that doesn't actually cry all that often is not good. Perhaps I'll try going back to the farm on a more regular basis so that she can get over this. Funnily enough she didn't mind the chickens, which are my favorite!

Since our camera is broken, my friend Laura, Grant's mom sent me these pictures.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Obligatory Baby Bath Video

Some Very Cute Things

So I check out the Cool Mom Picks website everyday. They show products for mom's, babies and dad's too. But it's generally pretty expensive. I get a lot of great ideas for crafting and for when we when the lottery. Here are some of the things I saw on today's posting. (I can't seem to grab the actual images but you can follow the links.)

http://www.naturalpod.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=53_48

http://hivemodern.com/pages/products.php?view=sub_product&sid=3509&cid=346

9 Month Check Up


Tesla had her 9 month check up yesterday. She was measured and weighed and passed all of the normal baby tests. The doctor thinks that she's adorable and apparently tall. Right now Dr. Trombly is estimating that Tesla will be about 5'10". When she came in after all the measurements she said, so who has the tall people in her family. Well I'm not sure about Jason's side, but on my side my Grandpa was pretty tall, so looks like she may take after him on that. It'll be nice to have someone to reach things for me when I get old and shorter and shorter.

Anyway here are her stats:

Weight: 21.05 pounds about 85th percentile
Heighth: 30 inches about 98th percentile
Head: 18 inches about 98th percentile

She received two shots, she's never been given two before and she was not a happy camper and she's been pretty fussy since then. But she'll be fine. She's laughing a lot lately which is pretty nice to be around.

(This picture was taken by my sister, it's a couple of months old but it's so cute, I had to share it.

Embarressing Pictures


By the look on Tesla's face it's like she knows that this is going to be embarrassing. I just had to share. Sorry honey, but those little thighs are so cute!

Swinging in the Fall!


Yesterday my friend Gwen and I took the kids, Adrian 11 months and Tesla, to the park to swing. Tesla had never been on a swing before and it was such a nice day that we thought it would be fun. Unfortunately I discovered that our camera was broken. Very annoying. I feel like nothing is being made quality any more, everything is just smaller. I took one picture with the camera before putting it away to see if the mechanics still worked. Worked they did, of course I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of but I think the results were okay, and it captured Tesla's first swing. I think she looks like she's been imprisoned. You must like SWINGING!!! She actually had more fun on the bouncy duck, but since I didn't know if the camera actually took a picture I didn't bother.
Since the screen is obviously cracked I handed the camera over to Jason to see if he could repair it. For 25$ he'll order a new screen and hopefully it will work. Apparently it's a common issue with this camera. Swell!