Celebrate 28 years on December 28th!

Dan is in the process of slogging through his late 20's. On Sunday, December 24th, he will turn 28 years old.

You may wonder why we are not celebrating his birthday on the 24th. This is because we will have people visiting for the holidays. However, said people are arriving in the evening of the 24th (Dad), the morning of the 26th (Robin), and some other time on the 26th (Lee). Don't worry, we will figure out when to pick up Lee at some point before she arrives. We will not leave her at the airport during this crazy holiday travel time, at least, not for very long. In any case, people will be here basically after Dan's birthday, so we selected the 28th as the day to celebrate.

What can you expect at this exciting birthday event? I can promise cake. mmmmmmm... And, unlike my birthday where we mistakenly bought a cake that had icky frosting, Dan's cake will be superior. What does this mean for you? You should join us for the cake eating event.

When: December 28th at 6pm
Where: Our New House in California
RSVP: Please tell us that you are coming, we will give you our address
Other Food: Yes, we will have some sort of dinner food for people who arrive on time
Will: Yes, Will will be there. He will go to bed at about 8pm. We will let you stay past that time, but if you want to play with Will, you will have to come on-time.
What to Bring: Bring Dan a cool Birthday Card. There may be a prize for the geekiest card.

Furniture Disclaimer: We have actually purchased furniture. We selected a very nice green couch with soft, down-filled cushions. We bought some nifty chairs too. They will be delivered in January.

Box Disclaimer: We still have at least 75 boxes of stuff that has not been unpacked. We may not be able to locate important party accessories. So when you see me trying to light candles with our long BBQ matches and serve cake by balancing the pieces on two forks, it is because we haven't located key things among our stuff.

Christmas Tree Disclaimer: We bought a Christmas tree on Sunday. Yup, that's the extent of it. Oh wait, no, we also brought it inside our house on Wednesday. So now it is in our living room. Oh wait, there's more... we also put a tree skirt and presents under it. So, yes, our tree looks like this right now...


While we hope to decorate it, if we don't by Dan's birthday party, perhaps we will involve our guests in this effort.


The Dan of Birthdays Past
What blog post would be complete without reminiscing about similar events of the past?

27 year-old Birthday Dan in Japan - Also celebrating Kay's birthday (2005)

26 year-old Georgia Tech Birthday Dan with Dad and Tim (2004)

24 year-old Birthday Dan (2002)

2 year-old Birthday Dan (1980)

1 year-old Birthday Dan (1979)
-almost as tall as the candle-

0 year-old Birthday Dan (1978)

Unfortunately the picture of Dan and Kevin in the sombreros for Dan's 21st birthday is in one of the 75 remaining boxes in the garage. But at least we have some cute baby birthday pictures.

Come, be a part of the Dan 28 year-old Birthday Dan picture!

P.S.
Happy Late Birthday Kay!
Happy Late Birthday Kevin!

(Note above Christmas Tree picture for proof that we are running a bit late on many things this year, inc luding birthday wishes.)

Our New House

Ok, I've been promising pictures of our new house for a while now.

Here is what it looks like from the road


We also get to do fun things like decorate the house with Christmas lights.

The inside of the house? Hmmm, perhaps that will be revealed once we have fewer boxes in there. Basically it looks like a combination office store and housing goods store exploded, leaving their remains everywhere. Add in a bunch of dirty dishes (because our dishwasher only seems to clean things on the bottom rack), and you've got the idea.

Dan and I are enjoying our new home. Will is also enjoying crawling around the boxes and will taste anything that we leave for him on the floor. However, we have found a way to keep him safely in one place. Turns out he doesn't like grass. So if we put a blanket in the yard, it is like a little island from which he cannot escape. Inside the house though, we must stop him from eating things constantly. Oh, to baby-proof the house!

Christmas Robots

I guess I forgot to mention what to get Dan and myself for Christmas if you feel compelled to send more than a greeting card.

Basically we want robots. Currently Will is playing the role of Roomba by crawling around and sucking up all tiny pieces of paper, foam, plastic, food, etc, that is on our carpet and kitchen floor. We really need to replace Will with something that is built for sucking up various tiny items. If you would like to help us out with our Roomba fund, we are hoping to buy the Roomba Discovery. Ultimately we would like to possibly get the whole gamut of cleaning robots, plus the lawn mower robot, but we are good starting with the Roomba Discovery.

Whatever you decide to do, please try to avoid sending us any boxes. Why? Because in about a week we will have 100 boxes at our house. Yes! 100 boxes! The movers will be dropping off our stuff from Virginia. It is unlikely that by Christmas we will make much of a dent in this mountain of stuff. If you would like to get us something other than a contribution to the Roomba fund, please send a small envelope with a gift card to a store that a new home owner might appreciate. We prefer Home Depot or Bed Bath and Beyond. We have to buy things like a ladder, roof sealant, washcloths, sheets, etc.

No more stuff in boxes!
If in doubt, send a greeting card, just be sure to get our new address.

All I Want For Christmas...

As you can tell, Will already has his 2 front teeth. The bottom ones appeared in September. His top 2 front teeth grew in last week. A fun time was had by all. If there is anything worse than "Snakes on a Plane," it is "Baby Growing Teeth on a Plane."

In any case, Will doesn't really need any new toys. He has a bunch. But, if you feel compelled to buy toys, he is very excited about new things for minutes at a time. Here are some ideas:

• GeoTrax Train - Currently he only has the basic set and the Rainbow Bridge.
• Clothes - The boy keeps growing. He can wear anything that is 12 months and up.
  
• Bibs - The boy keeps eating. Perhaps this has something to do with the growing.
• Shoes - While he can't walk quite yet, he does a lot of standing. Socks are too slippery on some floor surfaces. Plus, every time I put socks on him, he sees it as a challenge to beat his previous record of amount of time it takes to remove the socks and chew on them.
• Leap Frog stuff - He has the Learning Playground and loves it.
  
• Drum - Will likes to hit surfaces to make sounds.
• Wooden Toys - We love these because they are really neat. In addition to blocks, Will's walker is wooden, he has a wooden fish from Oregon, and his high chair is made of wood. It's our decorating theme. Instead of bright colorful plastic, we are going with natural and painted wood. We hope to build Will a neat wooden toy box sometime soon.
• Baby proofing items. Ok, these will actually prevent Will from playing with stuff, but trust us, he will appreciate it later when he doesn't slam his fingers in the low kitchen drawer again. We currently don't have a single baby-proofing item. I'm sure we will get some soon.
  
• College Savings - Yes, you can contribute to Will's future education. It's the gift that says, "No, I didn't get you a toy. But you could buy a Calculus book... in the year 2023!" Act now while Will still doesn't realize what exactly is going on with all of the tangible presents.
  
• Large hooded bath towel or robe - Will is getting big, did I mention that? His current towels are inadequate. We must keep the damp baby warm after bathtime.
  
• More ideas to be added later to this post as I think of them.
  

Here are some anti-ideas. That is, Will has tons of some items, and while he enjoys them, doesn't need any extras.

• Stuffed Animals - He has many cuddly animals including a lamb, a llama, and a puppy. He has interesting animals such as a Dr. Seuss sneetch. And, he has an entire giant plastic tub of animals coming from Virginia that Dan and I have collected over the years.
• Blankets - Will has lots of neat blankets that he enjoys snuggling with. However, we are good for now since the house doesn't get that cold during the Southern California winters.
• Hiking Boots - Oddly, Will has 2 pairs of hiking boots. They are a little big, but will fit his feet soon.
• Blocks - We bought Will a walker that also had storage for 40 blocks. Additionally, we are getting a bunch more blocks that Dan used to play with when he was a kid. Ok, maybe you can't have too many blocks. Maybe this is in the wrong category.

So if you happen to send Will a present, make sure that it comes in a cool box. Will still thinks boxes are "golden brown and delicious." Wrapping paper is optional, but if you do send a wrapped present, we will put it under our tree and fight daily to prevent Will from eating it before Christmas. We hope to get a tree in 2 weeks when our tree stand and ornaments arrive from Virginia. Until then, here is a picture of us in front of the Hines' tree with our wiggly baby.

Wiggly Will - Concentrating on trying to escape and eat the tree

Stranger and Stranger

Each year, Dan and I, like a good couple, celebrate our anniversary. However, each year, our life stage reaches a new level of strange.

Optimistic Newlyweds Unaware of Strangeness to Come

First

Our first anniversary started out normal enough. We went to the restaurant where we had our first date, an Italian restaurant, Ecco, in Alexandria. The most unusual thing that night was the piece of cork in my wine. Ecco is a very cute restaurant that makes tasty home made pasta. Just ask Scot and Tammy. We took them there when they visited DC last fall. Oh wait, no, we took them to the out of business shell that used to be the restaurant.

Also on our first anniversary, we implemented the plan of buying each other traditional anniversary gifts. The first traditional anniversary gift is paper. Many people buy things such as tickets to an event. Dan and I independently decided to get each other picture frames. Pictures are made out of paper. The one Dan bought for me was far superior and even has our wedding date engraved on it. Fortunately, while we no longer have the frame that I bought (it was pretty lame), I made up for it with my other gift, a personalized romance novel. That definitely counts as paper. And it was really funny, there was a part about mushrooms. As for the frame that Dan got, it now superiorly displays our wedding vows with a picture of us on our wedding day.

A word of advice to couples just getting married. If you are planning on eating the top tier of your wedding cake on your first anniversary, you should make sure you have one of those special tupperware containers. The ones that seal your cake away from freezer flavors. Our cake was in a cardboard box. It didn't seal. But, because I love frosting, especially frozen frosting, especially frosting made by Carol, I ate it anyway. Dan was more tentative, but did have a bite. The champagne helped to mask the cake freezer flavor.

At our colorful VA condo

Second

We celebrated our second anniversary in California. Dan had just accepted a position in his work program that moved us around for four 6-month assignments. I had just quit my job. The weather was completely different than when we got married. That is, the day before our wedding in Michigan, we experienced snow flurries. The days around our 2nd anniversary were sunny and California comfortable. Here we are looking bright and energized.

Our stylishly furnished corporate apartment couch

The traditional anniversary gift for the second year is cotton. However, my gift fell a little short. I ordered a memory foam mattress topper expecting that it would have a cotton sort of cover on it. Instead, it was only foam, not exactly the traditional anniversary gift I was trying to buy. However, it is very comfortable and useful.

Third
Our third anniversary found us less bright and less energized. We had just moved to Japan the week before. This picture shows us sitting on our small Japanese hotel room couch prior to going out to eat.

"S-sized" Couch

You might think we would go out for Japanese food since we were in Japan. But no, we went out for Indian food. Even though Dan and I both enjoy Indian food, this was the first time that we had ever eaten it together. The restaurant was cool because while everyone else around Tokyo spoke Japanese, the guys in the Indian restaurant spoke primarily English (at least to us). We even had a dialogue about whether or not there were mushrooms in the dishes.

The traditional anniversary gift for the third anniversary is leather. This worked out pretty well, Dan got me a purse and I got him an antique leather wall map of the world. The only problem with my gift to Dan was that I ordered it from Brazil and had it shipped to our Virginia condo. So he didn't actually receive it until April.

Fourth

Our fourth anniversary tops even the uniqueness of living in Japan and celebrating there. On Thursday, November 16, 2006, we spent our anniversary with Will and our realtor, April.

S'more Making Device in Background

At 5pm we picked up the keys to our new house. At 6:30, we sat, in our new house, around our built-in table, to have pizza. Ultimately we would like to go out to eat, just the two of us, but we haven't quite figured out this getting a baby sitter procedure. I guess this just means an extended anniversary celebration. We hope to complete the event before December 16 (a month after our anniversary).

The traditional anniversary gift for the fourth anniversary is fruit or flowers. The modern anniversary gift is appliances. Dan got me a beautiful bouquet of roses. I got Dan a flower -fruit arrangement. We also got a smoothie blender to use on the fruit. To complete the acquisition of appliances, we even got a nifty new clothes washer and dryer.



Future?
We had a fairly uneventful first anniversary where we got to implement fun traditions. Year 2 was in a new state. Year 3 was in a new country. Year 4 was in a new house. We have no idea what year 5 will bring. The traditional anniversary gift for year 5 is wood. Perhaps I will get Dan a tree.

Will is Ninja

That's right, Will dressed up as a tiny ninja! Here he is being stealthy...

Piercing Ninja Eyes

Now before you say, "But it looks like he is wearing a burka," check out the side view of his hooded mask. Dan and I think he looks like Link from Legend of Zelda. .. if the outfit were green.

Ninja Sideview

The people at our Residence Inn Social Hour thought the costume was great.

Ninja in Residence Inn Highchair

The Residence Inn staff thought he was so cute that they gave him prizes: 1) About 80 individually wrapped jelly bellies which I, of course, claimed for myself and 2) Mattel gift cards. We went to the Mattel store and used them to start his train track collection. We decided that while we like wooden toys, the GeoTrax plastic set is cool and easier for small hands to handle. This is important because train sets are recommended for ages 2 and up, but we can't wait that long. This way, Will can chew on a piece of track, splinter-free, while Dan and I play with the train. So if you want to get Will train stuff for Christmas, GeoTrax are the way to go (We will post more Will Christmas ideas later). Here is what we ended up getting, a starter set and a rainbow bridge.
Of course, Will's ninja experience was not limited to the Residence Inn. We also went to a pumpkin carving event at Paul and Wendi's house. Unfortunatley it was not Cathy and Wes' event, but it was still fun.

Curious Ninja

Happy Ninja Attacking from Above

Pumpkins in a Row

Guess which one is Will's ninja pumpkin.

Thanks to Robin for the awesome outfit! Coming soon... Adventures of the Christmas Ninja.

Fall Festival

On Wednesday, Will got to participate in his pre-pre school's Fall Festival. The kids all wore festive seasonal attire and had a little parade outside. Of course, like most activities involving kids who are too young to realize the significance of a parade, it was mostly for the parents' benefit. One little guy had fallen completely asleep and was sitting slumped over in his chair as he was rolled around. Will was slightly awake, but didn't quite enjoy the parade.


Oh, and like most group celebration activities these days, it had to be sanitized as not to offend anyone. Hence, the title, "Fall Festival" and the request for the children to don "Seasonal Attire." While Will is still waiting for his tiny ninja Halloween costume, he did have an appropriate outfit for this event. He dressed up in his kimono. Why was the kimono appropriate for this fall event? The particular kimono we selected for him has kanji on it for the various seasons. Here is Will, slightly more lively after the parade:


Also in the afternoon, there were games and prizes and pumpkins. Here is Will, posing by some pumpkins with his tasty blue koosh prize (seems to be a choking hazard prize to me):


We took the koosh prize out of his mouth. This led to him eating the hay instead:


Sitting among the pumpkins was not the only pumpkin related activity Will participated in. I'm sure his Aunt Robin will be excited to see Will's first artwork.


To me, it looks like a rorschach ink blot of a Chinese lion. Dan says that it appears a bit more deliberate than the rest of the pumpkins from his class (Will's is bottom left).


While Will seems to have enjoyed his fall festival and exciting seasonal attire, he is already practicing his Kabuki poses for next year.

We Forgot to Mention...

With all of the crazy packing, moving, house hunting, you might think that we did not have time to celebrate Will's half birthday. Well, you would be wrong! You know I would never miss an opportunity to consume a frosting covered cake! During our house hunting trip to Redondo Beach last week, we celebrated. Here is Will with the super cake:


You know you have a good thing when your cake is bigger than your head. Or bigger than all of you. MMmmm... It took us forever to eat the thing. We had some Friday, Sunday, Tuesday, the next Friday, then we finally threw the rest out since we were leaving. We tried sharing with as many people as we could find, but it was an everlasting cake.

Here is another half birthday picture. We are hanging out on our hotel room couch, a cute happy family:


So, Happy Half Birthday Will. While you were not able to eat any of the cake, we enjoyed it very much.

Our Little Rocket Scientist

After 6 months of homeschool, Will started pre-pre-school today. What is this place that can provide social interaction, mental stimulation, and art projects? It is called "The Launching Pad." I'm sure Will is going to figure out sometime soon that we want him to be an engineer. At that time, he will probably go through some sort of backlash and end up an artist. Then we will have to send him to summer camp at Aunt Robin's.

I would post a picture of Will being happy in his new environment. However, my new phone is kind of stupid. It won't let me transfer the pictures from the camera feature to anywhere useful. Must overcome technology deficiency. Perhaps tomorrow.

Oh yeah, after a fun day at pre-pre-school, we introduced Will to the tradition of
Monday Night Tacos!

You too can join us for this tasty treat. Excellent tacos are available for $2. There are also $2 specials on beer and house wine. Where is this great taste adventure? Lou-e-Luey's on the Redondo Beach Pier offers specials on Monday nights. We used to go all of the time when we lived here before. So, Julie, Shin, Lucy? If you read this blog, we expect to see you some Monday, perhaps around 6:30pm.

The Great Moving Adventure Continues...

All will be well after our move. Not the next one which is from San Diego to Redondo Beach temporary housing, but the one after that from temporary housing to our new place that still needs to be purchased. Then Dan will have happy HD TiVo reception and display.

It turns out HD TVs are way cheap when you compare them to, say, a house in Redondo Beach. Of course, once we buy a place, we will have 3 initial pieces of furniture.
1) We have to buy a couch. Otherwise, we will get sore necks from watching the TV while sitting on the floor.
2) Will's high chair. We already bought this. It is a cool looking wooden high chair that eventually converts to a toddler chair, then ultimately to a teenager chair.
3) A bed. While we enjoyed sleeping on the floor at the midwife clinic in Japan, floor beds just aren't the Japanese thing we want to adopt for our new house. Heated toilet seat with badet? Yes. Sleeping on Floor? No.

So, if you want to come over and hang out at our new place (that doesn't quite exist yet), you can come and enjoy our spacious, furniture-free location.

The movers came to our San Diego apartment yesterday to pack up most of our stuff and take it to storage. Will is a little confused because he only has a remnant of toys left. He continues to enjoy boxes, especially his Padres lunch box which acts both as a container for other toys and a drum. Give him a plastic spoon and he's got a loud, metallic drum. Great fun.

Even though the movers have come and gone, we are still crazy busy the next few days. Today is Dan's going away lunch for work. Tomorrow is a trip to see the Miramar air show, including the Blue Angels. Saturday we pack the car, then attend our going away BBQ that Ralphine set up. Sunday we head out in the morning and look at the house we think we want to buy at about noon. If it checks out (we have only seen outside, not inside yet), we could be in a house by the end of the year.

2006 has been a busy year. Perhaps all will be calm and quiet in 2007. (Yeah, right!)

Golden, Brown and Delicious

So, as it turned out, the TiVo Box cardboard was in fact "golden, brown and delicious." The Series 3 has been unpacked and running for about a week now. HDTV is pretty awesome. The Series 3 is not quite fully operational for three reasons:

1. No Cablecards. Since we are moving to LA in a week, I didn't bother to attempt the hassle of convincing Oakwood to tell Time Warner to install cable cards. The cable cards would enable us to receive digital versions of all our analog channel (Yea...go digital sumlticast!) and encrypted HDTV channels like ESPNHD. Unencrypted QAM channels come in okay, but lack guide data. Hopefully, TiVo will enable channel remapping in the future. I've been using manual recordings of the QAM channels for locals, and OTA reception to compensate.

2. Flaky Over-The-Air(OTA) reception. Fortunately, the OTA channels all have guide data. Unfortunately, I have had some trouble finding an indoor antenna which allows the TiVo to lock in all the local channels at once. There are three major broadcast sites across the San Diego region: One in east county (NBC, CW, PBS), One in La Jolla (ABC, CBS), and one in Mexico (FOX). I've had no luck with Fox because there is a hill in the way. Two transmitter groups in San Diego county have a 90 degree spread between them from our location, and to add trouble to the mix, we have hills all over the place creating tons of multipath. As a result, while the first two antennas from Radio Shack could receive all five channels, the TiVo had trouble maintaining a digital lock. So, I've returned those a picked up a Zenith Silver Sensor. It made a massive difference. I'm now able to get locks on all five channels 95% of the time. Since the antenna is pointed a bit more in the direction of NBC/CW/PBS, I have a little trouble maintaining a constant lock on CBS and ABC.

3. No HD Television. It's not really HD on an SDTV. 'Nuf said.

LasTiVo

Ah poor Dan, sitting at work, unable to play with his new toy. His"Series Three TiVo" arrived today. He knows this, not because I called him to tell him the package arrived, but because he was checking the tracking number every hour.

Since it is still hours until he gets home from work, I am posting a picture of the box so that he can know for sure that it is actually here.


I would open it, but I think that might deprive Dan of his Christmas morning excitement.

LasTiVo has arrived!!!!!!!!

Pictures of the box to come.

I have finally early adopted something. Yea! Now to begin my HDTV search. Of course, we have to buy our house in LA first so we can fit the TV around the house. In the mean time, we will be watching glorious high defination television on a 4:3 480i TV set.

Yes, you read that correctly. I accepted a job in Los Angeles and will be working for the group I did my first SEA rotation with. We will move to LA on October 15th or so.

Baby Costume Options

We were wandering around our local suburban paradise stripmall which includes a convenient Rite Aid drug store. Being a sugar addict, I was happy to notice a fresh stock of candy corn displayed in one of the aisles. I was a bit confused, however, I thought that candy corn was a Halloween thing. It seems that much like the day after Halloween means the start of the Christmas season, the end of summer now means that it is time for Halloween candy. Fortunately for us, Halloween candy never goes bad, so it is ok that they stock it in stores 2 months before Halloween.

Not that I endorse the celebration of Halloween, but I do enjoy dressing up and eating candy. There should be more holidays like this. And now that I am a parent, I get to dress up my child in a cute costume and eat all of the candy that he might accumulate.

Now the question becomes... what kind of costume do we dress Will up in?
Here are some options:
Ninja - Maybe we can convince Robin to produce and mail the tiny ninja costume.
Pirate - Will's first sound was "Arrrrr."
Kimono - We could put him in his baby kimono.
Star Trek - We did call him "Riker" before he was born...
TiVo Guy or TiVo remote - It only seems right.

Or, we can follow the tradition of Dan and Angela when it comes to costumes and have all of us dress up with a theme.

Gangsters of the 20's
(and a rugby player with actual scraped knee)
Halloween 2000

Japanese Costumes
Halloween 2001

Thanks to Michele (2000) and Bob (2001) for having the Halloween parties that made our prior year costuming possible. Who is up for having a party this year? We will bring a tasty, chocolately, dessert! And everyone must give Will candy.

But what should Will be? Vote now with your cellular phone. No, wait, just post a comment here on the blog.

Technology Overload

Poor Baby - What have your parents done now?

As many of you know, Dan and I have the tendency to over-use technology in our lives. When we get into something, we go kind of crazy.

Take TiVo, for example. Sure, TiVo is great. (For people unfamiliar with TiVo, it is like a VCR, but with a harddrive, and far superior recording options.) Dan got his first TiVo before we were married. It is very useful for watching a 30 minute show in 20 minutes. You can use the 30 second skip during football games to advance from the end of one play to the start of another (football contains all kinds of useless deadtime). Our first TiVo is aptly named, "TiVo."

But, wait, what if you want to record more than one show at once? Perhaps your two favorite shows come on at 8pm on Thursday night. Oh no! Well, you could get another TiVo. Our second TiVo is Italian. His name is "ViTo."

Then what if you are so excited about TiVo, you are offered a super great deal on another TiVo? Well, you have to get that one. Our third TiVo is named "ThreeVo."

Then, if you get a TiVo credit card and earn enough "points" to get a free TiVo? Well then, who can refuse that? Our fourth TiVo is named "FreeVo."

How could you possibly end up with more than four TiVos? I sometimes wonder the same thing. We ended up acquiring our fifth TiVo, yes, fifth, because it can record shows to DVD, a feature not present on any of the prior 4 TiVos. Our fifth TiVo is named, "SteVo."

Coming this fall... Our sixth TiVo will be named, "LasTiVo."

In any case, sometimes we go overboard with the technology. In our current case, it is with pictures. We have taken many, many, pictures of Will since he was born. Digital cameras are great. We have also taken some video of Will. What comes next? That's right, streaming internet video!

Will has his own web cam!

What craziness. You too can witness Will's life. You can watch him in many activities.

Playing

Standing

Playing with Dad

Eating Food

Sucking banana out of Mesh Bag

Of course, this is not a 24 hour monitoring system of Will. Sometimes he sleeps. Sometimes he helps with the laundry. Sometimes he watches TV. Sometimes he has diaper changes (no one wants to see that). Sometimes I just don't put him in front of the camera. When can you see him doing stuff? Typically at 9am Pacific time. We give him food around 10am Pacific time and 6pm Pacific time. You may also see him playing after his nap, perhaps around 1pm Pacific time.

And, while the blog is public, the web cam is not. You need a user id and password. Drop us an email if you would like to check out the WillCam.

Embrace the Technology!

Sleeping Through The Night

Finally! After nearly 5 months, Will slept all night last night (8:30pm to 6:30am). Technically, Will has slept through the night before. The definition of "sleeping through the night" is sleeping 5 hours, typically midnight to 5am. Whoever came up with that definition must have been a crazy insomniac.

Will has always been a good sleeper. Right away he was sleeping for 5 or so hours at a time. There have been some nights where he wakes up every 2-3 hours, but that seems to be when we are traveling or when he is sick. Unfortunately, we travel a lot. However, we only have one trip planned for September, moving planned for October, and one trip planned for December.

What benefits does Will sleeping have besides the benefit of me sleeping? Well, we get to use the nifty alarm clock that Dan got me for my birthday a few months ago. The idea is that it starts to light up 1/2 hour before you need to wake up. It slowly gets brighter. Then it starts playing peaceful sounds from nature. We currently have it on ocean waves. It also warms up scented beads. We currently have lavender scented beads. Finally, if all of this peacefulness doesn't wake you up, a loud alarm jolts you out of your slumber.

We haven't been having much luck with the alarm. The first morning, it lit up brightly all at once, causing us to suddenly wake up. The next morning, it the ocean waves sounded more like a tsunami, waking us very quickly. This morning, since Will didn't wake us up, we were a little more deeply asleep and were awakened by the jolting alarm.

We know that we are getting older because we can't overcome the difficulties of the alarm clock technology. Now that we have a kid, it will have to be his responsibility to explain such things to us.

Hopefully Will will continue to sleep a lot at night. Now if I could just convince my body to remember how to sleep all night, we will all be well rested.

Supermodel Baby

I regret to inform you that if we have a second child, she will be terribly underphotographed. There is really no way to compete with the amount of pictures that we have of Will.

"DJ Willy Will K"

Grilling with Dad


Too Many Toys

Getting Some Shut Eye
(with exaggerated snoring action)


Happily Hanging out on the Couch
(look mom, my 6 month-old clothes fit!)


Crazed Tigers' Fan
(I think we are going to need a smaller hat)


Concerned Georgia Tech Fan
(we definately need a smaller sweatshirt)


Jumping Toy? Yea!


Incognito


Sandy Feet (at Hoffmaster)


Damp Sandy Feet (in Lake Michigan)


Hanging out at Mission Beach, CA


Staying warm on an Oregon beach


Twins?

Crazy Obsessed Parent with Camera... Signing off...