The Rest of the Holiday Weekend

The rest of Thanksgiving weekend was spent doing various holiday activities.  This year we didn't carve a pumpkin for Halloween.  Leah is too young to appreciate it and it was really just too much work at the time.  So we decided to keep our pumpkin whole through Thanksgiving as a decoration and then afterwards make toasted pumpkin seeds.

On Friday, we tackled the pumpkin seeds.  As usual, Leah was sous chef.

We started by pulling the seeds out of the pumpkin

 

It was all fun and games for the Peanut until I told her that her job was to clean the pumpkin goop off the seeds. 

Once the seeds were cleaned, we salted, boiled them, and spread them out on a cookie sheet to put in the oven.

Pretty seeds

Of course, once the seeds were in the oven, my sous chef quickly lost interest and her shirt.

After 10 minutes or so they were done.  We have regular salted, and cinnamon-sugar.

And to kick off the Christmas season, we watched everyone's favorite holiday movie; that timeless Christmas classic ... that's right, you guessed it, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation!  For some unknown reason, BA's family loves this movie.  When I first watched it I thought it was the dumbest movie I'd ever seen.  Well, I have known BA for over eight years now, and over that period of time, we have watched Christmas Vacation every year.  It's an Aaron family tradition.  And I still think it's the dumbest movie I have ever seen.  And FUNNY!  I'm not even ashamed to say that I requested to watch it last night.

And it wouldn't be Thanksgiving weekend without some football and cheering on the Seminoles!

"Okay, Leah, let's try this again.  It goes ... 'you gotta fight, fight, fight, for FSU ...'"

Thanksgiving

How did you celebrate Thanksgiving?
This holiday was special for us in two ways. It was our first major holiday with Leah and it was the first Thanksgiving that BA and I didn't travel to be with family. It was just the three of us in California this year. Because our lives are complicated enough, we decided to simplify the food by buying some items and making others.

We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, mac-n-cheese, cabbage, fried okra, corn casserole, and blackberry pie. Notice the three beverages on the table - they all came from a bottle :)

We enjoyed our semi-homemade feast and then quickly slipped into a turkey-induced coma.

Look at my chubby munchkin!  Her neck seems to disappear when she's reclined. 

We had a very nice celebration. And we were able to Skype with both sides of the family back east. Leah was able to chat with (smile at) a lot of her extended family, which was fun. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Trying on our new winter sweater-dress

Video Flashback

Here are some videos of Leah from way back when.  It took us a while to figure out the camcorder, and it took us even longer to figure out how to upload the videos.  So even though these are a little late, here are some flashbacks from Leah's younger days.


This first one was taken in the hospital when she was 1 day old.





Here's how she avoided burping with mom.





And how she avoided burping with dad.





Leah waking up on her wedge.  She's about 2 months old here - and does not want to wake up.  Notice all the pacifiers she's hidden around her :)

No TV in the House ... Except

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under the age of 2 spend no time in front of the TV because it slows their brain development.  We agree.  Leah watches no TV, ever.  Except when I have to file her nails.  Then I flip on HGTV and she is instantly mesmerized by dreamy Scott McGillivray on the show "Income Property."  I'm done in two minutes flat.

Watching the TV while mom files her nails with an electric filer (much faster).

Look at her.  Completely zoned out.  Works like a charm :)

BA's Corner: English Please?

I received a "Breaking News" email alert the other day that struck me. It said:

“New York Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman has ruled not to extend a temporary restraining order that prevents the eviction of protesters who were encamped at Zuccotti Park, long considered a home base for Occupy Wall Street demonstrators.”

Honestly, can you read that once and understand what's going on?  Who writes this legal stuff?  If I'm going to be married to a lawyer, I better practice translating these legal quotes into English.  Let's see if I can follow the logic on this one....

1. People are doing something that some people think is wrong.
2. People are protesting those people doing that thing that some people think is wrong.
3. People are trying to evict the people protesting the people that are doing the thing that some people think is wrong.
4. People are trying to prevent people from evicting the people protesting the people that are doing the thing that some people think is wrong.
5. People are trying to temporarily restrain people from preventing people from evicting the people protesting the people that are doing the thing that some people think is wrong.
6. A judge has now said that he won’t allow people to try to temporarily restrain people from preventing people from evicting the people protesting the people that are doing the thing that some people think is wrong any more.

So I still don’t know what’s going on….I’ll have to read it again.

<Reading again>

Ok, I think I figured this out.  We’re going to allow people to prevent people from evicting the protesters, right? Did I get it?

So we’re going to allow the protests. Alright, carry on….

BA's Corner: Day Care Pickup

A couple of weeks ago, when I picked Leah up from daycare, this is what I found...

I knew they had been putting her at the table with blankets around her head to protect her, and we'd been trying to get her to hold her head up more and more. But this was the first time I had seen her at the table unassisted like this. I had to snap a few pictures because I knew AA would be disappointed that she hadn't seen it.

Leah was as happy as a clam in her little chair, just swinging her legs and watching all of the other kids run around. It was a wonderful sight. Our girl is growing up!

Prison

Back when we were deciding on a Halloween costume, we considered going as two inmates and a prison warden.  It's a standing joke in our household that we are in prison around here.  After all, the best way I can describe parenthood to non-parents is that you lose your freedom.  You eat when the baby let's you eat, you sleep (or not) when the baby let's you sleep, and you pretty much don't leave the house for three months for fear of either a crying meltdown or that your perfect baby will catch pertussis.  Leah was our little dictator - our Mussolini (since she's 1/8th Italian, the nickname fit).  She told us what we could do, and when we could do it.

Now at 4 months, we've changed our tune.  Yesterday we ventured out, Leah and stroller in tow, for lunch.  LUNCH, people!  It was glorious.  And that's not the first time.  Last week we were brave enough to drive to Beverly Hills (I wanted to get a picture of Peanut next to the classic brown sign since that's where she was born).  Here's some photos from that day.

Our best attempts at the sign shot...

Yes, my eyes are closed.

 

I want to re-do the sign pictures because it was hard to get a good angle without a photographer who didn't have to also be in the picture.  Mom and Haley, you may have to stand in as official photographer when you come to visit.

And some more pictures from the park...

 

Getting artsy.

Leah's stylin' hoodie outfit is courtesy of her Nana. 

Update: Not so fast.  I spoke too soon.  This very evening, Mussolini decided that she no longer wanted to sleep in her crib and would prefer the swing (that's the ONLY thing she seems to prefer tonight - we know this because she's finally stopped screaming at us).  So BA and I are camped out in her room, watching the news on our 15 year old guest television, while she has taken over the completely darkened living room.  The past few days have been pretty difficult, with Leah refusing to calm down for hours, sleeping only 1 hour at a time in her crib before she wakes up screaming for her pacifier, and spitting up almost all of her feedings at night.  She literally cried herself hoarse after only 25 minutes of "crying-it-out" Saturday night.  We gave in and picked her up before she completely lost her voice.  She's been hoarse the past two days from that.  This all started because we are currently trying to get her off her sleeping wedge and start sleeping flat, but so far she HATES this idea.  And now we are at a complete loss as to how we are going to get her to sleep peacefully in her crib for longer than 1 hour at a time.  Prison is fun!

BA's Corner: For the Record

For the record, the price of Peanuts is up. Peanut butter too. Coincidence? I'm just sayin'.

BA's Corner: For the Record

The past 3-4 weeks have been a blessing! Thanks for sleeping in your crib during the evenings so that your mom and I can have a few hours to get work done, relax, enjoy some TV, etc. Big change....thank you!!!!

4 Months

Leah turned 4 months on Friday and she is growing beautifully. 

Weight = 12 lbs 9 oz (25%)
Height = 24 inches (50%)

And for 4 months her dad picked up a mini chocolate sunflower cake.

Date Day

BA and I don't ever get to go out anymore.  We don't have any family close by and I'm still too nervous to leave Leah with a sitter.  So instead of having a Date Night, we took advantage of daycare to have a Date Day.  BA took the day off and we went to Santa Monica.  We rode the Ferris Wheel on the Santa Monica Pier overlooking the Pacific, and we had lunch on the 3rd Street Promenade.  We topped it off by rushing back to daycare early to pick up our little Peanut who was smiling in her teacher's arms.  It was a wonderful day for us.

Beautiful Santa Monica

The Santa Monica Pier

Route 66 ends on the pier.

View from the Ferris Wheel of Pacific Palisades and the Santa Monica Mountains

On the Ferris Wheel

On the Ferris Wheel

The Tale of the Disappearing Pacifier

When Leah was first born we were very concerned about introducing the pacifier too soon.  We didn't want it to interfere with breastfeeding, and so until she was about one month old we held off using the pacifier except on rare occasions.  Hahahahahaha! 

Idiots.  Around two months we decided that we couldn't live without the pacifier and by three months BA had decided that the two pacifiers we currently had weren't enough - he wanted one in every room, within arms reach.  So one day he came home with an additional eight pacifiers.  Obviously, I thought this was overkill. 

Exhibit A: some of the pacifiers in our house.

As it turned out, BA's idea was brilliant.  We did start keeping pacifiers in different rooms in the house, particularly in Leah's room and sometimes in her crib in the event we needed a quick fix for mid-nap crying.  Over the course of the last month, however, our pacifier supply has mysteriously dwindled to three.  THREE!?!?  Naturally, we started freaking out.  Where the heck could those things be.  I looked under the sofa, under our bed, under the guest bed, under Leah's crib, and under everything I could look under.  Nada.  We decided to interview our prime suspect. 

"Pushah, Daddy-O, I ain't talkin' to you, homeboy!"

 She wasn't very helpful.  My theory was that Leah was secretly hiding the pacifiers, one by one, in her little baby pockets and slipping them out to her daycare friends.  I had no proof.  Finally we focused our investigation and started narrowing in on the crime scene. The crib.

Every night when we put Leah to bed, we give her a pacifier.  She usually spits it out, cries, and then furiously kicks her legs.  When we go back in to put the pacifier back in her mouth, we sometimes can't find it in the darkness, so we would just grab a new one.  Slowly, over the course of the past month, Leah had kicked her discarded pacifiers over the back edge of the crib, where they were caught, suspended between the crib and the wall.  I couldn't see them when I looked under the crib because they hadn't fallen all the way down to the floor.  BA retrieved six (SIX!!!!) from behind Peanut's crib last night.    

Guilty as charged. 

"Who me?  I plead the 5th! You'll never find that 10th pacifier!"

More Videos

We've had requests for more videos, so here you go!

Warning: This post is mostly for the family.  If you have a spare 6 minutes or so and want to see a 3 month old in action, this post is for you!  If you've seen enough babies for a while, we promise more interesting stories in the future.

The talkative Peanut...



More of the talkative Peanut plus lots of leg kicking...



And our personal favorite - her first time in her new Bumbo chair...

Obsessed

Is it okay that I'm obsessed with this little face?

I seriously cannot get enough of her. 

 

I am a little stressed out right now because the MPRE (nationwide ethics test that all lawyers have to take and pass) is this Saturday.  Even though I am studying as much as I can, I think I'm stressing out because this is really the first step toward taking the Bar exam.  I can take the test again if I don't pass, but I just don't want to have to study for it again.  So fingers crossed that all goes well on Saturday and I can get my life back.  Until then, I'll just continue to gaze at pictures of the Peanut to keep me going.