Happy Halloween!!

We decided to take a nice relaxing stroll along the beach the day before Halloween and came upon this creature who was washed up on the beach.


So we picked her up and tried to set her free and return her to the ocean from wence she came.


But then upon further reflection, we decided she was too cute for the ocean and would look much better displayed in our home.

Food and Fun

So, Summer had her vaccination shots last Friday. She's been amazingly good since then. I'm sure this is going to jinx us, but I have to say it. Summer had one rough day/night, but then she's been fine. As can be seen in some of these previous posts, I've made no comments about her being collicky. She's eating semi-solids now. Maybe that helps? Last night Jess fed Summer her sweet potatoes! Grandpa Mark shoulda been here to feed her them. When he visited he made us some super tasty sweet potatoes.

Summer has been getting to be a well behaved little girl. She slept 7 hours last night, got back to sleep and slept another 3 or 4. When I woke up with her, she was stirring, without crying! Gave me time to wake up, myself, and get her a fresh bottle, then I picked her up and she was smiling and just being wonderful. Held her, gave her a little bit of the bottle and posted Jen's pics. She seemed calm, so I put her in her swing (We don't turn on the swinging part anymore. She likes playing and the swinging makes it harder for her to look around and play.) She sits quietly, pulls on the link-a-doos which starts the music. She is learning cause and effect. She looks up at the links and pulls, and then smiles. A lot of the time she continues to pull, so the music and lights stop, and she looks confused. She hasn't totally realized she has to let go/loosen up a bit so it can reset for the next pull. So she pulls and pulls and finally loosens up a bit then pulls some more and the music starts again.

After nearly an hour, she was kind of tired, and started fussing, so we put her down. That's usually her sign. Well, she fussed some more, so I got her up and nope, this time she was still a little hungry, so I gave her some bottle and she quieted down and I took her to daycare. She's being such a good girl.

She's impressing CC and the parents at daycare, as she can be held by her arms and she likes to lift her feet and move them forward...nowhere near walking, but has the concept down. She is also learning to "wave goodbye"...she watches our hands and opens and closes hers. Watching Summer develop is a joy for both me and Jess!

Jen in July

Going through some pics last night and we saw these from Jen. Jess realized that we hadn't put them up on the blog!!! Oops! So, anyway, Jen came and visited a couple of times. She took these pics back on July 2nd, Summer was just 2 weeks old. Here is Jen holding Summer:


And here's a pic of Mommy holding Summer on that day. Haven't seen two week old pics in a while. Such a cute baby!


OK, just had to make sure these got on the blog.

Carrots

So, Summer's first (non-rice) food was tonight. She had Gerber's organic carrots. It took her a while to really figure it out/get the taste for them...but after she got the hang of it...she took control and fed herself...sorta...


She actually can do pretty well with the spoon, just have to lead it into her mouth and she can move it around and take off the food. Yum yum! But when I take away the food, there is still quite a mess, and she will try and get it into her mouth any way she can...


And what happens when she's finished? Well, she lets us know!


That's it, she's on her way. Eating carrots now; we'll feed her that for a about a week, then add peas, bananas, and sweet potatoes...yummy!!! So, in about a month she should be eating 4 or 5 foods... Best thing is, she's held it all down...fed her around 6PM, so it should stay down. Good job, Summer!!

2 Feet Tall!!!

OK, 2 feet, 1 Inch! :-) I posted a picture similar to this LONG ago...Now look at her....she can't hardly fit width-wise in her crib.


This is kinda grainy, from cell, in darker room...but, you can totally see how long she is. And here she is a bit closer.

25 inches, wow! She was only 18.5 at birth...7 inches longer!! She weighed in at 13 pounds 5.5 ounces...that's a weight gain of almost 6 pounds since birth. Doc says, double the weight in 5 months, triple in twelve...so, she'll be about 15 pounds at her next appt, give or take. Her head has also grown, she's about 16 inches around now!

Well, doc says she's perfect weight, height and everything is hunky dory... He thought her left eye, may be a little weak/crossed now and again...so we will bring her to the opthamologist to have her checked out...been looking at all her pics and watching her closely...I don't see anything...but, hey, he's the expert. We'll keep everyone posted on that. :-)

She was given a clean bill of health and told we can start feeding her non-citrus based foods. So, tonight we fed her some carrots. Pics in next post. She is NOT teething...seemed early, but we haven't been reading up on her development, in advance...so, we thought the hand chewing and drooling were signs. Doc says that's just standard developmental learning. Said she seems a bit early on learning, due to her grasping and rolling over.

Lastly, while there, I finally got my flu shot. Jess got hers a week or two ago at work. My work hasn't mentioned anything about doing them this year, so I took care of it after Summer appt. So, both Summer and Daddy got shot on Friday. Summer is doing a little better than last time, but she still isn't so happy about it. Sleeping peacefully right now.

4 Months Old

Happy 4 month birthday, Summer!

Summer is turning over much more easily every day. Never sure which way she'll be sleeping when we go into her room in the morning.

We are feeding Summer more and more rice cereal. Today was the first day we let day-care feed her. That will be a daily occurence now. We'll feed her more solid food as well. Next week we'll start introducing new foods, like peas, carrots, bananas, etc... It's amazing! So many changes. (Along with these changes come stinkier diapers...yuck!)

So, the last few times picking up Summer, both CC (the daycare lady) and I swear Summer knows how to wave goodbye. She's not GREAT at it, but she seems to pick up her hand and open it. OK, a doting dad, reading too much into a coincidence? Maybe, but I waited until she has done it multiple times. That Summer sure is smart!

Her 4 month doctor appt is Friday, so I'll make another update then, weight, length, health and all that. As far as we can tell Summer is doing as well as ever!

On the walk

During the walk we stopped at Subway to get some food. I sat down and took this pic with the camera-phone. Have I said this before? "Isn't she a cutie?"

Our little Angel

What a week. Jess got a little sick middle of the week. She's just now finally feeling a little better. Summer has been great all week, but as usual, she gets a little fussy during the weekend. We can't seem to give her enough interaction and attention? We try letting her sit on her own, and she is OK for a little while, but she tends to cry for attention and we invariably give in. Oh, well... We feed, change diapers and walk until she finally falls asleep for yet another nap:



She's always so cute when she's sleeping. :-)

Anyway, we think she's getting pretty close to teething as well. She's drooling more and more and putting her hands in her mouth, not just her thumb. She kinda rubs her hands on her lower teeth, and she loves it when I put my finger in there to bite down on.

She's rolling over more and more. It's getting really easy for her. We put her down and she rolls to whatever side she wants. She also goes in circles to look where she wants. No forward or backward movement, yet, though. So, we still have to move her around, like yesterday, when we walked around the block:




Summer's also been a litle sick, too. She's had a runny nose, just about the same time as mom. But, like the last time Summer felt a little sick, she doesn't seem to mind too much. Yes, it probably helps make her fussy, but she's not outwardly hot/bothered by being sick, so it seems to us. If we coddle her she's usually fine.

Well, that's about it, she's napping right now. Figure her to wake up in the next 20 minutes, we'll feed her again and hang out a while and probably get her down around 8:30 for the rest of the night. 'Til next week. (sorry not more frequent, been a bit busy...)

Possums and Vegas

OK, only ONE possum, but it was in OUR house. We've seen this possum running around outside, both in front and in back...well, (s)he's been scoping out the joint, so to speak, and has noticed that the cats come into the cat door...and it must have smelled the food, so, in comes the possum. I scared it out, but left the cat door open...and grabbed the camera. (S)he came back later and I snapped this shot.



That was too funny...but dangerous for the kitties and possibly Summer. So, we locked up the cat door and brought in the kitty litter. After a few days we left the flap down, to deter the possum, but kept the kitty litter inside, yuck.

This last weekend we left Summer with Uncle Gabe and Aunt Krissy for an ENTIRE night. We went to Vegas, stayed at the Monte Carlo:



to celebrate my birthday, party, drink (here with Jessica, Tom C and Erika at the Monte Carlo's Pub and Brewery):



and see the Killers in Concert, at the Hard Rock Casino:





Summer was very good for Gabe and Krissy, but made us pay when we returned. Being in Vegas we hardly slept. When we returned Summer stayed awake with no naps and at night she only slept 2 hours at a time. What a pain. ;-) Hey, she was tired, fussy and upset. We showed her we were there for her and Sunday night she was a lot better. She has definitely begun some beginning stages of teething, so that has to be bothering her at night.

I've gotten her to giggle loudly. I'm going to catch that on video, hopefully for the next post or so. She is so funny how she just HOWLS with laughter.

OK, it's late, gotta get ready for bed. I am so going to try and make more frequent posts. I'm sure I'm forgetting things to mention, since I only post once a week. I need a nap before Summer wakes up. She went to bed tonight around 7:00...so she'll be up early, I'm sure.

Summer Update and Yoli

I have other things to say...but I've been so busy, I'm going to post these 6 pictures first...

First, a while ago Yoli visited and we took these pics...first one is, of course, Summer with Yoli:



Then Yoli took this picture she really likes of me feeding Summer. I can't say that I disagree. Summer's a cutie in just about every picture:



These pics were from a few weeks ago, they are from Yoli's camera. When she brought these pics over, she stopped by and wished me a happy birthday, but I think I've been replaced...she was more here to see Summer. Here they are a few more times:





Lastly, from that same day, I had to take a picture of Summer checking out her hands. She's noticed them before, but lately, she REALLY notices them...she totally stares:



Even while changing her, she can't stop staring:



OK, that's a picture update for the moment.

4 Generations

So, today we went and visited the grandparents and watched some football. During the afternoon games, Jess took off with her mom and visited "G'ma" and took this awesome 4 generation picture!



I passed out and didn't know they had even left. And before they left, Grumpa held Summer outside and introduced her to all the cows, horses and lemurs... ;-) (Or puppies, depending on who you ask.)



We have a couple of other pictures from the visit as well. We'll post those later. Basically had a nice day!

Fire and Rice...

Fire...



Well, a person walking through our alley, on the way to school, or something, seems to have dropped a cigarette in these vines, Friday morning. I had just gotten up and was feeding Summer and Jess heard some screaming from the alley, "There's a fire!" Well, she came and took Summer and told me to go take care of it...I remembered that we bought a fire extinguisher when we were planning on Summer. Safety first, right?! Anyway, as you can see from the image, the fire climbed pretty high, could have jumped up into the trees and started going towards our place. Thank goodness we were home, as it happened about 6:30 AM.

Rice:



Awesome!!! This was the first time we fed Summer rice. Took me about 20 seconds to get her to open her mouth. I first put the rice on her lips...she finally opened up and tasted it. Figured out it was food and she could suck, kind of like a bottle. Then she started going to town. She loved it. We only fed her a little bit, then made sure to top her off with some very watered down formula. Try to make sure she wouldn't get constipated or anything.

Lastly, two pics and a movie taken back when my dad was visiting and today...First when dad was here we gave Summer a bath and here she is getting dried off. Cute little octopus towel.



Also, here is Summer today. We went shopping at Target to get her a few more 3-6/9 month outfits and some toys she could play with in her Highchair...since we just put the highchair together when Grandpa Mark was here. She loves the chair by the way. And she loves her new toys!



And lastly, here is Summer, rolling. She did it once or twice, probably on accident, way long ago, but never since. Daycare has told us she has been rolling over there…but we haven’t seen it. Yesterday morning, I went to get Summer, yes, the day of the fire, Summer was on her back. (We still let her sleep on her stomach sometimes.) I asked Jess, and she said, “Yep, I put her on her tummy.” So, she had rolled over in her crib. Well earlier today, I caught her:



Well, there is so much to say and show, but that's it for now. Everyone's in bed sleeping, except for me, so nighty night...oh, and by the way...Happy October!

Grandpa Mark...

Hey all, I'm back. I haven't written as much these last two weeks. Busy busy busy... So, a last little bit about my papa...I just have to thank him again for coming. He sure got to see the best side of Summer. :-) We played Cribbage...basically ended in a tie, me winning just one more game, although he skunked me 3 times... We also played pool at Hinano's, down at the beach, after we had lunch with Jess' parents and Elena. Here's a pic of Summer hanging with Elena, just before we took off to lunch:



At lunch we all chatted and hung out, but then the girls went home and the guys; Grumpa, Grandpa Mark and I went to Hinano's and shot some pool. I won all but one of my games, even against this hustler dude that came and tried to take the table away from us. That's right Summer, your daddy kept the table in the family! That was a fun fun day.

One last picture I wanted to share with my dad and Summer.



Note the flowers on the mantle in the back. Those are multi-colored roses that Grandpa Mark bought for Summer and Jess! Brightened up the house for the visit quite nicely. Thanks Dad!

So, Dad, you're welcome to come visit any time! We had a blast. Next time, bring your bowling ball...we'll try that, darts and shuffle-board, or something...mix it up a bit! :-)