Grandma's here and I broke my flash
Grandma Lakeview is in town for some of those lovely doctor visits. She had dinner with us the other night and we made some homemade white-boy tacos (I say that in case Bill reads this thinking it is a latent buffet and wants to know what kind of tacos. Actually, if a search engine finds the phrase "latent buffet", I'm sure Bill will show up.) Well, I dropped my camera the other day and the base of the flash is all goofed up. I think it is going to go to Nikon for repair (well, we hope). In the meantime, we have demon pictures.

Dawn is notorious for having wonderful red-eye in pictures that aren’t outside in direct sunlight or where the flash is a million miles from the lens (actually, 93 million miles seems to be a sweet spot for limiting red-eye). Well, Aiden has it too, not quite as bad, but it is there. We took some of him the other night rolling around on the floor all happy. I edited out some of the red-eye effect.


Pi just being cute. He was really smiling alot this night.


So I took more pics


And, of course, more pics!!!

In other news, I STILL haven’t got my new computer up – 15 days after installing XP!!! That has to be a world record or something!

"The S word" is coming into town this weekend and they will be going to Terri Clark who is playing at the National Guard Armory. ("The S word" is Shelly, Dawn got in trouble for saying her name too much one day and her dad told her to shut up about her - so Dawn started saying "The S word" so she could break the rules. I'm sure I'll have to explain the "spirit" of the rules to young master Pi.) Anyway, assuming Pi is good, I should be able to just move that computer over this weekend. This assumes I’m done with the last of these minor changes sometime soon (today, I’m sure).

  - Richard on Thr February 6, 2003 at 8:39 am
     - Aiden is 4 months
     - Keenan is 11 months before begin born

Mom's night out and more
On Saturday I went to Terri Clark with Shelly and her sister Sherry. She was really good once she got on stage. The doors opened at 7:00 and some local people sang so she didn’t get on stage until 9:45. It got a little boring waiting for her. When we got there we had to sit on the left hand of the stage and couldn’t see much because the speakers were in the way. Some people left before Terri Clark sang so we moved up a row and over 4 seats and got a better view. Terri was singing and the audience was quite and then some guy was behind us starts yelling “Tracy, over here, Tracy over here”. We all look for Tracy and realize that he wants Terri Clark to look over at him. It seems like there is always one in the crowd.

I also had my first drink in over a year. I had one Mike’s hard cranberry lemonade. I got a little tipsy and it lasted for an hour. While I was at the concert Aiden and Richard went over to Joe and Mindy’s. I told Richard he was cheating by having Mindy help watch Aiden. Actually everybody enjoyed it since Joe is bedridden because of his back they played games on the X-Box. Mindy and Joey like to play with Aiden so it worked out well for all. Mindy said that when Aiden would whine Richard would come running to help. So he just didn’t leave it all up to her.

In other news Aiden weighs 15 lbs 12 ozs and on the 30th (4 months old) he weighed 15lbs 10 ozs. We went over to Grandma Clari's last weekend and he loved it. We left to go get a u-haul and left him with Grandma. It is getting easier to leave him.

On Wedensday I went back to water aerobics the first time since I had Aiden. Ellen another lady who just had a baby came back for her first time also. I couldn’t believe how hard it was. I’m going to try to go twice a week. I think it will do me good to have my own time plus help get the pounds off at the same time.

  - Dawn on Sun February 9, 2003 at 4:10 pm
     - Aiden is 4 months
     - Keenan is 11 months before begin born

First's....
Aiden got his first cold on February 13th. He had a runny nose and a little cough. He seemed pretty good except he hates getting his nose wiped and cleaned. He turns his head and grabs the plastic bulb away from his nose. He still has it a little runny nose but it's not as bad.

On Tuesday the 18th at nap time I walked by and Aiden was lying on his tummy. I was wondering how he did this since when we play on the floor he can't get all the way over from back to tummy. Well on Wednesday I watched and used his legs to get over to the side and once he can reach the side he grabs on to the crib and uses it to help him rollover.

In other progress he is trying to figure out how to crawl. He can get his butt in the air and his legs and arms move but he really doesn't get anywhere. This really makes him mad especially if he can’t reach his toy or when he wants to get to other babies or kids.

We went to the doctor on the 21st for his well visit. He weighed 16 lbs 1.4 ozs. He is now 27 inches long and his head is 45 ¼ cms. The doctor says that he looks healthy, happy and is developing nicely. He said that we can start him on rice cereal anytime now. Then came shot time and by the fourth one he was not happy any longer. The rest of the day he was fussy and it took 3 hours to get him down to bed. He just wanted to be held all night long. As soon as I put him down he cried and as soon as I picked him up he stopped and fell instantly back to sleep. He may be a little spoiled.

This week we have to move him from his infant carrier to a regular rear facing car seat. I'm not sure about this move for many reasons. One how to take him shopping? The stroller works great at the mall but not so great at the grocery store. We bought a shopping cart seat from Babiesrus but it is not here yet. We are talking about getting a front/back pack to carry him in. If anyone has any great advise on how to accomplish shopping with a five month old who can't totally sit up on his own please let me know. The other thing is that he loves his car seat and when we are somewhere and he gets cranky we put him in it and he gets happy or falls asleep. I think he is attached to it somewhat and it may take him a little while to get used to his new one.

  - Dawn on Sun February 23, 2003 at 10:51 am
     - Aiden is 4 and 1/2 months
     - Keenan is 11 and 1/2 months before begin born