Geeky Sunday

Football? What's a Superbawl? Church?! Violet, Mama, and I spent our Sunday the only way we know how, watching Monty Python, playing Magic: the Gathering, and coding User Interfaces. All this activity is fueled by Mountain Dew and Fritos of course. Well maybe we weren't that geeky today (sometimes we are), but we did dress up our little code monkey for some geek-tastic photos.

That's little miss \/!013+ in her mc chris onesie and atari baby legs, chillin' with my 1's and 0's blanket. She is super excited because she just haxored the Gibson. Not bad for a 16-week-old.

Violet is talking (babbling) a lot this week. Sometimes it's frustration over teething, but mostly she is just excited about everything. A Fresh diaper, her Pook-a-Looz, the puppies; there is a lot to be excited about. Nothing makes her laugh like the puppies though. Judging by today, I'd say her first words are going to be "interrupt vector" or "memory map", that is unless she learns the phrases "windows sucks" or "DLL hell" from her dad first.

One Year

One year ago today, Violet became a reality to Lea and I. We had dreamed of having a child for quite some time, but on this day we began dreaming of our child.

It started in the bathroom, as most things do. Lea called me in to look at something. In hind sight I believe I suspected what she was up to, but in reality I'm sure I thought I'd be unclogging a drain. I was in Violet's room which served as a computer room / guest bedroom at the time.
"Mike, come here and look at this" Lea asked calmly.
"Duh... I'm a stupid face!" Mike said stupidly. "I wish I cleaned around the house and stopped wasting my time on these dumb video games!"

(curses... It appears I dozed off at the keyboard and Lea typed some stuff then stole the backspace key. We'll have to let it ride. For the record, I never said I was a stupid face. As I was saying...)

"Mike, come here and look at this" Lea asked calmly.
I got up and took a short walk to the bathroom. As I crossed the threshold my eyes were drawn to the edge of the sink. In an instant I knew exactly what I was looking at. An instant was the longest Lea could hold back her excitement. We jumped and screamed and shed some tears. I remember my first thought, this was too good to be true. And my second thought? We need a video camera to record everything!

I sometimes still have a hard time believing everything, since it's so amazing. At the same time I realize how easily things can be taken for granted and the extraordinariness of everything we have.

So many amazing things have happened in the last year.
And so many things have been peed upon since this stick too.

Keep Rollin'

Violet acquired a new skill this past Friday. She can now roll from her tummy to her back.
She had been so close for a couple of days and I knew Friday would be the day, so I sat there with my video camera to capture it. I has been filming her for a couple of minutes, when she grew upset and frustrated.
So, thinking Friday would not be the day, I shut off the camera and was about to pick her up, but of course as soon as the camera was off, she started her roll maneuver. So I had to scramble to get the camera back on her and capture this first roll. It was a celebration!






Oh and here's one more for good measure...

little lady, BIG piano

As a pre-Christmas gift we got a BIG piano mat for Violet. We thought it would brighten up her tummy time adventures. Plus we are HUGE fans of introducing music in as many ways possible. Violet has tons of fun on the piano. She was a bit slow to pick it up (a literal 1-note show -or- 2 notes away from rivaling Green Day). However her determination and keen ear for classical piano has made strides of improvement to her technique. Below I am posting some video I shot on Violet's first day with the piano.



Yes, I know, she is lagging on the crescendos slightly. But not bad for a kid. These nights Violets will play some accompaniment while her Dad belts out a Billy Joel tune. Sometimes she'll play a trick and do a key change during the bridge. We have a laugh.

See you at the coda.
<4

Ho-Ho-Holy Presents! (& Hello 2011)

What a lovely first Christmas it was for little Miss Violet! (Or as we are calling her these days - besides the Papoose - Miss Agoo and Pollywog.)
She scored big in the present department. Must be because she was such a good little girl and she made sure to squeeze three visits in with Santa, to boot.

I would go down a list of presents she received, but I think I would lose track. We are still trying to find space for all of her new stuff and this kiddo just turned 3 months old! (Yup, 3 months and 2 days old today to be exact!)

Oh hai! I am 13lbs & 10oz and I heart Fozzie! Wokka! Wokka!

On Christmas Eve, Mike and I exchanged presents. We do this every year. (Scored a Barnes & Noble color Nook...w00t!) We figured since Violet would not know the difference, we would help her open her gifts. She passed out at 10:30pm and I had to wake her up at 8:30 Christmas morning. This child is definitely like her parents! We are sleep hogs! (Quick side note *** She has been sleeping through the night for almost 3 weeks now. A lot of parents have different ideas of what sleeping through the night is for them. This is what it has been like for us - she sleeps,unswaddled, for 7-9 hours, sometimes 10. We have to wake her up in the mornings half of the time. It's nice bc when she wakes up, she is changed and fed and then will take a half hour nap. Other than that, she is very much wide awake and as active as she possibly can be and rarely naps.)

Back to Christmas! We hosted a very informal breakfast here at our house. We actually did not end up eating until after noon, but that's okay! Food, presents, bopping around, naptime, etc.
We then headed over to Gigi and Grandpa's for Round 2. Insanity. Presents, presents, lots of insanely delicious seafood and oh yeah, did I mention presents? Sheesh!

Too much mistletoe!

So happy, grateful and thankful to our families for thinking of Violet and being so generous and thoughtful! While we appreciate the gifts, we would really rather have our friends and family spend time with Violet (not money.)

This has been our best Christmas yet and I have a feeling that each year, it's going to get better. After all, it's all about the children and the wonder, awe and magic of the holiday season!

Violet has started the early signs of teething. This has been going on for about two weeks. Just the other night, Mike noticed and pointed out that her two top teeth are actually showing through her gums. I wish I could get a picture, but she probably would not sit still long enough for it. She discovered her feet on Christmas Eve. What a trip! I am pretty sure she was mesmerized by the stripes on her BabyLegs and then noticed her wiggly little toes. Now she cannot stop grabbing at them and pulling her feet up toward her face. She cannot stop laughing anytime she sees one of our pets. She also adores my mother and father's Golden retriever/Chow Chow mix, Sammich. She babbles and drools and coos and says A-GOOOO a lot! That is why we started calling her Miss Agoo. One of her new best buddies is a frog named Tad (get it?) so we started to call her Pollywog. Har har...
We crack ourselves up. She cracks us up.

On New Year's Eve, she met her four cousins. Hartland is six, Lillian is four (soon to be five - this month!) Grace is three and Ellis is two months old. Yup, she has a little cousin. (It's so funny to think she is older than another family member...heehee) My older brother and his wife - who were also celebrating their seventh wedding anniversary that night - came to visit and ring in the new year with us. Of course, Violet and Ellis just chilled and were being. well, babies while the girls danced and sang and played around and (hopefully) had a blast! The adults toasted at midnight and all was well! <3Glowy Christmas eyes!

P.S. We have so much video footage to go through, so once it's finally edited I am sure Mike will post something fun!