New Friends...

WELCOME BABY KARA ELLE!

One of my dearest friends from college just had her first baby on August 11. Kara Elle Barber is a beautiful baby girl. Her birth is especially exciting for me because when I was growing up, the children of my parents' close friends became like family to us. Often we addressed the parents as "Aunt..." or "Uncle..." so their children were like our cousins, and sometimes we even introduced them as such. We always looked forward to the several times a year we got together because those children were 'special friends'. They didn't live on our block or go to school with us - we had to drive in a car and spend a night, or several nights, in the course of a visit. We camped with these friends. We went to Disneyland with these friends. These friends were outside the realm of the normal day-to-day life stuff and that made them way cooler. Because we were all born within the same span of several years, none of us really remembers childhood without one another.

Marleena and Marc now have baby Kara, which means Analiese and Kara are now linked in each others' lives - even if they don't know it yet. Another of my best childhood friends is due to have her first baby, also a girl, in September. We look forward to meeting her. I know that Analiese will grow up with these two girls as her friends and it makes me smile.

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'...

Since we don't have a scale, or a soft measuring tape, we had absolutely no idea how big or tall Analiese was. My only reference as to how much she weighs is by taking into consideration the fatigue of my left arm when balancing her on my hip at social functions. By my estimation, she is heavy compared to when she was born. And since she just upgraded to the next size of baby clothes, I am also able to make a very technical assessment and confidently announce that she is also longer than when she was born. Now, we are happy to bring you bona fide weights and measures, as recorded professionally by a real doctor.

Analiese now weighs 16 lbs. 14 oz. (as opposed to the 8 lbs. 14 oz. at her birth)
Analiese now measures 26.5 inches (as opposed to the 21.5 inches at her birth).

So - I was right. She is bigger. Who needs doctors anyway?

She started rolling from her back to her front on July 13th(ish). I think I referenced in our last post that we spend quite a bit of time rescuing her from this new stunt. Once on her tummy, she gets stuck, gets frustrated, and engages a grunt-to-whine-to-shriek sound track that requires one of us to set her on her back again. She smiles with gratitude, then immediately rolls onto her tummy again and the saga continues. The doctor told us that this is the complete reverse of the "average" baby (whoever he/she is) as babies normally go from tummy to back first, and then back to tummy second. Either way, we have eagerly anticipated the day that she will move on to Step 2 and get herself righted out. In the meantime, I have been intending to get a video of her turning over. It's been over a month, for crying out loud. Finally, I figured I better do it before she is 6 years old and we are having her reinact the moment - which doesn't have the same allure. Here she is - with an unchoreographed Marshall moment as well!

I turned the camera off and then saw that it looked like she was practicing rolling further over but Marshall's hind end was in the way...

I thought, "I'll move Marshall out of the way and maybe I can get some good 'practice' footage..."

It was so great to actually catch her first front-to-back roll on camera.

So now it's on to whole new horizons - - keeping track of a mobile baby. Yikes!

Lazy Days...

Let's be honest here - no days are really "lazy days" when you have a baby. But what that really translates to is "day after day after day in the apartment". Summertime keeps rolling on by here in the desert - mostly it rolls on by our windows because it's way too hot for it to roll by in person outside! But being in the apartment means lots of time to take pictures of Analiese and to revisit pictures that never made it into the blog. So this post is dedicated to some of our favorite pictures of our favorite girl:

This first series of pictures I will title, "Going, Going, Gone!" They were taken when we first moved in. Analiese and I were sitting in the U-Haul, waiting for Kevin to finalize the paperwork for our apartment. I took all three in about a 60-second period of time. Apparently she takes after her daddy in the sleep department...

Whenever we visit Tehachapi, we always take a little time to visit my Nana at her house. Even though she is usually present at family events, it's easier for us to have a conversation when it's one on one. My Pop-Pop passed away in November of 2009 and so I usually sit on his chair, with Analiese in my lap, when we are visiting. On one of our last visits, I sat Analiese by herself while I ran to help my Nana with something. When I turned around, it was so cute, I had to snap a picture. I call this one, "Pop Pop's Chair". I wish he could have been able to hold her in person, but this is the next best thing.
My youngest brother, Jared, recently graduated from a nursing program. We went to Tehachapi to attend his graduation. His girlfriend, Kelsey, flew out from Florida as a surprise to him. Our joke is that Jared's graduation was really just an excuse, as the real reason she flew out was to see Analiese. I love these pictures of them.

Although Analiese is obviously still a baby (at just 4 months old), it is amazing how her face is losing the pure baby look and beginning to show signs of the little girl who is emerging. When we packed to move into the studio (ha!) we put a ton of stuff in storage that we knew we wouldn't have room for - and this big bear was one of them. We wanted to take a picture of her with him as they probably won't meet again for another year or so. This was taken right before Memorial Day weekend and you can see how much her baby face has changed since then.

Analiese has learned to roll over from her back to her front. She is quite pleased with herself as this next pictures demonstrates. Well, she is pleased with herself for about 5.6 seconds, at which point she starts howling with frustration because she has yet to learn how to roll herself back over. We are hoping that next step comes soon because large portions of our day are now spent having to finally roll her back over when her wails have reached a certain decibel level. The minute we help her out - she rolls right back over on her stomach and the cycle begins again. l leave you with this last picture I call, "Analiese Smiles".