'Twas the night before Christmas...

"Now where do I find Douglas fir?"


Finally the roof rack comes in handy.


"Get out of my way!"


"No one is going to miss these."


Predicting that Lauren tires out before she opens half her gifts.

House lights

In case you were wondering, this is not our house.

I'm 19 months old now!

I can now say puhleeze, show my sleepy and smiley face, and call the cats by name although they still run from me. Oh and this month I had pony tails for the first time.

Lazy Cats

Normally we never see scorpions in the house because our cats usually take care of any intruders but either they are getting too old or are just lazy. After taking this picture, I had to take matters into my own hands.

3.14159...

Yum! Pumpkin pie!

2 rooms with a view

We recently took a trip up to Seattle where we were upgraded to a Westin suite. Here you can see the space needle in between the buildings.



"I'll miss you gg Phyllis!"



Here you can see our bedroom and Lauren's heavenly crib. They claim how the crib mattress is twice as thick as others etc. but it seemed more like marketing folks gone crazy.



Here's the "suite" part of the room. It's connected to the bedroom through a door. If the suite wasn't so cold and sterile, it would be pretty cool. Unfortunately it felt more creepy than luxurious but it did provide Lauren some nice play area.

I'm 18 months old now!

I'm officially 1.5 years old now. So what is the official rule for when I can declare a half year on my age? Am I allowed to round up to the 0.5?

Friends don't bite friends

So Lauren got another bite at daycare but this time on the face! Supposedly her and a "friend" were crawling through a tunnel and were passing each other and that "friend" bit her. If I ever find out who this "friend" is, I'll be sure to say hello.

Happy Halloween!

Proud parent

Biting is definitely not an acceptable behavior although after reading the additional comments section, I can't help but feel a little proud.

I'm 17 months old now!

Tough economic times....

"Playing" has never been so much fun.

Longwood Gardens

Lauren enjoyed her trip back east. She saw deer, pumpkins, bees, flowers, and of course family, lots of family. She especially liked her visit to the famous Longwood Gardens.


Pumpkin anyone?


I'll take this one!


One of the prettiest areas is the waterlily display in the Conservatory.






Another cool area was the gigantic outdoor train set complete with bridges and moving water.


The indoor children's garden was also very cool with lots of water. Be prepared to have a wet child if you go.

Scorpion

Found another scorpion in the garage. Normally I don't react much when I see them but this one definitely made my pulse rise probably because of the large size. You can see a paint can in the picture for reference.

Happy Belated Birthday!

I'm 16 months old now!

My hectic schedule sometimes requires me to do my photoshoot away from my studio (aka my crib). If you look closely, you'll notice I have a sweater and a stuffed cat now. The east coast is cold! Well actually just my grandparent's house. They like to keep it cold.

Never getting lost again.....priced under $100

GPS navigation units are finally becoming commoditized goods. The nuvi 200 seen here is the entry level Garmin Nuvi GPS. OfficeMax has it on sale for $130 this week and I had a $50 Bestbuy coupon that they accepted bringing the price to $86 OTD. The Nuvi 205 is the update to the 200 and features a faster processor, slightly different screen layout, MSN direct capability, and a few other differences. However, the 205 hasn't been on sale recently at Bestbuy or another place that will accept their coupon. I happened to try OfficeMax and sure enough they said they'll accept the coupon. So if you are in the market for a good inexpensive GPS, I'd take advantage of the coupon which expires at the end of the year.

Personal shout out

My blog shout out to Wyatt! Are you going to be in Vegas for the holidays?

New car....well sort of

After months of test driving SUVs, we finally bought a used car or as the dealers like to call them pre-owned vehicles. We bought a 2007 RX350 AWD with navigation from a private party which means we didn't pay sales tax. If you buy anything from the dealer you have to pay tax. The only way to get any backup sensor or camera was to get the navigation otherwise we would have skipped it. The original owners put on some aftermarket wheels which at first I didn't really need but now I like them just for the fact that we can tell our RX apart from the million others on the road. You don't notice how many others there are until you actually own one.

Other cars that we test drove; CRV, Rav4, Highlander, Murano, Rogue, RDX, Santa Fe, Veracruz, XC90, EX35, and FX35.


Here you can see the navigation system which also has bluetooth. If you look closely, you can also see that the CD player has WMA and MP3 playback. If you look closely again, you'll see the tape player! That's right a tape player. I'm sure they would have put in an 8 track player too if they still made them. Lexus must think that their customers still have a strong desire to play tapes where as most vehicles these days have an aux in as standard equipment. Lexus instead charges $300 to enable an Ipod adapter. But hey they have a tape deck. On the bright side, I can now play all my new wave mix tapes from high school and college. Now where did I put those....

Baby Poang

How does this go again? Maybe I have it upside down.



Good thing these instructions don't have any words. I can't read yet!



That was too easy!



Finally I have something comfortable. This chair is going to help my back soooo much. I swear this baby just eats, sleeps, and poops.

New Wheels!

Finally I can go cruising at the mall and not be embarrassed by my stroller. My parents were actually using a Winnie the pooh walmart special they picked up in Seattle. The thing was so cheap the front wheel wouldn't turn right. Mom and Dad picked up a Maclaren 2008 Quest Sport from bestbuybaby.com (they are an authorized retailer although the website doesn't look like it). For 2008, Maclaren changed the seat belt to a 1 button release, changed the foot brake, changed the wheel hubcaps, and added a strap for easy carrying.

I'm 15 months old now!

Boy a lot has happened to me this past month. I visited my first ER, gave my first hug, and was featured in a slide show on our local paper's website.

Lauren's first trip to the ER

Lauren had a high fever even after visiting the doctor earlier today so we went to the ER. After waiting 3 hrs we finally saw a doctor. Lauren had her first x-rays and IV (seen here).

Update: We finally left the ER at 2am with Lauren's fever down and the same diagnosis as our regular doctor -- a viral infection. However, we were told to alternate between tylenol and motrin every 3 hrs to control the fever better. That seems to be working.

Snip snip

We took Lauren to get her first haircut since she was starting to sport a baby mullet. Here she's watching some TV before her big cut at Snipits.


Some bubbles to help make sure Lauren is looking down.

Dog wanted!

We seriously need to get a dog! I've got better things to do like play with my peeps.

Cat and mouse

Well at least Arizona's version. We haven't seen scorpions in the house in a long time since the cats usually eat them but we did find this baby scorpion. It's probably only a 1/4" to 1/2". I wonder where mommy is at though.

I'm 14 months old now!

I can now make chicken and cow sounds whenever I want although mostly when Mommy and Daddy ask me to.