Bobbarino

Another one of Nina's friends has arrived! Robert Garrit Kendall was born on Friday, April 27. Nina and I visited last week. Elizabeth is doing great and being taken good care of by Grandma Esther. Say hi to the world, Bobby!

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The past several Saturdays, we have been getting out for a family run in the morning. Boy, this jogging stroller is just great! It is so light and easy to run with. Nina is chalking up the miles already.



Tomorrow morning, Nina will have another first - her first plane ride! She and I will take off to Houston to visit with family for a week. Should be an adventure although I am not sure how much the person sitting next to me will enjoy my little drooling squiggly worm!

Families

Before shipping Prof. Moore off to the University of Florida, we hosted a families dinner on Friday evening. Robb, Minja and baby Nikolas came as well as Tim, Jane and little Hannah. It was wonderful to get everyone together, have some good grub (if I do say so myself) and swap new parenting stories.

We also got some nice group shots. First the dads....

Then the moms...


And finally the families...

I just love that last picture! Everyone looks so genuinely happy. Also, notice Nikolas checking out Nina. That boy is going to be trouble!

Then on Sunday, we had a picnic with Mirjana, Miroslav and the girls. Being rather experienced at this whole parenting thing, they knew of a great park just down the road from us in Los Altos.


You might wonder, what Nina is up to in the shot above. Why munching on some watermelon, of course!


She absolutely loved it. I gave it to her just to see her reaction, and she started to suck on it like crazy. In fact she got rather upset when I tried to take it away!

And finally another excellent family shot.


Yay, summer's here! Looking forward to many more lazy Sundays in the park.

4 Months

Nina is 4 months old today. And for her big birthday she got to .... go to the doctor! and get 4 shots! and an oral live virus vaccine! Lucky girl. Here are her four month stats:

Height: 24 inches (41%)
Weight: 13 lbs 14 oz (57%)
Head Circumference: 40.5 cm (37%)

Her growth in the second 2 months of her life has been a lot slower than the first 2 months as is normal. She has, however, moved down in the percentiles (they were all around 70% last time). The doctor was not at all concerned. She said height and head measurements can vary by a bit since they are so hard to measure, and her weight looked fine especially since she is so active. Blah, blah, blah, she is healthy and doing great. Dr. Enright also said Nina has good trunk control. Now if that is not a complement then I just don't know what is!

Ok, ok, now let's get to what you really want to see - 4 month portraits!



As you can see in these pictures, Nina's personality is really coming out. She is alert and aware of the world around her, but she is also beginning to respond and interact with it. She is definitely wanting to put everything in her mouth these days but her coordination is not always quite there. The development of hand-eye coordination is really a very slow process. She has managed to put her pacifier back in her mouth a couple of times. If she is on her stomach or side and the pacifier falls very close to her and is angled just right, she can use her hand to push it toward her mouth. Pretty cool!

To make up for the whole shots-on-her-birthday business, I bought her one of those exersaucer thingies. So stay tuned for some fun standing baby pictures! On second thought it could take a while - there appears to be rather a lot of assembly required.

And the fans go wild!

Houston, are you next?

Beautiful Flowers

On Saturday, Mirko pulled out his macro lens to take pictures of the spring flowers. He found a few nice pinks ones ...


But here is the most beautiful flower of the bunch...

80 Degrees and Sunny

The weather really warmed up this week, so today I swept up the assemblage of dead leaves from the balconies and pulled out the lounge chairs.

Future beach bum fer sure!

Mom, baby, and leaf-producing tree

The one in which she does it all!

This crawl/scoot thing is just too much. I have to post another sequence. As you can see, in this one she goes farther in less time. I suppose that by this time next year she'll be running Boston with her dad.


And this video is literally hilarious. I am not sure even how we did it, but we got her really worked up and she just started laughing hysterically. What a character!

So we have rolling over, crawling, laughing and ....

... well, we are still working on the sitting up bit.

I'm Outta Here!

Rolling over is sooo last week.

Click here to see why Nina is so happy.

Yep, now that Nina has mastered rolling from her back to her belly, she has decided that it is time to get a move on. Mirko and I are still absolutely flabbergasted.

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Yesterday, Mirko took Nina out so that I could have the house to myself for a few hours. aaahhh. It was nice. Here they are about to set off on their adventure.

Control

Andrea, your comment the other day was so right on. Yesterday, I wanted to take a few pictures of her in her adorable duckie outfit. I propped her up in her crib - because ya'know we might as well use the crib for something. She sat there for a minute or two, but then she arched her back and slid down into a laying position. So I propped her up again, and sure enough she did the same thing again! She did not want to be sitting up and figured out a way to get herself out of that position. This is definitely an amazing new physical and mental development. She is becoming aware of her body and figuring out how to move it to do want she wants. But at least she let me get my darn cute picture out of it first!

Rollover

She did it!! She rolled over! It was amazing!

Ok people, what we have here is a video of exactly the third time Nina rolled over (the first two occurring just moments before):

Rollover Movie

She's a tenacious little sucker, isn't she?

Sonoma

For Mirko's big birthday weekend, we headed up to Sonoma for a taste of the good life. Excellent wine, delicious food (yum, cheese plates), and beautiful scenery!
The picture above was taken at the Robledo Family Winery. Very interesting story - the winery was started by a Mexican who came to the states as a migrant vineyard worker at age 16.

And here is our family at the Larson Family Vineyard.

Yes indeed, what is the purpose of this blog if not to post embarrassing pictures of our baby girl.

Diaper chan-an-ange!

The tasting room at Larson had a nice display of items from Sonoma's wild west past.

We stayed for two nights at the Ledson Hotel situated on the plaza in downtown Sonoma. Lovely small hotel with only six rooms.

The Birthday Boy and Nina on the plaza.

We had two fantastic dinners. On Friday night we ate at The Girl and the Fig and Saturday at the General's Daughter. Very different atmospheres but amazing food at both. And did I mention the cheese plates?

As you can see, Nina didn't realize we were in Sonoma - she thought we were in Napa

Nina was a very good sport for the whole weekend. We tried to be good to her, making sure she had plenty of naps and down time, and in turn she let us indulge ourselves on a not-very-baby-oriented weekend.

"bleh, let's go home now!"

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Easter

This year Nina is too little to enjoy coloring Easter eggs and visits from that bunny dude, but pretty Easter dresses are for girls of any age!


Our daughter doesn't just look pretty, but she is also developing new skills by the day! In her first month or so of life, she would make these tiny little squeaks - we called them kitty kat noises. Then later she started making all sorts of odd sounds ('goo!', 'ack!, 'ugle!'). Now we can have little conversations where we repeat the sounds she makes, and it encourages her to make more. Here this last week, she has cranked it up a notch and started making loud screeching and squawking noises. She totally likes to yell at her toys in the baby gym.

Speaking of which, here is the little monkey in the jungle gym....
Now the purpose of the second picture was not just to show you the bananas on her bum (which are totally the bomb), but to illustrate a new trick. When Nina is placed on her back she can roll herself onto her side! Actually either side. She has rolled over from her stomach to her back a few random times over the past month. Now it looks like rolling from back to front is in her future. I suppose she just needs to figure out what to do with that lower shoulder.

And finally, by popular demand, here is another shot in the bumbo seat.
Right after we took this picture, we put Nina in the baby jogger for the first time. We took a couple mile walk and she did just fine in it. Won't be long before Mirko can take her on his running adventures.

Helpful

Now that Nina is 3 months old, she likes to help out particularly in the kitchen.

or maybe she is just eyeing the wine.

Also nothing beats a good workout in the baby gym:

Physically Fit Movie

But perhaps she is most excited about ...

all the new outfits she can fit into!

0.25

Today Nina is 3 months old. Here is comparison that pretty much sums it up.

Nina at 2 days and 3 months. (As always) click for a larger version.

She is an amazing little creature. We are overjoyed to have her in our lives. What more can I say?

Strong Girl

There has been a dearth of naked baby pictures on this blog so we will remedy that today!

Naked Standing Baby Exhibit A.

Naked Standing Baby Exhibit B

Ok, now everyone together .....

aaaawwwww

Nina's manual dexterity continues to improve. Below is a shot of her 'playing' with toys on her bouncy seat. It is unclear whether she is actually trying to grab at the toys or that they are just so dang close to her that when she flails her arms she is bound to knock them around. I think it is a little bit of both. She has also grabbed at her own feet a few times.

Since I am home with Nina during the week, the weekends tend to be Daddy Time. Mirko and Nina enjoy a range of activities together, but it does seem that this one is by far the favorite.

This shot is also great because you can see Nina's new balding pattern. The hair on top of her head has started to recover but now she has U shaped bald ring around her head.

Pirates-n-Peppers

Drooling Pirate

Packaged Pepper

Recognition

We have been wondering if Nina knows and recognizes us yet. She gives us bright smiles, but she will also smile at total strangers and a variety of inanimate objects (totally hilarious). However, this past weekend Nina and I went to Elizabeth's baby shower. Needless to say, there were tons of women dying to hold baby Nina. At one point, I was sitting across the room from her, and she heard my voice and her eyes lit up! She definitely recognized the sound and looked around trying to find me.


In other news, Nina is starting to discover her hands. She'll look at them in amazement, and sometimes, especially during feedings, she'll hold one hand with the other. She will also grip on tightly onto your finger but isn't yet intentionally grabbing at things (which makes taking her to places like restaurants very easy!). And now her absolute favorite thing is standing. Another really cute thing she does when she lays on her back, she lifts her legs and rubs the soles of her feet together. Adorable.

On Sunday, we took Nina for a hike through the redwoods at Huddart County Park in Woodside. It really is surprising to me that less than 3 months after she was born, we are off and doing things we loved to do before she was born. Admittedly, we didn't lead particularly wild and crazy lives before, but still it is very encouraging. Nina was right at home in the forest, looking around at the trees before eventually drifting off to a deep sleep.

New Tricks

We don't have too many pictures of the three of us, but here is one - a bit bedraggled, but a family portrait nonetheless.

Also, time for a new movie that I like to call Smiling, Standing and Swimming. Enjoy!