Sunday, October 4, 2009

The New Zoolander

Also wanted to include a few photos from Viana's modeling portfolio. Because we've been told about 3 million times that she looks like a Gerber Baby, we decided to see if she had a shot in the baby modeling industry. So in the span of a whirlwind week, Alexis put together a portfolio photo sheet, hired an agent, and made several trips to L.A. for casting calls...specifically for the Baby Gap Holiday commercials. Unfortunately, after several callbacks, she didn't get the part, however she did to a photo shoot in San Diego for Infantino, a baby product company. The photos below are from her photo sheet.

Somebody figured out how to stand up today! Not only that, but she stood up and only needed one hand to steady herself. We knew she was working on this for the past couple of weeks, flopping over on the bed, doing downward-facing dog yoga poses to get ready, and there was one previous standing incident but we weren't fast enough with the camera. So this is the first OFFICIAL standing. Viana seems to have skipped right over crawling and moved on to advanced motorskills!

It's hard to believe that in only 8 months she's progressed to this already, but as you can see she was very excited about it, as were mom and dad.

This weekend will be her first airplane ride to her first wedding. No doubt there will be many more firsts to come.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Big News, Little Teeth

That's right, as the title might suggest Viana has sprouted not one but two more teeth! We discovered that she has a third lower tooth coming in yesterday, and then today while cooling off at the beach, mom discovered her first big upper tooth poking through. Woo-hoo. That might explain why she's been a little grumpy the past few days. For those keeping score that's a total of 4 teeth now.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Photo link

And for those of you who did not receive this link, it is a link to some studio photos that we had taken to celebrate Viana's six-month birthday. It may or may not work, and I plan on scanning them in for next month's update.

http://smilestore.picturepeople.com/my/images?tk=aac7d7f8-7204-4830-9fee-3b8510f72d3d

July Update

Okay, so as I've been reminded by several family members, I'm a little behind on the blog updates. So in an effort to make up for lost time this month's update covers a lot of ground. Since it's the middle of August, some of the information may not be chronologically correct as it's been confused between two months.

It's been a very exciting month and Viana is growing and changing on an almost daily basis it seems. She is starting to look less like a baby and more like a little girl. We start out this month's photos with one from the 4th of July. Viana was sporting her red, white, and blue party dress along with her very first pair of shoes; white leather sandals. We really don't see the point of shoes for kids this small, other than the cuteness factor of course.

We spent the day at our friends the Millers where we took a dunk in the pool and played with the forty-three other kids (that's a bit of exaggeration). As one of her first really big outings with lots of kids and chaos she did great and we all had a good time.






Next up was family time. Although dad's been busy at work getting ready for the new school year mom has been able to take a little break from work and spend time with Viana. As it turns out, July and first part of August provided a wonderful opportunity (especially for dad) to spend a lot of quality time with Viana. Weekends have been the best and spending three whole days off at home and with family have been great.
As you can tell by the photo, both dad and Viana are enjoying together time. And no, she's not drunk, even though the rosy cheeks and half-shut eyes may lead you to believe that.

And between planning family vacations, wedding showers, finding time for herself, mom has also been able to spend some quality time with Viana.









And although we'd like her to stay a little baby forever, I suppose she has to grow up sometime. Since mom can't be home for every feeding, dad has had to take on some of the feeding duties. However during a three day span while mom worked a conference, Viana learned not only how to identify the bottle as dinner but also how to grab and hold onto the bottle by herself! Amazing what a little motivation will do for the learning curve.








After Viana's six-month check up at the doctor's office, which went fine, we've begun trying out solid foods with her. Keep in mind that we use the term "solid" loosely. Basically its just a mushed up version of whatever we're having for dinner. In this case, Peas! Everybody loves peas. Well as we quickly figured out, peas are harder to mush than you might think, and the little shells or skins are not very popular with Viana. Needless to say we've moved on to other more mushable foods such as avocado, squash, carrots, and sweet potatoes. So far the avocado is the big hit.






Based on the below picture, I'll bet you can't guess which agency dad just got back from training with??? A little silly I know, but just had to have it! Dad spent a week in Quantico, Virginia which was probably the longest week ever. I honestly don't know how most parents go right back to work after having a baby.
Anyway, by the time dad got back Viana had grown some more and although you can't really see it in this picture, is actually sitting at the grown-ups table. She has really taken an interest in everything we do while eating and it's so much fun to have her at the dinner table.

The August update will feature photos from our family Vegas Vacation where Viana met her cousins from Maine for the first time; Preston and Beatrice along with Uncle Eric and Aunt Jodie! And don't miss the Elvis outfit!

























































































































































Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Since June marked the beginning of the summer, and Viana hit the magic minimum age for swim lessons, this month started out with her first official dip in the pool. We found out very quickly that if she was well rested and well fed she was MUCH happier in the pool for the whole 30 minutes. We also discovered that she like swimming with mom more than swimming with dad. Oh well.

This is a photo of her with her "swim coach" Kiara, from the Murray Callan swim school. She defenitely did not mind the water and was great at holding her breath for short dunks under water.



As this second photo shows, she was just as happy to be back on land, and back in mom's arms, after the swimming lessons. We have since enrolled her in lessons at the local YMCA (much cheaper) and will set up a small wading pool at home this summer for her to splash around in.






June of course was my first father's day, as previously reported, and here's one of the highlights from that day. Happy dad, happy baby!





What do you mean bath time's over?!?











Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Visitors from a Strange Land

I almost forgot to cover the most exciting part of this past weekend. Viana got to meet her "cousins" from the Friedman family, Zollie (3) and Bela(1). Lamine has been best friends with their father, Greg, since the age of 3, they went to the same elementary school together and have stayed in touch through high school, college and 14 additional years of life. They have been best friends for 30+ years. Today Greg and his wife Amy are living in Bangladesh and teaching at a school there. They have been there for the past 3 years, prior to which they taught in Honduras, and have raised their two kids abroad. Talk about adventurous!

They, along with their parents Ron and Marlene, and Greg's sister Danielle, came down to Ramona for a long weekend and Viana got to spend an afternoon with them and meet Zollie and Bela. Viana received a basketfull of multi-colored Bangladeshi gnomes from Zollie and Bela, which Zollie and Bela immediately started to play with too. Kids are so cute. The gnome is the red figure on the left.

At any rate, it was fabulous to see all the Friedmans, even though the time was too short as always. It does seem that whenever we get together it seems like we have hardly missed any time apart. And it is wonderful to see our kids growing up "together" and it is truly exciting to see where the three kids will be 30 years from now! I do wish though, that my dad could have joined us for this weekend, he would have thoroughly enjoyed it. Although I know that he is smiling down on all the kids, old and young!
Greg and Amy, along with Zollie and Bela, will be making the rounds in the states (Colorado, Los Angeles, etc.) before heading back to Bangladesh for the new school year. It was great to see them again, and with any luck they can keep up with Viana's exciting news via the blog.

Big Developments...Little Teeth

So in addition to the joy of spending my first official father's day with Alexis and Viana, we discovered that Viana's very first tooth decided to make an appearance on the same day! No photo available yet. Today (Tuesday) the tooth is quite noticeable, especially if she bites on your finger, yeowch! Who knew such tiny little teeth could so closely resemble shark's teeth? It is amazing though once something new is discovered how quickly it develops. I guess this also explains the uncontrolled drooling :-)

In another somewhat less exciting development, Viana received her first piece of luggage today...a genuine, made-in-america LL Bean "Bean Bag" (see photo). For those who don't know, LL Bean is a Maine tradition (Alexis being from Maine) and the "Bean Bag" is not, in fact, a hackey-sack-sized toy, but the worlds most durable do-it-all bag. It came personalized and in bright Mango colors, to reflect her cheery persona.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Happy First Father's Day

Well, it was a fabulous first father's day. I know there are several other "first timers" out there as well who know what a wonderful feeling it is. My day started off with a delicious breakfast at Jeremy's On the Hill in Wynola (that's on the way to Julian). Blueberry pancakes and crepes started us off right.

We then struck out on an ambitious (perhaps too much so) hike at the Santa Ysabel Open Space Preserve. The casual one mile hike turned into an uphill effort, but the scenery was beautiful and it was wonderful to continue to introduce Viana to the outdoors.

After a relaxing afternoon nap, both for dad and Viana, it was time to open presents! Dad got an assortment of bar-b-que items; he is working hard to perfect grilling techniques. But the highlight of the gifts was a clay imprint of Viana's palm and foot at 2 months old! Dad has been wanting to do that for a while but hasn't gotten around to it. Apparently mom did, yay mom!

Sunday, June 14, 2009

LAKERS RULE!!

Viana just wanted to give a quick shout out to the NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers after she watched them win their 15th franchise NBA Title! Although this was her first NBA finals (she got a glimpse of the basketball lunatic that his her father) she enjoyed the game and was cheering all through the fourth quarter.

Next year she'll be wearing Purple & Gold for sure. Go Lakers!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Quick Congatulations

We're woefully behind, we know, we know. But we wanted to send out a couple of quick congratulations. First, and in chronological order, to our friends Katherine and Johnny up in the bay area, congratulations on their engagement!! Can't wait for the nuptuals this fall.

Second, congratulations to Melissa and Jim on the birth of their son Rory this past week! The new parent thing is a challenge, but WELL worth it! We know you'll do great. Can't wait to meet your newest addition.

Congrats to all four, uh, make that five of you!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

This month's big adventure was Viana rolling over onto her tummy. Here is a sequence of photos of the big day at Grammy Chris' house.





Almost got it!









Well, now what?!?









Success!!












Saturday, June 6, 2009

May Update: 4 Months Already?!?


So here are some of the photos from May this year. It's hard to believe that Viana is already pushing 5 months old! As you can see from the photos she is gaining quite a personality.

We have discovered that she is quite a morning person. She will spend an hours or two in her bed entertaining herself, pulling on her newly discovered toes, and squealing up a storm. She loves spending weekend mornings in bed with mom and dad and loves kicking us in the ribs!


In the below photo, Viana and mom are busy taking in the latest issue of Mothering Magazine. We knew she'd be a fast learner!

Since this was Alexis' first official mother's day, we took mom and the two local grandmothers (although the prefer a different title) to brunch in Marina Del Rey, CA. It was a nice little cafe overlooking the beach and the marina. The weather was perfect and all of the moms enjoyed spending time with Viana. We took a walk along the boardwalk afterwards, in order to burn off some the waffles we enjoyed.
There were two big pieces of news this month. First, Viana was freed from her brace that she had to wear to correct a minor hip displaysia, yea! And the second (being free from the brace helped speed the process) was that Viana discovered how to roll over onto her tummy! In a 30 minute span she flip-flopped 8 or 10 times. She hasn't quite figured out what to do once she's on her tummy, but that will come. For the time being she enjoys the activity.

Lamine and Alexis also celebrated their 7th wedding anniversary this past May 18th, and to commemorate the occasion, we took Viana back to the "Wedding Bowl" where we got married and had a lovely picnic by the sea. The weather was almost exactly the same as on the big day, and we all enjoyed listening to pounding surf and watching the seagulls fly by! We were briefly invaded by the local squirrel brigade (you can see them in the background below). We then took a stroll along the coast, enjoyed a coffee and slice of chocolate cake at a local coffee shop, and wandered back to the car. It was a very memorable way to spend the afternoon. Gotta love San Diego!









First Post: Joining the New Age

Hello family and friends,


Well, we finally decided to jump on board with the computer/internet age. In light of all the photos of little Viana we thought this might be a better way for all our friends and family to keep up with what's going on.


This is our first test run, we'll see how it works!


- Lamine, Alexis & Viana