New Jewell Video

Happy July!

I have been working on embedding my own customizable movie player to out blog so that I don't have to rely on youTube anymore. Here is a little movie of Jewell that was shot yesterday. She's playing with a rattle that Grandma Janetski gave her.

Make sure to click the button on the bottom right to test the full screen mode.

Five Months Old!!

Today is Jewell's five month birthday! She continues to amaze us every day with her excitement and happiness. She clearly recognizes us (Travis and Jeanie). She will smile at other people, but those smiles aren't nearly as big and bright as the smiles that she reserves for Mommy and Daddy. Sometimes she just smiles at us when we're doing nothing to provoke it.

There have been some more "firsts" for Jewell recently. She has tried her first "solid" foods, which are hardly "solid" because they're smooth and creamy. She officially does NOT like the rice cereal (some impressive exaggerated gag expressions got the point across) but she did gobble up her first helping of pureed carrots (hand made by mommy).

She also exhibited her first desires to crawl. She manages to squirm around in a short radius from wherever I (Jeanie) set her, but no crawling. All I know is that when I leave her to play with some toys on a blanket I come back and the toys are all in very different positions and Jewell, herself, is relocated. Her favorite toys, by the way, are stuffed animals, laundry (she's very into textiles), mommy's hair, and anything that's satisfying to chew on.

Travis has been very persistent about getting us to take a family photo on Sunday, when we're all dressed up. So below is our little family behind our apartment today.

Jewell helping fold the laundry.

Wide Angle Jewell

Mommy and Jewell in wide angle vision!!!!! I was experimenting with wide angle shots and putting the camera close to the subjects. (In this case the beautiful subjects.)

Mommy and Jewell

Jewell's Stats

Well Jewell just keeps growing and growing. On her last weigh in she was 16 lbs 1 oz, 27 inches long, and her head was 42 cm. And she may be a little bigger than that now.

Our big girl has pretty much outgrown her Baby Bjorn so we pulled out the Kelty carrier. It works great and we can even use it to let Jewell sit at the table with us.

Jewell's New Carrier

Happy Fathers Day!

So it's my first Father's Day as a father. The first thing I did today was wake up and unwrap my best present. That would be Jewell. She was all swaddled just like a present for her daddy.

Yesterday we went out climbing with Jewell again. We went up to Little Si in North Bend. Our friend Amy went with us too. Jewell was great. She took a real nap. (She usually takes very short naps in new places.) And we kept her out all day and she didn't fuss (too much).

The Whole Family--Almost

The Whole Family--Almost, originally uploaded by longroper.

So I took a family picture while we were in Salem for Mason's baby blessing last weekend. I think the pictures turned out pretty good considering we had two babies, a toddler, and one grumpy Emma.

I encourage you to click on the picture to go to the Flickr page. It's pretty cool because you can select sections of the photos and leave comments on those selections. I have left several comments on different elements of the picture and I think it's worth checking out.

Happy Anniversary!

Jeanie and I were married three years ago today in the temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. Happy Anniversary to us! We celebrated by getting a babysitter this afternoon and going to see a matinée of Iron Man. I know, not really romantic, but we enjoyed it.