Go, Banana!

Just a cute video of Reece from today. I'll try to get more good pics of his radical mohawk. It's seriously two inches tall and totally natural. A lot of babies have to spend hours grooming to get that kind of killer hairdo. Not our baby. His hair just screams for attention, and oftentimes so does Reece. Usually, thank goodness, he is less likely to scream than to just stare people down until they fawn over him.




Here he is talking to Grandma Nancy on the phone. He always gets this look when he's on the phone, though he rarely makes a sound. You can also kinda see the mohawk here.



Reece loves loves loves Teddy Bear's Picnic (the original song, not the Internet Sensation version). It somehow ended up being his bedtime book/song. He gets so excited when we start to sing (Paul includes an opening fanfare each night so Reece starts flapping his arms and squealing when he hears the drumroll) and it is pretty much the only book that Reece doesn't try to eat as soon as he sees it. It's even worked as a calming ploy when we try to actually get him to sleep. He'll cuddle with his book. The book could be a bit more cuddly in return, but I'm sure with enough drool it'll end up nice and soft soon enough. For this video, I left Reece sitting in the middle of the bed, the book out of reach (I thought) and closed, and I came back to find him doing a little light reading.

Reece Today

Reece is 6 1/2 months old now and he just got a crib today. No more sleeping in a drawer for our little guy. He loves it so far, and I love that his bed no longer slopes toward the middle (play yards are fantastic, but his needed a bit of an upgrade). He also loves that his stuffed animals can all fit in his bed with him. So please do enjoy our little Reece-man.

Vacation Videos - Only 6 weeks late

So just a few videos from our trip. I know it's like a month later and it's kinda not relevant anymore. But it takes time to get to things, so here we go.

This first video is only representative of what happened with Reece everywhere we went. People LOVED him, especially the Italians. It was fun to watch, and we even (sometimes) got special perks because of it. Example: in Venice a couple gave us all-access passes to every museum because they thought Reece was cute. Unfortunately he cried in every one of them. Then in Florence's Uffizi, we got to go behind the little velvet ropes to get to the elevators and got to see the full 360 view of some famous sculptures (the actual thorn in the "Boy with the Thorn in his foot" or whatever it's called). We had tourists gawking at Reece instead of Michelangelo's David, and others pointing out Reece instead of admiring Galileo's actual finger (which we thought was pretty cool). This happened dozens of times a day, so when we left Italy Reece had been trained that if he looked at someone long enough, they would love up on him. He's still getting over that and will stare people down in the store. If they don't look back and smile, he yells at them. It's pretty funny and getting better.



This next video is from our drive through Switzerland. We were just amazed at how incredibly beautiful it was. Enjoy.




This video is halfway up Mount Pilatus in Lucerne, Switzerland. This was our favorite day of the trip.



And finally, just a little bit of French culture from our three hours we spent in Strasbourg. Sure Ryan and Liz actually live in France and can actually give you accurate accounts of the culture, food, people and music, but we aren't cool enough. So you get me singing Frere Jacques.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait...but other things, like this post, also come to those who wait

I finally uploaded all of our trip photos and a few photos from September onto our web albums. Take a look if you're interested (and have time and/or desire to see about 500 photos). We love you! (Note: If you doubt that we actually love you because we don't know you, then we probably don't and you shouldn't be viewing this blog. If you think "maybe they love me because we are good friends and/or acquaintances," then you can probably assume that we do love you. If you still need reassurance, post a comment or call us and I will let you know on a more personal basis whether or not there is love. Again, the answer is probably 'yes').

We Made It!

We finally finally finally got moved in to our new place in Menlo Park. We have been here for 10 days now and just got our furniture two days ago. Then we just got internet today. So I officially feel like we've moved in. I even put up the first picture on the wall this morning. We did it! Paul started work on Monday and he's loving it. We are so happy to be here and feel so grateful to be done with school and have a great job. So let us know when you want to come visit. We have jelly bellies just waiting to be eaten.

Baby Mozart

Reece picked up this new trick while visiting Mozart's home town of Salzburg. We'll post more vacation pictures and videos later, but this couldn't wait.



It turns out most babies do this at some point or another. But Reece also loves it when we sing along to his music, and he loves when his dad plays the guitar. So yes, he is a musical genius.

Utah Vacation

Reece and I spent the last three weeks in Utah while Paul studied for and took his CA bar exam. He joined us halfway through our stay, and none too soon. We missed him like crazy and were so happy to be back together again. We loved seeing everybody that we could see and missed those that we couldn't (Ryan, Liz and Owen, we're talking about you). Though we're glad to be back in Los Angeles, we are definitely missing our family and friends.



The next big adventure is moving to Menlo Park in September, so start planning on when you're coming to visit us!