Lunch and Bowl

Last week we went to lunch and bowl with the Daugherty lab. Here are some photos of that event, plus some funny Levi faces at the end.

Smiling happy baby laughing

Last night all of a sudden, Levi started to smile and once he started, he couldn't stop. It made me happy because up until this point, we had our suspicions that our baby was a bit of a snob. We would try to make eye contact and talk to him and he would just look away. Jerry would say "He snubbed me!" Last night was a different story, but it still took some work for him to crack. I don't really want to talk about the amount of silliness I displayed to elicit the smiles for these pictures. So enjoy.

Untitled-1

I remember enjoying a lot of things about elementary school (recess, frozen juice cups, Oregon Trail, more recess, reading time, dodgeball, more recess) but art class was not one of them. I detested art, and to this day still find it hard to cut in a straight line or draw a stick figure. Since grade school I've avoided art at all costs, but now in the 21st grade I might be ready to give it another try. Here is my renewed attempt. I call it Untitled-1.



Maybe I'll have to try it again with a video camera instead of still frames, but I thought it was pretty good... for a first grader.

Fun good times

Childhood Obesity

Levi now weighs a whopping 11lbs, 14 oz. Although, we suspect he might have been hiding weights in his pockets. The nurse told us that he is in the 90th percentile for his age. Whoa.

So, if we're going with the Price is Right rules, then the big winner is long time friend Micah Martin who guessed 11lbs 11oz. Micah and Lauren just had their own little baby boy in February, so that is kind of cheating, don't you think?

The prize is Levi's weight in tomatoes from the garden. But you'll have to come visit us in Santa Barbara to collect.

Step right up! Step right up!

Levi has his next weigh in on Thursday. We invite you to wager a guess on his weight. It will have been 17 days since his last appointment, when he weighed 9 lbs 11 oz. What will he be this time?

If he keeps up the same rate as between the last two appointments, by the time he is 5 years old, he will be over 200 lbs.

How does your garden grow?

Disclaimer: This is not a baby pictures post, but don't worry more will be posted soon enough. This note is a big thank you to my Grandma and Grandpa Mortensen and our friends, Vince and Tamara, for inspiring and teaching us to grow our own vegetable garden.

Until my friend, Vince, showed me that passion fruit could be grown in Santa Barbara I never would have thought I would come anywhere near a garden. But Vince is very persuasive, and the passion fruit from his organic garden (where he worked until recently) was very tasty, so I guess that was the moment when things changed (I guess, if you will, you could say that was where the seed was planted... I mean c'mon it's a note about gardening). I don't know what changed exactly but it started small. I started remembering to water the few plants we had. Then we started acquiring more plants. Then Viv was giving me things like hoses and shovels for my birthday. Before I knew it I was harvesting passion fruit and tomatoes growing on our backyard porch. Well, this year we decided (actually I decided) to jump in with both feet, and we requested a plot of land in the "family housing community garden".

Well, the pictures below pretty much tell the story but as a quick summary we planted 7 types of tomatoes, 7 types of peppers, yellow squash, and zucchini. We started the seeds in February, transplanted in late March, and started getting produce in May. Viv was pregnant through all of this but was still a good sport, helping me move dirt, lay down drip line, etc.

Lately we're getting baskets full of stuff every few days, and surprisingly very little appears to have been stolen. I haven't quite figured out what went wrong with the peppers, but other than that we've been getting more than we know what to do with. I've never been so excited to eat steamed vegetables in my life. All I can think to say is thanks Vince & Tamara and Grandma & Grandpa for showing me how real gardens grow.

Week 3

Fatty!

At Levi's pediatrician appointment last week, he weighed in at 9 lbs 11 ozs. That's 19 ozs in 10 days. So that can only mean one thing, we have a FAT baby!

Apparently the expected weight gain is about 1 ounce per day. At a rate almost twice that, Levi amazed and impressed the nurse and the pediatrician.

Levi is currently denying all doping allegations.