Communication

Quinn's latest words are "Uh Oh" and "Baby" and he likes to babysign "Dog" (panting).

A Night Out with Quinn

What? Hard to believe that we actually did something social! Jeff S and family had a few people over for dinner tonight. We decided to take the kid.

Quinn takes a lot of time to primp for his evening out. Here he is conditioning his skin with squash.


He enjoyed watching their doberman fetch and chase chickens.


Jeremy and Jeff jam


Big Quin and little Quinn share a jammy moment.


We kept him out until 10 pm - on a day when he napped for a total of only 45 minutes all day. Amazingly he was in a good mood ALL NIGHT. Good baby.

Good night!

Earthquakes an Highchair

Today we got our first highchair and experienced our first earthquake. We were just minding our own business hanging out, crawling along the kitchen floor when suddenly I felt the ground move. It took me a minute to realize what was going on, but then I remembered that we are in California and it dawned on me that it was an earthquake. I ran for Quinn, snatched him off the kitchen floor, ran under the shaking dining room light, hopped over the nervous dog and went outside where I watched my car wobble for several more seconds. That's when it occured to me that I had no idea what you were supposed to do during an earthquake, but when I noticed the neighbors also in their front yards I figured I had made a good choice. I was pretty stunned by the experience, but eventually went back inside to the terrified dog, who I had to coax out from behind a chair. Jeff has assured me that this is not a normal occurrence. I hope not...because if so I'm headed back to NC! :)

Quinny didn't even seem to notice that anything was amiss! Here he is enjoying his new/used highchair. Thanks Mom!!

House Progress

We've finally begun to put our house together. Friday and Saturday we made some major progress with the purchase of a few pieces of essential furniture. Our kitchen lacks a bit of cabinet/counter space so we were in the market for a sideboard/buffet. We almost purchased one at Ikea, but they were out of stock, which was a lucky break, because I found this cool rustic antique piece at a local consignment store.

The cleanest our kitchen will likely be for a long time

And our second major find was a dining room table. We'd been looking for a while, since our table was broken in the move. We finally settled on this one. It opens up to become square and will seat up to 8 people. So now we're almost ready to entertain! Just gotta finish unpacking those boxes!

Some recent videos...

Bathtime is lots of fun these days!

Maybe walking isn't too far off?

Dinnertime conversation with Quinn (Sorry, I really usually try to never post a video that is longer than about 20 seconds, but I thought Nana and Ervin would enjoy this one.)

Family time

Cousin Kyan came over for a visit last weekend. He and Quinn enjoyed taunting Merlin through the door. Shortly after this photo was taken Kyan looked over and clocked Quinn in the head. Quinn thought it was funny. (in case you can't tell from the drastically different head shapes, Q is on the left here).

Uncle Ando

Aunt Jaime with the boys

Desert Camping Trip

Andy and Colleen came to visit last week. It was great to see them, but unfortunately, for much of the week I was working - a lot. When the weekend arrived we opted to take a little camping trip. The destination: Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. This was Quinn's first camping experience. What we learned: we need a bigger tent for future outings. Aside from not sleeping he did great - and so did we (once we recovered from the lack of sleep). During our waking hours we took a couple of hikes and checked out the desert blooms. For more (better) photos check out Colleen's blog.

Qbert and Dad in the soon-to-be-upsized tent

The token photo of Quinn smiling in the baby backpack

Desert view

What a good mom letting the baby crawl around amidst all of the spiny cacti!

The cuties under the moon

A few weeks ago Jeff and I took a drive to the park to check out the wildflowers, but found it less than thrilling. On this visit we went back to the same site to see if things had moved further along. This time we were not disappointed. The desert was in full bloom - full of vibrant color. I thought it would be a good time to play around with my macro lens.

Ocotillo

From the left: Jeff, Merlin, Alex/Quinn, Ando and Colleen