off to grandmother's house we go!

Today Daddy took Kaemon Ze to Gramma & Grampa's house. He looked so cute in his lil dude outfit that I had to snap these photos before they left. The second one is Kaemon Ze telling me, "peace, yo" before he left with Daddy. ;)







































See the lil pockets in his pants above? He has one on each side. Ever the opportunist to spread joy when I can, I put a love note in each pocket; one for Gramma and one for Grampa.

Later in the morning I got a text message from Gramma saying, "What a cute outfit on your little man! I want a picture of you two when you pick him up!" And when I picked him up after work, she was ready with the camera:







































Kaemon Ze loves being held up-side-down. He giggles and grins big time. When we got home, I checked his pockets and found new loves notes - to us, Mommy and Daddy!

My family is so much fun! :) :) :) :) Like that saying goes, "a family that plays together stays together." - Thank you for being so willing to play with me! :) :) :)

the four musketeers!

Today, the four boys from my HypoBirthing class came by so I could photograph them together. Aren't they cute?! From left to right: Osian, Kaemon Ze, Zamir, and Finn. KZ is the oldest, Osian is the biggest (18+ lbs!); Finn was born after Osian; Zimi is the youngest, weighing in at 13 lbs. :)

early morning lattes in Lake Oswego

Jason and I were up early today; I was awake at 4am (and not because of the baby!) and he woke up around 6:30am. I've been wanting to buy the beautiful primroses I saw at Safeway this week ($1 each!) to put in the hanging pots and in the flower boxes. This is what I wanted to do with my day today. Jason was happy to oblige me the trip across the river as he needed some things from the store for our monthly Waffle Breakfast we host for our community.

We swung by my favorite coffee shop: Chuck's Cookies and Coffee. Chuck was out, but his barista Keegan was brewing the Illy coffee this morning. This is the first time she got to meet Kaemon Ze. He was alseep when I introduced her, but he popped his eyes open while Jason and I were enjoying our lattes, scones, and purusing the day's Oregonian. I asked Keegan if she'd like to hold him (she said she loves loves babies) and she jumped at the chance.

An interesting side note: Keegan has qualified for the Boston Marathon! Running is pretty new for her - she took it up last year and completed the Portland Marathon, then went on to qualify for the Boston Marathon. I know what a tremendous acheivement that is. When I used to commute via bus to downtown Portland, there was a guy who was a runner. He'd often get on the bus in his running gear. One day I struck up a conversation with him about his running, and he mentioned that he had attempted several years to qualify for the Boston and had not yet been able to do so. Keegan, you rock!

Chuck came in a lil while later and talked to Kaemon Ze. Very cute. Chuck is a hoot. Nice guy. I really like him. Well, him and the scones he makes every morning. :)

I'm hoping to get a few photos of the flowers in the pots and planters posted. Til then - happy Saturday!

heading to lunch

We had a beautiful day - sunshine and warm(er) temperatures! Jason had the day off due to all this overtime in traveling to DC, so he wanted to take us to lunch - somewhere we hadn't been before; someplace yummy. We ended up in Sellwood at a sweet little restaurant/tea house named "Jade Teahouse & Patisserie". The food was fantastic. Jason had a Vietnamese meatball sandwhich that was out of this world. The flavors were spot-on, so good. I had a wide weat noodle chicken/shrip dish in a curry-like sauce. Yum! "French fries made with truffle oil" was on the menu... well that sounded interesting so we ordered a side and let me tell you - those fries were good! Everything was presented on plates; real glasses and metal flatware. Nothing wasteful. We appreciated that.

Here's a photo of Kaemon Ze in his spiffy sunglasses before we left:













And here's the photo of him when we arrived:













Heh! He slept through nearly all of lunch. He is so good to us!

Later in the day, I took these close-ups. His blue eyes really pop. :)












I think one day he may be able to successfully fit his entire fist into his hand. At least that's what it seems like what he wants to do!

KZ visits Mommy's office

Jason and Kaemon Ze dropped me off at the office this morning while my car was having its brakes replaced. This was the first time Steve met Kaemon Ze. :)

John (my boss) came out of his office once his phone call was finished to see the baby. It's been a while since he's seen him. I think the last time was the first time, when KZ was 2 weeks old. He's grown a bit since then. KZ gave John a big smile and John told him that made his day. :)

Same, day: another e-mail from Gramma Karen

This series also came from Gramma Karen today:

Ask me why...













I'm dressed up in [Auntie] Katie's old shirt!













hehehe ... cuz I'm a lil devil!













I peed on Gramma .. and myself ... and lots of other stuff too!

more torture devices

We got an e-mail from Gramma Karen today: "more torture devices," along with these fun photos & text:













umm ... what am I supposed to do with this thing Grampa?













Dad? ... Mom?













This could be fun ...













If Gramma would just stop torturing me with these new contraptions!













ok ... I think I like it!

new hand moves

for daddy, who is away

Love you!

Kaemon Ze is four months of age today!

Kaemon Ze had some fun firsts leading up to his four month birthday:

1. Gramma Karen sent a text saying, "Omg! Omg! A turd! Real people poop! The kind that doesn't makde a mess! Whoohoo Whoohoo! :)"

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of cleaning of baby poo lately, you may not understand this excitement... for those of you who have (or remember), a "real people poop" is something to get real excited about! Unfortunately, it was a once time occurance. We're back to real baby poop in all of its glory.

2. Kaemon Ze rolls from his tummy onto his back - right in front of Jason and I - and we both managed to miss it.

In fact, it happened so fast and was so fluid in the few seconds our attention was diverted away from Kaemon Ze, that when we looked at him, we weren't sure he had moved at all! I asked Jason, "didn't I just put him on his tummy?!" Jason was a stunned as I was. Whoo hoo! A milestone. And... like the "real people poop" - it hasn't happened again.

3. [this is a placemark... I'm not remembering the third thing at the moment... gotta love 'baby brain syndrom!]

4. Tonight, on Kaemon Ze's lil birthday, I was reading a book to him, a small book with thick cardboard pages. I turned the first page and read the sentence. When I stopped, I waited for KZ to finish looking at the picture before I turned the page. KZ reached over and turned the page. I was surprised, and smiled at the 'chance' that he intentionally turned the page. I read the next page and again paused when I finished. Again, KZ reached over and turned the page. I started to think, "Really?! You're turning the pages?" Then I read the next page, and again, he reached over and turned the page. This went on until the book was finished. I couldn't believe my four-month-old son just turned all six pages!! Let alone turned them exactly when I finished reading. I was blown away.

daddy and kaemon ze

a tour of hats

Sunny day in Portland! High temp was to be 58 degrees F!
Sun, sun, sun! Kaemon Ze and I took a walk up to the
grocery store. He got to wear his cool Tigger shades for
the first time - and - he kept them on all the way to the
store. Heh. Thank you, Lady K, for the fun Disneyland shades!

Once in the store, I introduced him to a young gal
who works there. She's very friendly and took a shining to
Jason and I last year. Since then, she got a boy friend and
whoops, got pregnant. They're expecting on July 5th.

Her due date is very close to my friend Angela's due date,
so it's fun for me to see how big the gal's belly is getting
and imagining that's how Angela is coming along. :)

After the lil meet-n-greet, KZ let me know he was getting hungry.
I fed him in the lil cafe area of the store and he fell asleep even
before he was half-way through his bottle. :)

tigger sunglasses from Lady K

How do you like Kaemon Ze's first sunglasses? Jason and I laughed when I put them on him.

giggling at mommy

I made a bookmark out of the holiday card my brother sent - it's my favorite bookmark:

more birthday celebrations

My mother-in-law, Karen, and my cousin-in-law, Jenn, have the same birthday: 2/16. My birthday is just a few days before. For the past three years or so, we've been celebrating our birthdays together. This year we shook it up a bit and did something different (read: Karen and Jenn left it up to me to choose how we would celebrate... then they vetoed my idea of getting pedicures for us and our hubbies - hehehe. I really wanted to get ~that~ photo!). We went bowling with our hubbies, and had a lot of laughs (mostly at Karen's attempts at bowling. hehehe. Just kidding! Don't dis-own me!) . I scored pretty much dead center both games. That was good enough for me

























Then, we went out for Mexican to celebrate our studly bowling scores (ha!). I took this funny shot... one of those no-depth perception photos making Kaemon Ze look like he's enjoying my margarita. ;) He wasn't of course, so don't call protective services.

Happy Birthday to Us!

lazy sunday

play date - for the mommies :)

Today Kaemon Ze and I went to Susan's home for a de-lish home-made lunch (salad, skewered chicken with rice and peanut sauce). Susan has a son that's about six weeks younger than KZ. We met in our hypnobirthing class. It was a relaxing afternoon. KZ smiled for Susan, who said that smiles are parents drug of choice. heh! I think she is right. Those baby smiles make getting up in the middle of the night worthwhile. :) One of my favorite times with Kaemon Ze is when he wakes up in the late morning (while Jason and I are still in bed) and I can hear him start to banter and stretch. When I get up and look at him, he smiles sooooo big at me. Just melts my heart.

Kaemon Ze sitting on the dining table while Susan and I enjoy our lunch. :)

birthday dinner with my boys

Look how cute my lil guy is! (Daddy's pretty cute, too!). The other photo is Kaemon Ze and I in our happy birthday sombrero hats, given to us at the restaurant. The staff insisted we take them home - so we now have KZ's first sombrero hat! I'm guessing it'll really fit him by the time he's three or four years of age. :)

I had a really lovely birthday sprinkled with loving greetings from friends. Thank you so much!

it's my birthay!

Yep, that's me. Sucking on my toe. :)

kaemon ze sat up for daddy today!!

Jason sent me a text message to tell me that Kaemon Ze "sat up for a moment but I didn't have a camera 4 it...I sat him up and he stayed like that for 30 seconds or so."

Wow! How about that?!

Here he is with his first 'baby's first' Valentine's card (complete with a $2 bill) that came in the mail today from Bunny & Papa (my parents).

not much sleep last night

When I picked Kaemon Ze up from his Gramma Karen's yesterday, she said he didn't sleep much - just several short-short power naps. He was pretty tired, too. I was surprised he stayed awake for the 15 minute trip to our house; I was further surprised that he didn't crash out after I fed him (just one quick 10 minute nap); and you can imagine my continued surprise that he stayed up until 9pm! Then, instead of sleeping his usual 3-4 hours at night, he woke up every two hours. Whew... mom and dad were pretty sleepy this morning.
When I finally woke up (to Jason coming into the room to tell me I had overslept the alarm, which didn't actually go off), Kaemon Ze was fully awake - after getting daddy up to feed him at 5am - and ready to play. Heh! I put him on a blanket on the floor in front of the wood stove and he jabbered to the ceiling fan, to us, to his new panda bear (a Valentine's gift from Gramma Bunny & Papa JC) long enough for me to get ready to go.

After last night, my first stop was the dive-through espresso shop! Heh.

t minus three days and i'm feeling the love!

Since the start of this month, I've been getting all kinds of early birthday wishes - it's truly wonderful!

So far, I've been blessed with:

• birthday calls (with beautiful renditions of "Happy Birthday")
• a super early birthday card (thank you Uncle Don!)
• a card from the company (they're on the ball)
  
• flowers on my doorstep (thank you Lee!)
  
• in-person wishes
• a toast (during an early Valentine's dinner with friends)
  
• a lovely necklace; the cloth bag that held the necklace is (I was told) "from the Dalai Lama". How special is that? (thank you Dorothy!)
  
• e-mail wishes (one from a friend who wanted to know why in the world I didn't wait until AFTER my birthday to go back to work)

And today, I got this super-fun interactive birthday greeting from Lori, starring my Joy Circle girls.

I am sooooooooooooo blessed.
That, and I choose really, really, good friends!

Thank you!
I am feeling the love!

hair cuts and bath time

Jason and I both got haircuts today (whoo hoo!). Our 'hair artist', Paula Jones, finally got to meet our three-month-old son.

We were quite the picture: Jason and I reading, "10 Little Monkeys" in unison to Kaemon Ze while we waited our turn in the magic-making chair. ;)

I got a kick out of all the curls left on the floor after Jason's cut. Paula said it looks like Kaemon Ze will have curly hair, too. His blonde hair turned brown, but there's still a lot of blonde on his head, plus his (super long) eyelashes are still blonde as are his eyebrows. We wonder if he'll end up with blonde-ish curly hair like his dad... or straight brown hair like his mom. It'll probably be a combination thereof.

Mama washed all those kisses off me. :)

first day at Gramma's day care :)

Today was my first day back to work after being off for 12 weeks. A lot of people (moms) told me they had a hard time leaving their babies, while others were happy to get back into the world of adults for a few hours a day. I never anticipated any emotional devastation at being separated from Kaemon Ze. I knew I would miss the freedom to do with my days what I wanted (albeit with a baby dictating most of my time - ha!). I handed KZ over to his Grandpa Joe and gave all the supporting materials (bouncy chair, stroller, diaper bag, etc) to Gramma Karen. I knew I would miss him, but I didn't cry nor did I feel like I would. Mainly I know KZ's in very capable and very loving hands. I am so incredibly blessed to have Karen and Joe in my life. They are simply amazing in their generosity and in their love. Every time I think Karen for her offer to day care, she turns in on me and thanks ~me~ for the honour to do so. Wow, wow, wow. I wish everyone had in-laws like mine. I really do.

I'm returning to work part-time, 30 hours per week with Fridays off. Jason is starting to work four 10-hour days to have Wednesdays off, so KZ is at Grammas for three days a week. Gramma Karen is very much looking forward to nicer weather when she can put Kaemon Ze in his infant swing (on the wooden swingset she hand-sanded for him) and play with him in their newly re-done yard (thanks to Grandpa Joe). Kaemon Ze's impending arrival into our world inspired both labors of love by his grandparents. :)


On his way to Gramma's this morning.
Funny look, huh?












Gramma sent Mommy and Daddy these sweet photos. ~heart~