Side by Side

I thought it would be fun to see comparisons side by side of Will and I as babies next to Preston. It was hard, but I tried to find photos where we were posed simularly. And not to mention, finding photos where we were around the same ages was difficult too, so they are not exact. In fact, I think one of Will at the bottom was of him at 1 year of age.

This first set is Preston side by side with me as a baby.

(Top: Preston at 2 weeks, Jenni at 1 month)

(Bottom: Preston at 5 months, Jenni at 3 months)

Next is Will side by side with Preston.

(Top: Preston at 4 months, Will at 5 months)

(Bottom: Preston at 4 months, Will at 1 year)

Definitely not the mailman's baby. :)

Pay Day

Congratulations to me!

Yesterday was like Christmas after the UPS man came.

I got brand new Salomon Threat twintip skis, tshirts, two snow beanies, and 2 dvds of the movie Reasons.

Why you might ask?

This was the first installment of two payments owed to me from Poor Boyz Productions for using my song "Fly Away" in their award winning film Reasons (They took home 4 top awards at the International Freeskiing Film Festival in Montreal).

So I got my swag, and then next will come my check.

That's right. I am finally getting paid for having my music in movies. It feels pretty nice. I've had my music in several indie films over the last year, but this is the first non-indie film and the first time I've actually been paid.

So again, congratulations to me. :)

And to Will, because I'm giving the skis to him. I already have some nice Rosi's and Will has been skiing on used rental skis. And twin tips? Are you kidding me? As IF I ski downhill backwards. I will leave all those types of tricks up to Will and his brothers this year at the family reunion at Yellowstone.

On another note, I was just selected to be an author on a music teacher's blog. I'm pretty excited. I will be contributing one article her month. I put the link on our sidebar under the "Other Blogs We Dig" category at the bottom.

Night Out at the Seattle Symphony

What you are about to read will either make you laugh, or cry. I am the one who actually experienced it, and I did both.

For about 6 weeks now, Will has been planning on taking me to the symphony. It was to be our first dressy date since Preston was born. The tickets were purchased, the babysitter was lined up, and the dinner reservations were planned.

The night was Tuesday evening.

I had considered everything I needed to get done in order to be ready and knowing I needed to leave no later than 3:15pm, I started counting backwards to estimate my schedule.

Ok, 10 min to load the car. 15 min to feed Preston. 15 min to eat lunch. 1 hour to get ready. 20 min to shower. 15 min to feed Preston. 10 min to dress him. 15 min to get diaper bag ready. 10 min for diaper changes. 45 min to work out. 3 min to look up directions and print out.

I need to start doing all of this by 11:30am.

Everything was going great.

I had been pumping milk for the last day so that I would have enough to give our friends (aka the babysitters) to watch Preston all evening. I went to the fridge around 1pm to do one last pump. I found the bottle of milk (only 6 oz of the precious stuff that I was able to spare so far) had tipped over in the fridge and drained to the bottom of the fridge floor.

I was devastated. If you have breastfed before, you know how hard it is to come up with extra when you are trying to simultaneously feed as well. What was I supposed to do? Now Preston would not have any milk for the rest of the evening.

I tried to stay calm, going over in my head "Okay, I could try to pump some more but there still won't be enough. There is none frozen in the freezer. CRAP! He is going to have to have his first taste of formula."

Well, Preston won't even take a bottle. So giving him some new type of milk AND a bottle? I felt sorry for our babysitters already.

I continued getting ready, all the while Preston was fussy and crying and needing my attention. I hadn't eaten lunch yet, it was already 2:30 and I was supposed to leave in 45 min. So the easiest thing I could think of, was to make a smoothie and drink it while I was getting ready.

During this: Fussy baby, fussy baby, and more fussy baby. I am even more behind schedule.

I go to my closet to pick out what to wear. I look at my huge selection of fancy dresses knowing that I only fit into, oh, maybe 2 of them. But I grab 5, starting out with trying on the ones I knew probably wouldn't fit, and ending with the ones I knew did fit.

Well, it was of course the last dress I tried on that was the only one that fit. Put the dress on. Preston is crying to be fed.

Take the dress off, feed him. Put the dress back on.

I go into the bathroom seeing how it is now 3:15, I still have curlers in my hair, and I am not even remotely ready to leave yet.

I reach over to grab something off the bathroom counter and knock my glass of strawberry smoothie over. It falls and spills all over my makeup, into the bathroom drawers, onto the floor and splashes all over the front of my dress. And the ONE dress that fit me, I remind you.

I am crying at this point but trying not to because I don't want to have to redo my makeup on top of everything.

I am able to remove most all the smoothie from my dress. I hurry and put my shoes on. Preston is miraculously being good. I take my curlers out and realize again how much I hate my hair since I cut it all off.

I grab everything and take it down to the car, realizing I left some things upstairs. I start the car and run back up the 25 stairs only to find I locked myself out. I run back down the stairs and grab the keys from the ignition, and go up again and grab what I need.

I drive 15 min to the babysitter's house and realize as I am almost there, that I forgot Preston's formula and his jar of applesauce. This was a necessity that I bring it, being that he does not have any breastmilk.

So I have to turn around and go all the way home and get his food. By this time it is 4:15.

Finally, I drop everything plus Preston off at the sitters and leave to go pick up Will from work. It was 4:30. And our dinner reservation was for 5pm.

After this point though the evening actually ended up going really smoothly. Our date was lovely. The food was fantastic, the concert was fun, and it was nice to be together. But WOW. The part leading up to the date? Hope that never happens again!

5 Months!

That is right. Our little guy is now 5 months old! Okay, well actually not until tomorrow. For some reason I keep thinking that TODAY is the 13th. He was born June 13th.

Now he just needs to double his lifespan outside the womb to equal the time he was inside.

The poor guy is sick though. I knew it was inevitable that he would catch my cold with our close contact 24 hours a day. It breaks my heart to see him sniffling, hardly able to breath, coughing and hacking.

The Family That Hikes Together...

...Gets wet together. Just kidding, they stay together too.

First of all, a moment of silence please.

Right now, while I am at home hacking phlegm from my lungs and speaking with an almost-man voice, my darling husband and little boy are at church.

Do you know what this means???

I am alone in our house, without a baby. This is probably maybe the 2nd time this has happened since Preston was born. It is very quiet. I almost shutter at how quiet it is, aside from the clicking of keys on the keyboard as I type this of course. I know I should be sleeping, but I feel this urge of excitement that I might actually get a few projects done during this two hour baby-less block of time.

Okay so back to the good stuff.

Despite the fact that I've had a nasty case of phlegm-hacking-itus this past week, I relented and went along with Will's idea to go climb Mt. Si yesterday afternoon.

So let the adventure begin...

Remember this contraption? It was the very first thing Will went out and bought after I told him I was pregnant. Now, almost a year later. He gets to use it.

As you can see, Will was...

It was a tad bit chilly for Preston, so I made sure that:

All snuggled and cinched in...

What do you think of that, Preston?

He is just happy that he is

So then we decided to set the camera on the trunk of the car to take a family photo...

We tried it again later on during the hike. It turned out:

But it is hard to keep hands steady to take pictures without the flash.

Will was wondering if his son would be a...

A family self-portrait:

And a closeup on that little guy in the background:

We think we make cute babies. Maybe we'll have to add more.

Geez not NOW sillies. I just had one. We mean like next year. Way way WAY late next year, or maybe the year after.

So anyway, we finally decided that it was:

It was getting darker, and the little guy just couldn't take it any longer. Good thing the piggyback has:

Back at the car, Preston was...

And thus ends our tale of this particular adventure.

And why I am home sick from church. You really shouldn't go out in the rain and cold if you're already sick.