Jen's family comes to town for a zoo day!

A tired Isabella snuggles with Kristen

Elena gets her first ride on daddy's shoulders (daddy was a bit nervous and held her TIGHT)

Lucas gets a balloon race car (you should have seen him make the tires... WOW)

Isabella also gets a balloon creation

It was a nice day yesterday. Kristen, Shane, Lucas and Isabella all came down to the 'nati and braved the Columbus traffic for a nice weekend visit. We decided since I was the only one of the bunch to have been to the zoo (and it's been 12+ years) that we should all go. Jen tracked down some kids free admittance tickets from Krogers and we headed downtown-ish in the mid afternoon.

We got to the zoo around 3:30 which was perfect because more than 2.5 hours (it closes at 6pm) of walking and or pushing strollers would probably have been a tired family nightmare. The kids loved the animals - especially the cats. The adults enjoyed and were grossed out by the insects. We didn't get to see everything since none of us knew our way around and were constantly looking at the zoo map.

When the zoo closed at six we took our chances and headed to the Montgomery Inn Boathouse for a nice dinner. No luck. We got there at about 6:30 and they already had a 1.5-2 hour wait (which means 3 hours in the real world). So we headed off to Newport on the Levy and after some drinks at Bar Louie we got an outside balcony table at Dewey's Pizza. The salads were amazing and the pizzas were no less tasty. Lucas and Isabella enjoyed their cup of shredded cheese probably more than the pizza, but the rest of us pretty much crammed down as many slices as we were able (walking the zoo takes a lot out of you, really).

We saw a Graeter's sign nearby but decided to head home and get our ice cream fix in Mariemont. Well before we made it out of Newport we came across a balloon artist who was pretty darn good - and quite the entertainer as well. He made Lucas a race car with donut shaped tires (I've never seen anyone invert a balloon on itself) and decorated it with a sharpie as he entertained the crowd. I think the kids had a lot of fun but the balloon man sealed the deal.

As for Elena, she was such a good baby the whole day. She just chilled at the zoo in the stroller and slept a bit. She was a bit fussier after dinner and later on for ice cream. But all in all she's getting better and better about going out and getting out of her comfort zone.

Anyway, hope everyone has had a great weekend!

-Jason

Cute Kids

Isabella LOVES her cousin Elena

Isabella, Elena, and Lucas all smile together

Elena obviously wants to play too - maybe a few months from now...

Isabella likes to share her leelee (blankee) with Elena

Here are some of the pictures from our visit to Akron last weekend. I will have to create a new gallery entry on the main page for people to see ALL the pictures, but I thought these were the cutest ones of the bunch. Jen and I greatly enjoyed seeing Kristin and Shane and their kids. They were having a back to school party for Lucas and had invited lots of their friends with kids as well as Lucas' friends for a Saturday of games, crafts, and food - kinda like a little carnival. (They even had one of those fan-driven air-filled bouncy playpens for the kids. What fun!)

The next day we all got together at Nana's (Grandma Catherine's) house for lunch and that's when these pictures were taken. You could tell that Elena is ready to be a big girl and play with her cousins but just doesn't have the motor skills as of yet. A few more months and she'll be crawling and getting into everything I'm sure.

Anyway, I wanted to get these pictures posted since Jen was giving me a hard time as to why they weren't up on the blog yet.

Later all!

-Jason

4 Generations in 1 room!

Elena and her great grandmother

Jason, Elena, Dale, and Robert

So happy together!

Elena, Dale, Jen, Dolci, and Sally

I wanted to get some pictures posted of my grandmother's visit to Cincinnati to meet Elena. She turned 100 earlier this year and I'm amazed how well she gets around with very little help from others. She flew all the way from Naples FL to see Elena. Turns out she has 2 great grandsons (my cousin Lisa's kids - both around 10 yrs old) but did not have a great granddaughter until now.

She enjoyed holding Elena and singing to her and Elena seemed very content in her arms. Elena was able to see her great grandmother 3 times while she was in town (fortunately avoiding the tropical storm Fay that was hitting Naples during her visit here).

It was hard to get everyone to look good in ALL the pictures, so I picked the ones that were the best of what I had, so don't laugh. Try getting a 4½ month old to look at the camera AND 3 other people to smile simultaneously. A demanding task for even the best photographer! :)

Our visit ended with a rather tearful goodbye because at the age of 100 my grandmother confessed to Elena that she didn't know if she would see her again, but she would try. Even I was trying to hold back a tear or two. (Jen and I will have to do our best to make it down to Naples sometime this year or early next.)

On a lighter note, I'll have to post another entry soon because I have some fun and cute pictures of Elena with her cousins Lucas and Isabella from our trip to Akron last weekend.

Hope everyone is well and wish my grandmother and aunt a safe flight back to Florida.

-Jason

They'll sleep ANYWHERE!

So Jen had to go to a doctor's appointment and left me with Elena. I wasn't trying to be a bad dad so I put her in the kitchen with me to watch me cook and gave her some toys for entertain-ment.
About 20 minutes in she started to get whiny... like the sleepy whiny kind. Then she started to lean a bit to her left but kept playing with her toys. Then when I looked back she was pretty much slumped over not making any sound and had her eyes closed.
It was at this point that I took several pictures of her cause Q: how often does she fall and STAY asleep on her own and in such a funny position? A: very RARELY.

It lasted only 10 minutes however... she woke as I was washing dishes. Anyway, hope everyone enjoys these and I'll continue to add more fun pics when they come along.

Bye for now.

Everybody loves pictures

So... as the title says Everybody Loves Pictures. No one wants to read a boring old blog these days. They'd much rather see cute pictures of a 3 month old baby instead. I do understand the logic. We are so busy these days that there is little time to do much else but glance at photos. I'm a visual person myself. But there's a story behind each and every picture. MY BABY IS NOT JUST SOMETHING TO BE OGLED IN YOUR FREE TIME!!! Ha ha. I'm not being serious, of course. It's 1am and I'm a bit sleep deprived.

Anyway... back on topic. I have been a good daddy tonight and have compiled a BEST OF JULY '08 picture album for all those* who have been asking for more pictures of Elena. I know there can NEVER be enough pictures of her and as long as I have camera(s) and free space on my memory cards and a large hard drive with backup, there will be many many more as well - I'm a bit of a photo addict.

Make sure you click "Slideshow" when you visit the gallery and enjoy the poignant captions!

Also, don't forget you can SUBSCRIBE to our blog to receive updates when they become available. So if you haven't yet subscribed, what are you waiting for?!

Peas owt.
-Naug

*by "all those" I mostly meant Jen's friend Dawn who told Jen to bug me to add more photos. :-)

Oh how she grows...

So, it's been probably a month since my last update. So much has been going on with Elena. Here are some of the notables.

• She just rolled over last week from her tummy to her back and again this morning.
• She apparently is going to have a sweet tooth cause naughty Jen put a touch of Yogoot (a trendy frozen yogurt) on her lips and she liked it.
• She now entertains herself in the activity saucer for more than 10 minutes - and has a new favorite movie... Finding Nemo!
• She really makes eye contact now and coos a lot when she looks at you.
• She loves to "stand" when you're holding her and has super strong legs.
• She's getting good at grabbing onto things and not letting go.
• She's become quite the thumb sucker. This will be bad, I'm sure. We need to work more on the binky.
• She still hates being on her stomach - probably cause she had so much colic her first few months, but that has improved a lot recently.
• Her favorite place to be is outside - you could push her in a stroller all day and she'd be happy and content.

We were up in Akron 2 weeks ago which was nice. We were there for the funeral of one of Jen's uncles. Elena got to see her great grandmother Wenner as well as her cousins Lucas and Isabella. Isabella especially loved seeing Elena and kept trying to give her blankets and pillows. They will surely be the best of friends in a few years.

Elena did NOT enjoy the car ride very much - we think because she is really a hands on baby and likes being held and having constant attention. The last few shorter car trips she has been TONS better and even sleeps most of the trips. HOPEFULLY this will continue but we will see.

Elena also has been lucky to spend time with her grandparents Bob and Sally who love showing her off to their neighbors and friends. Everybody seems to think Elena is so cute and quite alert for a baby her age. It is nice having grandparents near by who can help watch our little one from time to time when Jen and I need a little break. I STILL don't think we've gone to see a movie in an actual theater since she's been born - but we have dined out a few times recently and she's been really good. (With the exception of brunch at the Exemplar when Jen had to feed her midway through the meal because she got a bit fussy.)

Everything else is good. Mom and dad have sore backs from gardening (Jen and I) and tennis (Jason) as well as lugging a very heavy infant carrier from car to shopping cart and such. Our small garden is starting to produce more than just beans and cucumbers... oh the cucumber humanity... we can't eat that all fast enough! Our blackberries are still coming in even though it has been very dry and we are going to get another huge batch of raspberries soon as well. Yum!!

Elena's 4 month is coming up soon so there will be more pictures to share. Here are some of the current ones that you may have missed. Love you all!

And DON'T forget to scroll down for some recent pics!

-Jason, Jen & Elena