Saturday, October 31, 2009

Hayleyween

Today we celebrated our first Halloween together as a family. We did so by dressing up as another family: the infamous Three Bears. You can probably guess which of us was Papa Bear, Mama Bear, or Baby Bear:



Of course, the classic story isn't complete without the home-invading, porridge-eating miscreant Goldilocks:




Hayley was feeling a little under the weather, so we started our day of festivities later than originally planned. Once we picked up Aunt Kati in the afternoon, we piled into the car in full costume and headed out. First stop: Starbucks! The cashier got into the Halloween spirit and labeled our drinks with our character names:



Sufficiently energized, we arrived at a pumpkin-carving party hosted by Miranda's boss. Miranda encouraged me to join in the fun, despite the fact that I can't even remember the last time I carved a pumpkin. So I gutted a small one and drew on my design, a common one among gamers: Pac-Man chasing some ghosts. However, my skills being nonexistent, Miranda took over the actual carving. Turns out she is pretty darn good!




Afterward we headed back to Grandma's house where Hayley took a nap and had a bottle:




At this point, we sent Goldilocks on her way (the punk sat in our chairs and slept in our beds!) and went to our usual final destination of the evening, the annual Haunted Holiday in Redwood City. Fun and treats were had. We called it a night and brought Hayley home for her bedtime. Apparently, she saved a trick for Papa Bear:



By the way, if you ever want to be a bear for Halloween, but you don't want to buy a whole bear suit, all I can say is good luck. For some strange reason, simple bear ears are extremely hard to find. We ended up with some cat/mouse ears from the internet that we passed off as bear ears. Who knew such an item would be so rare?

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The sweetest sound

It's been a while since we got Hayley laughing on camera. She gets into a giggly mood so randomly, but when she does, she doesn't hold back. Tonight, Miranda took off her leg warmers and she thought it was the most hilarious thing ever. So I grabbed the camera:



I love that sound!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

New videos

To start, allow me to introduce Hayley Houdini:



The first time she did this, before I got the camera going, we really couldn't find the pacifier for a little while. Turns out she had hidden it under her so she was basically sitting on it. Sneaky baby.

Next we have some quick cuteness. Hayley's mobility has been increasing substantially, and before she started crawling, she was rolling everywhere. But sometimes she is too lazy to roll:



And now we come to Hayley's first moments of crawling. For a couple months she's been doing everything (rolling side to side, backing up, rocking back and forth in place) except for crawling. She finally got her first taste of forward motion and she hasn't looked back. Technically, it's still a sort of dead man's crawl since her tummy touches the floor while she moves, but that doesn't change the fact that we officially NEED baby gates. Look out, here comes Hayley:



Our final video features a time-honored tradition, the inaugural tasting of lemon:



As you can see, instead of making hilariously disgusted faces, throwing the lemon away and giving her parents dirty looks, Hayley acts like it's a wondrous new flavor of which she can't get enough. She does seem confused through most of it, but hardly disgusted. Maybe this is a good thing.