Aiden Talking

I recorded a few minutes of Aiden talking to me today and then chopped out the dead space. Click here to listen

Real first roll over...

and second, and third, and fourth!!! He has been practicing for the last 3 days and has really started holding his head up very well last night. The third had a hard landing so Aiden was grumpy for #4 (below). Click the play button to see the video

Philadelphia

This Saturday we decided to explore Philadelphia. Shortly after arrival we realized that this city might require another visit to see it all.
Aiden was great! Maybe he is starting to get used to all this traveling. He got to officially break in his new sling.
Mommy loves this new sling and is going to invest in several more (you can use it til they're toddlers and still have free hands) www.lucky-baby.com (based in Utah).

From the moment we woke up Daddy was singing the Rocky theme song. Here they are. The Rocky steps.

Independence Hall


and of course Aiden's first visit to a Hard Rock Cafe! Mommy's favorite!
More pictures of Philadelphia check out 2007 album on the Em & Josh photo link

First roll over?

We haven't decided that it is the official first roll over, more likely just a fluke. Anyway, Aiden decided to have his first roll over end in disaster.




I've also added a few more pics from this photo shoot to our 2007 album (see pictures link on right hand of page)

It's a Boy -- Daemon Joshua

Daemon has my head. It's a rather big thing as heads go, especially when it is inside someone tiny like Em. Much to my surprise this head came with a bunch of brown hair already installed. He has wrinkly skinny fingers that look like they should be attached to a very very tiny and very old man. He likes to flex his fingers into strange positions and point his hands at things. This reminds me of the emperor from Star Wars shooting lightning from his fingers and has lead to his first nick name, spell caster. I doubt that it will stick but his 5 year old cousin likes it. His little legs also have bulging thigh muscles, reminiscent of a cyclist, under his loose skin. Em, Rachael, and Cindy all say that he looks like me and is very masculine looking. Not being a baby connoisseur I have to take their word for it :) The official word is that he is what they call cute in women speak. Cute enough that the nurses happily borrowed him last night for a few hours to keep them company at the nursing station so we could get some sleep (even happy baby noises can keep you awake sometimes).

When Daemon first came out he was so excited to experience everything that he didn't go to sleep for 12 hours. He just laid on his back or cuddled up next to whoever was holding him looking around, waving his hands and casting spells of enchantment on all those who passed. He didn't scream at all, though occasionally he would do a little cry with one little quiet cry at a time with 30 seconds in between each cry, nothing like some of the other babies that I have heard that are just wailing as loud and as fast as they can. He then proceeded to sleep for 4 to 5 hours straight. We are hoping that this keeps it up!

Outside the obvious eating, sleeping, and excreting waste his favorite activities are: grabbing tight and holding onto grownup fingers, sometimes even getting them to his mouth; waving his hands around (he does not like to have his arms swaddled) generally accompanied by changes in breathing pace and grunts; fighting any effort to keep his head rested on anything because he would rather be holding it up himself and looking around; and pooping whenever I hold him. I have been the holder during 4 of 6 so far.

Em is recovering quickly as c-sections go, though it is an extremely painful and difficult recovery. Today she has had to get up for bathroom trips as well as a few extra curricular walks around the room, tomorrow they are going to have her walking laps in the halls. She is dealing with all this, still feeding Daemon, dealing with the frustration of not being able to take care of him herself like she wants to, and instead having the added pain of teaching me how to handle him (talk about difficult!), all without getting too stressed out, she really is amazing, or as she would put it 'tough' :) She knows so much about this little person, what he wants/needs, what will comfort him, I am truly happy to have her as my wife. We expect to be discharged sometime on Tuesday.

Here is what everyone has been waiting for, the stats.

Name: Daemon Joshua
Born: Saturday, 2007 June 30 at 5:02 PM EST (3:02 Utah time)
Weight: 7lb, 9oz (3,430 grams)
Length: 19.75 in (50.2 cm)
Hours in labor: about 24

Frogs

As some of you may know we have a very small pond in our backyard. In this pond we have Frogs. When I discovered the frogs I was not pleased. Josh had to find a new home for as many as he could. One weekend he removed 13 frogs. Unfortunately we did not get them out before they did the nasty, and we now have a zillion tad poles.

A few frogs remained after we tried to exile them. I don't mind them as much now, so they will probably remain, unless Toby eats them.


This weekend Parker and Isabella wanted Josh to catch a frog so they could see it and hold it. After several attempts, one of which we learned that them there frogs are great jumpers, we adjusted our plan to include a lid for the Rubbermaid, Success! Josh caught us a cute green one. Bella loved it. She was so brave. She petted it, held it all by herself, and even kissed it multiple times.
Parker was very scared and forced to touch it against his screaming will.

Toby and Zeke were way fascinated. Toby was very hyper and couldn't control himself. He was jumping on anyone holding the frog and almost turned this story into a tragedy when the frog got out of our hands and made a break for it. After a fun day Bella released him back to the pond.

Click here to see all the cute froggie pictures.

Thirsty Dog

Joce loves bedtime. As I start heading toward the bedroom after putting the boys to bed she starts barking little excited barks and running in circles. Shew knows that it is time for her bedtime snack, a greenie. Em and I finish up our bedtime preparations about the time Joce finishes her greenie and she heads off to get a drink of water, but last night the water bowl was empty. This happens every couple months. Joce has developed her own special way of letting us know that she needs more water. She finds a water bottle from somewhere in the house (usually under our bed) and brings it to us. She is smarter than we give her credit for.

Quickie mass MD update

Starting off with Em/Baby, she is about to pop, due date is this Friday and is she ever ready to get the little one out! Friday the doctor says she has started to dilate a little, but that the baby hadn't dropped yet. Baby is getting nothing but healthy marks. (S)He has spent the last several months beating up Em's insides. I am amazed that a little baby inside of her can actually make a big bulge run across her belly and back again, lots of fun to watch (for me anyway). I'm hoping that the baby will come soon so I can hold it. Talking with other guys who have had their first kid in the last few years holding the baby seems to be the "Wow it's real/I'm a parent" moment for dads where the moms have had several months of being beaten up to help them realize how real this is. I can't wait!

On to baby preparations. The nursery is basically done, we just have to put up the stuffed animals on the wall shelves and have a baby to put in it. The theme is Noah's Ark so there are lots of stuffed animals and Em made some bumpers from Noah's Ark material and is getting ready to start on some drapes for the room. It looks real nice, I'm lucky to have married a master decorator. I'll get some pictures up, probably after the kid comes. I even finished adding extra bars to the cradle that I spent my first few months in to bring it up to current safety code. As long as you don't look too close it looks pretty good :) We have taken several classes including a breast feeding class (I was told to come by a teacher at the hospital but ended up being the only guy), what to expect during labor/tour/relaxation/everything you ever wanted (and didn't want) to know about birth, and a new born baby care. Between the classes and book reading I think that we are fairly well prepared.

We are nearly as moved in as we will ever be, though I will have more unpacking to do after my office gets finished.

The house is falling into shape, and some times falling apart :) The kitchen has been usable for the last few months now that we have wonderful counter tops, our appliances all hooked up, and a plumbing job done by yours truly (with phone support from Dave, and no it hasn't leaked yet). It's still missing a few finishing pieces but should come together quickly with just a little more effort.

With all the work we have put into this house I thought that we might be finally reaching a slow period but the house had other ideas. The down stairs bathroom must have been installed later, so it didn't have waste plumbing run and requires an ejector pit (hole in the floor/pump) to work, the pump died so the downstairs bathroom is unusable. On top of that, today (Saturday) the main beaker coming into the house has tripped about 8 times! The house came with a 1 year warranty, hopefully it will take care of these repairs.

Recently most of my repair time has been spent on fixing up our yard and working on the spare lot trying to get it into sellable shape. I highly recommend against trying to mow a full acre of grass with a push mower every week :) By the time we got a mower earlier this year the grass was a good 6 inches high, it took about 3 Saturdays worth of mowing to get it all under control! The flower beds are next. Today I just put the mower in the front flower bed and mowed down everything in there (mostly grass). The spare lot is ready to go other than a big pile of tree limbs (we have about 20 70 foot pine trees) sitting in one corner and a few left over fence posts from the dog run I've been taking down. We listed it this week priced for a quick sale, though the market hasn't been great around here for the last few months.

Both Em and I are wolf cub den leaders. So far we haven't had to do much but show up because they have been working on a large group project (go carts). I think that it will be a lot of fun!

Work has finally slowed down. All systems have been officially accepted and are being heavily utilized. I have now made the transition from working on getting the systems integrated and acceptance testing to filling a much less stressful support role where i work on site 4 days a week and work from home 1. I plan to take some Calc classes over the summer to get back into the swing of school.

The dogs love our back yard. Zeke can spend hours out side looking for squirrels and rabbits to chase. Toby likes to chase Zeke and Joce likes to go and lay out in the sun.

First pass at vacation pics

We got back from our anniversary trip a few weeks ago and finally got a chance to go through and kick around at the pictures. Em picked a bunch to share, here they are.

Baby Update -- Kicking

Two weeks ago, while on vacation, Em started feeling the baby move. Now he/she is kicking hard enough that I can feel the kicks too!

Kitchen Remodel

Dave, Em's dad, came out for the last week and a half to help us work on the house. The primary project was redoing the kitchen. Wow is construction a lot of hard work and wow am I out of shape! Here is what we started with, the original 1950's kitchen!


Next step is demo:


Some electrical (ugh, I hate attics!) and Plumbing (Dave ripped out nearly every pipe in our house and put in nice copper supply pipes with filtration system and new PVC sewage pipes!).


Then some sheet rock. Oh ya, and a new door :)


And finally to the almost finished room.


Take a good look at this floor. It is beautiful. Em found some travertine at a blow out price (Same price as normal ceramic tile!) so Dave laid that for us. It really really looks nice!


Dave put in a tone of work and as you can see it came out really nice. Em was the master cabinet builder and overall designer. I just took a few pictures, tried to keep my screws going into the wall straight and played grunt. It was a lot of fun, though exceptionally tiring!

Baby update

In spite of all the moving craziness we haven't forgotten about the baby ;) Em had an appointment last Friday where we got to see another ultrasound. The majority of the ultrasound was checking to make sure that all appendages and organs were are present. So far so good. After we get unpacked I'll post the ultrasound pictures.

Ice Storm

I've been coming out to MD to do work at ARL for the last 3 years or so. Several of the trips have been during winter snow storms, causing the entire area closes down (including canceling church). Every time there is a storm and stuff gets canceled I wonder why everyone out here is so afraid of the snow, till now. Earlier this week we got a few inches of snow with intermittent rain and hail. This combination turned the snow into fairly solid ice. I can walk around our back yard on top of 4 inches of snow and not leave any foot prints!

All this ice makes driving a real pain. Before we can even think of going some where we had to dig the 1-2 inches of ice off of the car windows, which takes about half an hour. After finally getting into the car we found that the roads, including I-95, were not fully plowed. It took them about a day after the storm ended to get things cleared up!

The rain didn't just freeze to the ground. Some of the windows on our house had some very pretty and elaborate ice crystal growths on them. The trees caught a lot of the ice on their branches and like to throw it at anyone who happens to walk by. Some of the trees that have lost all of their leaves look pretty with the sun bouncing off their ice covered branches. Combine the shimmering trees with smooth unbroken glistening white covering the ground and you get some pretty picture opportunities. I hope I can get out and take pictures next time.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to MD we go!

It's official, our stuff is all packed up and will soon be making it's way across the country for delivery in a week and a half or so. Em, Joce, and I took a quicker route and were safely delivered yesterday evening, though our luggage failed to follow us. We will be living out of the hotel, maybe till our stuff shows up (not the lost baggate but the stuff being shipped), not sure yet.

Now that we are all here (Joce has been back in Draper for the past few weeks) the dogs have gone back to their normal behaviours, Zeek and Joce playing nicely together and Toby picking on them till they gang up on him. They are also enjoying play time at the post offices big field next to our hotel where boys chase each other around and Joce sniffs about. We can't wait till the fence gets put in at the house so they can spend as much time outside as their little paws can take before freezing. We close on the house later today.

Why Gemcraft was acting so wierd

We've heard through the rumor mill that Gemcraft Homes is probably having some financial problems because they are shutting down some of their building sites. I don't know the specifics of what is happening inside Gemcraft, but this may help explain why they acted so erratically and canceled our contract when we brought up concerns about the home and settlement date.

Doggy friends

Yesterday Em and I took the boys (Toby and Zeek) to meet the dog sitter and their dogs, 3 border collies which are twice the size of Toby and 4 times as big as Zeek. Toby and Zeek will be staying with this family while we are back in Utah packing up our stuff. Toby took to the new dogs rather quickly and started chasing/being chased. Zeek just kept trying to hide behind Em and I. One of the collies took a liking to Zeek and decided to torment him by pushing him and sitting in his hiding places. After he warmed up to the new dogs another collie started herding him like a sheep, she did a very good job keeping him trapped in the corner of the kitchen :)

After all the fun and excitement of making new friends the boys took a nice nap in the back seat while we grabbed lunch and drove to the dog park. This park has separate areas for large and small dogs. This time Zeek only took a few minutes to warm up and they both had lots of fun teaming up to chase the other dogs around, and occasionally stopping to get attention from the other dog owners.

After we got back to the hotel both of the boys just zonked on the bed for several hours. They were so tired that we had to bring their food into the bedroom to get them to even eat!

New House (hopefully)

We have an offer in on a house. It is out in the country Northwest of Havre De Grace. You can see in the link that we are right near the Susquehanna river and surrounded by farm land. The house is a rancher (ground level floor + basement) built in the late 1950s. We've had the first inspection and it is in quite good shape for it's age. I'll post more when I get pics or when we close, whichever comes first, maybe even a walk through video from my little camera.

Best jerky ever!

Em went out to Erda with her Grandpa a few months ago to get some jerky from Thompsons Smoke House (Recommended by Em’s coworker). This particular jerky was She just opened the buffalo jerky, wow is it good! Very Very tasty and moist! Get some :)

House hunting again

Since the Gemcraft home fell through Em and I get to start house hunting again. Em contacted our realtor already and she has a tone of houses that look like they will be good options at closer to reasonable prices. Lucky for us the market is now much more of a buyers market. Having the Gemcraft deal fall through is turning out to be a good thing.

Gemcraft Homes — Avoid!

Em and I have been trying to work with Gemcraft Homes for the last several months to get a townhouse in Perryville, MD built. This has been nothing but painful! We encountered multiple major issues while dealing with them.

The first issue is they were estimating $17,000 in closing costs (using their preferred mortgage company). Given that we had received estimates on similar loans of $4000 closing costs this threw up a red flag. The only thing I can figure is that they are getting a kick back from the mortgage company for requiring the use of that company in order to get the good price on upgrades. We required that they drop the price of the home several thousand dollars before we continued with the contract. They played around trying to avoid it but eventually gave in. On the way home from contract signing I saw a special on CNN Money about closing cost scandals. From this point I felt that Gemcraft is not trustworthy.

Next they changed the window well model from the one that they had shown us at the contract signing, a nice terraced thing that allows lots of light and some plants, for a standard ugly aluminum window well. When we brought this to their attention they tried to tell us that the new one was ‘better’, so they were within the guidelines of the contract.

The real killer is that they have a line in the contract that says that the closing date is up to the sole discretion of the builder. We live over 2000 miles away from the home site. Knowing this they scheduled the walk through for the day after Christmas! That means we would have to fly on Christmas day to meet their schedule! When asked about changing this to the first week in January they said it would cost us over $4,000 in penalties to do so!

Instead of trying to make things right, they just offered to send us back our earnest money and call off the contract. That isn’t what we want, but Gemcraft is not willing to hold good to their own contract and be reasonable about closing dates. This has allowed them to build the property using our credit reference for the last several months, now they are ditching us and going to turn around and sell the property for the increased price over what we had paid. In hindsight, I should have stuck to my initial feeling that something is wrong with this company and that we should not be doing business with them.