Y3W
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Y3W
Tonight ASU plays its first Regional playoff game of the year, and just like the past two years we'll be headed out to cheer them on to victory.
Why Do I Even Bother?
The question of the day...Why do I even bother buying toys for Caleb when all he really wants are random things around the house? As I mentioned before he has a thing for power cords, remote controls, and cell phones. His new favorites include the wheel on his pack-n-play, magazines and books or anything that looks like a magazine or book or like it is made of paper, OJ (our cat), shoes, anything that might be underneath a bed/pack-n-play/couch/coffee table.
Last night he tried for a good five minutes to grab at some papers that were on the lower shelf of our coffee table. The next shelf up was just a little too low for him to get his head past, so he just kept reaching and gently bumping his head on the upper shelf. It reminded me of that part of the movie Space Camp when they're trying to get the oxygen tanks from the Daedalus Space Station storage facility and they just can't fit through the lattice to grab the tanks. If you know what I'm talking about, please leave a comment so I don't feel like a total nutball for being the only person in the world who has seen that movie 1000+ times.
Last night he tried for a good five minutes to grab at some papers that were on the lower shelf of our coffee table. The next shelf up was just a little too low for him to get his head past, so he just kept reaching and gently bumping his head on the upper shelf. It reminded me of that part of the movie Space Camp when they're trying to get the oxygen tanks from the Daedalus Space Station storage facility and they just can't fit through the lattice to grab the tanks. If you know what I'm talking about, please leave a comment so I don't feel like a total nutball for being the only person in the world who has seen that movie 1000+ times.
Family Pictures
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Professional Photos
Last Friday, while my family was in town, we met up with my mommy friend Cortney who took pictures of (almost) our whole family. We were missing Aunt Katy, Uncle Pat, and cousin Nick, but I'm not sure when we'll have both sides of our family together in one place in the near future. Hopefully soon! Anyway, here are a few of the fabulous pictures that Cortney captured.
Aunt Dani & C
The little professor wearing mommy's graduation hat
Aunt Dani & C
The little professor wearing mommy's graduation hat
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This week's Y3W is a video. One of Caleb's favorite things to do is to crawl or cruise after things that he shouldn't have (my cell phone, magazines, power cords, etc.). Here he is trying to climb up onto the couch to get a the TV/DVD remote controls. I swear if he'd found something to step up on he would have been up on the couch!
A Typical Male
A Typical Male
Kung Pao
Aunt Dani wanted me to post these, so here they are (even though they make her sound like a total dork. The things we'll do to make a baby laugh!). My sister is the one saying, "Kung Pao" over and over again. My mom is in the background on the phone with the Chinese food place trying to order takeout. I'm sure the person on the other end of the phone appreciated what was going on at our house! Click on the images below to view the videos.
A Full House
Here it is. The much talked about, long awaited post about our family visit. (OK, maybe I'm getting a little bit full of myself. How many people actually read this blog? It's hard to tell since comments are a rarity! Hint, hint!) Anyway, we had a fabulous time with my family. They arrived Wednesday morning (aka Graduation Day or GD), which started out with a bit of a problem. Two weeks ago, I went to the eye doctor for the specific purpose of being refitted for contact lenses so that I wouldn't have to wear glasses on GD. Everything had gone well: the contacts fit great, I could see fantastically, and I ordered a supply of replacements for the year. Wednesday morning I cautiously stood over the sink in our bathroom to put the contacts in my eyes when somehow the right one fell into the sink and rolled (yes, rolled. I have trouble believing it myself) down the drain. I was able to recover it, but not before the contact took on a minor tear just enough to make them unwearable. I quickly called the doctor's office to see if the contacts I had ordered were in. Wouldn't you know, they don't open until 10am. So I tried to relax and prepare for the long, hot day ahead that would require glasses and I prayed that I'd be able to see the President speak.
Caleb and I headed to the airport after his morning nap to pick up my parents, sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law. As expected, they were ecstatic to see Caleb and fought over who would hold him first. We arrived home shortly after 10am, so I called the eye doctor and discovered that my contacts had arrived! What a life saver? My dad and I took a quick drive there to pick them up, and all was right with the world again!
After an all-too-short morning with the family and playing with Caleb...
...at 2:15pm we dropped C off at my mother-in-law's house and we headed to graduation. My ticket said to arrive by 3pm, even though the ceremony wasn't to start until 7pm. I had expected that we'd run into all kinds of traffic on our way, but it was smooth sailing. We ended up getting a parking space in a garage about a mile south of the stadium, and had walked to the stadium by about 2:45. After standing in security for about 45 minutes, we entered the stadium and waited!
While we waited, we got some pictures of secret service agents and snipers.
And then, as you've already seen, I walked across the stage, shook President Obama's hand, had a brief conversation with him, and received my dipolma from the Dean of the Graduate College.
The conversation went something like this:
POTUS: "Congratulations!"
Me: "Thank you. It is a honor to meet you."
POTUS: "Thank you. It is an honor to be here."
The remainder of the visit was mostly spent playing with Caleb. Thursday my family took us out to dinner at Tarbell's to celebrate. We got to meet the head chef and owner Mark Tarbell who challenged, and won, Iron Chef Cat Cora on Iron Chef America. I was rubbing elbows with famous people all week! We also gave our mother's their Mother's Day gifts from Caleb...handmade picture frames includine Caleb's footprints in the shape of a heart. They loved them!
My friend, Cortney, took some pictures of the family during one of the days they were here, so the grandmother's should have some nice shots for the frames. I'll be posting samples of Cortney's work later this week, so be sure to check back for that. In the meantime, here are some more pictures of Caleb at play this past week.
Fun with blocks
Uh oh!? You caught me pulling apart the playmat again.
Caleb and I headed to the airport after his morning nap to pick up my parents, sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law. As expected, they were ecstatic to see Caleb and fought over who would hold him first. We arrived home shortly after 10am, so I called the eye doctor and discovered that my contacts had arrived! What a life saver? My dad and I took a quick drive there to pick them up, and all was right with the world again!
After an all-too-short morning with the family and playing with Caleb...
...at 2:15pm we dropped C off at my mother-in-law's house and we headed to graduation. My ticket said to arrive by 3pm, even though the ceremony wasn't to start until 7pm. I had expected that we'd run into all kinds of traffic on our way, but it was smooth sailing. We ended up getting a parking space in a garage about a mile south of the stadium, and had walked to the stadium by about 2:45. After standing in security for about 45 minutes, we entered the stadium and waited!
While we waited, we got some pictures of secret service agents and snipers.
Then the motorcade arrived and we waited...
Finally, President Obama arrived on stage and the ceremony began.
The whole stadium was cheering as he began giving the graduation address. As expected, his speech was absolutely fantastic!
And then, as you've already seen, I walked across the stage, shook President Obama's hand, had a brief conversation with him, and received my dipolma from the Dean of the Graduate College.
The conversation went something like this:
POTUS: "Congratulations!"
Me: "Thank you. It is a honor to meet you."
POTUS: "Thank you. It is an honor to be here."
The remainder of the visit was mostly spent playing with Caleb. Thursday my family took us out to dinner at Tarbell's to celebrate. We got to meet the head chef and owner Mark Tarbell who challenged, and won, Iron Chef Cat Cora on Iron Chef America. I was rubbing elbows with famous people all week! We also gave our mother's their Mother's Day gifts from Caleb...handmade picture frames includine Caleb's footprints in the shape of a heart. They loved them!
My friend, Cortney, took some pictures of the family during one of the days they were here, so the grandmother's should have some nice shots for the frames. I'll be posting samples of Cortney's work later this week, so be sure to check back for that. In the meantime, here are some more pictures of Caleb at play this past week.
Fun with blocks
Was I not supposed to be chewing on the tee?
Uh oh!? You caught me pulling apart the playmat again.
Standing!
We had a wonderful time, and were sad to see everyone leave. We're hoping to make a trip to visit or have them for another visit this summer. Caleb is growing and changing so much everyday. While the family was here, Caleb started crawling AND got his first tooth. Unfortunately, he also got his first cold, but as I already mentioned, he was a trooper and is feeling better already.
8 Months
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Months
Again, I'm late with this post by one day. Caleb and I ended up getting sick over the weekend in addition to the fact that he finally got his first tooth popping through the gums. He's been a real trooper through it all and has been a mostly happy baby during the day. Nights on the other hand are a completely different story. Also new this month he's started crawling. His biggest motivation?...my cell phone. I'm not sure what the fascination is, but I'm guessing it's those nightly calls with Memaw.
And finally, here are Caleb's 8 month pictures.
(Yawn) "Mom, why are we doing this again?"
"You're kidding me!? You want me to sit here and smile for the camera? Now here's what I'm proposing..." (taps finger on couch)
"You're kidding me!? You want me to sit here and smile for the camera? Now here's what I'm proposing..." (taps finger on couch)
"Oh, hi there kitty"
"Hey, where's he going?"
"Dang, I got so excited about seeing OJ, I didn't realize I was slobbering all over myself." (click the picture to see all that drool, which I assume can be attributed to the new tooth)
Y3W
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I'm one day late with this for this week because we've got family in town. I'll be posting more tomorrow after they leave to recap our exciting times since they arrived on Wednesday morning including the Mother's Day gift and PhD updates that I promised in previous posts here and here. But for now you just get this. My sister's fiance, Matt, was able to catch this picture off the jumbotron.
The Cost of a PhD
Fees each semester - ~$125 for six years for a total of $1500 (as a graduate student in the sciences, I must say that I am quite lucky to have not had to pay my own tuition and to have received a stipend for the last 6 years)
Printing 5 copies of the dissertation for committee and format review - $62
2500 sheets of 24 lb paper for bound dissertation copies - $35
Printing costs for bound dissertation copies - Free (Thanks to Andrew's bosses! There really are some perks to having a husband who works for an architecture firm.)
Binding services for 6 required copies and 4 additional family copies ($49 X 10) - $452 (including a $24 charge per copy because my title is over the allowed 50 characters including spaces and punctuation. $240 just because I'm long winded? Ouch!)
Lifetime membership to the alumni association ($300 minus the free $50 Target gift card that will be used on diapers) - $250
6 years of turmoil, heartache, extreme feelings of inadequacy, highs and lows, wearing the $110 doctortal robe with velvet stripes and a velvet tam, walking out on the field at Sun Devil Stadium as my name is called, listening to President Barack Obama deliver a graduation speech...PRICELESS!
More to come...
Printing 5 copies of the dissertation for committee and format review - $62
2500 sheets of 24 lb paper for bound dissertation copies - $35
Printing costs for bound dissertation copies - Free (Thanks to Andrew's bosses! There really are some perks to having a husband who works for an architecture firm.)
Binding services for 6 required copies and 4 additional family copies ($49 X 10) - $452 (including a $24 charge per copy because my title is over the allowed 50 characters including spaces and punctuation. $240 just because I'm long winded? Ouch!)
Required microfilm fee - $65
Doctoral robe and velvet tam and hood - $110Lifetime membership to the alumni association ($300 minus the free $50 Target gift card that will be used on diapers) - $250
6 years of turmoil, heartache, extreme feelings of inadequacy, highs and lows, wearing the $110 doctortal robe with velvet stripes and a velvet tam, walking out on the field at Sun Devil Stadium as my name is called, listening to President Barack Obama deliver a graduation speech...PRICELESS!
More to come...
Mother's Day Weekend Recap
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Holidays
Two days later since I'm busy with my last two days of work and cleaning the house in preparation for the visit from my family.
What a fantastic weekend! It started Friday night with a return to ASU baseball after a two week hiatus because the team was travelling. The game was especially enjoyable for me because the last time we were there I was stressing about the dissertation. This time I just got to sit and enjoy Caleb and watch the game. We arrived pretty early this time so Andrew and I could grab some dinner at the game and so that we could feed Caleb his dinner before the first pitch. It was nice to have a bit of quiet time outside in the shade. Despite being a hot day (over 100) the evening ended up being quite nice. For those who don't know, the stadium sits right in the flight path for the Phoenix airport, and Caleb has now discovered airplanes! He was completely mezmorized by them following the plane all the way across the sky. I can just imagine that his first word will be "airpane." I snapped a few pictures prior to the start of the game.
Saturday Caleb let us sleep in a bit longer than usual. After some playtime and a nap, we headed out to get Mother's Day gifts for Memaw and GranB (more to come later this week). Caleb's nap times were spent either cleaning the house or getting caught up on The West Wing. We were given the complete series for Christmas and have been slowly making our way through the episodes. Now that I have free time, we're going a lot faster. I feel like I finally have time to spend with Andrew, whereas before I was working anytime that Caleb was napping. Andrew and I almost never saw each other!
Speaking of spending alone time together, as a graduation present Andrew's parents had given me a gift certificate to the most amazing restaurant! Saturday night we went to dinner at Kai while Caleb stayed overnight with GranB and Pop Pop. We had an amazing two and a half hour dinner experience. It was nice to be able to go out and have a glass of wine and talk with Andrew about life not involving Caleb, but we definitely missed waking up to his voice on the monitor in the morning!
Sunday we were up early to get showered and dressed before getting the call to pick Caleb up from the Andrew's parent's house. I didn't want to be without him for too long on my very first Mother's Day! Most of the day consisted of the usual playtime and naptime, but we also spent the afternoon with GranB and Pop Pop where we had a wonderful lunch of crab legs prepared by Pop Pop.
Sunday evening I received the best Mother's Day present I could have asked for. Caleb started cruising. He took his first steps while holding onto the couch and chasing after my cell phone. He just loves that thing and wants to eat it! Not quite as amazing, but cute nonetheless, during our nightly chat with Memaw Caleb was giving himself kisses in the mirror. Andrew caught both of these events on video, and after trying for at least an hour to upload them to this post, I'm just going to post the links to the videos on photobucket. Again, these are from a cell phone, but this time it was Andrew's phone, so the quality should be a bit better.
Kisses
First Steps
What a fantastic weekend! It started Friday night with a return to ASU baseball after a two week hiatus because the team was travelling. The game was especially enjoyable for me because the last time we were there I was stressing about the dissertation. This time I just got to sit and enjoy Caleb and watch the game. We arrived pretty early this time so Andrew and I could grab some dinner at the game and so that we could feed Caleb his dinner before the first pitch. It was nice to have a bit of quiet time outside in the shade. Despite being a hot day (over 100) the evening ended up being quite nice. For those who don't know, the stadium sits right in the flight path for the Phoenix airport, and Caleb has now discovered airplanes! He was completely mezmorized by them following the plane all the way across the sky. I can just imagine that his first word will be "airpane." I snapped a few pictures prior to the start of the game.
Saturday Caleb let us sleep in a bit longer than usual. After some playtime and a nap, we headed out to get Mother's Day gifts for Memaw and GranB (more to come later this week). Caleb's nap times were spent either cleaning the house or getting caught up on The West Wing. We were given the complete series for Christmas and have been slowly making our way through the episodes. Now that I have free time, we're going a lot faster. I feel like I finally have time to spend with Andrew, whereas before I was working anytime that Caleb was napping. Andrew and I almost never saw each other!
Speaking of spending alone time together, as a graduation present Andrew's parents had given me a gift certificate to the most amazing restaurant! Saturday night we went to dinner at Kai while Caleb stayed overnight with GranB and Pop Pop. We had an amazing two and a half hour dinner experience. It was nice to be able to go out and have a glass of wine and talk with Andrew about life not involving Caleb, but we definitely missed waking up to his voice on the monitor in the morning!
Sunday we were up early to get showered and dressed before getting the call to pick Caleb up from the Andrew's parent's house. I didn't want to be without him for too long on my very first Mother's Day! Most of the day consisted of the usual playtime and naptime, but we also spent the afternoon with GranB and Pop Pop where we had a wonderful lunch of crab legs prepared by Pop Pop.
Sunday evening I received the best Mother's Day present I could have asked for. Caleb started cruising. He took his first steps while holding onto the couch and chasing after my cell phone. He just loves that thing and wants to eat it! Not quite as amazing, but cute nonetheless, during our nightly chat with Memaw Caleb was giving himself kisses in the mirror. Andrew caught both of these events on video, and after trying for at least an hour to upload them to this post, I'm just going to post the links to the videos on photobucket. Again, these are from a cell phone, but this time it was Andrew's phone, so the quality should be a bit better.
Kisses
First Steps
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