Jen Lessinger Photography: Gallery

Go see the rest of Jen's MANY WONDERFUL SHOTS

a) click on Eamon (below)

b) click on him again in Jen's Gallery (under "Grunzinger")

c) Access code is Eamon09

It's okay, he'll wait. :)

Back to Grandmother's House We Go

Our Minnesota trip actually started with a quick visit to Ray's parents. Apparently I was slow on the camera pickup, because we didn't get many shots. The house remodel is continuing and is looking GREAT. Ray Jr's gardens look amazing (see below). And the food and conversation were plentiful and good, as always!

First, however: the neighbors have an interesting road sign. Wrong grandparent.

The grandparents Grunzinger took Eamon out to check out the gardens. These pics are actually pretty sweet.

Grandma was behind her own camera (as you can see in the reflection). We'll have to get grandma pics soon, hopefully during State Fair season.

Jen - at it again

Now you can see why I never like my pictures after we see Jen.

Jen is a genius with a camera.

And crafty - check out that shirt! Custom made for us (obviously, I guess)! Custom "career" shirts to be found on etsy soon, I hope. What do you all think? Is this not the cutest shirt for him?

(ETA: Hey, all, they're up now! Spread the custom love! Click the etsy link above and check out Jen's craftiness!)

I'll link up the gallery of pictures soon. But that's your tease. :)

Edited to add: Two realizations, both from the first pic on Jen's blog: 1) Jen has a much better pic of Eamon's "flying" than mine below. Of course. 2) Jen got a dimple on film. Finally, photographic evidence!

(If you've been away for a couple of days - keep scrolling down, I've been making up for the weekend off. And more of Jen's pics will be coming later todayish.)

Six Months

Eamon turned six months old yesterday and had his checkup today.

Vitals:
-Length- 28" (90th percentile)

-Weight- 15lb10oz (25th)

-Head- ~30th percentile

-Number of PA's who threatened to take him home - one, as always. He flirts with the poor woman, who then has to give him his shots...

-Blarking in the doctor's office - twice, just for me, since Dad had to work this time. Whee!

Updates since the five month post:

Now Eats: squash, peaches, bananas, oatmeal (on top of rice cereal, avocados, sweet potatoes), and is getting better with the sippy cup and insistently trying use normal glasses.

Can now say "dada".. as in "ahdada..dada...ahdadadadada", not as in "you, the guy who feeds me and changes my diapers". Laughs when upright (as opposed to only when on his back and getting tickled), starting to laugh for things like peek-a-boo.

Rolls over - CONSTANTLY. Will not stay where put. Darnit.

Is slowly working towards hands and knees, but spends most of his time on his stomach alternating between "skydiving" (on stomach, head and limbs out and "flying") and "landing" (checking out his surroundings, head and chest up). Ray's narration of this activity is on my "must get on video" list.. but here are a couple examples.

Skydiving.

And "landing".

(Holden for scale. :) It looks like Holden is also skydiving, but I'm pretty sure he was doing some much more coordinated and aimed scooting at the time. The twins have a little more directedness going on, which Eamon did not pick up. Although they did teach him to suck his thumb instead of his fingers, and Eamon taught them to stick their tongues out. Classy.)

And Fang is still there. Not doing much. We'll see. But the kiddo? Pretty darn cute, regardless.

photo courtesy of Crazy Uncle Steve

Traveling Toddler?

We're back from a quick visit to Chez Grunzinger and Lessingerland. As usual after visiting Jen, I hate all the pics that I took (due to comparison with hers)... so today we'll go with a fun side of traveling with Eamon. He still travels pretty well, although we did work on what one can use to amuse him on an airplane (free cups, emergency instructions, dad's ID tags, and (to my surprise) playing with the air vent (oohhh, magic!).

But I found the funnest part to be getting through the airport. I picked up one of those items that makes you think a) "you want how much for two pieces of webbing and three D rings" and b) "why the heck didn't I think of that"?... the Traveling Toddler. I tried to explain this a couple of times and failed, so we'll go with pictures.

Ray demonstrates the portability of a carseat strapped to a rollerbag (instead of carried in hand or worn as a backpack, both of which we saw and both of which looked hellish):

Eamon demonstrates why so many people behind us were smiling:

(Oh, add "carseat strap" to the list of things that keep Eamon amused)

Uncles and Aunts

I've been remiss since the baptism- I'm still collecting pictures, I promise. However, in the last couple of months Eamon has finally gotten to meet most of his close relatives (still working on Uncle Brad and the more extended families). A lot of the Baumgartner side was here early on (proximity helps).

Aunt Laura made it in for the baptism...

..as did Uncle Mike (and Uncle Steve and crew).

Crazy Uncle Steve (his choice of moniker) passed through on his way back to California. Eamon showed his appreciation by decorating his shirt. But they did have some fun.

And, of course, the other Uncle Steve and Aunt Missy hosted (and babysat!!) Eamon last weekend. And introduced him to less messy feeding. And dogs. (Not at the same time, although that might be a solution!)

Americana, Steamboat Style

Apparently, Steamboat is overflowing with Americana.

I knew about the cowboy image. We had to stop by F.M. Light and Sons after I've driven by the highway signs for years. The boys had fun with the cowboy hats...

(Woody, is that you?)

There are a lot of fun statues in Steamboat, and one is right outside F.M. Light- and fits the cowboy image.

Some are bit more... fantastical.

(Crowns are tasty... but sharp!)

Others are of Colorado's standard bronze sculpture category. There are a lot of these around town, but this set is probably the most relaxing.

How you doin', Abe?

In another "classic" category: the Sinclair dinosaur, but with a Steamboat twist.

Finally, there's one that reminded all of the kids of their grandpa.

The boys

My nephews seemed to have a lot of fun with Eamon. Most notably, they invented the sport of baby foosball, of which no good pictures were taken because they all look like fuzzy groups of quick-moving boys.

They also shared their video games with Eamon.

(They couldn't convince him that the controller worked better with fingers, not tongue. I think he crashed a lot.)

They hung out. A lot. These just make me smile.

Eamon thinks his cousins are pretty darn fun. He's been sleeping off all of that excitement for the last two days!

(Kaya had to work, but she did get to go downtown with us.. more on that tomorrow..)

Experience

We got to spend the weekend with my brother and his family. We had a great time, and there are lots of great pics and such to share (so check back all week, hopefully I'll be on it), but one set of pictures made me laugh.

When Ray or I feed Eamon, it tends to look something like this.

(note: his leg, sock, shorts...)

Missy made it look more like this.

Yeah, look closely - the kid is clean. The BIB is even clean.

How? I have much to learn..

What??

Two posts in one day, does that make up for my slacking this week??

We picked up some outfits from Costco a week ago, and Ray made the call to get 12 month and 18 month sizes.

Yeah, kiddo. That's exactly how I feel about it.

While he's still wearing some 6 month items (more without the big diapers), that would be Eamon in a 12 month Carters romper. Which fits. Perfectly.
Quite comfy, thank you!

Oh, and we still have the cats. Eamon has developed a certain bond with Marco (although Bernie also tolerates him). (Smoke stays far away, and Donut isn't sure what to think, as always.)



I keep joking that we're *doomed* when Eamon gets fully mobile (beyond his current daisy-chained roll), but really, it's the cats that need to worry!

By Request

What, that wasn't what you meant by "How about a side by side picture of their smiling faces looking toward the camera."?

I'm working on that. And have another post worth of pics. But all of our camera batteries are dead, so.. soon. Until then... these pics are a couple of months old, but somehow they just make me smile, so I hope you enjoy.
I love Eamon's face here...
Daaaaa-ad...

Love.

Back at the Old Campground

We headed out to camp again this weekend for Colorado Whitewater's Arkansas Weekend. Brown's Creek is one of my favorite group campgrounds, with lots of trees and nice tent spots, and pretty flowers this year, thanks to all the rain. This was my weekend to paddle- although I ended up helping a beginner group, I still got a good paddle in, and got to work on my boat rescuing skills. The only video of that is not so interesting, so we'll return to the cute one.

Ray and Eamon spent Saturday hanging out. Lunch at camp is different yet the same... the stroller substitutes well for the high chair. And Eamon still wants to feed himself, but gets easily distracted.

*Easily distracted....**

We did get our (now normal) afternoon thundershower. Right in the middle of the potluck dinner. So Jimmy's rainshelter saved the bacon (and the steak, and the pasta salad). But we enjoyed it for the shade, too.

All in all, a great weekend! Hope you all had fun this weekend, too!

For Aunt Missy

Missy sent kisses to her nephew, so I was passing them on and getting the giggles in return. I figured I'd send her the video, but this is too good not to share. I don't know whether to be proud or concerned that a) he reacts himself on the screen when he rolls over and b) he turned the camera off **by himself**. Perhaps he sees his parents mousing a lot? Nah...

Boy Genius?

Yeah, I'd like to say he's "reading"...

But not so much. He is doing pretty well at getting and keeping his head up, though. And he thinks the books are quite tasty, thank you.

Found Fun

Eamon has proven that we don't have to buy a fancy play mat. He's into "found art", as it were.

You can hear him talk to himself about it, although I didn't get the squealing on video... watch for his "happy feet".

Karma and Updates

Happy Fourth!

Ray would like you to try to guess scale in this picture before you keep reading.

We've been harassing Heather about the wet weather in Maine. We should know better, given that we're still getting daily thunderstorms. Last night, at midnight, we were sitting up in bed listening for the sirens that would send us to the basement. They never came, and the deluge eventually slowed, but we are wet. The pic above is from our compost pile. Which is next to the tomato plants, which would really appreciate a day or two where gravity is the worst force they have to fight to stay upright. And they're next to the boating gear I forgot to bring in, which is now WELL rinsed. Everything. Is. Wet. Here.

So Heather, karma wins. Everybody else, here are some more pretty mushrooms

Ray uses shredded paper for the "brown matter" in our pile. So I guess you have whatever that was, shredded, for scale up in the top left corner. The mushrooms are wee - about a cm across. They look more like some sort of confused tube worm or algae that lost its ocean to me.

And you might not know it from this blog of late, but we still have the cats. They're all doing pretty well, and even generally spend the days together on the main floor. Yup - four cats, one room. Bernie had some teeth pulled this week, so I wanted to let my parents see that he's doing okay. You can see the shaved patch on his left cheek.

Pretty much normal, otherwise.

I know, you're thinking "..yeah yeah, it's wet, whine, stinky compost, stinky boater gear, whine whine cats...this isn't why I come here! Where are the cute baby pictures?" Well, actually, I don't know that - I have to guess, so feel free to let me know what you're thinking via that "comments" button down there. I've tried to make it easier. :) But, if it was, well, here: random pics from several weeks ago that I hadn't found a good use for yet.

What's up? Not me.

And how could you not love the shark? It's pretty much too small now.. sniff.

Hope you all get the fireworks and grill food or whatever you want tonight! I think we may be staying inside watching "natural" fireworks like good Boulderites (that is, the real ones are going to be rained out with some more spectacular lightning).

edited to add:

1) We had ANOTHER hard rainstorm (although not the inch+ per hour that last night's apparently was). Those mushrooms? Now toast. Glad Ray got good pics while he could.

2) Fireworks were not rained out. And Eamon likes fireworks! He watched the whole show (plus the pre-show of people's small sparklers and such) with fascination, despite being up well after bedtime. That's my kid!

Well Protected

Hmmm, what's this you're strapping on me, Mom? Is it edible?

Ahh, this looks familiar...seems to have shrunk a bit.

Ok, Dad, I'm ready to go boating!

What? The rivers are how high?

I think this is actually apres-boating wear, right? I'll be over here looking handsome. **Class VI** handsome.