Sydney and Eli playing with the alphabet and animal magnets Santa brought.

Christmas Cookies

Christmas Day wagon rides.

Just delivered cookies (see above) to our neighbors.

This video was from a week or so before Christmas, but I laugh out loud every time I watch it so here it is for you guys too!

Our friends Ricky & Lyndsey are down visiting with their son Eli. Eli is 2 months younger than Sydney and they are best friends. They are learning so much from each other and having a blast everyday.

As for the adults, we’re cooking great meals and getting projects done around the house. It’s been great. Because of this love for the steps and exploring our children have, we haven’t been able to keep the front doors open without standing over them to make sure they don’t fall off the edge or down the steps. The solution was simple. We build a baby gate.

Building the baby gate was very simple. We attached lattice to 2×8 on both sides of the door and screwed them into the posts. In the middle where the door is, we attached the lattice with gate laches so we can take the gate down at night to hang out with Monkey and to let adults in and out without having to step over the kids gate.

Nope. I wasn't going to use this chair to climb over the new baby gate!

The Inspector, aka Eli, checking out the handy work at the gate latch. We passed this inspection.

Ricky, Lyndsey, Eli and Sydney kicking it on the front porch.

Here is the baby gate complete.

I am stoked on how the gate turned out. Now we get to have our front door open all day again and it is great to get back onto the front porch for afternoon coffee’s (weekdays).

Yesterday, Sydney discovered how to turn on the cold water on the water cooler. Now, every time cruises by the cooler, she looks up at the spout and goes for a quick pull just to see the water come out. I have a feeling it may be time to raise the water cooler.

We completely baby proofed the back deck (it didn’t take much) and set up a bunch of toys and books back there. It is Sydneys domain. I sit out there with coffee every morning and watch her explore her toys and her new little world.

Here is Sydney standing up using the wall. From here, she’ll cruise all the way around the corner to the other side of the window and look out at me. She’ll chuckle a little, go for the water cooler and then cruise back out to the deck.

Click to Get Full Size Version

Some Sydney Video Action

Here is Sydney in action on the back porch demonstrating her ability to make an elephant noise, crawl, cruise along the wall and take some steps. What a rad little girl

Does anyone know what kind of plant this is that Sydney and Summer and standing next to? It is really cool looking, almost prehistoric. Is this the plant that killed off the dinosaurs?

I did some research and asked some questions and as a standard procedure after a birth it appears that all babies are given silver nitrate drops in their eyes, a vitamin K shot, a hepatitis B vaccine and a PKU blood test. Well, being that I am the mother, I simply assumed that I could just tell them that I do not want any of those things done to my baby. Unfortunately I was wrong and it takes an actually affidavit from a lawyer for your wishes for your baby’s care to be granted. I’m going to pick my battles here, because I know that the hospital staff will already be annoyed that I’m packing an affidavit, so the only thing I am insisting on is the they NOT shoot up my baby with hepatitis B. We got the affidavit from a lawyer in town today and it cost $25, so it’s not too big of a deal, but they will not release your baby from the hospital without the affidavit (which is totally stupid since this is supposed to be a voluntary vaccine) and they of course do not tell anyone this in hopes of shooting up more babies with this vaccine. I’ve also been told to not let the baby out of my sight because they will probably try to administer the vaccine anyways.

I’m not going to rant about this one too much, but here is why we are choosing not to vaccinate our baby: Babies are born with underdeveloped immune systems and shooting vaccines into them on the first day they are born is not safe (and can cause death, permanent disability, seizures, autism, etc). Hepatitis B is transmitted through exposure to infected blood or bodily fluids, so if your baby is not sexually active or shooting up drugs in an unsafe manner (sharing needles for example), it is virtually impossible for a baby to contract hepatitis B (as long as the mother does not have hepatitis). So why are all hospitals trying to shoot babies up with hepatitis B vaccine? Because the company that manufactures the vaccine, Merck, makes $800 million each year by selling you this vaccine. And they decided that babies should be shot up with it because it’s too hard to get the people who are truely at risk for hepatitis B (prostitutes and drug users) to take/pay for the vaccine. Pretty dirty…

Summer is 32 weeks pregnant in these pictures. The first picture is in the living room right before we went to the beach on Sunday to fish for lobsters, relax and get away from our computers. We have both been working a lot but aren’t complaining. We love our jobs, working at home and talking office politics at the water cooler. Ok, just kidding. Not much politics going on in our office, just work. Without further delay: