Family Trip

Russell's grandmother and aunt were visting Russell's cousin in Dallas so we were invited to come visit. On the way to the Shouse's house we stopped by Jessica andTyler's. Marty was a great host letting Bryce play in his exersaucer. They weren't so cooperative during picture time though so no photos there.

On to Plano where Bryce met his cousin Morgan. She is about 18 months and very cute. She liked Bryce and kept saying "hi baby". She really liked Russell. She sat on his lap and helped him eat dinner.

Here are some pictures of the weekend!

A new toy...

for Dad :) Well...really it's for the whole family, but i got to the box first. for hanukkah, we bought webcams for bryce, nana & g-bob, and pops & gram. Since ours came first, i was the guinea pig for installation and setup. i was a bit nervous after reading somethings on the tech support forums about the software, but to my delight, it installed just fine. For the record, we all got logitech quickcam pro 5000. the first test was a quick 1 sided video session with my mom on my old AOL instant messenger. i wasn't too happy with the functionality so i upgraded to AOL IM 6.0. Haven't tested it yet, but it certainly looks nicer. But the testing wasn't done. with bryce in his pj's...we did a little photo shoot.

Also...this is my first attempt at posting video to the web, but hopefully you can see some of bryce in action:

Bryce Part I


Bryce Part II


Bryce The Finale


These are just some stills from the webcam...he was a happy camper tonight

Hanukkah a little early

My parents bought Bryce a jumperoo because it was the only large toy I didn't have yet :) Bryce loves sitting in it and playing with the toys.



Big smiles when I push him up and down...how long does it take before he learns how to jump by himself?

Thanksgiving

Bryce enjoyed his first Thanksgiving. We went to my parents' house on Wednesday. We settled the dogs down then went to Mimi and Papa's for chili.

Thursday was turkey day at the Barbans and then we watched the football game on Friday before we came home. Bryce and Josie are worn out from all the attention they got.

Stroller

I was curious to see if Bryce is big enough to sit in his stroller without his car seat. He is! This is not really a significant accomplishment but it was an activity. He loved sitting in it and since it's 85 degrees here today we decided to take a little walk. Josie was thrilled that she got an extra outing. I will still put Bryce in the bjorn for our main walks because Josie isn't great at walking beside the stroller. I guess we'll have to work on that once he gets too big for me to wear...

Happy Halloween

I think that most people know that I'm not a big fan of halloween. I don't like dressing up, I don't eat candy, and the doorbell ringing drives poor Josie crazy. That said, I'm trying to be a good sport for Bryce. He was lucky enough to have 2 costumes to celebrate his first halloween. Take a look at my cutie as a pumpkin and a chili pepper!

Bryce's Naming

Today we held the naming ceremony for Bryce at my parent's house. My great uncle Arnold led the service and we were all impressed with his rabbinical skills. I really want to thank everyone who worked so hard to make this such a special day. I did a lousy job getting pictures but here are the ones from my camera.

This is Bryce's first mongrammed outfit. With my love of monogramming it's certainly not going to be his last!
This is probably the best picture we have taken in a while.
Marty and Bryce loved playing on the floor. Hopefully the boys will become interested in each other soon.
We managed to get the Newman side all together for a photo.

Visit from Grandpa Bob

Bob was in town for work and was nice enough to take us out to dinner. He showed up at 6pm. I wanted pizza, Russ wanted chicken wings so we let Bob decide. He picked Chinese. Always a good choice. Went to PF Changs. Bryce was asleep when Bob got there so I waited to wake him until right before we left. He woke up very happy. When we sat down he was tired of being in his car seat so I put him on my lap. We gave him a chopstick and he banged that on the table till the food arrived. At this point he was tired so I put him over my shoulder and he went right to sleep. I just held him through dinner. Came home right before 8pm which was perfect. Russ and Bob watched football while I fed Bryce and then we all went off to bed. Bryce was worn out from the visit and slept till 5am. I was thrilled.

Back from KL

First...look at my boy in the post below...what a mensch. I need to get him a "Future ladykillers of America" shirt. Anyway...on to the trip:

Well…the Yanks lost but the Horns won, so I’m neutral for sports over the weekend. We had a great time in KL…saw a bunch of sites around the city, stayed in a great hotel, and did plenty of shopping. I didn’t buy very much b/c I figured I’d spent my share at the tailor…which on a side note, I saw one of the shirts I bought at the mall for 4x the price…but I did manage to pick up a couple of smaller items. KL was really nice...felt very much like a US big city, very modern, tall high rises, good public transportation, smaller more ethnic districts (although there wasn’t any “America town”) and plenty of people ready to “give you good price”. We were lucky enough to get a tour guide – one of the APJ team members happened to be in town and was nice enough to drive us around so we probably saw more than we would have on our own or just cabbing it around. We visited the War Memorial/Botanical Garden area, the old rail station, the government buildings & parade grounds, Chinatown, and the Central Market. The hotel was right in the city center and our rooms looked directly at the Petronas Towers and had a very nice rooftop pool and bar that we spent some time at Saturday evening. For dinner, we ventured out to the Bangsar area…the closest residential area outside the city. They have about a 4 block area that has restaurants and pubs…pretty nice little area with a good selection. Our tour guide Willie met up with us for drinks afterwards and then took us home. Sunday we ate lunch at the top of the KL tower which is much like the needle in San Antonio or Seattle…both lunch and the view were disappointing…the “international” lunch buffet was disgusting and there was a lot of smog from the fires in Indonesia so we were in and out fairly quickly. After lunch…we took a quick stop back by the Central Market so we could shop a little more…along the way were nearly killed some guy crossing the street…let me just say that driving here is absolutely wearing me out…even as a passenger…there are no rules…lane lines are a suggestion…there are more motorbikes than grains of rice…and pedestrians DON”T have the right of way…combine all that and I’m ready to buy a gun and start enforcing my own brand of road rules. Anyway…at least after our attempted vehicular homicide we got massages…so that helped the stress level. Sunday was a pretty early night as we our flight left Monday at 7 so we had to leave the hotel at 5 to get there in time…and here we are, back at work coming down the home stretch. Should hopefully pick my our clothes this week although for some reason I think they’re going to have to make one more round of alternations since the last time the guy basically just looked at me wearing the pants and said he knew what to do…I guess they’re from the school of thought “don’t measure at all, cut a bunch”. Don’t anticipate any excitement for this week except a long flight home.

The big event

My father participated in the MS 150 bike ride from San Antonio to Corpus Christi this weekend. Bryce and I went to support him and help drive Daddy back to San Antonio. This was my first time taking Bryce "on the road" and he did great!

First we went to my parents house on Friday and spent the night and then off to Corpus on Saturday morning. Bryce was the perfect passenger, no crying or backseat driving while in the car. We stayed at Dede's house Saturday night waiting for Daddy to arrive on Sunday. Bryce loved the attention that Dede gave him and played and smiled for hours. All the activity wore him out and...he slept from 9pm till 5am! I was thrilled. Hopefully he will start to do this on a regular basis.

Daddy finished feeling great on Sunday. We picked him up at the finish line and headed back to San Antonio. Our first trip was a success. Who wants us to visit next?

Alive and Well in Malaysia

I wrote this email to my mom and thought some others might like to know what's going on half way around the world:

Well...it took a few days, but we're finally adjusted. The hotel has been fine...it's on the island and in a populated part of town, but it's still a few minute ride to the "happening" area and a 30 minute ride across the Penang bridge to the office. We don't really know what we're looking for when we go out, so it's not that big of a loss not being right in the action. The team at the office has been great about taking us out for lunches and stuff. We've eaten a lot of fish, pork, rice, noodles, soup...but in many different styles...some Malay, some Thai, some Chinese. When they serve the fish..say snapper...they serve the whole fish (head and all) and you just kind of pick it off the bones. People here like spicy food so we just have to be a little careful not to go too quickly on the food before we eat too much. We haven't really eaten at many restauarants...they have these "hawker" stands where they just cook the food in front of you (and out in front of the store front if there is one) and you go find a seat in a common area. That food is very cheap and can be anything from chicken to fried jellyfish to squid or fish soup...anything really.

First couple of nights we stayed in mostly b/c we were tired. We did go out one night to the main hawker stand area on the island...recently rebuilt after the tsunami...there were tons of them out at night...and our work people ordered a bunch of things for us to try...pretty interesting. Fruit pancakes, fish soup, purple dragon fruit, veggies in black bean sauce, bbq meats...fairly safe stuff...they didn't want to scare us too much.

This weekend we went up the coast to Battu Ferrenghi beach and stayed there. Managed to get an hour long Chinese reflexology massage on the beach for about $15. BF beach area is also famous for this night market which is basically about a mile long flea market where they sell a lot of trinkets, pirated CD's, fake bags and watches. Everything is haggle priced...so you basically get one price and then get what you want for half of that. One girl from work was also nice enough to pick us up yesterday afternoon and drive us around the island...saw a few temples and botancial gardens (with monkeys). I have pictures, but forgot my cable so i'll have to wait until i get home to download. We did eat out at a nice (that's a relative term compared to the hawker stands) seafood place where i picked my lobster out of a tank...the other tanks had snapper, king prawn (big shrimp), moray eels, yellow eels, and some other exotic fish/reptiles that i probably would never eat.

The other thing we did at the beach was get fitted for some custom clothing. Labor and materials are very cheap over here so I bought 3 pair of very nice dress pants and 5 shirts...all custom tailored for about $220....I'll pick everything up on Tuesday. If I ever wore suits, I could have bought the jackets for all of my pants...the whole suit, tailored is like $120. I have a feeling in 5 years or so I'll wish I would have bought more.

We're back at our original hotel for this week and then we'll travel to Kuala Lumpur for the next weekend. Got a $40 flight on AirAsia so we'll go see the city (they have the tallest building in the world there..bet you didn't know that). This week should be pretty busy at work so it will be a nice break for the weekend.

I think that's all for now...in fact...I wrote so much, I think I'll post it on the blog.

2 month checkup

Bryce did great at the doctor today. He weighed 10lbs, 5oz and was 23in. That puts him in the 25% for weight and 50% for height. Considering he didn't really even make the charts when he was born, these numbers are great! He got his 1st round of immunizations (2 shots in each leg) and took them like a champ. He hollered when they stuck him but stopped when they stopped. We're home now and he's acting normal, very happy.

No pictures for a while since Russell took the camera with him to Malaysia. He left last night and won't be back till mid October. As always, Josie is happy to see him go since she likes to sleep on his pillow.

A new friend

Today Bryce and I went to visit Ellen and her new baby, Patrick. Patrick is just 3 weeks old and Bryce was thrilled to finally be bigger than someone! You can see how happy he is in the picture. Ellen and I used to work together and I haven't seen her since July so it was nice to catch up and compare notes.

Bryce is gaining more head control by the day. I have started to put him in his bumbo seat a little bit since he can sort of sit up now.

Play date

Bryce and I went to have lunch with Missy and Avery today. Bryce slept through lunch while Missy and I ate. Avery sat in her high chair and tried to eat it. She's at the stage where everything goes into her mouth. Bryce started to wake up so we put the kids on the couch together. Avery leaned over and licked Bryce. Missy and I were hysterical. Hopefully Bryce will be a little more active next visit so Avery won't think he's just something to snack on.

Town Lake

I took Bryce to Town Lake for the first time to run today. My friend Michelle met me for the 4 mile loop. It's the longest distance I've run in months. It took 45 minutes (which is very slow!) but I made it. Bryce wanted to run and put on his Nikes that Papa gave him. While he looked ready to go I decided just to keep him in the stroller this time :)

Russell's Birthday

Russell was 28 yesterday and I think he had a good day. We started off with a run. Bryce and I gracefully let the birthday boy beat us home. Then off to work for Russell and a busy day for me. Russ' dad, stepmom and grandmother were coming in for a visit and will stay until Saturday. They arrived at the house in time for margaritas and mexican food from Chuys. Bryce was very happy to have company and smiled and played the whole time they were over. We were all pooped at the end of the night and Bryce slept well. I'm only getting up once a night to feed him which is wonderful!

Big Day

A lot happened on Friday. We are getting a new roof and they started work at 8am. By 8:02am I realized that Josie couldn't stay home all day. I called the vet and asked if she could be groomed and day boarded. They asked if we could be there by 9am. I said we would be there in 5 minutes. I popped Bryce and Jo in the car and off we went. Bryce and I then went to the grocery store since we were already out and that was on our list of things to do.

Next activity was meeting Russell at Dell for lunch. Dell was providing free concerts at lunch with some pretty big Texas artists. We really like Charlie Robison (who was playing on Friday) so we went. I've never been inside Dell and Bryce has never been to a concert so it wasa big event. Bryce slept through the whole thing but I'm sure he was enjoying the music in his sleep. Two of our friends also were there and very impressed with the baby's ability to sleep.

After lunch we all came home. I went to pick up Josie about 3pm. She has never been so clean. This was her first professional grooming and well worth it. Russell has always wanted to do this but I felt it was a waste of money. I think I just changed my mind...

Visitors

My mom and grandparents came in for lunch today. They arrived right at noon and Bryce was asleep. He woke up early (4am) because he was so excited about their visit but he paid the price and was worn out by 8am. The gang showed up at noon and I thought we could eat lunch while he finished napping and then feed him. Mimi had other plans and woke him immediately but it worked out because I had a bottle ready so she fed him while I ate.

Bryce loved Mimi's magic touch and instantly fell asleep. Mother and Mimi did their best to wake him back up but he slept soundly till 3, I fed him and then back to sleep for the little guy. Not the most exciting visit but it was nice and quiet! Papa managed to get a few pictures while he was here.

Russell's edit: While Papa did take some pictures, Paige didn't post the best, and most typical pose. We're hoping Bryce might be a conductor (musical, not train) or perhaps a modern artist as he flaps paint on a canvas. He must get this gene from his Mimi:

1 month old

We went for Bryce's 1 month checkup today. He is 8lbs, 7oz. He gained about 2 lbs. in 2 weeks so the doctor was very pleased. Bryce was less than thrilled with the whole experience and showed his displeasure by peeing all over the exam table and the floor. So embrassing but they're the ones who think it's a good idea to check him out without a diaper on.

Here are 2 photos. The first one is from bath day last week and the other is today when we came home from the doctor.

Pictures

So Papa asked for an updated picture of Bryce in his car seat because the first one Russell took coming home from the hospital turned out so well. I'm not the photographer that Russ is and having been trying to take a decent picture all week. Here are my attempts.

Nothing very exciting to report. I took Bryce to work this week to meet my co-workers. He slept the whole time in his car seat which was nice. As long as I take him out of the house right after he eats he will stay asleep through my errands.

Next week is his 1 month checkup, I'll let you know how it goes and how much weight he has gained. Russ and I both think Bryce is turning into a little chubball!