Sunday, January 4, 2009

Marne's Birthday


Getting all clean and dry to celebrate Marne's birthday. Jake always does a great job drying me off with my frogger hooded towel.


What a great treat to have Lori and Bryan come visit on Marne's birthday. Sorry, Bryan there is no picture of you. Sam still appreciated your visit! He loves visits from Aunt Lori and Uncle Bryan!



Marne and Jake went on a date to Benihana for the birthday celebration. Grandma and Grandpa Osten babysat for Sam. Grandpa gave him a bottle which was his first time ever giving any baby a bottle. Marne and Aaron never got any bottles. Even so, he looks like an old pro!



Getting ready to blow out the candles on the cake. It is beginning to look like quite a bonfire with 31 candles! Thanks for the excellent carrot cake Mom!



And no birthday would be complete without a visit from Uncle Aaron. Aaron took this photo himself with our dog Jerry!

Christmas

Waking up on Christmas morning. Getting a good stretch before all the festivities begin again.



All smiles once I remember that today is Christmas.



Visiting with Grandpa. Again Mom and Dad dress me like we like it is snowing out. They couldn't pass up putting on the adorable bear hat from his friends Lan and Doug!


Helping Grandma open her present from Auntie Paige. Sadly for Sam his parents forgot to take pictures of him in front of the tree. Maybe next year!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was celebrated by Sam and his parents at his Aunt Amy and Uncle Brian's house in Brea. A good time was had by all. Sam very much enjoyed getting to spend some time with his cousins Justin, Jacob and Matthew. He especially liked trying to play Mario with cousin Jacob. While he didn't appear to appreciate his gifts very much, his parents sure did.


Sam did his first "roll" on Christmas Eve. Marne is not really sure it counts as a roll but everyone else does. His Grandma Pieroni and Jake propped him up on his belly with his arms under him. The picture below is of him completing his "roll". What a genius baby we have, rolling at 7 weeks!





Loving my time with Auntie Paige. Paige is Marne's best helper enforcing the "wash your hands before you touch the baby" policy. Hopefully Marne won't be this crazy about germs with future babies!



Four generations of Pieroni's. Dad, Great Grandma Pieroni, Sam and Grandpa Pieroni. What a lucky boy he is!




After finishing celebrating Christmas Eve at Amy and Brian's, Sam, Jake and Marne headed back to Grandma and Grandpa Pieroni's house for the night. It was lovely, as they let us sleep in their room which is like a day spa. Thanks again! Being rookie parents and thinking Sam would be cold on the trek, we dressed him a fleece outfit and covered him in a blanket in the carseat. Sam was quite upset on the drive between the two houses. When we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's poor Sam was still howling and was covered in sweat. Marne freaked out thinking he had gotten sick. Jake was much more calm about the situation. After cooling off he stopped sweating and howling and was able to relax as seen below.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Pre-Holiday Fun


Sam joined Mom and Grandma Osten to make Italian wedding cookies. Sam slept through most of the fun, but still wanted to pose with the finished product.


Mom's friend Jen came to visit baby Sam. He very much enjoyed her visit and can't wait to meet her baby Sophie.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Baby Torture

Before I get into the tale of the mass baby torture that took place today, below are a few pics of Marne, her friend Lori, and Sam. They're from a few weeks ago, but were overlooked in a previous post.

Shortly after the above photograph was taken, Marne went to Oregon to participate in a lumberjack competition in which she won 1st place in the Sweetest Flannel Shirt division.




So today Marne and I went to a gathering of everyone from this prepared child birth class we took a few weeks before Sam was born. Nine of the ten couples showed up with their babies. So there were 9 babies under 2 months old there. Fascinating. I'm sure you're all real bummed you didn't get a nod to this event. Actually, considering the attendees, there was very minimal screaming. And the couple who put it on put together a nice spread too. Now, you can't get 9 young proud moms together and expect there not to be some tortuous photo ops. Below is the infant crop circle that popped up in the middle of the house. I have a video of the logistics that made this picture come together. But it's huge is taking forever to upload, so I canceled the upload. I will work on reducing the file size and uploading it later.



This is the picture of "Krazy Kouch", or so I call it. The order from left to right is by decreasing age. Note Sammy Eugene is the youngest of the group. BTW, out of 10 babies (including the 1 that didn't show), only 2 are girls. Something in the water in Torrance I guess. This picture is hilarious. Look at Sam's head. And check out the middle baby, Ronin, screaming like a crazy man. Half are asleep, half are laying on the one next to them... just classic.


The girl on the right is the hostess, and the girl in the middle is Marne's favorite. You could call the bosom buddies. Literally...they go to breastfeeding clinic together. Bosoms. Heehee. Oops, I hope Marne didn't share this blog with anyone from class...they might be mad Marne has a favorite. But you know Marne...she likes everyone.


Here's more baby torture.



That was our day today. We also went to get some photos taken to put on a Holiday card. Don't even get me started on that. I am going to bomb Sears. Those assheads. Oooooooh, it makes me so mad to think about their chicanery. I may not plot terrorism against them, but I likely will write their corporate HQ and the head of their photo division. Damn liars they are. LIARS. SO MAD!!!!

I have to go now, or I will explode thinking of this situation for another second.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Pics


















Sunday, December 7, 2008

Sam has graduated university

I know, I know...it's been about that long since we've posted here...much has transpired. Sorry to keep you all waiting. I've got a moment of peace here before my man date comes to pick me up for the Laker game, and Marne and Sam have left to go see Gramma and Grandpa Osten's. So it's just me, Jerry, some beers, and that series of tubes we call the Internet. I figured instead of poring through lurid graphic material and searching for the latest woodworking gadgets (as good as porn for woodworking junkies), I could do something constructive like updating the blog.
Sam has had his first bath and his first bottle since last time. He hasn't done anything disastrous in the tub. I'm still waiting for that though. He tinked on some clean dishes in the dish dryer next to the sink where we wash him, but no big deal. I'm still waiting for the big bath blowout...I know it's coming. I think he's waiting for my thumb to heal so I can be more up in the mix during bath time...then he'll have his vengeance. OH, you haven't heard about my thumb? Oh my... we'll save that for later...this blog is about Sam, not me. As far as the baths go, he's well-mannered during them, doesn't cry much. And he smells so nice after. Marne bought some fancy shampoo for him, but I'll tell you: worth every penny. Very pleasantly-odored lad after a lathering of that slop.
So yeah, he's had a bottle now too. I fed him, which was really cool. The bottle is instant anti-fussiness potion. He caught right on to it too, no problem. And then next feeding, he went right back to the breast with ease. So he's very talented. Probably the smartest child in the world, of course.
He's real fat now. He weighs almost 10.5 lbs. Lots and lots of chins. He even has more than one neck. It's pretty impressive. He's put on about 40% of his body weight in a month. That would be like seeing me this Christmas, and by the time our big annual MLK day party rolls around, I'd be tippin' at a solid 310. That's a lot of Costco Pizza. I imagine it takes a tremendous amount of energy for the body to be able to process so many calories and put on all that weight, so you'd think he is really sleepy all the time. But in fact he is quite noisy. Quite noisy.
He makes a lot of noise while he sleeps even. Lots of grunting. It's pretty funny. I'm not afraid to say it's a bit obnoxious, but it's also kind of funny to listen to. He sounds like a little ape or something. Do apes even grunt? I don't know, but the analogy sounded legitimate.
Sam got to meet all kinds of people at Thanksgiving, which Marne bravely agreed to having at our house. I was ready to blindly ram ourselves into it, no matter where it was, but the only way I could convince Marne to agree to something was at our house, so at least she could retreat to a familiar place for feeding or to calm him if he got fussy. I suppose I was little naive, but I didn't care. Don't mess with my gravy, fool...I need that stuff...I wasn't about to go without my mom preparing T'Giving dinner for me. Which, by the way, she totally did. She made most of what we ate, set up every thing, and cleaned up everything with my dad. Amazing job, and I'm so thankful for them. It was a great Thanksgiving. We had Aunt Lynne, Uncle Mark, Grandma Miller, my folks, and my little sisters. Sam was so nice during dinner too. He didn't squawk at all. And he loved meeting everyone.
This weekend, he got to meet his Great Grandma Pieroni, and his Great Aunt Cheryl. He liked them very much. BTW, we have pics of all this, but I don't time to post them now...maybe after the game tonight, or tomorrow.
So my thumb...yeah. I sliced the inside of it from tip to end wide open with a chisel one night. Almost down to the bone. I was pretty ashamed of myself, because after having to go to the ER for splitting my head open in the garage, I was under strict orders from the Mrs. to be careful in there. But I was using not-sharp tools, so I had to exert a lot of force, and it slipped and cut me all open. I took myself to the ER because I felt so bad that I had done this...I wasn't going to burden Marne with it...she was feeding Sam when it happened. I had to hide the bloody ragged-up mess behind my back, and just walked in with my tail between my legs, and told her I'm going to the ER, and I'b back later. So I came back at 1:30am with 13 stitches in my thumb. I have a picture of it, but I figure I shouldn't post it. It's pretty rad though. Shortly thereafter, you'll be happy to know I sharpened all my chisels, so they cut nicely and don't require excessive force to use. Also, if you're ever using chisel, don't shove them in the direction of your hands. That's the lesson I learned. Use a vise.