Wow, holy neglected blog, batman!

Ok, so I just checked things out here and realized I haven't posted since Kayla was 12 weeks old!

In my best Tiger Woods impersonation: "My apologies good people of the Earth in search of cute Kayla pictures."

As you can imagine, a lot has changed between 12 weeks and 8 and a half months of age. Kayla is now crawling around, pulling herself up on things and standing in very precarious positions! "Da Da" and "Ma Ma" and "dog" are pretty common Kayla yelps, although I think I may have overdone the "da da" training, since she calls almost everything "da da".

We had a wonderful holiday season and now that we're cruising right along through the winter, we can't wait to get her waddling around out in the yard this spring!

Here is a picture/video summary of the last 6 months! Enjoy! Oh, and we just got a handheld video camera that shoots in 720p and 1080p, so high quality videos are coming soon (along with pictures/video of my ridiculous brewery projects)


Here is a pic of Kayla taking a tummy-rest at the St Louis zoo last October. (Clicking on this picture will take you to a collection of pics from her 3-month age)


Next is Kayla's set of 5-month pictures which includes a couple of different costumes (a pumpkin and an ear of corn). At this age she also started to really become a lot of fun to take videos of, so you'll see more and more of our Flickr pics are actually videos.


Ad of course, the more recent pics and videos of Kayla are of her crawling around, attacking dogs, or just the usual cute baby things we find funny. (Kayla's 7-9 month videos and pics are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/randybrace/sets/72157623167614499/detail/)




And a little bit of Kayla at her second swim class!






And of course, where would a blog update be without some home improvement projects? I am (still) working on our master bath remodel, although I am getting there. The floors are done (and the heated floors tested!) and the shower is coming along. Not being able to run a tile saw at reliable intervals due to baby naps and weeknight daddy daycare has really dragged the project along. I will update with pics if and when we finish.

I did manage to find time to finish the garage though. In true Randar style, go big or go home. The garage floor was shot-blasted and a 3-coat 100% solids epoxy floor system was installed by yours truly. Of course, this was a commercial grade epoxy that is used in FDA food processing facilities as well as private airplane hangars, so if you ever need such a facility, LET ME KNOW! :-P This was followed by a custom paint job on the walls, and a Gladiator Garageworks workbench and cabinet system. I even used a PVC-based plastic baseboard along the edges of the stem walls. Believe me, I have heard many times already how people think it's funny we have trim in the garage but not the house!

Here is a pic and you can see more of the garage project by clicking on the pic and going to my Flickr site.




If anyone out there is still reading this, hope you find some time to go through the Kayla videos and pictures. She's a little ball of hillarious!

12 weeks old already

Yes, you read that correctly. Maybe it didn't seem like it went that fast to the rest of you, who have instead been wondering what happened to your summer, but it has flown by. It seemed as if things were just kind of cruising along. Kayla would have a few really calm days (as much as a week and a half at a time) and we would all sort of settle into a schedule. Then she would have 3 days or so where should would be irritable, eat enormous amounts, and not sleep well. I have to be careful here, because in general she's been a champion sleeper, usually sleeping around 8-9 hours overnight with only 1 or 2 wake-up feedings. After these little irritable bouts, Jenni and I would both comment how she would just look like she grew overnight. Turns out, she pretty much was! She was 11 lbs 8 oz at her 2 month checkup and she's continued to sprout periodically.

Until about 3 weeks ago, she's basically been an eating, pooping, and sleeping blob of cuteness. Suddenly she's started knocking off all kinds of developmental milestones. A couple weeks ago she started really being able to hold her head up on her own and look around. Now she really only wants to be held facing out so she can hold her own head up and be able to see everything.

Then this past week, while I was traveling to the UK for work, she turned herself over from her back to her front. Jenni put her in bed on her back and came in to feed her in the morning and she was sleeping comfortably... on her belly! This continued for a couple days and when I returned, she showed me how it was done. So exciting! She even managed to roll over front to back once. So strong!

Now in just the past 48 hours or so, she has gotten into babbling mode! She's started trying to make sounds directed at us. Just the usual baby babbling, but it's uber-cute. Here is are a couple videos of her babbling with Jenni just a few hours ago:





On Saturday evening we went off to Kayla's first White Sox game against the Baltimore Orioles. We had great weather and were there early enough to do a little tailgating and get into the stadium for the first pitch. We had a great time, and Kayla (except for a hunger spaz attack in the 7th inning) was actively observing all the goings on. We had front row seats along the 1st baseline and we were on television a couple of times. One of the security guards also brought us a foul ball! Kayla gets one in her first game and I've never gotten one in 30 years! Lucky girl. Here is a shot of us from the TV feed in the background and one of us with the foul ball:





Here is a pic of us after the game and then a pic of Kayla watching intently at her first fireworks show after the Sox victory.

A few days in and hundreds of pictures later!

Kayla's almost a week old. Wow. It's crazy saying that since it seems like she was born just yesterday. We are totally in love with this funny little girl and she's just a riot to watch change every waking minute. Her expressions certainly remind us of my own with her furrowed brow, sleeping with her mouth open, and her "sour puss" face when she scrunches up her mouth.

Kayla's 2nd Day:


Kayla's first day home:


We've also had quite the introduction to parenting. After our first uneventful pediatrician appointment and first lunch out, we had to induce her first bowel movement since we've had her home from the hospital. Comical and eye-opening to say the least. Let's just say that I will have a terribly embarrassing story to share with her pre-teen friends one day.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention what a blessing it's been to be home with momma and baby for this first week (and for the rest of June). It's a luxury most don't get to share. While being layed-off and unemployed can be a very frustrating experience, the fact that I already have a job lined up and have this time with Kayla and Jenni, things couldn't have worked out any better.

Here are some more Kayla pics:

Welcome Kayla Marie to the family

At 7 am today, Sunday, May 31st, Kayla Marie Brace was born as a happy and healthy 7 pound 8 oz and 20 inch baby girl. Baby and momma are healthy and resting after a relatively brief labor which started at 10 pm last night.



As some may know, Jenni's official due date was May 24th. We had several "last dinners out", "last grocery shopping", etc, but on Saturday night we were convinced we were destined to be induced early this coming week. All of this after a very encouraging doctor appt on Wednesday where our doc predicted labor within 24-46 hours and Jenni was already 3.5-4 cm dilated. By Saturday night we'd all but given up (despite Jenni having some light cramping), so we went to dinner at Maggiano's, visited some friends for a few minutes, and returned home around 9:30 with the intent to finish some laundry and watch a movie we've been meaning to watch for about 6 months now. 10 minutes into the movie Jenni bent down to grab a towel and said something to the effect of (sorry, events are already somewhat blurry) "UhOH, I think my water just broke". No, not a huge gush like the movies, but just a little trickle that was no-doubt her membranes rupturing. Within 10-15 minutes, she had her first contraction and they were 5 minutes apart and 30 seconds long right from the start. 40 minutes later things were obviously progressing and by 11:50 pm we were walking into the maternity ward at Highland Park Hospital (which has amazing facilities, huge birthing/recovery rooms, and an outstanding staff, btw). Here is a pic of Jenni from when we had checked into the hospital and contractions were still mild and 4 or 5 minutes apart. Still smiling!



From there, things progressed quite well and Jenni continued to have accelerating contractions. Being the middle of the night, things were quite serene and we were really able to focus on Jenni's breathing and relaxing between contractions (with the help of calming ocean sounds television on the hospital TV network, we didn't even need the iPod). The hospital had an egg shaped Yoga ball that was indispensable. Jenni was able to stay on her knees during contractions and lean over the ball while staying in bed. This was by far the most comfortable position for her even though the baby was positioned perfectly. Here is a pic of Jenni on the Yoga ball during labor. She is deep into her breathing and was basically meditating between contractions and focusing on her breathing and a little stuffed animal that looked like our dog Chomper. It was pretty amazing that she was able to do all of this with no medication and even without an IV. She was awesome.



Jenni was having a little break in the contractions and some light urges to push. I looked into the little trusty "manual" we got at the birthing class to get some kind of indication into what stage we were in and lo and behold, she fit the description of just having finished one of the most difficult stages of labor (transition) while barely breaking a sweat. Sure enough, the doctor came in shortly thereafter and Jenni was ready to push. After 2 tough hours of exhausting contractions and pushing, out came our beautiful little girl. A couple little cries were enough to ease everyone's concerns. Here is a wonderful pic of her nursing (which came quite naturally) immediately after delivery. Jenni looks like she's been at the spa for crying out loud!



There are a few more pictures with mother and father, grandparents, etc if you click on any of the pics and go to the Flickr site (no need to register).

And with that, I'm off to try to catch a few Z's while I can. Goodnight!

Long time without an update

I admit, I've been delinquent in my duties as the official biographer of this pregnancy thing. As anyone who still reads this knows, Jenni is preggo and due May 24th (any day now). We have taken a few "bump" pics along the way, but as you'd expect here in the final days, Jenni has gotten quite round (I might be in trouble for putting it that way, LOL). We have taken all the appropriate classes, are going to try for as natural a birth as possible, and we have indeed picked out a name for the little girl (and no, we aren't telling anyone the name, so don't ask). I have included a picture from the baby shower that shows Jenni a couple weeks ago. I also want to thank my Mom, mother-in-law, and Aunts Sheree and Kay who worked very hard to put together a very nice shower for us.



I will try to be more diligent in updating the blog and posting baby pics to Flickr or Facebook (we have been more active on Facebook than the blog lately). Other updates include the purchase of half a buffalo in January from a ranch in northern Michigan (about 300 pounds). We have made a lot of tasty meals so far that include meatballs, chili, burgers, steaks, fajitas, etc. Pretty sweet. Also, in a desperate attempt to get into shape before the baby comes, I have been doing p90x workouts (you may have seen the infomercials). Let's just say they are crazy-hard and have worked pretty well. I have 17 days left to go to finish the 90 days and have lost or relocated some much needed weight and feel great heading into sleep deprivation cycle. I surely would have lost more if I had been more careful about diet and cut down on the beer, but how is that any fun? If interested in learning more about p90x, see the p90x Official Website. We also made one last trip out to San Diego to visit my sister and a couple of friends out there before my sister moves to Ohio this summer. Here are some pics from the San Diego Zoo with Jenni and our friend Jim, his wife, and step-daughter.



In other news, the company I worked for the past 4 years decided to get out of the cellular business and closed up shop after several failed attempts to sell the division. As of April 24th, I have been happily unemployed. The good news is we had a good severance package and the better news is that I already have a job lined up to start at the end of June. This will make for a nice pre/post baby paternity leave that also coincides with some beautiful weather. This time and weather has given me the time to get the yard and garden in prime condition. We are about to transplant all our little seedlings we started indoors (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli, herbs, zucchini & squash, etc). Meanwhile, spring is in full bloom and I was able to take a little photographic tour of the garden flowers/plants. You can click on this flower picture to get to see the whole collection.



As usual, we are in the middle of a renovation project. The Master Bed/Bath/Closet are currently in disarray as we reconfigure the size of the closet/bath as well as entirely redo the bathroom. We are waiting to finalize our refinancing (hopefully for the last time) before making the major purchases (tile, vanity/top, heated floor mats, etc). The closet has been re-framed and drywalled and we are sort of stalled here as the baby is due to pop out any time now.


Mother's Day is also when we usually celebrate Jenni's cousin Justin's birthday, so here are some family pics from the dual-celebration event.



And in final news, my little brother Derrick graduated from UIC with a BS in Mechanical engineering last weekend. Here are a few pics from the event. Congrats D!

It's a girl!

On the first Monday of January, we learned our fate. That's right, we're having a little girl! Jenni has been convinced it was a boy, so much so she has been calling it "him". So inevitably, it had to be a girl, hehe.

Here is a snippet of her face from the 20 week ultrasound:


So, needless to say, we are still happy and excited and just thankful that all tests have come back normal and she appears to be totally healthy. Jenni is hungry all the time, wants to sleep 9 hours a night (that may be normal for her though), feels like a whale (center of gravity is different so she struggles to turn over), and reacts in amazement daily about the size of her giant preggo boobs. She's excited that she is finally starting to "look" pregnant to the average passer by (as opposed to just looking "fat", as she has complained about).

In other news, we are busy as usual. Jenni (along with some ridiculous contractor estimates) convinced me to renovated Jenni's parents' bathroom. This was just a normal 5x8 bath, but it was in similar shape and age to those in our house. We didn't get a good before picture (it was scary), and the sink and medicine cabinet are not yet in, but here is a picture of what it looks like today (well, a couple weeks ago). Jenni's family might be a bit shocked since there used to be a window inthe middly of the tub surround. We removed and boarded it up and my siding guy will fix it this winter. All this work has also gotten me back into the home renovation mood. Winter has us stir crazy and the serious planning for the master bath renovation is in full swing. This weekend I ripped out the tile and tub from the surround and began exploring the plumbing plan.



We have all kinds of pictures from the various Xmas/New Years functions (and lot's of pictures of our 3-month old niece, Isabel) and fun. In chronological order (click on any picture to go to the matching album):

Weiss Lab Turkey (and anything else you can think of) Fry:

The Menu included mixed root veggie chips, mushrooms, zucchini, tempura veggies, risotto balls, pierogies (homemade by Jenni & her mom), bloomin' onions, a 20 lb turkey and all kinds of other non-fried stuff. Good stuff.

Jenni's Dad's (Ejka)family Xmas party:


Jenni's Mom's Family Xmas:


Randy's Family Xmas


New Years at our house with Vedders and Stewarts (a 4-dog night):


And on a final note, we love our new camera, but it can be time consuming to do all the post-processing of the images when taken in RAW format. They turn out so much nicer I keep telling myself it is worth it.

Camera training and baby preparations...

For years Jenni and I have been missing our old SLR film cameras and all the interesting pictures and flexibility it gave us. It has been many years since my old Canon A100 bit the dust and the point-and-shoots have been great for taking candid shots. However, recent trips to Yosemite and elsewhere has highlighted what I have been missing. Artistic flexibility.

So, with the bun in the oven, we broke down and bought a Canon 40D last week when the price finally dropped to what we deemed "affordable". Figuring that we would be taking many baby and kid pictures in the future and having the dogs to practice on, this is going to be a 6-month crash course before the baby arrives and our free-time is centered around it.

That being said, having had 2-3 days to play (and already 200-300 pics under my belt), here are a few dog and other pics I have snapped with the also new 60mm Macro lens (that's perfect for garden closeups or portrait shots).

As for Preggo, she is doing well and although she is starting to feel "big", it's only the beginning as we approach 16 weeks.

Some news on Turkeyday

First, Happy Thanksgiving to all (and any that still read this), but on to our news. Jenni and I are expecting a little addition to our family in May. No, not another little fu-fu dog. While we are totally excited and thrilled, we also recognize that we are in no way prepared for this (as any first-timer should readily admit).

So, while this means many new things for us, we are only now thinking of how we will be prepared for this. We just bought a new Digital SLR to record as many of the upcoming moments as possible and I am planning for the renovation of our master bath/closet (since I figure to have little time on my hands for a project this large in the near future). Currently, though, I am working on Jenni's parents bathroom and I am squarely in the middle of that project.

So Happy Thanksgiving [our last in peace :-)]

Garden is gone, cold weather setting in, house projects on hold

Well, not too much to update everyone on these days (if anyone even still reads our delinquent blog). We have been uber-busy with weekend events since my 30th birthday mixed in with mass garden production, canning veggies, and generally just trying to keep up with the normal home things. Our autumn has been filled with football, a new niece, a couple of rocking concerts, and lots of chillin'.

All of that being said, as the financial and housing markets leave much to be desired, we still have a few unfinished projects going on and new ones we'd like to get underway. I started painting windows only to realize the wood windows we have will not fit back into their frames easily and I think I will be spending some spring days/nights scraping the paint off and staining/lacquering them instead. This, of course, also puts some time delay into our plans to finish the trim and molding throughout the house. I think I can still do baseboards and doors, but window trim will have to wait :(.

In addition to these projects, I would also like to get started on our master bathroom/closet remodel and I have started drawing up some schematics and plans for said area. This, of course, will be a huge project, but if we are ever going to get it done, we probably have to start sooner than later. The good news is that most home improvement stores are so desperate for business there are plenty of good deals to be had. But, before any of that can go forward, there is considerable drywall, framing, and lighting work to be done, so you can see this will be a winter-long project in all likelihood.

No pictures this post, but we will try to put some up on our Flickr site, so check back later!

Tomatoes, Tomatoes and More Tomatoes

Sorry for the long delay between posts. We've been busy! We've been working hard on our huge garden this year. At the moment we're up to our ears in tomatoes, but we've also had huge crops of peas, green beans, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, broccoli, and lettuce. And I almost forgot, the gazillion types of pepper plants that Randy managed to sneak in behind my back, and the reason we ripped up half the yard, Randy's hops!


My butterfly garden has also been doing well. Chomper loves to walk through the flowers in hunt of butterflies. While she loves to chase them, she can't quite catch them! Dusty on the other hand, has been busy terrorizing (is that the origin of "terrior") the neighborhood. Add four bunnies and a small bird to her list of "defeats".



Randy's been busy finishing up the hall bath. Which is finally completed and looks beautiful! Also works beautifully (an added bonus). We also had carpet installed in the guest bedrooms. A huge upgrade from plywood subfloor. And we finally have doors! Our plan is to finish up the trim and get a final coat on the doors. Then maybe we'll think about the master bedroom updates..... Maybe.... Other than, just enjoying the beautiful Chicago summer, and celebrating a few birthdays (celebrated my 30th in June and gearing up for Randy's 30th party this upcoming weekend.

Chicago-to-Telluride-to-Rome-to-Yosemite

What is going on here? Yes, a ski trip to Telluride with some friends and a planned family trip to Yosemite has now been mixed with a trip to Rome next week. I'm heading out for 4 days to Rome and hope to be able to see a few of the sights in the little bit of free time I will have. Jenni is, of course, jealous, but the inside of a conference room looks the same in just about every country.

Having never been to Rome and having only a few days to research, I am a little pessimistic about really getting a flavor for the city and the historical sights. Luckily I will be with a few coworkers who have spent some time there and there is the outside chance of getting a "behind the scenes" tour of the Vatican.

I will have pictures when I return, but for now I will have to amaze you with the pictures of Telluride. Skiing at 12,000 feet and sleeping (in a 6,000 sq ft "cabin" down the street from Oprah and Dan Quale) at 10,000 feet makes for an easily-winded vacationer!

Also, I will have to continue to replace renovation pictures with vacation and beard pictures... We're still working on the upstairs bath, recently had carpeting installed in 2 of the spare bedrooms, and have a garage full of solid pine doors sitting around waiting to be painted. At least spring is here so I can start building my hop trellis and working on the landscaping (dripping sarcasm).

Enjoy!

Festival of Beards 2008

Well, the time finally came to shave my scraggly cave-man beard. After about 3 months of "torture" (as Jenni describes it), the photo-documentary of the second annual Festival of Beards follows:

The shaggy beginning:


Monday:


Tuesday:


Wednesday:


Thursday:


Friday:

Back to the grind...

We had a great New Year and Holiday season, spending tons of time with family around the Chicago area and Michigan. Now, with the Holidays over, the extra 10 pounds of "middleware" I am carrying around, and Jenni and I both being back in the old work routine, I figured it would be a good time to give everyone an update. Here is a Xmas picture with more up on the Flickr site:



I have pictures from the kitchen up on my Flickr site. If you have seen the pre-renovation pictures but have not yet seen the finished product, you should take a look. It is quite the transformation. The same could be said of the floor and new stairs, so here is a picture of each (click to follow to more).







Now we are on to what we hope is the home stretch. I am in the process of tiling the upstairs hall bath and we are picking out carpets for the 2nd and 3rd bedrooms. After that, we have doors and trim left to do this spring. We are probably going to wait a while to do the master bathroom, but we will see how the rest of this goes. Here is an in-progress picture of the tiling of the bathroom.