Ten Months

At ten months, Ashley:

• Has a favorite color: red.  She loves to carry a red block around with her when she crawls.
• Is getting a lot better with books.  She will sit still and turn the pages herself, either on command (“turn the page”) or whenever she feels like it.
• Likes to try to stand with nothing to support her – but only for a few seconds at a time.
• Knows “clap your hands,” but hasn’t figured out how to wave goodbye yet.
• Goes swimming every Saturday, and really enjoys it.
• Her favorite toy seems to be her Baby Einstein Mirror Discovery Cards… if we don’t put them in their usual spot, she will take out every toy until she finds them.
• Has four teeth.
• Has a new facial expression: she will stick her bottom lip out now, while she previously like to tuck her bottom lip under her top lip.

Some pictures from Ashley’s 10-month birthday:

Tweet tweet!

We have been having a tough time keeping the blog up-to-date.  It doesn't help that our hard drive is full so we can't download any new pics off our camera.  A new drive is on its way, but in the meanwhile this morning I decided to open a Twitter account for Ashley.  You can follow her at:  http://twitter.com/babyhaygee

9 Months!

Ashley turned 9 months old on January 15th.  She:

• Weighs about 20 pounds and is 29.75 inches tall.
• Has been growing so fast recently that she has been getting hungry in the middle of the night… she had been sleeping through the night from about 10 weeks of age!
• Is a really quick crawler now.
• Has become very vocal: she squeals with delight when she sees her dog and cat, yells when she’s upset, and cries if you take something away from her that she still wants.
• Has two bottom teeth.
• Loves to stand up and lean against things with no hands supporting her, and can cruise around our sofa and ottoman.
• Is getting better with the animals.  She will now pat them instead of grabbing their fur.
• Is still very cheerful!
• Celebrated her 9-month birthday by going to her first Water Babies class at mommy’s gym.

Some pictures from January 15th—Ashley at 9 months:

Ashley's First: Ride in the Shopping Cart

Ashley has accompanied us on many shopping trips where we placed her (in her infant carseat) in the main section of the shopping cart.  This method leaves little room for groceries and Ashley often found herself surrounded by (and sometimes underneath) our purchases.

Now that she has outgrown her infant carseat we have moved on to a convertible carseat.  This means Ashley gets to ride in the top part of the shopping cart where the big kids go!

Eight Months

Ashley turned eight months old on December 15th.  After some struggling we determined that she weighs about 18.5 pounds and measures about 28.25 inches in height.  She started being able to pull herself up to a stand on her own the previous day, and then on the 15th, she went to the mall and got her picture taken with Santa.

Here are some pictures from Ashley's 8-month birthday:

She really enjoys her LeapFrog table now that she can sit and stand on her own:



Mommy and Ashley getting ready to go see Santa:


Picture with Santa:

Big week last week

Last week Ashley...

started sitting all the way up on her own:

helped granddad and grandma set up the Christmas tree:

and got her first Christmas tree decoration-- a bear:

She started crawling properly.. almost always towards her doggy:

Got plenty of quality time with grandma:

And her first tooth started to come in (sorry, no picture of it yet).  Overall, a very happy week:

A few recent photos

Just a few photos from the last week or so.  Ashley has been enjoying playing with some new toys lately:

She's becoming more mobile every day:

And tried peas for the first time yesterday.  She likes them!

Seven Months

Ashley, I know that you are just as shocked as I am that you are already seven months old.

At seven months, you are:
 - 28 inches tall, and weigh about 18 pounds.
 - Blowing raspberries a lot.  We don't know what it means though!
 - Still not quite able to crawl.  You haven't quite figured out how to coordinate your arms and legs.  You will typically get about one "step" forward before you fall on your tummy.  Alternatively, and depending on the floor surface, your hands will get better traction than your knees, and because you don't know to move your hands forward yet, you end up pushing yourself backwards.
 - Not quite bringing yourself up to a sitting position on your own, but you're close.  You will push yourself up part way with one arm though, and chill like that for quite a while.
 - Really enjoying your walks with your doggy.  You just sit quietly in your stroller and watch the world go by.
 - Eating a couple of meals of solid food a day.  You really like bananas and apples these days, but are getting tired of sweet potato.
 - Finally starting to get some new hair on that cute little head of yours!

Ashley, Nov 15, 2010.

Canadian Thanksgiving

My parents were down for Canadian Thanksgiving (one month ago now!).  It was a nice time, and a big weekend for Ashley: her first solid food!

Ashley enjoyed showing off her UltraSaucer to Grandpa and Grandma:

She tried on her Halloween costume, which her second cousin Laird generously let her borrow:


Checking herself out in her mirror:

After trying out her costume, she got her first taste of solid food for lunch:

The weather was nice—the cat spent most of the weekend in the open windows, watching squirrels:

For Thanksgiving dinner Nancy made Alton Brown's turkey recipe and Paula Deen's  "Good Old Country Stuffing". Perfect!

We went for a walk at the West Hartford Reservoir:
 

Grandma got plenty of time with Ashley, and read her lots of stories:

But attempts to read to Ashley often end up with an attempt to grab and bite the book:

Silly humans

"I laugh at their feeble attempt to keep me out of the bouncy seat."

Bad kitty!

One question that we get now and then is, "how are the animals with the baby?"  Well, they are pretty much totally indifferent to her.  However, our cat Bango should be thankful that she is here, because Bango has benefited greatly from her existence.  Why?  Because baby stuff seems to be perfectly made for cats to hang out in.  Despite some effort to prevent her from getting into Ashley's stuff, Bango has been found sleeping, or attempting to sleep, on or in Ashley's:

• play mat
• car seat
• pack'n'play
• crib
• changing pad
• bouncy seat,
• bassinette, and
• stroller.

Puppets are hilarious

Hot pixels

Back in June I noticed that we had a bunch of large-aperture/high ISO exposures with a bright pink dot in the middle of the frame.  It was consistently reproducible at ISO 800 or higher at f/1.8, but there was no problem evident at lower ISO or small apertures.  A quick google search revealed that this was what's known as a "hot" pixel, and is an inevitable and common problem with digital cameras sensors.  I then did a long exposure   of the back of our lens cap (with long-exposure noise reduction turned off), and found that we had a whole bunch of bad pixels, though it was just the one magenta one that was particularly noticeable.  Once a hot pixel develops, there does not seem to be any way to fix the sensor itself.  However, sensors have millions of photosites, and so hot pixels can be individually mapped out, with the value for that pixel then interpolated from nearby photosites.

Our camera was still under warranty, so I sent it back to Nikon to have the hot pixels mapped out.  UPS Ground to the service center cost about $20, but the camera returned about 10 days later in absolutely perfect condition.  Nikon cleaned it so well that I would have sworn it was a brand new camera if it hadn't had the same serial number.  And of course, all of the bad pixels were mapped out.

Since we got the camera back, we've been taking plenty of wide-open high-ISO shots with no hot pixels to be found... until last night.  Another bright magenta pixel, right in the middle of the image!  Our camera is just out of warranty now, and I didn't want to be without it for another week-and-a-half anyway, so I searched for another solution.  I quickly stumbled across some great free software.  Pixel Fixer will automatically detect hot pixels, remember the locations of them, and then conveniently map those out of your raw files, in batches of a directory at a time, with filters for shutter speed and ISO (among other things).

See that little dot on Ashley's shoulder?  That's our new hot pixel.

Six Months!

Ashley, I can't believe you turned six months old yesterday!

At six months you:

•  Like to lift your chest and tummy off the ground, fully straightening your arms.
• Want to grab anything around you that you can see-- and you usually find a way to get at it!
• Enjoy watching the dog and the cat, and will occasionally grab their paws and tails.
• Smile at everyone, and laugh very easily.
• Have started eating solid food.  You really enjoy your rice cereal.
• Are starting to go to bed earlier at night, and take shorter naps during the day.
• Love playing in your UltraSaucer.
• Are still a very quiet, patient, and sweet little baby!

Here are some photos from your six-month birthday:

You spent the morning playing on your play mat for a while, as usual.

"Don't touch the camera lens!"

A well-known technique for getting a baby to smile is to bark like a dog.  A lesser-known fact is that this technique also works on moms!

You've been lifting yourself up like this a lot lately.

Ashley at seven-and-a-half weeks

Just a bunch of pictures that Nancy took of Ashley on June 5th.