James: March 2004 Archives

The Lances at Delicate Arch

"Eww Egg..." View more picture from March View more picture from Arches National Park

03-28-04

It's been a long time since we've updated this site and I know that some of you are starved for new and cute pictures of Seth. I hope this lastest installment of news and pictures will satisfy even the most baby starved grandma out there.

Our biggest news is our short trip to Moab with my parents over the last weekend. We sort of invited ourselves at the last minute when my dad called to make sure we knew they were going to be out of town. So with two hours notice we packed up our bags and the baby and headed south. James had been itching to get out of town, out of work, and into some nicer weather for quite some time and this opportunity was perfect! My parents were running the Moab half marathon on Saturday so while they ran, James, Seth and I headed to Arches National Park to take in some of the scenery. Neither James nor I had been to Arches and we had a good time exploring for a few hours until we had to be back in Moab to pick my parents up from the race. That day we saw several beautiful arches and hiked around Balancing Rock. Seth rode along in his carrier strapped to daddy's chest and loved looking at the many wonders of the world. My sister had given me a sun hat for Seth when he was first born and it was way too small for him now and made him look very silly, so that afternoon James and I went in search of a new hat for him that would actually shade him from the sun. We found a "river rat" hat (that's what my mom called it) and brought it back to the hotel to try it on him. It was a little large but totally cute!!

Sunday we went back to Arches for a pinic breakfast and a short hike up to see the world famous Delicate Arch. It was pretty amazing, but since we were veiwing it from quite a distance, I don't think that we got the whole impact of how spectacular it really is. Next time we'll have to make the 3 mile hike up to the base of it. We enjoyed the short trip and the ultra nice weather (almost too nice... it was down right hot in the afternoons). Seth was a really good boy, as always, except for not being able to sleep in the strange hotel room and being uncomfortable in his car seat with a dirty diaper. Luckily both of these problems were temporary and he smiled and played with mom and dad and grandma and grandpa most of the weekend.

In other news... We have a tree company coming on Monday to cut down the big Spruce tree in our front yard. I whacked my head on one of the branches again this morning and am totally ready for it to be gone. Although we'll have to put numbers on our house now since the landmark that everyone identifies our house with will be gone. We also had another big dumpster delivered to the house and have commenced tearing down the garage. It did not weather the heavy snows we got this year very well and needs to come down. We will have the dumpster for a month at least and we are going to try and get everything out of our backyard. We are even thinking about putting in a very small vegetable garden this year, but that might be too ambitious with everything else we have on our plates this summer. We are excited about the prospect of having a junk free backyard and I'm sure both of our neighbors are too.

Now for the update on the World's Cutest Baby (not that we are biased or anything). Seth is getting more and more curious about the world around him. He likes to go outside and look at birds and the wind blowing in the trees. He likes to pet my mom's cats and doesn't pull their fur too much. He is eating new foods everyday. Yesterday he had kiwi fruit for the first time and today he had mango. Dirt is also one treat he decided to try when I wasn't looking, I don't think he enjoyed that as much as the kiwi or mango though. He loves to grab things, especially necklaces, hair and dinner plates. I decided to cut my hair short in order to save myself from him. Crawling is still not something he seems very interested in. He has discovered that he can get places, slowly, by scooching around on his butt. I am fairly grateful that he isn't extremely mobile yet since the little boy I babysit has been crawling for a month now and I would go crazy trying to keep up with two mobile babies. Unfortunately, I think Seth is starting to catch on and will be on his way fairly soon. I think he has said "Hi" and knows how to wave, but he isn't consistent enough at either to make a good judgement. Another of his great acomplishments is that he likes to rock out to music. On St. Patricks Day I put on some Irish music and Seth would sit on the ground and bobble his head back and forth in time to the music. We call him our little bobble head doll. He even "dances" to the music of his toys and when ever daddy whistles or sings or hums... etc. We had family pictures taken this month and might be able to post them here on the website, but we aren't sure how strict the copyrights are on them, so you'll have to check back to see if they ever get up.

I think that about does it for this installment. We love you all.

Love, Miekka, James and Seth