Violet Rolls Over! And Some House-wifery.

We've been busy over here at Villa Vona. On Sunday our precious little Violet rolled over for the first time! Yeah, I know, it's not that big of a deal but we were pretty excited to get it on VIDEO! Along with her rollover practice we've been trying out the whole sitting up thing. She still needs help with that for a while but I think she likes the change of scenery. Violet has been even more vocal lately. Lots of talking.  She is especially good at telling us when she needs changing and when she's hungry. And yes, we can tell the difference...

Violet is 3 months old now so we've been trying to get her on a sleep schedule. Not too hard actually. (The other parents HATE us) She seems to get tired and cranky around 7:30-8:30 most nights so I just take her to her room, feed her, wrap her up and rock with her. It can take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour but she eventually knocks out. Some nights are harder than others.

I have been trying to do other things during my time off besides playing with baby. Although I can EASILY kill most of a day just hanging out with her and have zero regrets.

This is my first attempt at landscaping. Well, the beginning of it really. I plan on dropping in some compost soil and planting a few trees back here. We're thinking dwarf lemon, peach and some blueberry bushes. Then next spring I'll be getting my dahlia tuber order from Swan Island in Oregon and then I'll have PRETTY flowers in my yard!

I've also been doing a little baking and cooking when Violet lets me. Its easier if I let her sit in the kitchen with me in her jumper chair. I'm getting very tempted to make bread. I've always been scared to but what have I got to lose but some time and flour? 

Violet Speaks and Smiles!

Here's the first video of Violet talking! Well, babbling really. We swear she said "glue!" the other day. We spend lots of time each day having little conversations with her. Its so much fun and so freakin' cute.

Our pretty human baby is still getting to know our fur babies. All three cats just LOVE Violet's room. Mu-shu spends hours sleeping in the crib. Lucky likes the rocking chair and anywhere with a sunbeam. Pandora is all over the place tearing things up as usual. We even catch the cats on the changing table occasionally. Pandora has shown the most interest in Violet. She likes to climb on my lap while we're nursing and lay up against Violet's back. It's cute but it gets a little warm sometimes! 

We spent fathers day relaxing and hanging out. Breakfast was at Jim's Cafe. We met Dan, Irene and Natasha at Franklin park in the afternoon. Then daddy spent a little time teaching Violet how to play X-box. Violet LOVES spending time with her daddy. 

Just can't put her down!

LITERALLY! I cannot put my baby down. Not much anyway. The little buggers need a significant amount of attention in the first few months. It's rather tiring but I know it only lasts a little while so I'm trying to enjoy it as much as I can. (and forget about the fact that I'm getting NOTHING else done) I know a lot of folks say, "oh you just need to let her cry it out" or "you don't want her too dependent on you" or my favorite "you'll spoil her if you hold her too much." 

Sorry but I'm not buying into this train of thought. I believe there's a significant amount of bad American "habits" when it comes to parenting. Consider that in other cultures all over the world, colic doesn't exist. Researchers think it has to do with how much babies are "attached" to their parents and family members in these other cultures. Yes, I've been reading the Sears books and the Happiest Baby book. These theories make the most sense to me and even more important, the practices are actually working for us, which in my opinion, sells it the best.

But enough preaching.
Let's get on to the BABY! Violet is doing wonderful. and I have the 240+ pictures to prove it. She's almost 8 weeks old now. She is smiling and grabbing at things pretty regularly. She's gooing and gaaing at me and her daddy when she's in a good mood. She still naps a lot which is about the only time I can put her down for a little while. She also likes laying in her crib and watching the blinky music light (ironically it's a Baby Einstein product) but I always feel bad when I leave her there so I can get other things done. Luckily she only tolerates it for a short while and starts squawking like a lost cheetah cub when it's no longer entertaining for her. 

I am getting better from the surgery slowly. Just started lifting some weights yesterday. Trying to walk faster when I go out. It'll be time to start looking for work soon. Not looking forward to that. Partly because the idea of leaving Violet during the day makes me sad.

Welcome Violet Kira Vona

Violet Kira Vona was born on April 24th at 9:37pm!

She weighed 7lbs. 14 oz. and was 20" long.

Mom was in labor for about 25 hours and we ended up having a c-section after baby got stuck. It was not the best birth experience ever recorded. (more on that later)

Baby is 100% healthy, mom (and dad) will recover.

The Painted House

With Baby on the way Jonathan has been working hard to get the house squared away before we have zero energy to do anything ever again. After all the "fun" we had painting the baby's room we figured it was time to do the rest of the house! So Jonathan has spend many many days over the last several weeks painting like crazy. It was very un-fun for him but the results were FANTASTIC! We're extremely happy with our color choices. (you can pretty much only get away with this when you have 12' ceilings I think)














This was after the first coat in the entry way. Pandora REALLY likes ladders. She would climb them whenever we had them set up. Unfortunately she had a hard time getting down on her own so Jonathan had to climb up and get her.


This is the finished entryway. We got this great silver paint that looked so pretty on the trim!















Our dining room (and the living room) are red with black trim. At first we weren't sure about the red but after a couple of days we got really happy with it. I'm glad we kept the red a little muted rather than brighter. Both rooms look really dramatic now. Jonathan is going to add metallic gold highlights on the trim and there's some other details we want to do but this will get us by for now. We love it!














Our bedroom is a lovely plumb color (with more silver trim). LOVE IT. Waking up in this room actually makes me happy.














And here's the token belly shot of me and Lucky NOT HELPING with the painting.

Baby Shower!

I have often said that I have the best girlfriends.
But I'll say it again... I HAVE THE BEST GIRLFRIENDS EVER.
Christine & Shannon threw me an Alice In Wonderland Tea Party Baby Shower!!! The weather cooperated so we got to be outside the whole day. There were teapots everywhere! I even got to use my wedding china tea pots! It was such a perfect afternoon with my friends. Mom flew in and Eliza made it back up from So.Cal in time. It was really nice to hang out with the girls for a whole day too. I know I won't get a chance to do that for a while after baby comes.














Here Natasha gets to see what a baby shower looks like. She tried so hard to attend her own shower we thought it was only fair she get to come to mine.














And of course we were all ecstatic that Ambrosia and Iggy made it to town in time! We hope to be seeing more of them soon. :)














This would be Baby's first fight skirt. Natasha got one too. Irene and I cannot wait to teach our daughters how to beat each other up with sticks. "Remember baby, you can ONLY hit someone in the dome!!!" Although I'm thinking we'll probably have to build our own little dome at home and do fights here. Something tells me if we try and harness our kids up at the local park jungle gym, some Alameda Mommy group will take issue with our parenting techniques...















Here's all the moms!

Baby's Room is painted!

Well, after a little trial and error with the trim color (green is bad) we finally finished painting the baby's room! This is Jonathan, very hungry and totally over it. I was pretty much over it too. All that crawling around climbing ladders and trying to not ruin the floors was a lot for us to get through with my growing belly and his bad back. But we made it! And we're really happy with the results. Now there's just the rest of the house to paint.....

Here's the latest pic of "the belly." I'm now 28 weeks and heading into my last trimester. (about 7 months) Baby is kicking all the time and moving around lots! She seems most active when I'm trying to sleep or sitting on the couch. She is heavy! I'm now lugging around about 2 lbs. of actual baby and about 18 lbs. of extra tissue and fluid housing the baby. Last night I got woken up by my first leg cramp. That was interesting but not nearly as bad as the round ligament pain I was having from weeks 14-24. Now begins all the prep work. Classes at Kaiser, setting up the rest of baby's room, planning for my maternity leave from work. Lots to do! We're trying to pace ourselves.

Here's a little fun in the basement! Jonathan's parents got him this awesome work bench for the X-Mess and both our parents hooked us up with a whole bunch of great tools & gear for working around the house! I'm betting this will all come in pretty handy in the near future. It's just really nice having a central location for everything. Before, our meager set of tools were spread all over the place.