Misc stuffs

I have a collection of pictures and videos that are so random and unrelated that I figured I'd just stick them all in a post together.

Here's a video of Kessa eating her washcloth between bites.

Today Kessa started chewing the air. Luckily, I caught a short video of it.

And now for the pictures. BJ discovered that Kessa will hold herself up on the arm of the chair and "fly"

This is Kessa asleep in her crib. This isn't abnormal by any means. But if you look under her hand and neck you'll see a little pink thing. It's a crocheted owl blanket thing. It's a perfect crib toy, so we've left it in her crib ever since we got it soon after she was born. But this was the first time she'd ever actually done anything with it. She made it into a pillow!


We had a white elephant gift exchange. This is what we took for our gift. A white elephant! (Made out of towels, buttons, rubber bands, and ribbon.)


Bonnie let us borrow a bunch of clothes. Here is a car seat outfit. The straps go through it and around it so that she stays strapped in, but it's nice and fluffy so that she can stay warm. We love it!

The Couch

BJ's brother, Nick, is quite the inventive sort. I'm not sure he's ever thought inside the box. For many years now, he has dreamed of making a motorized couch. Recently, the stars aligned and everything came together to make his dreams come true. He brought his couch up for Thanksgiving and we all had fun riding on it.

Here is BJ and I on the couch. (Please be so kind as to ignore the fact that we both look awful.)

And here is a video of the couch in action. This is Teresa and Nick riding around the driveway, jamming to some Portuguese music. Yes, the couch has a sound system inside.

Basically, Nick is awesome. I hope to hear some great dating stories soon involving the couch.

Kessa is getting vocal

Kessa lost her voice recently. I'm not sure if it was due to a very hard day of crying or if maybe she had a cold. Either way, it made her crying so funny to me that I had a really hard time feeling a lot of pity. Here's a video of her hoarse cry:

We also got a really fun video of Kessa laughing. I've been trying to get a video like this for ages. Apparently BJ is much better at this sort of thing than I am. My favorite part is at the end when BJ tickles her and she doesn't react for a few seconds, then just busts up.

The Gym

Kessa loves her play gym. See? She loves it so much that she likes to kiss the mirror.

See? Look at her grab that stuff and play.

And when she's done with the gym, she's learned how to roll herself right out of it.

Solids part 2

So, remember how Kessa is eating solids now? Well, it gets to be more fun. Kessa loves to eat either her fingers or a washcloth or bib in between bites. On one hand, it's really annoying to have to wait so long between bites because she's so busy sucking the life out of a piece of cloth. On the other hand, she often wipes her face clean with it, making my job easier. Either way, it's really cute and funny. And as witnessed by the first picture, her favorite food thus far are sweet potatoes. (Yes, Jess, thanks to you Kessa is going to grow up thinking they're called sweet topatoes.)

Kessa 6 months stats

Head Circumference: 16 inches - 7.14%

Weight: 14.66 pounds - 23.4%

Height: 27 inches - 89.42%

I'll post more later (I have many pictures and videos to share) but right now I'm simply too tired and have much to do. So, for now, enjoy our still tall, skinny, and small-headed baby. Who is no longer "wonderful" but instead, "perfect in every way." I'll take it.

New board games

Last week, the two new board games we ordered from Days of Wonder arrived. The first was Ticket to Ride: Märklin. This is similar to the U.S. Ticket to Ride game, except on a map of Germany. (Märklin is a German toy company best known for their model trains.) The game does add a couple new twists. It gets rid of the longest train bonus, replacing it with a most completed destination tickets bonus. It also adds passengers that you can move along your routes, picking up points for every city they visit on the way. It's a fun variant of Ticket to Ride, and Tianna and I both enjoyed it. We tied at 169 points. (We both lost, though, to our friend Bryan, who pulled more than 200 points.)

The second game is Small World. Small World is somewhat like Risk + fantasy - dice, and a whole lot shorter. Each player controls one of 14 races combined with one of 20 special powers. These combinations are changed every time you play, so the game is unique. Then players take turn conquering regions on the map and gaining points for each region they own. However, each player only has 10 or so armies, and generally won't get any more. (The Skeleton race is an exception; as they conquer other regions, they get more armies.) Thus, you eventually get to the point where your race is stalled; spread too thin to be able to grow much. At that point, you can put your race into decline and pick a new race and special power, and start it in a new area on the board. You get points from the regions owned by either race, but the race in decline can no longer attack. The game continues for 10 rounds (at least, it's 10 with two players), and whoever has the most points wins. Games usually take less than an hour.

Anyway, it's a fun game. We played this just after our TTR: Märklin game and tied again, at 106 points each. Tianna won via the tiebreaker rules (whoever has the most armies on the board wins a tiebreaker). But really, how often do you have two tied games in a row? We must be meant for each other.

So anyway, if anyone in the area likes board games, we've got a couple fun ones for you to try out. Oh, and by the way, both of those pictures are links to the game's website, in case you want more info.

Christmas Card

I've never done Christmas cards before. But this year BJ and I thought it might be fun to send some out. And I even designed a way cute card in iPhoto. And their prices really aren't all that bad. But then we figured out how many cards we'd need and figured out exactly how much it would cost… and decided that we may have to wait and do Christmas cards another year. But at least we thought about it, which is progress! So instead, I'm putting the picture on here and you can all pretend that you received this in the mail, personally addressed to you with some non-personal message on the back in a font made from my messy handwriting. And we'll have more money to spend on Kessa for Christmas! Hooray!