Happy 5 Month Birthday!

UPDATED 12-01-2009....

The flash didn't go off, but I like the shot anyways...


Ryan's must have hit a growth spurt. His stats are now:
18 lbs. 9 oz.
28.0" long
17.25" head circumference

This is up 1 lbs. 5 oz., 1.5" in length, and .5" head circumference from just 3 weeks ago.

Wine Tasting Friday

For our wine tasting group on Friday, I decided to try a recipe from a Vietnamese cooking class we took a couple of years ago: shrimp toast & shrimp-stuffed peppers.

Shrimp-mixture Ingredients:
1 lb. raw shrimp
2 eggs
a few cloves of garlic
a few green onions
6 tsp flour or cornstarch
3 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
black pepper

Finely grind all shrimp-mixture ingredients in a food processor....

Place a couple tablespoons of the shrimp mixture on just about anything. I chose sliced baguette, green bell pepper, and jalapenos....

Fry on medium high heat with some vegetable oil....

In the Vietnamese cooking class, we used nuom cham, but I chose to use a Chinese black bean sauce instead....

Our host made a butternut squash soup and eggplant feta sandwiches....

As usual, everyone double-blind tasted four wines and ranked them. Here are the wines in order of their final ranking (highest ranking on the left)....

Random Ryan Videos

Ryan's eyesight and hand-eye coordination have really improved in the past month. And with these improvements, he's gained a new level of appreciation for his baby gym. For a couple of times each day, we can put him in the gym and he'll quietly entertain himself for 30 minutes or so. Ryan's only goal when playing is to pull the toy animals and place them in his mouth.....

Brooke and I came up with the idea to run in a Thanksgiving Turkey Trot three years ago. I remember it took some serious arm twisting to get Brooke's family on board, but now it's kind of become a family tradition. We ran the 10k the first two years, and because Brooke was pregnant, we only ran the 2-miler last year. We had no intention of running this year until we received a call from Brooke's mom informing us that everyone else had already signed up. Now we've got to train just to keep from dying on the 2 mile run at an elevation of 4500 ft.

I mounted a point-and-shoot camera to the BOB jogging stroller and we took Ryan out for a 2 mile run. I only took a few seconds of footage as proof of concept. I'll make some changes to the camera placement and record more on the next run.

Roll Over - Part 2

4 days ago, Ryan rolled from his back to his tummy for the first time. 2 days later, he had really gotten the hang of it. In fact, at several points, we had to restrain him from rolling over too much. He really enjoys a act of rolling, but he doesn't enjoy the consequence of being on his belly. And unfortunately, he hasn't mastered the skill of rolling back the other way.

By now, I'd guess he has rolled over at least 50 times.

Click on the image below to play the video....

Flyin' Ryan

This is what 30 minutes on a lunch break, Photoshop, and a childlike brain gets you.
I cropped the image of Ryan from a photo in the previous post. I think Ryan could benefit from a cape.

UPDATED Nov.13th
Here's the animated GIF version....

Ryan @ 4.5 months

Ryan saw the pediatrician for his second set of vaccination shots yesterday. The first time he got shots (2 months ago), Ryan cried inconsolably and at full volume for 10 minutes. This time he handled it great. He cried for approximately 20 seconds, then went back to being his normal smiley and playful self.

His stats were:
17 lbs. 4 oz.
26.50" long
16.75" head circumference

Ryan's milk intake hasn't changed between the age of 2 months and 4.5 months. He still eats 5 oz every 3 hours. In fact, he's actually eating a little bit less now since he sleeps continuously for 6 hours at night, skipping a feeding.

Here are some photos from the past week....

R&A's Dinner Party

On Saturday, we went to R&A's house for a fabulous dinner. We dressed Ryan in his Thanksgiving outfit just in case he doesn't fit in it on the actual date....


Fruit-infused vodka martinis....


Fresh oysters....


Lobster-Scallop-Crab Cakes (made from fresh lobster, crab, and scallops!)





Caprese Salad....


Making butternut squash risotto....


Roasted chicken and vegetables....



Maybe the fifth drink is to blame, but I forgot to photograph the dessert course. It was a macadamia nut brownie with homemade coffee ice cream! It feels like Thanksgiving came early this year.

Random Photos of Ryan

Ryan with his new quilt...

Brooke had the camera accidentally set on manual exposure, but we like how it turned out. It really shows off his eyes....

Post-bath lotion application...

Goleta Beach at Sunset

Ryan's First Halloween

For Halloween, we put Ryan back into his monkey costume...and of course he hated it. We planned on taking him out on a baby costume parade around our apartment complex, but we managed to only walk to the starting line and then immediately walk back home. Other than that, our Halloween was pretty uneventful. As always, we bought too much candy, so Brooke picked out her favorites and sent the rest with me to work.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Having a drink and dessert with our friends A&C...
(Ms.A and I happen to have the same birthday)