Milestone & Music Monday

Milestone

This week Vivian started doing something new. Grabbing faces. She'll reach up and get a good grip of both your cheeks. She'll stare you down and squawk or coo. Occasionally, she'll pull your face close and try to get a taste of your nose or your mouth. Expect drool and lots of it.

It's pretty endearing. I just have to remember to cut her nails regularly.

Music

I love this season and just about everything that comes with it - including the totally overplayed and absolutely cliche Christmas music. I can get enough! However, the CD I find myself listening to at this most wonderful time of the year isn't really even Christmas music. It's the soundtrack to Dan in Real Life, composed almost exclusively by Sondre Lerche, a Norwegian singer/songwriter. The whole CD is repeatable (aside from tracks 9 and 17, which I always skip) and it is my rainy day go-to.

Check it out!

Milestone & Music Monday

Each Monday I plan to share both a milestone achieved by Vivian during the past week and a song that I think is worth listening to. These two topics not only create a nice alliterative post title but also reflect two things that I look forward to and enjoy in my life.


Milestone

They say time flies when you're having fun. They also say time speeds by once you have a kid. Considering both idioms, you can imagine just how fast time is going for us. We have been having a ball since we had our little Ball. It is just nuts that our little girl is already three months old today!

Yesterday, she rolled from back to tummy for the first time! Corey and I had been encouraging her through her frustrated attempts all weekend. She finally mastered pulling her weight over that awkward in-the-way shoulder. She was so proud and we were too!

She has since been repeating the roll over and over again: each time smiling and excitedly kicking in celebration.

Music

I discovered the band Blind Pilot back in college when my roommate and I were looking for a show to go to in Portland. They were in line to appear in the city in a few weeks so we downloaded the album, 3 Rounds and a Sound, to get acquainted with their music beforehand. I became near obsessed with almost every song, listening to it on repeat for weeks. Unfortunately, the show ended up being at a 21 and Over Only venue and we weren't able to go. Sad.

The Portland-based band, led by Israel Nebeker, made themselves known by touring on bicycles up and down the West Coast. They later opened for The Decemberists (another one for my favorite bands) and appeared at some large festival events.

They had a way of capturing my imagination and left me interpreting lyrics to fit my own present circumstances. Now, I have an emotional connection and nostalgic reaction to the band as a whole. I still have the track order and the majority of the lyrics memorized from that initial album.

Here's a track from their latest album, We Are The Tide. Take a listen.

Halloween Hooplah

Last night was Halloween.

Growing up, my family didn't put much thought into the holiday. Aside from the Monster Mash on the oldies station, the five of us kids hardly noticed its approach. At the very last minute, we would sift through the dress-up bin and each come up with an uninspiring costume for the church's harvest party and a short jaunt of trick o' treating. We recycled the same nurse, shark, and angel so many times: deciding who was who based on how much we had grown since last Halloween. We would collect a stash of candy that would literally last us all year.

As candy became less of an incentive, I put even less effort into Halloween. After the age of 12, I think I dressed up just once (in college, as Sara from Tegan and Sara with my college roommate).

It wasn't until a couple years ago that Halloween became truly fun. Our good friends, Natalie and Marc, (long time Halloween enthusiasts) started throwing big parties with spooky food, colorful cocktails, and a highly anticipated costume contest.

in 2010, I pieced together costumes from thrift store finds and turned my husband into Edward Scissorhands and myself into his lesser known girlfriend, Kim. We took first place in the contest.

The following year, we took the first place title again as a zombified Abraham Lincoln and wife. Note: The hosts (Marc and Natalie) should have won with their legendary Link and Zelda costumes but they refused to be on the ballot.

Putting costume makeup on Corey is way too much fun.

Last night, our party-throwing friends didn't throw a party. They were a bit preoccupied with their brand new two-week-old baby, Edgar! We brought Vivian and pizza over to their house with other good friends, Jared and Sarah, who also have a baby (well, he's 13 months so not quiet a baby anymore) and another one on the way. The plan was to eat food, watch a scary movie, and maybe play some games.

We did eat food but that's about all we had time for between feeding, diapering, rocking, and soothing little ones. A different kind of party, to be sure. As one young trick o' treater observed, "there's a lot of babies in there".

The dads with the kiddos