Christmas in Atlanta

James and Shauna hosted a large crazy gathering of folks opening gifts. I took videos with my new 360-degree video capture device. (When you click play on the video below, be sure to use your mouse to drag the video so you can see all the action!)



The others are very similar, but if you want to see them all:
video 2
video 3
video 4
video 5
video 6

There's a number of still photos and normal videos from the trip too, but they're not quite done uploading so look for them in the next couple of days!

Snow in Seattle

Took a video on my drive home from work today:

Theo Running Laps

Theo's latest fun game from the past few days has been to run laps around the fishtank. He stops long enough to occasionally pick up a different object to accompany him on his journey. He did this for a good 20 minutes this evening!

A Quick Video From a Christmas Present

Sarah got me this really cool gadget which ends up shooting a 360-degree video using the iPhone camera. I played around with it a bit this past weekend, and shot this video of Theo running around in our basement.

Theo's Day Today

December has set records in how little it's been raining. The gorgeous sunny days we've been having also lead to cold nights (Seattle's temperate winter temperatures are helped by a generous layer of clouds without which it often frosts overnight as it has been doing). Anyway today we took him to the South Lake Union park just outside my office for lunch. He had a blast running around:



And later this evening, Theo mightily entertained us both by retrieving two things he sleeps with -- his jez and a cloth diaper he sleeps with -- and walking around, shaking both, throwing them on the ground, picking them up, shaking them, throwing, and on and on. He did this so many times we finally decided to take a video:



Sarah is in the background, taking her own video:

Seattle Street Scramble

This past Sunday we took part in the Seattle Street Scramble. It's something we've never done before but all three of us enjoyed it. In fact, Theo enjoyed it so much he opted to stay awake for the entire event rather than taking his morning nap! The street scramble is basically a planning problem -- you're given a map with 30 checkpoints, and 2 hours to visit as many checkpoints as you can, racking up points for each checkpoint you visit. I'm pleased to report that we finished first in our category, families with strollers. That's not impressive though, because the category only had two teams. What is impressive, however, is that our score was high enough to take first place in the families with children under 8 category (but the kids need to move under their own power), fourth place in the family category, and in the top five for a number of different categories. Most importantly, we were 40th overall (out of 103 teams), and a couple teams were obviously experts at this, scoring a perfect 1,000 points! See all the results (we're Team Theo) or learn more about the Street Scramble.

I used EveryTrail to track our progress, but I forgot to turn it on at first, so I've manually edited it to show our approximate route along 1st Ave, having started at Pike Place Market. Unfortunately the manual edit has made the start and stop look like it's in the wrong place, but you can still get the idea. Impressively we walked about 7 miles during the 2 hour period, all the while I carried Theo in a backpack (Theo now weighs more than 23 pounds, and the backpack is about 8).

Seattle Street Scramble

How Time Flies

A long time ago, on a sofa far, far away our PEPS group gathered, plopped all the children down, and took a photo. Then a couple of weeks ago we gathered the same group of kids, and the same sofa, and through some magic none of us know about, got them to sit still for the same photo.

Our PEPS group back in March 2011 (Theo was just shy of 5 months old)

9 months later: our PEPS group in December 2011 (Theo was just shy of 14 months old)

Theo Scarfs Mac and Cheese

Today's lunch:

O Christmas Tree

We finally got around to putting up the Christmas tree on Saturday night while Theo was asleep. He is not impressed.

New Car!

Not our car, but the same color!

We bought a new car over Thanksgiving. It's a wonderful brand new Mazda5. We're familiar with the car as we'd rented it several times over the past year (Hertz has it available as an intermediate size car). It seats six, and was only manufactured in 2006-2010 and now in 2012 it's back, making used ones pretty difficult to find, particularly with the manual transmission we both wanted. It's much much easier getting Theo in and out of the Mazda5 than it is with either one of our existing cars. One day we'll probably post some photos here, but in the meantime feel free to read more about the car at Mazda's Website, Edmunds, or Consumer Reports.

It's That Time Of Year...

...when folks might need gift ideas! Here are some helpful links:

- Michal's Wishlist
- Sarah's Wishlist
- Theo's Registry

Theo's First Walking!

So Theo's been able to stand since at least June and he's been taking steps with two hands to hold for almost as long. He eventually progressed to needing just one hand, and then for the past month or so he's been willing to walk about 3-5 feet between two people sitting on the floor waiting to catch him. But today at 5pm he decided that he'd had enough practice, and walked across the nursery. Mom opened the doors, and off he went! Some videos for your pleasure; the long one gets a bit dull in the middle but has a wonderful point-of-view shot at the end of Theo going all over the house!

Theo's Recent Activities

Beacon Hill Harvest Festival



Amelie's First Birthday Party



Northwest Chocolate Festival

I also uploaded a couple of videos of the pumpkin carving which had gotten misplaced previously.

And finally a video taken just a few hours ago of Theo eating blueberries. He signs he's done a couple of times, but as you can tell, he's not!

Pumpkin Carving with Theo

As it turns out, Theo had no interest in participating in anything related to the pumpkins, until they were fully scooped out and ready to play with. This was surprising to both of us, as we thought Theo would just love to stick his hands into the goopy pumpkin guts. See the photos.

Happy Halloween!

Theo went trick or treating at my office yesterday afternoon, and had a blast! He outlasted several other kids, and loved walking around and, once he got the idea, putting candy in his basket. See all the photos, and prepare yourself for an onslaught of Halloween-related photosets coming soon.

Theo's Upside-down Tickles

Theo Eating Spaghetti

I recently got myself a brand spanking new iPhone 4s, which takes pretty good videos (although not as good as our dedicated video camera). It integrates closely with YouTube (or, perhaps I should say, it integrates easily with YouTube) so I'll probably be posting some YouTube videos here and there. So I'll start with here:

Orange Revelry

We recently hosted this year's Orange Party, the Orange Revelry. See all the photos.

Happy Birthday Theo!

The best birthday wishes for our big birthday boy! To celebrate, we got Theo five balloons - a red star, an orange star, a gold circle, a red happy birthday circle, and a first birthday circle with a red one on it. We tied them to his chair overnight and sure enough, he noticed them first thing this morning on his birthday. He loves them. His newest trick is blowing, and he blows every time he wants you to blow on the balloons and make them move. He also loves batting them and pulling them and anything else that will get an effect.

He learned how to blow so we would blow on the mobile attached to the ceiling light in his room. It's super cute. He did not manage to blow his candle out this morning, but he did really enjoy the birthday cream puff. After contemplating it for about sixty seconds, he stuck his face right into it, no hands necessary. Once he worked his way through the top to the cream (apparently there were two different types of cream in there), he started scooping it out with his hands and eating it. Super duper cute, and adorable and a classic first birthday shot. By the end of the "meal" he had a Santa beard and cream up to his elbows, with some on his forehead and behind his ears for good measure.

After the balloons but before breakfast we opened presents until Theo got tired of the game. He took a few rounds to catch on, amazingly not bothering any of the bags or boxes piled on the coffee table until encouraged. (He played with the balloons instead.) The biggest a.m. hit was the musical card from his grandparents, which plays Tigger's theme song. After that, he was finished with presents for the morning and we moved on to candles and cream puff.

In the middle of the day Theo attended story time where the entire group sang him a lovely rendition of happy birthday. He enjoyed it as usual, especially browsing board books at the end. He had peas and mango yogurt with croissant and grilled cheese for lunch before retiring a second time to recover for more fun.

Once he woke up, we took him the pumpkin farm. We went last year when he was just shy of two weeks old to the same place, and boy are the photos different this year! Instead of an infant we could lay anywhere we had a mobile 12 month old. He loved the mud and the wheelbarrow and every single pumpkin. He became especially attached to the miniature variety and had to be pulled away kicking and screaming. He recovered nicely as our next stop was a dinner buffet. We started dinner at 4:45. Theo normally eats dinner between 6 and 6:30. He ate from 4:45 until 6:00 p.m., consuming cantaloupe, red jello, edamame, peas, black beans, spaghetti, pizza, macaroni and cheese, pineapple, and whatever else he could con from someone's plate, or snag from the table. We left the restaurant with one very happy boy. Also one very round boy.

Once back at the house, we polished off the remaining gifts, and finished the day with the monthly giraffe photos. What a difference in a year!

Here's to our one year old boy!

Gatlinburg Vacation

We recently spent ten days in a lovely rental cabin on a very windy road above Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We were fortunate that many of our relatives were able to come stay at least some of the time with us. You can see all of the photos, and I'll go through a smattering of photos representative of the activities we did below:

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Kasia and I started off by hiking 11 miles (round trip) to the top of Mt. Le Conte.

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The Bryc family took Theo up to the top of Chimney Tops, a trail we used to do as kids.

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We took Theo to the Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies

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Granddaddy Cony stayed home with Theo while everyone else went zip lining.

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Theo turned 11 months old.

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Kasia and I biked the 11 miles around the Cades Cove loop.

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Bears came up to the door of the cabin. Everyone except Rachael saw bears no matter how short they stayed!

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Theo discovered that he liked to play in ball pits.

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We did the alpine slide at Ober Gatlinburg.

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Theo rode a carousel.

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We visited historical buildings along the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.

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Michal went all by himself one morning and got within 2,000 miles of Maine

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We hiked to Grotto Falls

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Theo played with tractors at Inman Farm Heritage Days