Since it’s Christmas day, Zoe gets a special outfit:

That’s right, little Zoe is wearing a leopard print dress. And she’s very excited about it. Ain’t she the cutest?

And it case you’re wondering, that’s Grandma’s fur throw, formerly a fur coat. PETA is going to come after us! :)

This is Zoe’s first Christmas, but Karen and I decided we should be a little pagan instead. We opened our gifts Friday, in celebration of the winter solstice. Ok, it was actually just a really good excuse to get to the gifts early! :)

Zoe got a lot of groovy stuff, including a fun castle and dolls set, an ocean-themed “drum kit” for infants (which is thankfully not too noisy; this will go nicely with the step-on piano from Grandma Barbara) and a greifball from Haba. Apparently, “greifball” is “gripping ball in German.

Of course, the “gift” she like most was the crinkly wrapping paper.

Amongst our other gifts, Karen and I ended up exchanging iPods: she gave me a new Shuffle and I gave her a 30GB video model. I guess we both figured that it our old ‘Pod wasn’t quite cutting it anymore. The shuffle is really groovy; it’s so small and yet it sounds pretty darn good.

It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that we were all drooling over the Walkman portable tape player. These days, that’s like saying you’re excited about the wheel.

I hope that any and all reading this have a great holiday season!

(P.S. I’ll post some pictures of the unwrapping soon.)

I love Zoe’s felt hat! And boy, do I look like a goofball.

I strapped Zoe into the BabyBjorn the other day for a little walk up to Sara’s market. The baby girl must have enjoyed the walk, since she passed out on the way home. I was even able to get her into the crib afterward.

I think that will actually the last time we use the BB. Laurel clued us into another baby carrier, the Ergo. I have to say, it’s much better than the BB: instead of having her limbs hanging down, Zoe sort of sits in the pouch. And we can use it as either a front or back carrier. I liked the Maia sling that we’ve been using since Zoe was born, but I think from now on, I’ll be using the Ergo.

Zoe has been working on touching her own toes for a couple of weeks now. She’s getting pretty good at it, particularly when she’s on the changing table. Next stop: mouth meets toe! Zoe is a little wonder (OK, I know that all kid’s do this, but she’s my little wonder!).

I’ve been meaning to get back here again for weeks, and I’m finally getting around to it. I’m going to put up several posts that have been lurking around for a while.

It’s the end of the year, and it seems like there’s not enough time to do any of the things that need to be done, let alone all of them.

We did some visiting with friends this weekend. First up, when went out to see Kirk, Laurel, and Jefferson. Zoe was, as usual, very good in the car. She’s such a little darling. I even managed to get a a rare non-frowning picture out of her! She’s so serious-looking all the time, and it’s hard to grab an image where she doesn’t look like she’s trying to compute the 300th digit of pi! :)

We had great visit with K+L+J. Jefferson is very solid; he’s growing fast. He was also a little shy at first, but after a while he settled down and let me grab some pictures.

On Sunday night, the three of us took another trip, this time to have dinner with Will and Julie and their daughter, Sophie. Sophie is a fun one. She doesn’t really say much yet, but runs around like a jackrabbit! I can’t wait to see what Zoe’s like at the year+ mark: I just hope she’s as sweet as Sophie. We are very lucky that so many of our close friends have had children at the same time. I think the Jefferson, Sophie, and Zoe are going to be good friends.

“We should go get our tree”, Karen said to me a few days ago. I don’t really have much X-mas spirit this year, mostly because I never do. So I kind of harrumphed, looked sour, and maybe even “bah, humbugged” when Karen announced that it was time to acquire our annual piney decoration. But I agreed that the time had indeed arrived, especially since this is Zoe’s first Christmas evah.

So we all jumped up (if one can be said to jump when packing an infant around is involved) and headed on over to Bonnie’s. This is a little local place on the other side of the park from our house. They’re basically open from some time in the spring until they sell their last Christmas tree. It’s a quick drive, so I didn’t have enough time to get into much of a “I hate tree-shopping” mode.

It turns out we could have walked over there. Karen decided at some point that even though she wanted a tree, it wasn’t going to be a very big one. And thus we ended up with a little fir that barely breaks the four foot mark. I swear that it weighs less than Zoe.

It was something of an adventure getting this sapling into our industrial-strength tree stand. In years past, we have taken advantage of our 20’+ ceiling when it came to trees; a couple of years ago, we had an eleven-footer.

I think this qualifies as the second shortest tree we’ve ever had; I seem to recall a rather portly little shrub we acquired for our minuscule apartment back in New York.

Zoe, as you can see, appears to be very interested.

A couple of years ago, I started a blog. At the time, I didn’t really know what I wanted share in such a public forum, nor did I have any idea who might want to read what I have to write. After a couple of posts, which basically focused on politics, I decided that it was not worth keeping up with that blog, so I stopped posting. My father somehow came across it shortly after I started it and had some nice things to say about my writing (which is encouraging, as he’s a professional journalist); that wasn’t enough to keep me going, though.

Things have changed a bit since then.

In the intervening time since then and now, I’ve become a husband and a father. My wife Karen and I welcomed our new daughter Zoe into this world on August 25th. And let me say, Zoe is something special.

I know that every parent thinks their child is special, but in our case, I’m sure we’re right. And that’s what I want to write about here: I want to tell the story of our family as it grows and evolves. I want to talk about Zoe as she grows from an infant, to a child and ultimately an adult. And that’s what this blog is for.

It’s also a place where I can share other interests, too. I’m a software architect and developer by trade and a photographer by avocation. I’m also a birder when I get the chance. I hope to use this blog as a place to share my interests and work with the world. And I’m sure that I will throw in the occasional political rant or self-indulgent discussion of some less-the-interesting aspect of my life.

So, with that, let the blogging begin.