Bean Anderson: 08/01/2005

Sheryl and I have been celebrating tonight; I passed the PMP exam this afternoon with flying colors - YAHOOOO!!!! It's funny, the studying and prep have taken up so much of my time these last several weeks I hardly know what to do with all this new 'spare' time. (Laundry comes to mind, ha ha.)

We think Kennedy has picked up Elle the cat's habit of carrying things around in her mouth. This is my Union (AFSCME Local 88) wrist band. Kennedy was using it as a makeshift teething ring. Now she just carries it around in her mouth.

Isn't this just the cutest picture ever?

Susan has been studying for her upcoming Project Management Professinal certification exam. The PMP is certified through the Project Management Institute. To give her some good study blocks, Kennedy and I picked up our friend Megan and went to the Oregon State Fair today in Salem. Here we are watching some piglets.

We went through all of the livestock barns and the poultry and rabbit area. We were fortunate enough to find a woman using this Navajo style loom. She was using Navajo-Churro Sheep wool. She told us that children Kennedy's age start participating in the process by watching their grandmothers or other family members use the loom.

We saw a lot of things today from prize winning pies to cakes to ewes to horses to dogs to vegetables. We also saw a lot of the 4H show items including food preparation. Kennedy really liked seeing the baby chicks.

We went to Tryon Creek State Natural Area for a leisurely hike this morning with the Anderson Grandparents and dogs. Kennedy has a lot of fun just being outdoors, and it's a bonus if she gets to ride on Grandpa's shoulders.

Normally after bath we go straight to bed but tonight she hung out in her robe and played a bit.

I had tea with friends Martha and Laural earlier this week. I told them about Kennedy's interest in the guitar and Martha said "Why don't you get her a ukulele?"

We walked over to Hawthorne Blvd. today and picked up a soprano fortune ukulele (at Artichoke Music) made by the Magic Fluke Company. Inside the ukulele is a fortune label that reads "music is in your future." Cute, in a hokey kind of way. We also got Jumpin' Jims Ukulele Tips n Tunes, A Beginner's Method and Songbook. The man who sold it to us gave it a "spin" and played Kennedy a song. I didn't have the camera with me, but this is pretty close to what she looked like watching him play. Her eyes were wide open!

C.K. is proud that he is able to get Kennedy to sleep in the bassinet without first slinging or bouncing her to sleep. I found this picture on the camera this evening. Pretty cute, huh?

The nights have continued to be difficult for her and there's still no sign of a tooth so we thought it best to have her checked out by our Pediatrician. Susan and C.K. took Kennedy to the Doctor today. What we thought was normal teething could possilby be an ear infection that she's recovering from. So sad!

Today was a different day for us. C.K. wasn't feeling well, so Grandma came and hung out with Kennedy this morning. Here's Kennedy with her walker. Against a wall is a good position for it as she is still a little unstable when she's pushing it.

We went to our last zoo conert of the season tonight. Our friend Lori and Grandma and Grandpa Anderson and Aunt Tami and cousins Katrina and Kirkland all came out for the evening too. Here are Susan and Kennedy at the concert.

Kennedy really likes the guitar. When we play, she sings and often times she strums. Her voice is very cute. Recently she tried to taste the strings by licking them. She's still learning about things by using her mouth as well as her hands and eyes and ears.

In Kennedy's music class they sang a song about a ball that's big and blue. Kennedy's ball is BIG and orange. She likes to push it around. It helps her practice her balance too.

Bouncing on the ball makes her laugh.

We think Kennedy is teething... Low grade fevers in the evenings / nights and some disinterest in food. The drool has returned as well. Oh well, it was bound to happen eventually. Last night, though, Kennedy didn't sleep well at all - poor little baby. She's happy today, though, so we'll get through this!

On Saturday night we went to the showing of C.K.'s movie, Monday Night Gig. It was awesome - if you missed it you'll be able to catch another viewing as part of MusicfestNW on Sunday, Sept. 11 at 5pm.

We're retiring some of Kennedy's clothes and replacing them with new ones. Before she was born we went garage sale shopping for clothes. Her Mimi and Aunt Shelly both bought and sent her a lot of stuff too. Susan keeps sighing. She's excited about bringing out new clothes, but she is sad about putting our favorite items away.

Kennedy is hanging out with us too. She's playing with her stuffed animal selection now but she was in her johnny jump up earlier.

Last night Sheryl, Kennedy and I went to see the Portland Beavers (baseball) play Salt Lake at PGE Park (Salt Lake won 3-1). It was a work event for my company and we were lucky enough to have the box suite over home plate.

Kennedy watched a little bit of the game with Sheryl before sacking out for a nap around 7pm. There were lots of kids there to play with so she was up and at ‘em before we knew it. Good thing, too, because the Beaver mascot dropped by for a visit.

Needless to say, a 7 foot furry beaver with teeth as big as Kennedy’s head was a little intimidating to Kennedy – smart girl! We all had a good laugh as Kennedy pulled away. A great time was had by all – a fun way to cap off a busy week.

Today Kennedy is 10 months old and to mark the occasion I pulled out a box of new clothes for Kennedy; she’s finally graduated to the 6-9 month sized clothes. It’s a huge relief to open that box and find several summer outfits just in time for an upcoming trip to Houston. Here she is modeling a new outfit this morning.

This afternoon we went to Sheryl’s picnic for her department at work – it was at a park pretty close to the house. Here are Sheryl and Kennedy enjoying the shade.

Of course, no visit to the park would be complete without a trip to the swings. Kennedy has really been finding her voice lately – so here she is squealing in absolute delight.

Many months ago Mimi bought Kennedy this book/toy about the lives of insects. We've read it to Kennedy over the months but she is just now owning it in her own way. She carries it around in her mouth using one of the legs that shoot off of the main body of the book!

I couldn't even get her to drop it to smile at the camera.

Kennedy at her toy bin. She likes to take everything out. Putting things "in" isn't so much fun yet.

Kennedy and Elle the Cat hanging out...

Other big milestones that we have failed to mention...
- Waving hello and goodbye - she's getting really good at this
- Picking up food and putting it into her mouth. This has been developing over the last 3 weeks or so. She loves to feed herself and now is reluctant to be fed that pureed food on a spoon.

Last night we had an impromptu BBQ at my folks’ house to catch up with my cousin Michelle and her husband Phil who were in town unexpectedly – what a pleasant surprise! Kennedy had a blast playing with them.

The record high for Portland for this day was back in 1967 when it hit 97 degrees. Today, we were just a few degrees shy of hitting that mark; the mercury rose to 94 degrees this afternoon – yikes! So what do we do? Go to a movie in an air conditioned theater? Sit in the shade with snow cones? Oh no… we loaded up Kennedy in her new stroller and took a loooooong walk to Portland’s downtown waterfront. We joke that we wanted to better prepare for an upcoming trip to Houston but really we just wanted to make the most of our Sunday off of work.

Kennedy kicked back and rode in style in her stroller – complete with her leg propped up on the tray – silly girl!

Here’s Sheryl and Kennedy on the adored Hawthorne Bridge over the Willamette River.

It was about 2 -1/2 miles downtown so needless to say we were ready to cool off when we arrived. Sheryl took Kennedy to the Salmon Street Fountains to see the other children while I found a spot in the shade.

After a quick break at the fountains we headed over to The Bite of Oregon – which is like a huge festival of food from restaurants across Oregon – to watch a band play and cool off with some fresh squeezed lemonade. I couldn’t resist yakisoba noodles before we headed back home.

On the way back, our common senses took over and we hopped on a bus for the journey home - hurray for our transit system Trimet!

Here's Kennedy in her zoo hat in the shade before the concert.

All of us were trying to keep out the sun. Grandpa is somewhere under that baseball hat. He and the duck puppet entertained Kennedy.

Another first--ear plugs!

Just a super quick entry so we don’t get in trouble with our regular readers in the family...

We got our 35mm shots back from camping so here is a picture of me and Kennedy – hamming it up for the camera. More to come.

Last night we went to see Pink Martini play at the Oregon Zoo – it was awesome, of course. They played a lot from their new album; Sheryl got a T-Shirt, groupie that she is, ha ha.

We met Grandpa and Grandma Anderson there (that was planned) and we were pleasantly surprised to run into friends Dana & Jason and Beth & Roy. Funny, they were all there with their parental units as well – must be that great cross-generational music that spurns us 30-something year olds to drag along parents. A great time was had by all.

C.K. Lichenstein II and his van, used in the movie Monday Night Gig.

C.K. was the Producer for this movie by the Smith brothers. It's world premeir opening is at the Hollywood Theater in Portland Oregon August 19, 9 p.m., and it plays through the weekend. Go C.K.!

Another photo of Kennedy at the park this past weekend. The weather has been awesome in Portland recently. Some may say it's a little hot, but really it's very pleasant.

If you have a chance, check out the blogger Daniel Keller covering the first Vioxx trial happening in Texas. I've been following the AP news on yahoo, but this blog offers more inside-the-trial detail. A few times we've stumbled on photos of the trial that have my twin, Shelly, in the background. That's the Shelly that Kennedy is named after (Kennedy Shelly Sanford Anderson).

It's funny... There are some big milestones that have been clicked off over the last several weeks that we haven't called out for whatever reason. Here's a smattering of big deals:

- Kennedy's drool faucet has slowed down; we've quit wearing bibs all the time. Still no teeth though.
- Crawling - the real deal now with knees fully under her; she's a cruiser to be sure.
- Pulling herself up - watch out, this girl is getting vertical whenever she can.
- Walking between objects - Kennedy can walk along an object while she's standing and has made the faith leap to reaching out to an object several inches away to walk to it. We practice moving between the couch and ottoman frequently.
- Vocalization - it's as if someone pushed the 'play' button a few weeks back. Her babbling is becoming much more frequent and structured. We laugh at her tone and inflection - sometimes she asks obvious questions and sometimes she literally chews us out; it's too funny.
- Dada? Leave it to our girl to start rattling off Dada all the time. (Actually, from a mechanical standpoint its one of the first sounds babies make at this talking stage - we simply respond back with Mama, Mama).

Here's Kennedy standing up on the couch at Laural and Peter's house.

This is Kennedy with the magazine on the blanket at the park yesterday. She really likes magazines.

In the afternoon we took a trip to the new home of our friends Laural and Peter. They have this cool kid's chair that Kennedy sat in next to Laural.

Kennedy is good at sitting in chairs these days. And she's quite content to just sit and hang out.

It’s the wrap of another fun weekend in the Anderson household. Sheryl is busy making food for Kennedy (mangos, cauliflower, apples, and peaches) and I’m taking a break between loads of laundry to post a quick update.

This morning we headed out to get Kennedy’s portraits from our photographer, Christy Klep. The prints turned out great and we can’t wait to share them with friends and family. Then we took a stroll in Kennedy’s new stroller to our local store to buy produce for her meals this week.

After a quick nap we ate lunch and then went to our local park to relax under a tree. We played and read a magazine. That was pure bliss.

We stopped by the swings again before leaving the park; Kennedy sure loves to swing.

We’ve had a very busy Saturday and are looking forward to a lower key Sunday. This morning we got up early to clean out our small garage so my aunt could store some extra furniture. This gave us reason to sort through a lot of crud we’ve been carelessly tossing into the extra work-shed. Now we have things where they belong – all neat and tidy.

This afternoon my folks bought Kennedy a new SUS – short for Sport Utility Stroller. It’s a Jeep model and has three wheels and – get this – built in speakers that you can hook up to your CD player or iPod. It’s super cool.

They took her for a spin down the block and Kennedy honked its horn the entire way.

I’m happy to be home from my business trip; Kennedy and Sheryl did just fine without me. I have mixed emotions about that – part of me is so relieved that they did well – but on the other hand, it’s sort of sad too.

Tonight for dinner we had Quorn Cutlets; it’s ‘fake meat’ made from mycoprotein. We think it’s one of the best meat-alternatives out there.

Susan has been out of town on a business trip so the posting has been slow. Mostly because she has the camera with her! So, I'm posting a picture from last weekend's camping trip. This is Grandpa and Kennedy and Grandma.

This is how we found Kennedy and C.K. when we came home today. Sleepy Kennedy...

Here's Kennedy in her everywhere chair at the campsite. She sat around the camp fire (but not too close) with all the girls.

We should thank Aunt Shelly for the sleeping bags we all got for Christmas this past year. They are great!

Bean Anderson

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