Laurie and Lewis

October

Lewis — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 06:12:49 +0000

October came and went so quickly we forgot to put pictures up! T’s first fall got off to a good start with a visit from Auntie Emily and her first department party. Other exciting developments include having four sharp and chompy teeth, and learning to stand and cruise! She also spent a great Halloween staring at Watson and wondering why Dad was wearing one of her coats on his head. Enjoy!

Tahoe

Lewis — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 05:30:06 +0000

In September we got the chance to visit Lake Tahoe for a small family gathering. Laurie’s parents, her uncle Ken and aunt Dell, and her Grandma Knottingham were all in attendance. It was a rare chance for a meeting of four generations down the matrilineal line, a much photographed occurrence. In addition to meeting her Great-Grandmother for the first time, other highlights included Telia’s first hike (around Spooner Lake in Nevada) and a first boat ride (a cruise on the Tahoe Queen). The week went by all too quickly, but it was a beautiful trip and full of many great memories.

August etc.

Lewis — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 04:55:46 +0000

Here we are in September already! Better update the world about our August…

Not much happened in August, actually, other than Lewis turning 30—but of course the baby is still the star of the show! Nevertheless, we include here some pictures from Lewis’ birthday party, for those readers who may enjoy a few non-baby-related pictures. And don’t worry! A solid set of baby pictures follows.

Lewis’ birthday party was masterfully engineered by our own Laurie, who had him convinced until the very last minute that he was on his way to a birthday dinner at Chez Panisse. Instead, she skillfully navigated him to Playland-Not-At-The-Beach, where a gaggle family and good friends were waiting to help him celebrate his chronometer turning over another zero. Still sporting his dandy clothing intended for a fancy meal, Lewis instead cavorted with these good people among a truly impressive collection of arcade games and curios, and then consumed several pieces of pie which Alice Waters would have loved to claim as hers. It was, in short, an excellent birthday party, and Laurie is an excellent and certifiable birthday party engineer.

Anyway, pictures from the party follow, themselves followed by a set of baby pictures from August (or thereabouts). Pictures from our Tahoe trip follow in a separate post!

Family vacation!

Laurie — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 05:02:09 +0000

As promised, here’s a selection of pictures from our trip to Stinson Beach for Grandma Lawyer’s birthday!

It was our first night away from home since Telia was born, and she took to being on vacation like a natural! The ocean, it seems, is a giant white noise machine and she spent most of her time sleeping the day away strapped to Lewis or Laurie, walking down the beach. Other notable events included Lewis and Laurie’s first real trip to a restaurant with the baby, and T’s first attempt at wearing sunglasses. Lewis and Laurie even got a whole afternoon alone together, thanks to Emily sending them to have lunch at the Pelican Inn (site of their 7-years-ago honeymoon) for Laurie’s birthday! Shortly after returning back to Davis, Telia also got to attend Laurel & Ed’s wedding and show off her best party dress! All in all, happy days for Los Abogados.

what a different two months make!

Lewis — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 00:39:32 +0000

Hey, it’s our 7th anniversary! And for our 7th anniversary this year, we have a 5-month-old! Telia has been a busy little baby lately. She has been busy sitting up, riding in her Ergo, napping in her Ergo, eating rice cereal, spreading rice cereal all over tarnation, and drinking water from her sippy-cup. As to language development, she went through a raspberry-noise phase and is currently having lots of fun making sing-songy squeaky sounds with her larynx. And just this week she cut two teeth! We’ve also been going on some pretty big adventures. We went to a big birthday party in Oakland (happy birthday to Martha, Eric, Laura, Claire, Dylan and Andrew!), and a wedding at the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley (congratulations Laurel and Ed!). We even spent 3 nights at Stinson Beach! Life is very exciting.

In other news, Laurie got a paper published in the Journal of Neurolinguistics, and is just about done teaching LIN 103A for Summer Session 1. Lewis may or may not be teaching LIN 103B starting next week—he won’t know for sure until tomorrow. Yikes!

And we’re having a great anniversary. Taking some time to hang out together, write this blog post—Laurie’s even making cookies! She also got Lewis a fantastic Zenith C845L tube radio from 1960, and Lewis got her a handful of German-made brass pencil sharpeners to complement her collection of fancy pencils. Again, life is very exciting!

And now, the pictures you’ve been waiting for so patiently:

Pictures from Stinson Beach to follow!

one fortweek!

Lewis — Sun, 26 May 2013 23:17:38 +0000

Yes friends, it has been fourteen weeks since Telia was born. And six weeks since our last post—oops! T is weighing in now at 11 pounds 12 ounces (as of last week) and has all kinds of new skills. Grabbing skills, looking skills, talking skills, strong-neck skills, being-calm-in-public skills… And we’ve been visiting with so many friends and family over the last month! Every day is a new adventure.

Plus we could talk about things that aren’t babies?? (Feel free to scroll down to the pictures at this point.) Laurie turned 30! We got to go see Damien Jurado, who happened to be right here in Davis on the night before Laurie’s birthday playing at Sophia’s, of all places. And then we had an icecream party yesterday with a bunch of icecream from the Davis Creamery. Mmmm… Also, Grandma and Grandpa Casey got us a new couch (see below). So life is good.

OK, pictures now. As usual, click the pictures to see them full size.

Eight weeks??

Lewis — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 21:29:27 +0000

Yes, we seem to have arrived already at Telia’s 8-week birthday! How about that. Her second round of hair is coming in, her eyelashes are getting even more full-bodied, and her plays are getting longer and more involved. She loves our new mobile and is starting to bond with some toys too (a little rattly owl and a stuffed panda are particular favorites). She also likes it when her linguist-nerd parents make odd speech sounds at her. It makes her mouth move and her eyes fixate. Very neat. And she’s even started cooing a little bit. A post with sounds is forthcoming, but for now—more pictures! Enjoy.

Life moves forward!

Lewis — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 01:57:17 +0000

Here we are on Telia’s 33rd day, and things are moving along here at Casa Abogados. Telia is gathering all kinds of bureaucratic manifestations of personhood: a birth certificate, a social security card, and her very own insurance! (cue Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine”) More importantly, she is growing every day. We’ve noticed that her fingers are getting long and strong, for instance, and the doctor tells us that her head has grown a whole inch in circumference since birth! She has also officially crossed the 8-pound boundary, as of last week. So impressive!

She’s spending a couple of hours each day now in a quiet, alert phase—looking around her in a contemplative way, or even gazing into our faces, which of course is the most incredible thing in the world. And her linguist parents are proud to note that she has made a few non-crying-related cooing sounds now, meaning that she is on the road towards language acquisition! And we may have even witnessed a few smiles—it’s still a little hard to tell at this point.

And life for Telia’s parents is starting to move on as well, which is good. Laurie has managed to get out of the house on a few errands, and even a dog walk! Plus she has applied for a dissertation-year fellowship for next year, so keep your fingers crossed! Lewis learned last week that he had received an NSF Dissertation Improvement grant. And, both Laurie and Lewis learned last week that they got papers accepted for publication in journals. Life is good!

OK, in case you haven’t skipped to them already, here are the baby pictures. As always, click on the images to enlarge them. More soon!

Baby! week 3

Lewis — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 03:11:24 +0000

Well folks, we’re on our 3rd week of life here at Telia’s House, and things are going very well! Telia is getting bigger by the day, and she loves looking around at the world. Who knew that books and blinds could be so visually fascinating?? She has also gotten into the habit of grasping things in front of her, notably her daddy’s beard and chest hair. She’s very strong! But enough of this blathering—we know you’re just here for the pictures, so here they are: (again, click to enlarge!)

…and many more to come!

Baby!

Lewis — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 08:41:54 +0000

Just nine days ago we welcomed into the world our beautiful baby girl, Telia Adele Lawyer. (For the linguistically inclined, phonetically [ˈtilijə əˈdɛl] in the IPA or American Heritage tēʹlē-ə ə-dĕlʹ.) She was born healthy and strong, at 7 lbs. 4 oz. and 21 inches in length. The pediatrician on duty said that she was a “solid baby,” and we agree. Additionally, she is the most beautiful and amazing baby of all time. You heard it here first! And so, here is the first of many posts of pictures of our Telia. (Click the pictures to enlarge them.)