afternoon walk

when we run out of entertainment and Ella's bored with anything we have to offer, or just doesn't want to do anything but look at stuff while being held, we take her out for a walk in the park. in the Baby-Bjorn.
i probably mentioned it before, she likes looking at the colorful mosaic on the wall under the bridge on the way to the park - but i didn't have pictures to show. so this time i took the camera with me.
here are some shots!



the whole thing is tiles with tiny pieces of mirror.
i must admit that i was inspired by Karin to take some artistic pictures :P

feet

playtime and grabbing stuff

Ella started reaching for her toys on the weekend of July 4th. she's been getting better and better at it, and it's amazing watching her learn this new skill. if you're very very quiet, you can hear the neural pathways building up in her brain :P

Jealousy

we spent a lovely afternoon with the O'brienim. They recently bought a house in the suburbs, complete with a back yard, basement and a garage (hence the "Jealousy" title of this post :P)
we got there early afternoon, and they had to kick us out in the evening or they would have had us as their new back-yard squatters.

i must say that Pat is a very skilled BBQ-er, and Karin is a fabulous photographer, and i don't know what we would have done without them (we learned to follow their advice blindly when it comes to life's important decisions). Thanks O'brienim, for having us over and for everything else!

[more pictures] [Karin's website]

Indie Cafe

i'm so happy to have found this place in our neighborhood. until today we didn't really have a favorite noodle/thai place around us, probably because we have Noodles Etc at work and we used to eat there at least once a week, which took care of our thai craving (well, mainly MY thai craving. ben doesn't mind eating pbj for dinner every day).

anyway, we discovered this place today, just a few blocks from us. the atmosphere is very nice, lively, the place was pretty full but we didn't have to wait.
we ordered Crab Rangoon, drunken noodles and green curry.
unfortunately, Ella had other plans for us, so we had our dinner packed to go and took it back home with us.
it was delicious! the crab rangoon was amazing. (Nicole, FYI!!)
ben loved the curry, he said that it was finally spicy enough (even when he asks for "extra spicy' at Noodles - it's not enough for him). i really liked the drunken noodles, but i would have preferred thin noodles and not wide noodles.

yum!

Indie Cafe Thai & Sushi [yelp]

Ella saves the planet, one wet diaper at a time

we got a package of "earth friendly" diapers . they cost a bit more than her usual diapers, but supposedly they are bio-degradable and made from materials from renewable resources and not oil-based plastics.

personally i wouldn't go out of my way to "keep oil-based plastics away from babies delicate skin".
however, we do feel bad about adding all this diaper volume to landfills, especially since diapers will stay there for very long time. cloth diapers are out of the question since we don't have a washing machine (we love the earth, but not that much)
so we're trying these earth friendly disposable diapers.

after a few days of alternating between these and pampers, we conclude that the earth-friendly diapers aren't that bad in absorbing wetness, but they're not really getting the job done when it comes to number 2.
so for now, at least until we finish the 40-diaper-bag that we currently have, we use the "industrial strength" diapers in early morning and afternoon, when we expect big messes, and save the earth in between.

TV will rot yout mind? not necessarily!

we both don't like the idea of sticking your child in front of the TV and going on your business. i realize that it can buy you some very needed moments of quietness to do stuff (like blogging :D), but most of what you find on TV and DVD is mind numbing (with the exception of spongebob, hehe)

anyway, when i was still pregnant i had this idea, i think it's a real startup idea that someone can make lots of money off of.
since Ella (and naturally many other kids in the US) will grow up far away from her grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins, and not see them on a daily basis, putting these people on TV doing something constructive is (1) a way for Ella to become familiarized with their faces and voices, and (2) something worth watching on TV.

out pilot show is Safta Dalia reading the story "Ayelet Metayelet" (Ayelet going for a walk). we shot the raw footage when my mom was visiting, i think it was her last day here, and it's been sitting on my computer ever since. i just finished editing it last night, and today Ella watched it over and over and over!!! she seems to like it a lot. i hope we can make more videos like it - story telling, live music, anything we can think of.