Moustache Wrap Up

Movember is over but I'll be keeping the stache until at least December 15 when my sister Denise arrives in Seattle for her Christmas visit. She made that a condition of her donation to the cause, and I'm OK with it. maybe I'll keep it forever!

Unfortunately, I can't provide an up to date photo because I dropped my iphone the other day & it's on the way to the iphone hospital in Kansas to get looked at. Hopefuly they won't need to transfer it to the iphone morgue--I should know in a couple days how serious it is & have it back by the end of the week if it's not too bad (fingers crossed). Since I can't put a photo of my own awesome stache, here are some more of my moustache role models, from the movie Tombstone

How freakin' awesome are those moustaches??!!

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Donations will be accepted thru December 9. Thanks!

Addendum: I found this site today - check out those crazy award winning moustaches and beards. I'm not quite ready for the big time yet.

Birthday Videos

Here are some videos we took of Iris's birthday festivities last weekend

Here's our girl enjoying the cake we had with my dad on Friday night



and here's her birthday cake on Saturday night with the Baltazars from Portland & Irene's sister Sheila from New York:

and check out her first steps! (if not the actual first steps, they're close)

I'm kinda busy now

One of Iris's favorite presents for her 1st birthday was a purse filled with pretend credit card, lipstick, cell phone, and mirror. She loves it! I just love this picture of her on the phone, holding her purse.

Big Girl's Lunch; WaMu update

As I've mentioned, Iris is transitioning to the toddler room at her day care, and now eats her lunch at a table like the big kids. Check out our big girl:

We still think she may be a lefty, since she eats with that hand more than half of the time, but not all the time, so we're still not sure.

In other news, I got my official written 60-day notice from WaMu yesterday. They're eliminating the jobs of all 17 people on my team (plus 3 or 4000 other wamu jobs). I'll be on the payroll until the end of January & then get about 2 months severance pay plus my '08 bonus, which with unemployment should be enough to keep us afloat for a while. It's not like I didn't see it coming so I'm not all that upset about it, but it still kinda sucked to hear it when we had our team meeting last week with the Chase hatchet man

Birthday Photos

Here are a bunch of photos from last weekend--Iris's birthday was on Friday and my dad was here from NH. I especially like the one where it looks like she's sending a text message on the toy phone her Memere got for her, and has her purse over her arm too. Thanks to everyone who came to her birthday celebration at Snoose Junction Pizzeria in Ballard- I think everyone had a great time!

First Birthday!

Happy Birthday Iris!

I'll post pictures later just wanted to get this post up & let you all know

Moustache at 17 days

Rather than post another photo of my 'looks the same as last week' moustache, I thought I'd share a pic of one of my moustache role models instead:Please make a donation if you can by clicking on the icon below.
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Our little toddler

Iris started transitioning to the young toddler room of our day care this week. Here's her first daily report on how she did yesterday (click to view it larger):to sum up: she's adjusting really well & pretty happy to be out with the big kids where she can crawl all over and explore, rather than in the baby room where most of the other kids aren't crawling yet.

She's progressing better on the transition than mom & dad. We were told that she needs: real shoes (she's been wearing leather soled Robeez, which aren't good for playing outside when the ground is wet), a heavier jacket (she was wearing her Red Sox hoodie yesterday--not weather proof either) and lined nylon play pants, so she can crawl around outside without trashing her clothes (those are loaners she's wearing in the photo below because hers got soaked at playtime)

So there we were, shopping for shoes on the way home from work last night. Poor baby was in her stocking feet when we got to the shoe store. The sales lady was like "Cha-Ching! A sure sale just walked thru my door" Here she is in her new kicks, which she does not like very much--too heavy & stiff for her I guess, but she'll get used to them pretty soon. We hope so anyway because Irene and I both think they're really cute on her.

Moustache 2 weeks

I realized it's a little lopsided when I saw this photo. Who knew that grooming the 'stache would be so challenging? You have to decide where to end it & then also get the 2 sides even.

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King of the Castle, King of the Castle!

Seeing Iris in her new car seat makes me want to quote Borat when he was sitting in the chair in his hotel room in NYC

Moustache day 10

There's no denying it any more:

(not than anyone would want to)

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Jim and Iris

One of my favorite photos of Jim and Iris.

Guess who's not eating dairy

We've been slow to introduce dairy into Iris's diet since we think she may be allergic. This past weekend we gave her some yogurt and monterey jack cheese. Guess what happened?

Photo op at Safeco

FINALLY! Irene gets to meet the Mariner Moose. Iris seems to like the Moose as well. We had a hard time getting her to smile at the camera while we were standing next to the Moose. We didn't a good picture of all of us with the Moose, but here are a few good pics of us.

Pumpkin Patch

Sorry we're slow to post these photos when we went to a pumpkin patch before Halloween.

moustache at 1 week

It's pretty noticeable. One of my co-workers predicted I'd have a full blown Earl by the end of the monthPlease make a donation if you can by clicking on the icon below.
My registration number is 2002551. Thanks!

Angela & Fred

Screenshot from this week's episode of The Office

Don't get her mad

It was hard getting a good photo of Iris in her Halloween costume. This is as good as it gets.

She wore her baby Hulk costume briefly in the morning to show the ladies at day care then again when we met friends in downtown Ballard that night. For most of the day she was in her pumpkin costume, accessorized with custom-fitted stem hat made by our friend Kris Chick:

Thanks Chicky!

Like my new coat?; November Moustache

In other news, I am growing a moustache all this month to raise money for Prostate Cancer research.

Here's the site with the details: http://us.movember.com/
(Movember = Moustache November--it's an annual event)

I'll post photos as it grows in. Let me know if you'd like to make a donation. You can also click on the icon to donate. The registration number is 2002551.


here's me with 3 days worth of moustache - not very impressive so far, I know, but I shaved on Monday the 3rd to give the less hirsute a head start

President-elect Obama!

Congratulations to Barack! We are all very excited and relieved that the election turned out the way we voted, for a change! (By "we" I mean Irene and me and Iris too- yes, she's an Obama baby. Some member(s) of my family may not be quite as excited.) Good article here about why the Obama campaign was successful.

Here are a couple of today's specials on Amazon - a bargain at 44% off! This must mean that this seemingly endless election cycle really has come to a close: