Bom Dia!

That is Portuguese for good day. And also, happy Halloween to y'all. Are you going to eat tons of candy tonight? I sure am. We didn't get a single trick or treater last year and don't really expect to this year either. We did pick up some candy for in case, but I'm thinking it's all going to be eaten by us, well mostly me.

We're not dressing Eliza up in any sort of costume this year. She's just too young and tiny. But next years we're trick or treating like crazy.

Yesterday we made bagels, as seen in the post pic. They don't look too good but they sure taste good. It was fairly easy, surprisingly. I ate 4 or 5 of them yesterday.

Making your own stuff at home is fun! We have been trying, or at least talking about trying, to do this more. Most things can be made with relative ease it's just finding the motivation to do it. It's way easier to just go pick some up at the store.

We are going to make Eliza's food, once she is to the point of eating solid. Her Grandma got us a Baby Bullet, which is like a Magic Bullet you may have seen on TV infomercials, only with baby sized mixing and freezerable jars. 

Ok then, have a fun and safe Halloween and I'll talk at you later. Bye!

Prediction.

Hola amigos! How have you all been? We have been doing pretty good since we last spoke. Just enjoying the company of each other and whatnot.

We met Eliza's grandma at Abe's today for lunch. They have pretty good food there. I had the gyro platter. It tasted delish, but there just wasn't enough of it.

We are all looking forward to Eliza's great grandma and great aunt coming to town. They should be in next Friday, weather permitting. They have to drive through Wyoming and sometimes they shut down the whole highway and you can't get anywhere. Amanda and I know this from experience as this past spring we were met with a closed I-25, due to flooding, and a 6 hour detour through the Wyoming mountains.

So we hope they have smooth travels all the way here. It sounds like they have many exciting activities planned for their stay. The most exciting being the celebration of my birthday. We're having a shrimp boil and a shrimp boil is wicked fun. You cook everything in one pot and then dump it put on the table and eat with yer hands.

Well then, this has been a blast, but I got to go. We're watching Planet Terror and I need to pay attention so I don't miss anything. Oh and don't forget to watch tomorrow when Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos get their 3rd win of the season. Bye!

How Old Is Eliza?

Here is the answer to the question posed by the title. It should tell you how old she is anytime you come back to this post. The little bear will move across the picture towards the 12. Clever!  So if you ever want to know, you just bookmark this page and come on back and check it out. That is all.

Differences

Well hello there. Allow me to post this and then I'll be right back to type more. Ok, I'm back, not that you could tell. I just had to post it real quick since it was 11:59 pm and I wanted to get it done on the 28th. It's silly I know but why would you expect anything different from me, I'm so silly. If a wacky next door neighbor ever made a statue of me out of pasta, he would use fusilli.

Anyways, this is one of Amanda's last days of being on maternity leave. She has been on it for almost 6 weeks now and has to go back to work on Tuesday. She's not really looking forward to it, if you can believe that. It would be pretty sweet to not work for 6 weeks and just hang out with your baby. This means for me that I will start being at home with Eliza alone during the day. The longest I have been alone with here was for 3 hours one day. I'm looking forward to it. This will be the beginning of the real adventures of Stay At Home Brad.

You may have noticed I said I would be with Eliza during the day. This is because I still have my nighttime job. I'm not a true stay at home dad, but i didn't think that www.stayathomeduringthedayandworkaparttimejobatnightbrad.com was very catchy as a website name. So that is what it is. I look forward to the day I can find some income source that will allow me to not have to go anywhere to work. Like, working from home or perhaps being a professional photographer and travelling to exotic places with my wife and kid to make photos. Or, my favorite thing to hope for is to win the Powerball. I'm totally due to hit the jackpot. Hopefully soon you'll be reading all about it in the news.

Well then, I've got to be going. It was nice chatting with you and stuff. I hope to see you around here again sometime soon. Have yourself a great day and have a great time at that event you were planning to attend in the near future. I heard it's gonna be a blast. See you all later!

Another Preemie Eliza

So just this morning Amanda was watching the latest Daily Photo Of Eliza video and one of the related videos was about another Eliza who was born premature, 5 months premature. This Eliza had a brother and a sister who didn't make it. Amanda and I both cried a bit when we watched it. That must have been so hard for the other Eliza's mom and dad, Heather and Glenn.

The previous link was to a blog they have which I have started reading. It's pretty good stuff. Perhaps you will like it too, but don't like it too much and forget about your old pal Stay At Home Brad!

Green Suit

Green Suit, a photo by bradleygee on Flickr.

Green Suit

New Video Posted, Watch It And See

So I finally got around to getting this little video made. It's days 1 through 81 of Eliza, in daily photographs! Neat! It's getting so that there's a lot of pictures, eh? Pretty soon she'll be 100 days old! Well, here it is, watch it and see her grow up before your very eyes. It's like magic or something.

Parking Lot. Snow.

Parking Lot. Snow., a photo by bradleygee on Flickr.

Parking Lot. Snow.

What Eliza Says

What Eliza Says, a photo by bradleygee on Flickr.

These are the words Eliza knows right now. She is good at saying them. But usually only when she is hungry. She doesn't do too much crying for the heck of it.

Five Paragraphs Worth

This afternoon I set out to put together the daily photos for to make the video. It took too long and o was not able to git r done. Tomorrow perhaps.

Eliza is probably going to see her first snow tomorrow. It is snowing right now, you see. We may take her out in it for a bit tomorrow afternoon. Sometimes I let our cats out in the snow!  It is funny!

We have some warm winter clothings for her. We have what you might call some "buntings" or prams or snowsuits. They seems to be called many different things. We tried one on her today and it was so cute and warm seeming. She'll make the most wonderful snow angels someday.

Oh, I heard about this roller derby league that is for kids. Kids starting at age 6. Amanda and I think it'd be pretty cool if Eliza was a roller derby girl. That is if she wants to be one. We will have to watch the movie Whip It many times to plant the proverbial seed.

Well I better be done now. I don't want to waste all this Grade A material all in one posting. I hope you have a great day and stay out of trouble!

TGIM

Hey, a picture for the day. Haven't posted them for a few days but have been taking them. Need to get them put together in the video form as it has been a month since the last.

She is getting so big. She barely fits most of her newborn size onesies and the 3 month clothes fit. Well, some of them anyways. There are such differences in sizing between manufacturers it seems.

Well, see you all later. I'll be back tomorrow night and ut will probably be snowing here in Denvertown. First snow of the season, it is. The snow will be falling down,  down, down. It'll be piling up, up, up. Ok, bye!

This Is No Joke, Or Is It?

Today Amanda and I took Eliza for a ride in her stroller, or pram if you prefer. It was pretty fun. Amanda said I looked so dainty pushing it around. I saw a cat down in the storm drain!

Eliza's Great Grandma Ruth and Great Aunt Wanda are coming down from Montana to see her and us all the beginning of November. We're looking forward to this as it will be fun times for all.

Eliza gets to take Synagis to help her not get RSV this winter. It is super expensive, like over $1000 a dose and 4 or 5 monthly doses. Our insurance luckily covers most of the cost of it and someone to come out and administer it in our home. We're going to pick up her first dose tomorrow back out at the Anschutz Medical Campus, our old stomping grounds.

Oh, Amanda came up with a joke while we were feeding Eliza tonight.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Food.
Food who?
Food to go in your tummy, that's who.

Eliza laughed so hard milk came out of her nose.

That's all fer now. Make sure to get plenty of fluids and lots of sleep. See ya later!

A Visiting

Howdy folk! Great day isn't it? Yes, yes it is. Well, today we took little Eliza in to the doctor for a checkup. She checked out fine. She is almost 21 inches long/tall and 9 pounds 11 ounces. So big. The doc said they are going to treat her just like a newborn and not give any mind to the fact she was preemie.

We took Eliza on her first trip into the mountains today. We drove up Highway 285 to Fairplay. She didn't seem to suffer any ill effects from the elevation increase. My ears were a'poppin though.

When we were at a convenience store there in Fairplay we were talking with a dude on a bicycle. He had ridden that bicycle from Massachusetts and was in his way eventually to LA. Quite a trek.

Alright then, I will see you another time. Have a great day and a better tomorrow.

Back Again

Wow, I'm really bad at this lately. By this I mean posting new posts here at Stay At Home Brad. It seems like I say that a lot on here. Well anyways, I think I will start posting Eliza's photo of the day on here every day. Yeah, that's the ticket.

It's past time for me to put together the newest additions to the POTD video. I think the last one was September 20 or so. So keep an eye out for that. We're getting quite a collection of photos due to the fact that Eliza is getting so "old." On my birthday in a couple of weeks she'll be 3 months old in real age, 1 month 1 week in corrected age. Sweet!

Ok then, I'll be back tomorrow with a second day in a row posting and a new pic. See ya!

Spelling Art

So here is that thing I was telling you about earlier. That thing where we went out and found stuff in the world that resembled letters and put them together to spell a word, the word in this case being Eliza. Pretty cool huh? This is approximately what the finished product will look like, some editing should probably be done before printing though. Anyways, we're working on making all the letters so if you want one of your own you can email me and I can make you one for a reasonable price.

A General Interest Story

Oh hey again. Things have been going pretty well with Eliza and Amanda and I. We are getting pretty used to the new schedule we have, with getting up all hours of the night and all. It's not all that bad, certainly not as bad as some stories a person hears.

Eliza took a trip back out to the eye doctor the other day, that's why she was wearing sunglasses in the picture. She got her eyes all dilated so they could check for Retinopathy Of Prematurity, ROP if you will. She doesn't have it. Her eyes are a-ok, at least developmentally. Who knows what her vision will be like, most of her family wears glasses so she probably won't escape that fate.

Eliza sure has been all over town since she's been with us. We've been to IKEA, which is freakin' awesome, she's been to Colorado Springs, she's been to Flatirons Crossing mall and tons of other places. She really gets around. She travels real well, we put her in her carseat and she falls asleep almost instantly.

It's pretty cool taking her around, people sure seem to like her. The first thing most people say is that she has so much hair. It's totally true! She does have a great head of hair.

As fun as it is now to take her out, it will be so much more fun later when she can talk and sit up and see stuff. We plan to take as many road trips as we can with her and see all there is to see. We'll be like the Griswalds. 

Ooh, one more thing, Amanda saw this catalog where they will sell you this cool but expensive photo product. So you see, you tell them a name, Eliza for example, and they use things found in nature or architecture or wherever that look like the letters in the name. Like for the letter "A" they might use an A-frame house. They then put all the "letters" in a matted frame to spell the name.

It's swell, but they wanted like $150 for it. So we went out and made our own yesterday. We took the pics anyways, it's not framed or matted yet, but it is gonna work. I'm going to post a photo of what we came up with later tonight if you are interested.

Alright then, I'm over and out for now. Tune in later tonight for more excitement. See ya!

Sleeping On The Couch

Pro tip: If you get up in the middle of the night because your baby is crying for some food and you leave your bedroom to go to the kitchen and heat up a bottle in your The First Years brand bottle warmer, don't fall asleep on the couch while you wait. Your wife just might get mad that she was left in the room with a crying baby while you were sleeping.

The First Years

This thing here, a The First Years brand bottle warmer, is a real handy piece of equipment.

PhotoSnack Is Alright

Oh hey, I came across this site PhotoSnack what will let you make little photo slideshows, along with several other things. I took some pics of Eliza to try it out. You can do most stuff for free it seems, they do offer you a chance to give them money to get more. But the free works for me. Anyways, here's what we came up with.

Sunday Sunday Sunday

Dear Eliza,
We're getting ready for bed now. I hope you are fixing to get some sleep tonight. Last night we played cry cry feed all night long.

I just took a short break between paragraphs and you fell asleep. Looking good so far. You just might get some sleep tonight. You were so tired today. You didn't wake up for more than 5 seconds today when we went to meet with your grandma.

If it's nice tomorrow I think your mom and I are going to take you for a stroller ride. We haven't tried it out yet and it's about time we did. I bet you're going to have so much fun. I know I am.

I'll be going now Eliza. I just had to drop you a line so you would know I was thinking about you. I will see you real soon. Like in a minute when I go into the other room where you are.

Love,

DAD

Eight Week Anniversary

As you know, today was Eliza's supposed to be due date. We had quite the celebration. Well, not really. We just hung out at home, Eliza did a lot of sleeping and eating and diaper dirty-ing. Amanda and I sung happy birthday to her. Oh it was so silly.

Tomorrow is the 8 week anniversary of Eliza's real birth. Can you believe it? 8 weeks old. She is such a big girl. We were re-organizing some of her clothes today and we had to get rid of quite a few of them because she doesn't fit in them anymore! Very nice!

Well, that's it for today. Sorry it's so short and void of content. I mostly just wanted to try out this Facebook commenting that you will see below here. Feel free to comment so I can see how it works, ok. Hopefully it works pretty good and it will make it easier to comment and respond to comments. Alrighty then, thanks for reading and goodnight.