My First Meal

My name is Harrison Jay Fein, food critic and special contributor to the "Team Fein" blog. Over the weekend, I received an unsolicited invitation from a local chef to christen her new menu. On Sunday I arrived dressed for the black tie affair. I expected a glass of Cabernet and fillet Mignon but was surprised to find something out of the ordinary... dare I say... extraordinary! Using a bottle of the finest vintage of mother's breast milk available, "chef mom" mixed the milk with a little dried rice cereal to form a fantastic mush. The texture was new to my tongue and my taste buds danced with joy at the amazing flavor combination. My pallet was satisfied although when it came to swallowing, I just couldn't bring myself to do it so I just spit it out instead - much like wine tasting, no? The excellent food was well paired with fantastic service; everyone should be so lucky to be spoon fed - I didn't lift a finger!
Rating: ***1/2

The Deck, Part 1

Just before Harrison was born, Michael decided his next project would be ripping out the aging deck with it's rotting boards. At the end of June, he enlisted our neighbor (and carpenter) Ed to help him frame the deck which the literally banged out in a day. The weekend before last, Steve/Zaidy helped Michael begin the layout process. As you can see below, we opted for composite decking as opposed to solid wood. With the composite, we won't have to refinish the deck every other year and it is more resistant to weather and wear and tear.

Michael hopes to have this completed in a couple of weeks so we can enjoy the weather. That said, we are currently in the midst of a heat wave, the likes of which I have never seen around here. Once a year we get a couple of hot days into the 90's but we have at least a week of it with some parts hitting triple digits. For years my dad has said if he ever moved up here he would have to get a place with AC and I keep telling him it's not necessary; usually we just open the windows, no problem. Since we saw the severity of the weather coming last week, I made Michael go to The Depot and buy an AC unit. The unit is in our bedroom, along with the dog kennel and a the play yard; the whole family is sleeping together and we eat picnic style on the bed. Mom and dad have been watching "tv" on the laptop via Hulu and Amazon because while it is a comfy 72* the rest of the house is 88*, stuffy and a bit humid. I actually wish it would get cloudy and rain! "Hottest Day Ever Expected"

Jump-a-Roo-ing

Harrison loves his Rainforest Jumparoo. His teacher at school, Miss Ashley, tells us he is so happy to be in during the day and considering he spends time in it at home as well and doesn't get bored tells us that he just loves the jumping and the little toys surrounding him. I tried to take some action shots but the lightening was a bit low so the came out a bit blurry.

Harrison can plant his feet solidly on the ground. In the shot above, he is in the middle of jumping upward.

He loves to grab on to the green bar holdin the animals; he clenches it like you might clench the bar in front of you in a roller coaster car.

Monthly Milestone

Here is Harrison's progress report at school:

A Monthly Milestone

This month your child has developed their social skills by talking with teachers and other students!

Your child has also accomplished rolling over from stomach to back while developing his physical skills.

Harrison has worked hard developing his emotional skills by showing teachers his personality through playing with toys and teachers!

Your child has also excelled this month in his cognitive development by talking more with teachers. Harrison talks with teachers like he is having a full conversation with us. It is just the gooing and gaaing but Harrison is talking with us more and more every day!

Independence Weekend

It was HOT this weekend! The house was in the '80s and the best way to cool down Friday afternoon was to put on shorts and leave the babe in a diaper and go sit outside. With the sprinkler watering half of the lawn, there was a nice cool breeze floating by to take the edge off.



This picture reminds me of those old paintings in European cathedrals where Christ and Mary have halos painted around their heads. I know I am biased but I have always thought my babe was angelic, cherubic and perhaps even "the chosen one!"

Our sweet little bug!

On the 4th of July, we went over to Uncle John & Aunt Shivonne's house. She and I reminisced about the first 4th I spent with their family which was also the first time I was officially introduced to the Byrne/Smee/Haistings clan. That day was dreary and cold (at least to my warm blooded Vegas veins), my toes were freezing in my Birkenstock sandals and my teeth were definitely chattering. As the kids were shooting off fireworks, I was shivering yet refusing offers of blankets (I didn't want to be a burden) and thankfully Shivonne retrieved a big wool coat and draped it over me. That said, the 80 degree weather was easily the warmest I remember in my 12 years in the Puget Sound.

Great Grandmother Peggy just adores her only great grandson. He was getting rather cranky by the time we took this picture and we actually had to leave about 45 minutes later after barely eating dinner. We wish he could have held out longer so we could enjoy more family time.

We managed to keep him awake on the car ride home and by the time we put him to bed around 8pm, he was exhausted. So much so that he slept through the very loud fireworks... everyone in our neighborhood seemed to have M80s & M100s (which are of course illegal) and set them off as late as 1am.

Unfortunately these are the last pictures I will likely be able to post for awhile. While enjoying the 4th with our neighbors, I set up my camera and tripod to try my hand and shooting fireworks. I turned around in my chair and turned back just in time to watch my tripod and camera smashing into the asphalt. I love that camera and I am SO mad at myself (there was no one else I could remotely blame it on). The repair work on the lens is as much as a new one and the shutter on the camera body is bent and won't open/close properly... and that's just the stuff I know is wrong. I am going to have to ship it off to Nikon for repair work for a few weeks. Whah! The good news was that I could retrieve all the above pictures from the memory card so at least there is no loss there.

Frog Prince!

Most nights, Harrison gets a bath and we use this adorable little frog towel to dry him off, however tonight he seemed to settle into the little hood perfectly and looked just delightful.



Dad and baby hanging out

Another new phenomenon are his toes. A few weeks ago he suddenly noticed his toes and while sitting up he would nearly fold himself in half, holding his breathe, in an effort to try to hold them. In fact, at the end of every bath, I sit him up in his little tub and he bends forward to play with them in the water. About a week ago he got very proficient at laying on his back and bringing his feet to his hands, allowing him to breathe. He can double fist with a hand on each foot although I haven't managed to get a good picture of it.

Second Cousins & Book Club

I am rather enamoured with Martha Stewart, especially when it comes to cooking, so I recently got her new "Cupcakes" book. For last Saturday's book club, we read "What is the What" by Dave Eggars (a great book as long as you can stomach the injustices of civil war and genocide as the back drop) and we did a "picnic" food theme. Since I had a cupcake book I naturally volunteered dessert and since it is also sherry season, I made these delicious Cherry Almond cupcakes; they were a bit more like a muffin than a cupcake but tasty nonetheless. Ground Almonds in the batter with a whole bing cherry pushed into the center. You can see the cherry juices started to leak out on the top, sides or bottom of each cupcake leaving lovely red juice spots. Delish!



Raina's Aunt Sharon and her partner Paul came up to Washington to visit her daughter's family (my cousin Terra - check out the Jacobs Blog on the sidebar) for the week which included some days in Seattle. They rented a big house on Lake Washington and invited us over for dinner. Terra had a great idea to lay all the kids on the floor in a circle for a shot of the "second cousins." Baby Jack was rather squirmy but out of about 15 shots we finally got this one good one.
Clockwise starting with Harrison is Bridger, Nolan, Carli and Jack.

Leave Your Pet at Home Day

Sadly my building would not let me bring Winston to work today eventhough my coworker Brian and I lobbied for it. Instead, we celebrated by printing this poster and displayed it at my desk and did so for several others at work. Actually it was less a celebration and more a slient protest against the canine discrimination that our four legged friends face in the work place!

Harrison, That's Me!

Yes, he IS really this cute all the time.

First Father's Day (part deux)

In part one, we expounded on the virtues of Michael and his Father's Day gifts. Part two is dedicated to what we did over the weekend.

Saturday morning we decided to meet up with Brian, Darcie and their daughter Emily for some good old fashioned beer tasting. What can I say, it's was Father's Day weekend and that is what our dad wanted to do! "The Washington Brewers Festival" involved over 30 breweries and something like 250 beers. You get a little beer mug the size of two shot glasses and tickets to taste 10 beers while enjoying some food or watching your kids play in the very well coordinated kids area (rootbeer garden, bouncy houses, face painting, etc). Harrison was happy to walk around with us in the bjorn and even feel asleep in it a couple times. The weather was mild ("perfect for beer drinking") and even though we didn't drink we enjoyed the fresh air and fine company.

Michael bought a shirt with this logo... it's pretty funny but I wouldn't drink something that promised to make me look like that if I consumed it...

After we attended "The Mother of All Father's Day Beer Festivals" we went to Romio's for delicious pizza where we realized none of us could remember the last time we atually dined in at a pizza joint, except for when we were kids ourselves.

Sunday morning, Harrison woke up at 7am so I grabbed him and the Father's Day gift and we crawled back into bed to celebrate with a droopy eyed dad. Once he gathered his wits and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he opened the collages (see part 1) and proclaimed them wonderful gifts! We then snuggled under the covers, let Winston celebrate with us by allowing him up on the bed and the entire family fell back asleep for another hour or so.

Lastly, Michael wanted to have Dim Sum for brunch so we went to our favorite Eastside Chinese Restaurant, King's, and ate really fast... when we got into the restaruant we realized we had left the diaper bag at home so we were taking a gamble staying at all! The food, as always, was delicious and Harrison was fine without the supplies. I made dinner Sunday night and, being too tired to make his favorite oatmeal cookies, I drove to the ole DQ and picked us up a couple of blizzards (Heath for him, snickers with mint syrup for her). All said and done, we had a great weekend together as a family.

First Father's Day! (part 1)

Happy Father's Day, DAD! ~Harrison

Planning for Father's Day started on April 30th when mom took baby into Sears for his 3 month portraits. We arrived at 12pm on a Thursday and Harrison had just woken up from a nap, but instead of feeling invigorated and refreshed, he was cranky and very uninterested in posing for pictures. So I say to Harrison, "the nice lady doesn't have all day to wait for you to smile!" to which she replied, "actually I do - my next appointment isn't until 4:30" and I knew I would do my best to exploit her kindness and spare time.

She was very patient with Harrison and tried all kinds of tricks to get him to smile. After a full 60 minutes of taking photos, we ended up with about 80 usable images. As we sat at the computer picking out prints, the girl was doing her duty to get me to buy as much as possible. As I purposely hemmed and hawed, she started cropping photos and putting together collages to entice me. In the end, I bought a package that got me the 2 collages above and all the digital photos with the rights to them on a CD. Although it wasn't inexpensive, I know I got the better bargain. The 3 head shots below were given to all the grandpa's as Father's Day gifts.

This one is my favorite. Wells Fargo will let you choose a picture to place on your Visa card so I had it put on my debit card. I was SO excited when it showed up... I immediately showed it off to everyone at work. I would post a picture but then my card number would be all over the internet...

Harrison, Winston and I feel that Michael is such a wonderful father and we are so thankful that he is ours to love! Michael was picking up Harrison from Day Care last week and he sat down and said, "I just like to sit and play with him for 5 minutes before we leave becuase when I go home I immediately start working on chores." He didn't say this as a complaint but rather that he likes to go home and get things done around the house. A mother nearby heard him and said, "You do chores?! My husband doesn't do chores... tell your wife she is a very lucky woman!" I am indeed! He never complains and is always willing to help, no matter how tired he is (or how snippy I am). He gets up with Harrison at 2am every morning, takes him to and from school, ensures Winston is healthy (seemingly a full time job in and of itself... I think I failed to mention Winston ate rat poison last weekend), goes to work and constantly works around the house - all to ensure we are happy and cared for. Thank you "our dad!"

Auntie Barbara Visits!

Auntie Barbara (Michael's father [Earl's] sister) came to visit from SoCal for a week and she is always so much fun to be around. We enjoyed visiting with her and checking out photos of her cutie pie grand daughter, Paige.

One of the best things about having family visit is that the entire family gets together to be part of the fun. Everyone (but me) got on the sailboat on Saturday and sailed around Lake Union & Lake Washington and then docked in Kirkland for hamburgers at The Slip. Everyone (especially Michael, but not Raina) was excited to get Harrison out on the boat. Zaidy has an infant life preserver so they all assured me he would be safe although I don't think anyone considered that he would be uncomfortable in it; evidently he didn't care for it much. I will post these pictures once they are provided to me.

On Sunday, we gathered at the Haistings' house for brunch. Auntie Barbara made her husband Ron's Dutch Babies which were SO yummy and grandma Dreslaine made a delicious cheesy quiche.

Zaidy & Baby

Aunt Alexis & Baby

Once we were in the house for about 10 minutes, Winston came into the room and promptly coughed up some foam, which is not uncommon. Upon further inspection, I noticed it had a blue-green substance and after some discussion we came to the conclusion that Winston had eaten rat poison. Zaidy and Michael rushed him to the Emergency Vet; the good news was that we had only been at the house for 10 minutes so we knew that the poison had not been in his system for long. The short of it is that Winston will be fine but I shudder to think what would have happened had he not coughed it up in front of me.

Wednesday Barbara and Grandpa Hugh came over dinner before she left to go back home. Harrison got tired while we were around the table talking so I swaddled him and began rocking him while the gang started singing songs. This group sang the gamut, everything from "Your A Grand Old Flag" to "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" to "The California Drinking Song." I don't know what's worse - the fact that we were singing a drinking song to a baby or the fact that we knew all the words. Michael and I routinely sing all sorts of stuff to him, the oddest being The Brady Bunch theme song. The best songs are the ones that Michael makes up using familiar tunes, they're a lot of fun for us.

Monthly Milestone

Here is Harrison's progress report at school:

A Monthly Milestone

This month your child has developed their social skills by talking and laughing with friends.

Your child has also accomplished learning to sit while in the bumbo chair while developing his physical skills.

Harrison has worked hard developing his emotional skills by showing us how much he loves to smile with us.

Your child has also excelled this month in his cognitive development by recognizing faces with a smile!

Harrison had his 4 month check up on 6-2-09 and here are his stats:
Length: 24 inches (18th percentile)
Weight: 13 lbs, 8 oz (20th %)
Head Circumference: 16 inches (15%)

Wedding Bells

Last weekend I was a bridesmaid in my friend Ashley's wedding. She was a gorgeous bride and the wedding was so beautiful, held at Bastyr chapel in Kenmore, about 10 minutes from my home. One of my very first posts included a picture of me 5 months pregnant trying on dresses. I wish I could have lost more weight and toned up my muscles but then again, I wouldn't want to upstage the bride. Ashely was a b'maid in our wedding and it was really an honor to be able to return the favor for her on her special day.

Sitting Around the House

So far my favorite thing about Day Care is that Miss Ashley introduced us to the Bumbo Chair. It is molded out of a sturdy foam that is soft yet doesn't give way. Although Harrison can sit up, he lacks the balance to stay up... if we were to sit him in a high chair he would eventually slump down or fall over sideways. The Bumbo chair manages to keep him upright and happy. I also bought a tray attachment so I can set some toys on it and he can reach for them and try to pick them up.


Michael and I also love it because he will sit in it while we eat dinner. Until recently one of us would eat first while the other held him and watched the food get cold; either that or try to time our dinner around his nap time (futile -he usually wakes up!).

Watching Harrison sit in it, the best part is when he lays his little arms down around the sides like a little man relaxing in an arm chair!