Saturday, November 21, 2009

Fish, fish, and more fish!






The Trinity River is suddenly full of salmon....as of today. Finally.
Alex has had a lot of angst over the "missing run" this year.
Well, 7 salmon and 1 steelie later we found them! They are here, (I hope), and hopefully will continue to swim upriver in the weeks to come spawning and doing their thing. This first
video is of a steelehead I pulled in, and was extra special as we got to keep him! He was nice and bright and great quality. The salmon are a bit too dark so they were released.
Forrest enjoyed it...well, he a perhaps enjoyed about half of it. The
other half of the time he was a fussy Fulton baby, making his mama pull her hair
out. But, better to pull your hair out on the river catching fish than
at home, right? Enjoy the last two clips. Alex's fight with a monster salmon ensues. The total length is actually 5 minutes but the limits of satellite internet caused a much shorter two parter for your viewing pleasure. The total deal is pretty funny as it includes some of the craziness that is included with fishing for these big guys with a baby, but you'll have to come visit to see that version. The second part is the conclusion of the saga. Did Alex get his prized fish? Or did baby Forrest and the salmon triumph over the parents in a plotting scheme?
Only you will know. So watch them both, (I know, watching fishing is not your favorite thing to do, it's about as exciting as watching grass grow, but hey, Forrest is cute at least!
Okay, I promise that this isn't just the baby and fishing blog, even though it seems like it. Hopefully turkeys, (or some other eventful thing,) will be in the future!

Friday, November 20, 2009

8 month old Forrest


Okay, so this is a bit late. Little Forrest G. is actually more like 8 months and a week at this point, which doesn't seem to be too late, but in baby time it can be like night and day. For instance, he just took his first little real "crawl" in the past few days, where that was not so at the 8th month mark. He was only slithering.....
Details I know, but that's what it's all about!

8 month old Forrest is a bundle full of smiles, cries, and eat, eat, eat! He is the lug of baby love at this point tipping the scales at 19.5 pounds....YES that was 19.5....as in my little baby is almost 20 lbs.
I truly can't believe it.
He eats EVERYTHING mashed. If you can dream it up, he can gobble it down, and he does with a vengeance. He is also trying his first pureed chicken, and actually had some mashed crab the other night. We're talking gourmet baby food here. And he adored the crab. I don't think I've seen him happier...

A typical day for him starts at about 6:30-7:00am, sometimes earlier, (yep, no sleeping in in this household anymore!) He is still breastfeeding 3-4 times a day, with maybe a formula bottle thrown in there once in a while. He'll drink his milk, play for a bit, (mornings are by far his best times,) and then chow down a big bowl of baby cereal mixed with pears, bananas, and perhaps some avocado on the side. Then more play time ensues. He loves pulling himself up and standing and is quite good at it at this point.
He also is starting to copy cat and will clap his hands mimicking you as well as wave. His baby babble can be quite hilarious as well, with plenty of mama's and dada's thrown in there. His furniture surfing is starting as well.
We try to get him on his belly to practice his crawling, but unless it's his own idea, he protests, and heavily. This continues all day, with, (if we're lucky,) a nap or two, (usually short lived,) in between. Diaper changes are also not his favorite. He used to like his changing table, and now screams like it's the torture table. No diaper rash, he just plain doesn't like it, and with all the food he's chowing there are plenty of dirty diapers. He LOVES to be outside. If you stay inside all day, (which sometimes is necessary with our winter weather,)you have one cranky baby.
Outside he'll last for hours in the carrier, sitting on the dirt or grass playing, or trying to pull himself up on our fence. He does definitely crave attention and loves people.

It is now increasingly difficult to get anything done during the day other than baby care. I guess that comes with him sleeping through the night in long stretches. Yep, he is a great sleeper! We are blessed I know. He regularly goes to bed between 7-8 and will sleep till 6am-7am with maybe one wake up in there once in a while.
Amazing. I never would have believed it at 4mos when he was still up every 2 hours.
Makes for an eventful day for this lug, but still amazing.
And, NO teeth yet.

Keep waiting for the little buggers to poke out, but for now we're just enjoying our toothless grin.
Life is incredibly busy for us. I feel I am working too much, and missing out too much as well. It's not all floats down the river as told in my last post. But we are all healthy, happy, and enjoying each other to bits. And looking forward to time off for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thank goodness for holidays!
And Forrest's first!
Let the household baby proofing begin ;-)

Sunday, November 15, 2009

"Would you like some bait....errr....caviar with your wine ma'am?"

A day in the life.
Floating down a beautiful river.
Running white water thanks to the handsome and talented guide, (otherwise known as "hubby")

Landing steelehead from the first pool on, (ok, maybe just at the first pool, but who's really counting?)

Sipping wine.
Eating fancy cheese and raspberry mustard on fancy crackers, (we left the bait for the salmon...and that cracker for the matter).

Taking in sites of bald eagles, 4 bears, (yes, FOUR!)
and spawning salmon and steelehead.
Enjoying the sites of little hobbit houses and buried treasures, (perhaps?)

And, to top it all off, having an 8 month old in the boat for his first REAL run down the river,
(the others had been just trial, mini, runs).

So, maybe it wasn't as serene as it could have been.

But FUN.

Yessssssssss.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

It's a hard knock life....

Hoping to capture his first moments of crawling we instead got this.....
can't help but laugh, the sound effects are nice too. Poor guy.... ;-)

Catching up, video style...

I think I finally figured this video deal out, so enjoy Forrest, several weeks ago, in the flesh, (ok, so not quite, but close enough!)
Our corn fed baby.....

More to come I hope....