Our crawling, standing, bookworm

Here is Caitlyn crawling full speed ahead and pulling herself up on the couch. She LOVES to pull herself up on anything she can find, which can be a dangerous business now that we're in a place with wood floors. At first I followed her around every minute she was awake so she wouldn't fall and hit her ahead. But after a few minor spills she has gotten pretty steady. So now I only follow her around every other minute she's awake. :)
Incidentally, she also loves books, as you can see in the video. Given the choice between a book and a toy, she'll always go for the book. She must get that from Grandpa Sitthichai. :)

HOLLYWOOD!!!

This is the view from the balcony of our condo. (You can see it better if you click on the picture.) Yep, we're living in Hollywood. Quinn was so sick of commuting 4 hours a day to work in downtown L.A. so he started looking on Craigslist and found a 2 month sublease for May and June. The owner of the condo is a super nice USC professor and wanted to rent his condo while he went back to Baltimore for the summer, so it worked out perfectly for everyone! Quinn's commute is now only 20 minutes door to door, so we actually get to see him in the morning and evening and hang out and do stuff as a family. What a concept! We'll be here til he's done with his clerkship.
We're in the Hollywood Ward, Los Angeles Stake, and there are four other couples in the ward about our age with small babies. Happily, I discovered on Sunday that one of them is a runner, so we've started running together with our jogging strollers. Yay!!! Before that I had just started running by myself up and down Los Feliz Blvd, a busy street with sidewalks that are far off the road. I figured it was a good place for Caitlyn and I to run by ourselves since getting attacked was less likely with all the cars driving by. But I'm soooo happy to have found a jogging partner. That is much, much better.
Everyone says it's pretty common to see movie stars around here (one girl ran into Steve Carell at Target, for example) so if I see anyone famous I'll let you know!
One great thing about living here is we're only 25 minutes from the LA Temple -- close enough that I was able to go the temple last Saturday for the first time since Caitlyn was born! It was sort of like a Mother's Day gift -- Quinn drove us there and then watched Caitlyn while I went. It was so, so great to be able to go again. Next week is his turn.

Broccoli Beard

You've heard of Black Beard. You've heard of Milk Mustache. But now there's Broccoli Beard. Now that Caitlyn is a pro at picking up food between her little thumb and finger, putting it in her mouth, and chewing before swallowing, we decided to give her a little piece of steamed broccoli we were having for dinner one night. To our surprise she LOVED it!! She started kicking her little feet and lunging out of her highchair for it. So we gave her some more and pretty soon she had a cute little broccoli beard. :) Now (since she totally gags when I give her the babyfood peas or the babyfood carrots) I've started to steam cut-up carrots and frozen peas and carefully feed her little pieces of those instead. She loves them and I think it's partly because she likes sitting up to the table with us (though in her highchair of course) and eating food that's more like what the grown-ups are eating so she doesn't feel left out. :)

My stylin' new diaper bag

I saw my friend Jennie Smith from our ward in Palmdale with an incredibly cute bag one day and she told me she had made it herself. She offered to help me make one, so she took me to pick out fabric, helped me cut it out, and helped me sew it (ok, actually she sewed the whole thing for me while I watched and tried to act helpful). It turned out so cute!! I love it! I use it as my diaper bag, so I can finally retire the little Similac backpack they gave us in the hospital that I've been using for the last 9 months. I'm so glad Jennie insisted on helping me finish it before we moved from Palmdale or, let's just be honest, I most likely would never have finished it and it would've joined my unfinished wall-hanging in a neatly packed box. Thanks Jennie!!

Don't sneeze with your mouth full

This is what happens when you give a baby a spoonful of babyfood just before they sneeze. Kids, don't try this at home.

This is our weather. Yeah, I know!

I'm not gonna lie. This whole clear-blue-sunny-skies-and-warm-weather-almost-all-winter thing is pretty nice. Quinn's mom, Carol, is a big runner and she got me back into running when we moved out here. So a favorite pastime of Caitlyn's and mine is jogging. Caitlyn LOVES to go for jogs, and likes kicking back and putting her feet up on the bar of the jogging stroller. :) When Quinn has a day off, or on Saturdays, he rides a bike along side us. It's so fun!

Caitlyn's got skills

Caitlyn's been able to hold her sippy cup and put it in her mouth for a few weeks now so I decided to get it on film. She still hates water (but we don't want to give her juice yet), so she just chews on the spout for now. Occasionally she takes a sip and then makes a nasty face when she tastes the water.
As an added bonus, Grandma Disparte came in just as I started filming, and Caitlyn waved to her. (Caitlyn loves her grandma.) She started out by holding out her little fist (like, "Pound it!"--so we'd give her rocks) and now she's started opening her hand more like a wave. So you not only get to see Caitlyn's sippy cup skills, but also her waving skills!