tasty feet

Elijah's latest trick...

He's pretty proud of himself for getting his feet into his mouth!

the happy baby dance

Elijah's Red Sox education continues...

Even though David is in the thick of revising his dissertation, he has made certain that Elijah's Red Sox education has not suffered! After trying on his Daddy's cap, Elijah needed one of his own.

We took a study break by taking a small hike through the trails behind our house. It is beautiful now, and we're sure that in the next few weeks they'll be even more gorgeous with the turning leaves! Check out Elijah's cool "BabyLegs" leg warmers in very manly stripes.

From King of the Closet to King of Jungle

One of the things we love about having moved to Manchester-by-the-Sea is that Elijah gets his own digs that he can decorate. Being a rugged little man the Jungle theme appealed to him. The beautiful crib was generously given to us by one of my professors and works wonderfully for Eli. It was quite the upgrade from his baby corner (closet) in Warren Towers

5 down, 1 to go!

David has completed the rough draft of 5 of his 6 chapters for his dissertation! He has been working very long days and nights. He is hoping to have his phD before he turns 30 (October 9!) As he's in the final push, he'd love any encouragement you could send his way!

4 months old!

Elijah is 4 months old!

He is very social. He loves being held, and loves watching people. He sits in the nursery at school and grins at all the babies. If we are with others, he is so distracted, he can't eat because he just wants to look at people!

He is very happy! Elijah smiles all of the time. He regularly charms people we meet on walks or at stores. He hasn't had an official "laugh" yet, but he grins and says "Gheee!!!" which is my favorite sound in the world right now!

His big accomplishments are being able to consistantly roll over from right to left when placed on his back, lifting his head up to a 90-degree angle when on his belly, making 2 syllable sounds (he says "Inga" all of the time. Who is Inga?!), blowing bubbles, grabbing his feet (fascinating things, feet), grabbing toys with his hands (though still a little wobbly). He holds his head up well, loves being propped up, and adores "standing" on laps. We also learned that Elijah prefers a "Nuk" brand pacifier. Anyone who knew my brother as a baby should not be surprised by this! He has learned to take it out of his mouth with his hands. Too bad putting it back in is more difficult!

"walking" the Freedom Trail

Elijah and his little friend "strolled" the Freedom Trail in Boston. We plan on making a Boston picture book for the babies, showing them at each site. Here are some of our favorites!
At the Old North Church: (the lanterns: 1 if by land 2 if by water)

At the Old State House: one of our favorite views of Boston-- the old architecture dwarfed by the modern skyscraper.

At the site of the 1st Public School in America

Making way for ducklings (statues to represent where the famous children's book takes place)

At Paul Revere's statue in front of the Old North Church

At the famous Green Dragon Pub (frequented by revolutionaries), we couldn't resist this picture, complete with Red Coat tour guide!

Lobsters and Space

Living on the North Shore has brought its shares of ups and downs. The "down" would essentially be the commute. The "ups," though, have been many! Besides being in walking distance of one of the best beaches in New England, our neighbors are made up of lobster men and fishermen. Earlier this week the landlord knocked on our door and asked if we wanted some striped bass he had caught that afternoon. Sure! I went into his basement with him and cleaned the approximately two-foot bass with him, and watched him heap the meat and guts on his washing machine next to the sink. He explained the best way to cook it and Jamie and I enjoyed one of the freshest, most delicious pieces of fish we have had.

Another neighbor is a lobster fisherman, and he offered to sell us lobster at boat price (that's roughly 15% of the price you would pay for a lobster in a restaurant)!!! Two friends from my lab came up to join us experiment in proper lobster cooking. The first thing we realized was our 6 qt pot was not nearly large enough for the 6 lbs of lobster (5 lobsters total). So I went over to our landlord (who had hooked us up with the bass) to ask for a lobster pot. Myles, our landlord, hooked us up with a pot and specific instructions on how to cook a lobster "the right way." (Who can argue with a guy who claims to have cooked 30,000 lobsters and grew up in a place called Manchester-by-the-sea?) From how the lobsters looked (and tasted) I would say his method of cooking was a huge success.

When Myles asked if I knew how to crack a lobster, I replied that I had eaten them in a restaurant before. Myles wasn't convinced, and after started in on explaining the steps, he stopped after a moment and told us to come get him when we finished cooking the lobsters and he would come down to show us the proper way of eating. Although I didn't learn about new meat to eat, I did learn some of what I shouldn't have been eating :), ways to crack the lobster and not lose some of the juices in the lobster (the claw was amazing!). Jamie also made some amazing baked potatoes using an Alton Brown recipe from the food network. A great compliment to the lobster.

After that Joe, Doug, and I headed down to the beach for some star-gazing (wanted to make sure that all that stuff the professors told us about space wasn't made up.) All though we couldn't quite see to the edge of the galaxy, any dual stars, comets, of for that matter many of the planets, we were able to see the moon quite well (it was a full moon and part of the reason for the poor star gazing ability). The top blurry picture is the edge of the moon and the lower one is Jupiter. I had trouble focusing my camera through the aperture.

I did have some fun taking some night shots, though. Below is a 60 second exposure of the coast with the lights of Boston off in the distance.

tiny hands and feet

Dissertation update

David's been working hard. He's announcing 2 chapters down, and 4 to go on the rough draft!