Ren and Juliana at the Farm

Juliana is Ren's good friend. She's 3 months older than Ren and the daughter of our friends Jennifer and Mike Woods. Ren constantly talks about Juliana, and when she gets to see her next and stuff. It's because of days like this.

So in early October, the three of us drove to the Woods' house in Wisconsin. We met up with Juliana, Jennifer, Mike, and Mike's mom. Then all of us drove out to one of those October farm attractions. This was a truly fantastic day and we all had a great deal of fun. I'm posting the photos today, then video over the next day or so.

Here are the photos.

A couple of my favorites:

Ren with Grapes in Her Mouth

I find this one really hilarious. Ren thought this up all on her own.

Ren at the Zoo

Here's a whole bunch of pictures of Ren at Brookfield Zoo. This is a trip with Ren, Hiroko, and a friend of the family.

Also, from around this period, here are a couple cute single shots of Ren:




Here's also a shot of Ren in what was, at the time, her brand new twin-sized bed. No more crib for Big Girl Ren:

Ren and Kai

Here's a couple cute pics of Ren with her friend Kai.

Ren and the Great Outdoors

Here's a video of Ren making bubbles, and one of her sliding and attacking the camera.

Foreign Coins

Hi all,

First of all, I never realized/intended for this to be the ONLY avenue for examining videos/pictures of Ren.

Any time you want you can click through a video to see all the other videos I've made.

Also any time you can click at a still picture and see everything I've ever uploaded to pictures.

Yet there are a lot of people who apparently only ever see this stuff when I specifically feature it here. All right. Accordingly, I'll be posting a backlog of old stuff.

So here's a 6 month old video of Ren playing with a box of coins from all over the world. These were given to her by her aunt Gina, who gets a lot of opportunities for world travel. Ren likes to get them down and play with them quite frequently.

Ren 2 1/2 Birthday

We're celebrating Ren's half birthdays instead of birthdays, because would you rather celebrate on July 4 with all your relatives, perfect weather, and fireworks, or on January 4, right after everyone's gone home for Christmas and it's like -10 outside?

Anyway, this was the first big birthday celebration. Here's a video.

Costa Rica 2009

A Flickr set with all our Costa Rica pics.

Costa Rica 2009

Ren vs. Alphabet

Hi,

A couple videos of Ren singing the alphabet. These are good for just getting an idea of where she is developmentally.

Except that, these are only a couple months old, and she's advanced so much it just seems silly. She's learning new phrases and speaking in complete sentences all the time now. But anyway they're fairly cute.

Ren vs. Baby Chick, and Strawberries.

I forgot/was too busy to post yesterday, so here's two (unrelated) today.

First, Ren loves to play with her food. We try to discourage it, of course, to some degree. But playing with food is better than getting bored and having a fit or bothering us while we're trying to eat. So sometimes we indulge. Here's an example.

As with virtually all stuff like this, we didn't invent this, this is all Ren.


Here's a video of Ren at the zoo. For a long time, Ren was very terrified of animals, particularly cats and dogs. She's finally getting over it. Here's a picture of Ren touching a baby chick...and surviving...

Gun and Wrap, respectively

Here's two more videos if Ren playing with various bubble-related things. In both cases, she takes it to the next level by making a game of it. Yep, my daughter all right.

Ren and Bubble Gun

Some time ago Grandma gave Ren a bubble gun. Here's a couple videos of Ren using it.

Flight of the Bumble Ren

Hi all.

I'm going to be posting videos every day (or almost) for a long while. I've got a long backlog of vids I uploaded but never posted to get through, then I'll start on all the videos from our late July trip to Costa Rica (more on that later).

So, this one is really old. We've got a DVD that's got a segment where insects run/fly around to the tune of "Flight of the Bumblebee". This is how Ren reacts. Note that we didn't train her to do this or anything. Quite the contrary; I'm running around with Ren because every time the song comes on she pulls me off the couch and makes me run with her.

Ren says Cheese

Our friend Ron taught Ren to say "cheese" when she sees a camera. This video is just Ren being cute on the couch.

Ren vs. Chopsticks

These noodles, by the way, are delicious.

Ren in winter

These next two videos will give you an idea of how far behind I am in posting videos. These two are from Ren playing outdoors in winter time. Thank goodness this snow is gone now.

This first one is just Ren at play. She's awfully excited about snow. More than me.


This one demonstrates that Ren knows what to say when one sees Santa:

I got a package with lots of big strips of bubble wrap. Here's the result:

Recent Photos of Ren

Today is photo day. I'm sharing all the pictures we've taken with Ren since around Christmas. Here is the set of pictures. Here are some of my favorites:

This is Ren licking a spoon as I make cookies:


Ren puts herself in a box:


Family self-photo:


Ren grabs a blanket and decides to take a nap:


Ren and a good friend:

Baby Ren vs. Hammer Heads

I've got about ten new videos and numerous new pictures to post over the next couple weeks. These are going back to the start of the year.

First off, you may recall that Ren loves the popcap game "Chuzzle". We also found she liked "Hammer Heads". These videos show the great value of having a tablet PC...because it's great for babies to manipulate. She obviously really loves playing the game and enjoys the music.


Lots of popcap games play ideally on a tablet. I don't think a two year old could do this with a mouse, but I know she'll do it for hours with a pen. Tragically the tablet has died. But these games are great for kids.

It's not in the video, but this game always says "Ready? Go!" at the start of a new level. Even months later Ren is still saying this every time she's about to try something.




I'm going to send this blog entry to the manufacturer, actually. I'm sure they'll like seeing their consumer enjoy their product...even if it's not the typical target demographic. :)

Winter Ren '08

Here is a new set of pictures of Ren. This covers a day I took her to the Chicago Toy and Game Fair (the giant chess set and the Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile) and a day Hiroko took Ren for a walk outside. Ren really likes snow, particularly stomping in it.

This is the last set until I download the camera again. Enjoy.

Halloween '08 Stills

Stillshots of Ren at Halloween 2008. This includes both the big Berwyn bash at Proska Park, plus actual trick or treating. Here are some favorites. She does look especially cute in this set, I must say:

Old Photos of Ren

Hi. Hiroko's always reminding me that we have lots of still photos of Ren that I always forget to share. Folks domestically might know how to surf my Flickr site and find them, but the certainly don't in Japan. Worse, a lot fo the time I forget to mark them public anwyay. So this week is picture week.

Here's a set of pictures of Ren from all last summer. Yes, it's been that long since I posted stillshots. Here's a few specific ones I like:











In the back of the last one, you can see me lounging in a t-shirt in the shade. Boy, I miss summer.

Ren on Halloween Night

More of Tiger Ren. We went up and down my block, visiting about ten houses. I kept striking up conversations with everyone, so I think it took us about 3 hours just to go this short distance. I video'ed Ren's very first trick or treat here, with my neighbor Kathy. I don't know if she was waiting specifically for us, but she sure was glad to see us.

It was a fun night. Ren at first of course had no idea what was going on, then figured out she was supposed to get stuff, then eventually figured out that it was candy. She kept trying to eat it through the wrapper.

Amusingly, in the second video she's caught on to the idea in reverse, and kept trying to give the lady her candy.

Ren at Berwyn Halloween Party

Hi. I haven't exactly been diligent in keeping up the videos and pics, have I? We have a huge backlog because I always forget to post. Lazy am I.

These two are from a huge Berwyn Halloween party. The Parks District converts Berwyn's largest park to a haunted forest, plus there's food, live music, pumpkins, hayrides, etc. Ren's costume is a tiger we got at a secondhand store. She loves it. Once when we were gone and a babysitter had Ren, she got it from her stored clothes and cried and cried until the babysitter put her in it.

Ren also loves dancing, as these two videos show...