Quick Trip to Kentucky

Back in I believe September, Ren and I flew down to Kentucky for the weekend so Grandma and Grandpa could get in some Ren time. I took a total of 4 usable pictures while we were down there. Here they are.

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 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.

Costa Rica 2009

A Flickr set with all our Costa Rica pics.

Costa Rica 2009

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:

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.

What? I'm working.

Isn't this awesome?

Good news: Ren has her first word. Bad news: it's a made up word. It definitely means something to her, and she uses it consistently. Whenever she wants something, she points at it, looks to one of us, and says "Ish? Ish?" Our guess is that she's saying "this".

Ren plays with her new cube.

Sometime before Christmas, a Buddhist friend of ours spontaneously brought by this gift for Ren. she's seen playing with it just out of the box. This is a really cute video. Do you get the impression Ren likes it? There are also a couple (underlit) stills I took, here and here.

Ren's Gifts From Kathy

Hi all.

The holidays have come and gone and I've uploaded all the pictures and photos. That means I'll be posting pictures and videos for the next few days, so stay tuned.

One of the coolest gifts we got was from our next door neighbor Kathy. She surprised us with a birthday gift for Ren! Ren got a nice new outfit and a pull toy. I'll be printing pictures from this set for Kathy right away. Thanks!

Ren at the Center

There will be more updates as soon as I clear the camera. It remains hard to take pictures/video now that Ren is very camera-aware.

Here's a quick picture our friend Jennifer Woods took of Ren with Jennifer's baby, at the Chicago Cultural Center.

Thanksgiving shots

Over at my personal blog, I've got a couple cute videos of Hiroko playing Xbox. So no videos here today.

Here are some shots from Thanksgiving (and shortly before) including Ren, though. I thought I'd taken more Thanksgiving shots, but I guess not.

Here's my favorite:

From Thanksgiving

This is a picture of Ren at my mom's office during the recent Thanksgiving trip. It was sent to me by my mom.

There are lots of new pictures, and even more importantly lots of great new video, but I'm having computer problems at home that are keeping them indefinitely non-uploadable. When I finally get them on youtube, you'll see them. They're great and I wish I could get them to you sooner.

Pepsi Bottle

Ren loves to lie on her back and manipulate larger objects with both feet, both hands, and mouth, at the same time. This is a picture of her playing with an empty Pepsi bottle. Right after I shot this, she lifted it up and banged herself in the head.

It's a good example of the lack of necessity of toys. We get her toys (or they're given to us) and Ren ignores them to play with empty bottles and bags, slick advertisements, pens, spoons, coat hangers, our phones, and remote controls.

What time is it?

Ren has a toy that depicts the head of a red monkey, and wraps around her wrist. I call it the monkey watch. We like to joke like,

"Hey, what time is it?" "Umm...oh! Monkey!"

Or we order her that she'll have to do things or take baths "when it's monkey."

Ren Shots

Just some general shots of ren from the backlog. (Hey, look at me, I finally figured out how to interleave photos with text. Also, you can click on these to take you direct to the original.)

Here's one of Ren on the CTA for the first time. Not a great shot, but I wanted to commemorate the adventure. On Sundays Hiroko works and needs the car for the commute, so I'm stuck with mass transit for getting around. I didn't know setting out that the bus won't take open strollers, and that the Blue line wasn't working properly that day, so a 45 minute trip turned into a 2-hour ordeal. I also learned I was going to need an umbrella stroller, because the Baby SUV here was too much.

Ren with her favorite beverage. No wait...that's my favorite beverage. Hmm, can I get in trouble with child services for this one? You can't leave this kid alone for two seconds. I keep telling her, "No, no, not until you're eight."

Two shots of Ren's favorite activity, sucking on things. When your parents forget to give you a toy to cover with slobber, what are you going to do? Fortunately, nature has a solution: toes.

Hiroko had a dream one night that Ren's toes were unscrewable, and fell off, and she had to go around the house finding them and screwing them back in. The second shot is particularly cute, no?

And finally, just a shot I like of Ren in her jumper. Are we excited? YES! We are excited!!

(Self) Feeding Time

I posted this picture a while back in a set, but wanted to call attention to it.

Besides being cute, it highlights Ren's sense of independence. She wants to play on her own, she wants to go to sleep on her own (usually), and she even wants to feed herself. Given the chance, she'll wrest the bottle away from us and hold on.

When this older picture was taken, we were really surprised, but now it's the norm for Ren to take over. In fact, in the middle of the night I've fallen asleep while she's fed herself.

Lots of mental firsts for Ren

Hiya,

Last weekend was very active for Ren! There were so many first I'm not sure I can remember them all.

• She laughed for the first time. I can induce it when I grab her and smile and laugh and tickle. Sometimes she'll make a big guffaw, and she makes lots of big smiles now. It remains nearly impossible to get anything on film though. As soon as the camera starts rolling, she watches it and forgets everything else.
• She's noticed there's sometimes a couple white blobs in her field of vision, which she can shake around. When her fists wander into her view, she'll drop whatever she's doing to stare at them for a moment.
• She has officially reached out to bop at a toy.
• She is aware of smaller things in her field of view. Specifically, she is now aware of Mr. Lion. He is extremely please by this development.

She continues to be for the most part an easy and fun baby. We are pleased.

Okay then, picture time!
Here's what mom looks like when dad comes home:


Ren's #1 favorite pastime, the fist suck:


Why use that bland old formula when there's White Castle vanilla shake?:


And of course, in honor of opening day, Ren showing off her true colors:


That's right, I say get 'em started on the trail to misery early!