Happy New Year to ya.

Happy New Year.

Baby likes to Boogie

Vlog number 3. Jasmine loves these musical "stress buttons" Erika got for me a while back. She's just a little dancing machine. I caught some on video one day and wanted to share it here. For some reason the right edge is getting chopped off, so I recommend double clicking to watch at youtube.

Jasmine's Birthday Vlog

Vlog number 2! Featuring Jasmine, Caleb and an unfortunate incident with a Mocha. Enjoy.

The First Time

For some reason I thought it would be a fun idea to attempt producing a vlog.

It started when I tried to capture Jasmine in one of her funnier states. I took several video clips then realized I needed to stitch them together. The next thing I know, I'm throwing together the random blabbing that I did in between Jasmine clawing at my face and attacking the camera. It took longer than I figured it should to get used to the software, butI kept hacking at it. Wouldn't you know it, I blew almost two hours on this "lesson".

Since I spent so much time on it (sad, isn't it?) I thought I should publish it. Otherwise, it really will have been a waste of time.

Booty Shakin'!

Jasmine loves the Dragon Tales show on PBS. We record it every day because we get so much mileage out of the show during the day. If she's in a bad mood, this song will cheer her up. She usually has some sort of new dance move to show us in the mornings. This video was taken first thing in the morning, just minutes after she had woken up. It's never to early to dance, I guess!

The Jasmine Show

Jasmine is growing up quickly. For us, it is easy to overlook how much she changes over such short periods of time. So, we wanted to get a few videos up for family members to check out. Jasmine's 1st birthday is right around the corner on November 22, 2009. Can you believe it?

And then it was fall...

Wow. Another summer has come and gone. Many lasting memories were made and several blogs went unattended. Were I trying to actually make money with this blog, I'd be in serious trouble. Fortunately, this is more of a family journal.

I've kept busy writing reviews for Digital Trends magazine. Two reviews I published have been quoted by Klipsch and are making it to their website for promo purposes. The Klipsch HDT 500 home theater speaker system and their amazing little ipod dock, the iGroove SXT. Check them out here and here. I also got the chance to audition some AMAZING headphones from Sennheiser. The $1400.00 HD800 headphones are a bit pricey, but I dare say that you get what you pay for. Here's that review. I'll be publishing much more and, as I do, I'll link to them here and at my gadgetdaddy blog (coming soon)

When I'm not writing, I'm usually cooking, cleaning or taking pictures and video of Spencer and Jasmine. I'll share some of those videos here via youtube and will post photos, too.

Good to be back, ya'll!

Jasmine grows up fast!

Wow! Jasmine is quite the little sprout. She's growing quickly. She's up to 25.5" long, which puts her in the 90-something-eth percentile. For those of you who wait with baited breath for another super cute vid of my daughter (and who ISN'T, really??) Here ya go. Two of them, as a matter of fact.

I should add that while I've always been a fan of Sesame Street (just ask my folks) I've never been a huge Elmo fan. It figures that Jaz would LOVE him. He's red and he talks funny. What's not for a baby to like?

Time to feed the baby...

Belated birthday present packs added surprise

Hey everyone,

Had a great birthday weekend capped off with a fantastic birthday BBQ. Thanks to all who participated!

An especially big thank you to my wife Erika and stepson Spencer who went out of their way to make me feel special all weekend long. I hope I can repay the favor soon.

Check out this little clip I just did re: the packaging for the gift my sister Suzanne sent me. Genius! Now, I just need to get Republic of Tea to pay me for endorsing their product. Or at least send me some cools stuff ;-)

Spencer's Poetry Slam

Hi!

Today, Spencer's first grade class had a Poetry reading. Erika, Jasmine and I all made it down to his classroom where the event was held. They videotaped each reading but what I have here is video taken with our digital camera. It's less than ideal, but it's what I've got.

Oh yeah, that reminds me. It's my birthday on May 1st so, you know, if you wanted to buy me a digital camcorder, that would be sweet.

Anyway. I was extremely impressed with the writing these kids did and, of course, very proud of Spencer. They were tasked with writing observations about objects like shells, marbles and rocks in ways they hadn't experimented with before.

Here's the video followed by a transcript of Spencer's poems (it's tough to hear him). He was so enthused by the project that he wrote two pieces! He was the only one. Good job, Spence!

The Strongest Drill
By Spencer Sullivan

The shell is a drill
Strongest drill in the world

It can go through
Wood, metal, crystal
Anything
Hard to use

It smells like chocolate
Feels hard
Like crystal

The Radio of Light
by Spencer Sullivan

In the radio
Might be an opera
Or my favorite band

It could be
Funky people
Old school people
Rock people

Do you know
What keeps the power going?

Rubber Ducky!

Well, it was bound to happen. The obligatory "bath" video that I'm sure will embarrass my daughter for years and years. It's rated G ;-)

Warning!!!!: I knock a plastic cup over just a few seconds in and it is LOUD. So, keep that volume low for a second.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Hey Everybody!

Jasmine and I recorded this video greeting. We miss everyone and hope you're all doing great!

Hi- Ho!

OK... So I'm pretty sick. I downed some Robitussin and now, despite the product label's claims otherwise, am drowsy. Jasmine is not. In fact, she's got a pretty amazing amount of energy today.
Still, I couldn't pass up the chance to share what I think is a pretty cute video of Jasmine chatting with her Kermit doll. Kermit is actually a bit larger than little Jasmine but, as you will see, she has no problem wildly wielding him about. This is also the most vocal I've seen her to date. "Pretty cute" yawns her sick dad Caleb, "I just wish she would take a nap with me.. or make me some chicken soup or something"

Dig it:

Nom Nom Nom

Hi everyone...

Jasmine is teething. The oral equivalent of Multnomah Falls began a couple of days ago, quickly followed by the urgent need to chaw on anything she could get her hands on. She's still talking a lot and growing at a quick pace. A once balding head is now full of little hairs. There's some strawberry blonde in there amongst some very brilliant, almost white hairs.

A week or so ago Jasmine managed to roll over from her tummy to her back. She's just now managing to roll from back to tummy. When on her tummy, she tries SO HARD to crawl. You can tell the sweet one wants to be mobile. It's amazing to watch her grow up.

Here's a video of Jaz munching down on a toy whilst working on her core strength. Yes, I'm aware of the dangers of leaving an infant unsecured on a couch, which is why I never leave her side ;-)

Packed Friday

Dude... Today is going to be seriously busy. First up this morning is Spencer's Jog-a-thon, followed immediately by playdate/sleepover madness that leads into Mom's birthday party hosted here at the house. Kazow! It should be fun.

I wrapped up my speaker review last night and sent it off. Writing reviews is weird. It fits somewhere between more conventional journalism that focuses on facts and an opinion piece. Where the former tends to lack the personality of the writer, the latter tends to lean heavily on witicisms and personal insight. I haven't been so nervous about something I wrote since the 11th Grade of High School. Funny.

Jasmine keeps yapping away and I just can't keep myself from picking up the camera and shooting off videos. If you're interested, here she is having a "chat" with Mom this morning.

For those readers who will be coming over tonight: See you soon!

A Fistfull of Firsts

Hi everyone!

Last night Jasmine had her first real laugh. While getting ready for bed, Spencer extemporaneously broke out in some sort of spastic interpretive dance (he's been know to do that from time to time.) Apparently, Jasmine was SO MOVED by the artistic display of spazzitude that she busted out laughing! Unfortunately, I missed the event but you know I have been working the dance moves trying to replicate whatever it was Spencer did to get her laughing. So far, not much luck.

I have recorded a few videos of Jasmine doing her baby talk thing. I know I'm probably one of the few that finds this SO adoreable but, hey, it's my blog and I'll post lots of videos if I wanna!

Here's one of Jasmine playing in her chair:


Another of Jasmine talking to her mobile:


And here's a random video of some squirrels building a nest out in our back yard. I found this pretty fun to watch. Hope it translates well to video. My apologies in advance for the really, really bad Aussie Wildlife Narrator impression:

Writing gig

So I heard back from Digital Trends and they've decided to have me do a speaker review for them. Sweet!

Ironically, they are having me review a pair of speakers from a company that competes with my former employer. I think this puts me ahead of the game because I'm fairly familiar with them already. They are a fun set of speakers to audition and I'm having a great time gathering data for my review. I'll post the published review as soon as it is up on Digital Trends' site. Werd.

In other news, Jasmine continues to amaze us with her vocal prowess. She's discovered that if she needs something, she doesn't need bust out with the crying. Instead, she starts trying to talk to us. I love it. Anything beats the tears and anguished red face of a baby who doesn't know how to get what they need. Here's a shot of Jaz having a chat with Mom...



Spencer has his Jog-a-thon this week! On Friday, he's going to shoot for 25 laps. To prepare, we have a big breakfast planned with plenty of hydrating liquids leading up to the event. Erika will be volunteering and tallying laps. If you live in the area and can stop by The Madelleine School at 10:30 to cheer them on, please do. The address is 3240 NE 23rd Ave
Portland, OR 97212. We'd love to see you. Also, ff you've already pledged, THANK YOU! If not and you would like to, please give us a call or shoot us an email. Thanks for supporting Spencer and his great school!

"I myself dabbled in pacifism once... not in 'Nam of course" -Walter Sobchak, The Big Lebowski

Another landmark event! Jasmine started taking a pacifier yesterday, which is a bit of a breakthrough. Previously, she was never interested in a "binky". In fact, she usually acted insulted that we would ever put a piece of faux anatomy in her face. Hey, if there's no food involved, then why should I be interested? Recently, Jasmine has been gnawing at her hand and experimenting with jamming various toys, plastic and otherwise, at her face. She hasn't quite got the hand-eye coordination down just yet, so sometimes those objects hurt when they make contact. Since it seemed obvious that she needed something safe to stick in her mouth, I decided to try a pacifier again. She bit! Literally. Of course, she doesn't know how to hold it or pick it up when it falls out just yet, so I have to be on constant standby to give it back to her lest she start yelling for me.

This experience with pacifiers brings up memories of my parents adding honey to my "kerr" (that's what I called it- wasn't I cute? ;-), which is seriously frowned upon these days. Did they just not have Bochelism back then or did the threat not seem as severe? No... they knew well of Bochelism. I know this for certain because I can recall a certain CHiPs episode where Ponch and John had to save Southern California from a baby food Bochelism threat. At the end, Ponch ended up holding the baby and then she spit up on him. Everyone thought it was hilarious then they did the staggered freeze frame ending that was so popular in the '70s (and awesome!) Would you beleive there is an entire DVD dedicated to those endings? Man I miss that show. Is it on DVD yet? LOL. Here's a quick video of The Sweet Pretty doing her thing.


And here's another sweet video. Not as pretty, though.

Getting in the groove

I'm surprised that it has taken this long to get into a good writing groove. Ideally, I would post a new blog each weekday with a weekend catch-up, but it is tough to make myself head up the stairs and away from the baby while she's sleeping. I don't like feeling disconnected from her for more than just a few minutes. Maybe I'm an overly concerned parent or maybe I just like having that strong bond with her-like I know how she's feeling based on her noises and movements. Whatever the reason, I've decided that a laptop would solve my issues by allowing me to jump in and blog whenever the urge hit me. I think this would do great things for my creativity as well, which I think is crucial because who wants to read a boring blog? So, if any of you readers have a line on a simple laptop with a built in wireless card, please let a brother know.

Jasmine continues to make remarkable advances in her new life. She's become extremely vocal in the last couple of days. You can tell that she's starting to grasp the concept that she can use the noises that she makes to communicate emotions. She's also figured out that she can control her hands and GRAB things with them! What a cool new trick this seems to be for her.

We're on to 6 month onesies now as the 3 month onesies just don't cut it. I seem to be hearing this same sort of story from other new parents/friends and it makes me wonder if we're just growing 'em bigger these days. If so, it would seem that the clothing designers and manufacturers are a little out of touch with the average baby size. UNLESS, they know exactly what they're doing and they just manage to sell you more clothes that way. Hmmmm..?

More later. I want to tell you about this horrendous TV show I saw the other day. In fact, it has me so riled up that I'm considering starting a sepearate, perhaps ocassionally more R-rated blog just so I can use some expletives to adequately communicate my utter disdain for this show. I'll get back to you on that.

One fine Friday

Yesterday was sweet, both figuratively and literally. Spencer got out of school at 11:30 yesterday so I took off to go pick him up at about 11:00. I had to break up Jasmine's slumber to load her in the car seat, then into the Kia (We've got to come up with a name for that car. I'm tired to referring to it as "The Kia"...suggestions appreciated) Somehow, I made it through the 16 minute drive to school, into the schoolhouse for 10 minutes, another 16 minutes back to our neighborhood, through a 20 minute whirlwind shopping trip at Fred Meyer and right up to the self check-out without Jasmine making a PEEP. Not a sound! What a good girl and what a huge blessing that turned out to be. Of course, the second we hit the self check-out, she announced she was done waiting for food and began demanding to be fed in a very loud, vocal manner. Fortunately, I had a bottle handy and Spencer was kind enough to hold it for me while I scanned through. Success!

After some lunch and little clean-up, I decided to bake some bread. Since it is such a hands on process, I asked Spencer to do it with me. I remember the first time I started working in the kitchen with my Mom. The science, the measurement and the creative aspect of baking makes for great little lessons.

The recipe I used made three loaves worth of bread, so I decided one regular loaf, one cinnamon swirl loaf and some cinnamon rolls would be a good plan of attack. Spencer really stepped in and did a great job. He managed the temperature of the milk and water, got the yeast going and helped get it all into the mixer.




With all the ingredients mixed together and kneaded, we let the dough rise. About 45 minutes and 7 games of Wii Fit later, the dough was ready to get punched down.



While that was going, I started to get dinner ready and thought I would share this little steak marinade with you. Take a flat iron, flank or London broil cut, and put it in a gallon sized ziplock bag. Add a cup or two of Florida's Natural Orange Tangerine juice (hey, can I get an endorsement over here?) Add 2-3 tablespoons of chopped garlic, kosher salt, fresh ground pepper and some steak seasoning. You really can't beat that stuff, it's got everything you need in it. Let it sit for about an hour and a half for flat iron, 2 hours or so for flank or London broil. Then toss it on the grill and sear the living daylights out of it. The juice adds a hint of sweetness and a acidity to the savory flavor of the steak and, trust me when I tell you, it is the shiznittiest.

Mr. Mom is in the house. Literally.

Blog Numero Tres

Shame on me! I let a whole two days slip by without a visit. My bad, ya'll.

But I'm back now, and things are great. Jasmine and I have a routine going that seems mutually agreeable. She eats, she smiles, she sleeps and feed her, smile back and work my tail off around the house.

My domestic hormones have kicked into overdrive. Yesterday, I managed to plow my way through about nine loads of laundry, set the stage for cooking dinner, get momentarily distracted by one of the worst sci fi films ever (and, not surprisingly, one of Erika's faves), Armageddon , and wrap up the evening with a nice meal of tangerine chicken, pasta and zuchini. YAYER!!

Jasmine is real gem of a baby girl. Her demeanor is so sweet and affectionate and at a surprisingly young age. Though I have little frame of reference, I'm pretty sure she is the most amazing 3 month old girl that has ever been born. Yeah.. pretty much.


In other news, I've decided I need to bake more bread... you know, in general. Particularly, Cinnamon bread. So I'm about to head off to see about some yeast. I'm pretty sure there is some buried up in my cabinet. Let's create some carbs, ya'll!

That's all I've got right now. Most of my creative juices (of which there are only a few ounces) are tied up with a writing sample I'm creating for a potential writing job with Digital Trends online magazine. Wish me luck!

CD

You're not sticking that thing in my mouth!

Blog Numero Dos

Long day yesterday. In an effort to try to get all of ourselves adjusted to a new daily routine, I've been trying to look after Jasmine for the better part of the day and feed her with a bottle. She's been reluctant to take a bottle for weeks now and absolutely HATES it when Mom isn't around for more than an hour or so. That makes for a really difficult combination.

Hearing her cry like it is the end of the world for hours on end is really wearing us down emotionally. It's only been two days of this, but it's almost more than we can take. While we expected an adjustment period, we hoped (perhaps expected?) that we'd see some improvement day to day. Not just yet, though. I find myself praying and pleading for some sort of breakthrough. It's especially tough on Erika, who is well bonded to this sweet little girl and hates to see her so upset for such long periods of time. How do you head off to work when you keep thinking that your sweet baby is at home, crying her head off and unwilling to eat?

Our game plan for the day is to disassociate me with the bottle feeding. Maybe if it is all roses and gumdrops when hanging out with Daddy for a while, she'll be less likely to see me as the evil man with the bottle that keeps getting shoved in her face. At least until Monday.

How long should we really expect this to take? Maybe if our expectations were a little more realistic, we'd be less prone to such extreme disappointment? Is it wrong to separate mom from baby? Are we just acting out of fear by having Erika jump at the chance to start work back up with her company? AAAAAAAACK!! Well, at least I know I can put Spencer to work once the weather drys up and that will pull in some dough. I got to training him last Spring. I think he's ready:




In other news: My former coworker, John Wanderscheid (who was also layed off) has put me in contact with a couple of web publishers who may have some writing work for me. I would start out doing speaker reviews for them which, among other things, involves getting a cool new pair of speakers to hang out with for a while. I love to write and I love audio gear. Sounds like a perfect match with me. Big props go out to John for recommending me and making efforts to help out. I only hope I can return the favor soon.

Wish me luck and expect another update soon.

Werd.

When life hands you lemons, it's ok to throw them back

Blog numero uno.

This is THE Denison Family Blog. There are other blogs by similar names, but this here is the REAL Family Denison ;-) (with the exception of my brother's family, of course, but he had enough creativity to generate a reasonably unique blog name so I'm off the hook)

We are Caleb, Erika, Spencer and the newly arrived Jasmine. In August of '07 I married Erika and her son Spencer. In March of '08 we learned we were pregnant. In May of '08 we purchased a house. In November of '08 Jasmine was born and in February of '09, I was laid off of a job I held for almost 4 years (a personal best for me)

Here I sit in my cozy little home office, cup of coffee to my right, domestic devastation to my left. Ok, that's an exaggeration, but there is a ton to do around the house so, to divert my attention, I shall clean. I'm good at cleaning and having a tidy house is not only helpful in these discombobulated times, but it is rewarding in a way only someone with mild OCD can really understand. Plus, it keeps me busy.

Since learning I was no longer employed (not even 48 hours ago) much has happened. For months we've had discussions about how to best support this family but it always seemed wise to stick with the status quo. Now, having little choice in the matter, it seems like the best move for Erika to return to her job full time while I stay at home and take care of our newborn. It's a role reversal that will take time to get used to, but I think it will work out well in the end. Ideally, I'll pick up students for private lessons and further enrich my music based income. Eventually I'll start my own business and then, of course, take over the world. Mr. Obama, you're on notice.

Thus ends the first cathartic process of documenting my life for all to witness. I hope family and friends will find this blog interesting and informative enough to keep visiting from time to time. In future posts, I hope to share my experiences with being a stay at home dad and professional musician. I'm really excited about that.