Meeting Auntie B.

Hey there Auntie B!



I really enjoyed meeting you and my uncle J. - finally - at Christmas at Grandma Jo's house! I guess I was at your wedding this summer, but I don't really remember it all that well, seeing as how I wasn't born yet or whatever. There was some good food, if I recall correctly.

Anyway, it was great to really meet you! I hope that I get to play with you again soon. I hear you live pretty far away so I won't hold my breath or anything. But maybe we'll get to see you this summer...?

Love, your niece,
Maisie

xoxoxo

From our house to yours.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

All tuckered out.

We had a lot of things planned for today - there's some things we need at Target, dishes and laundry to do, a kitty-hair-covered carpet to vacuum... you get the idea.

But Maisie is sleepy, so we have scrapped those plans and are sitting, cuddling, and snoozing.


"So quiet down, cobwebs, dust, go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep."

Making friends

One really fun thing about Maisie is that she likes (or, doesn't dislike) to meet new people. We love taking her places and showing her off!

On Sunday, for example, Maisie and I went to Turtle Bread Co. for brunch with a bunch of my friends. Sadly, I forgot to take any pictures of this. But she got to hang out and snooze on Geri's shoulder, which she clearly loved.


That afternoon, we went to Caroline's house to help her decorate her Christmas tree. Maisie got to meet Yasser, who'd helped Caroline pick up her tree and bring it home.


Then after we left Caroline's, we went to Nye's Polonaise Room where our friends Kate and Ry4an were celebrating their recent wedding. Maisie loved hanging out with Kate and all our friends who were there.

It was a very busy day, but very fun!

What we do with our days.

Some people have asked me what I do with myself during my days. Do I read a lot? Watch a lot of daytime tv? What do you do when you're not working?

Maisie and I do some interesting things - today, for example, we went Christmas shopping in downtown Minneapolis with her grandma (first time in the skyways!) - and even when we're at home, taking care her is pretty time-intensive. But the truth is that she sleeps quite a bit during the day. However, her favorite place to sleep is on a person. And during the day, that's me. So this picture is a pretty good representation of how I've spent my maternity leave.



All I can say is, it's going to be hard to go back to work. I'm really going to miss sitting at the laptop with a sleepy baby on my shoulder.

My left hand is frickin' huge

Dear blog,
So I've been working out a lot recently - nothing much, you know, just some toning exercises, some core stuff, you know, tummy time. And I've been pretty happy with the results.

But now my good friend (Mommy) and I were out to lunch at this really swanky restaurant. There were pictures of celebrities all over, and guitars and stuff, and cardboard cutouts of really famous politicans and moviestars. Anyway, so someone snapped a picture of me, and WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT, my left hand looks frickin' huge! I mean, maybe it was a reaction to this crazy diet I've been on (it's called the Breakfast Out Of Bounds diet, I don't know why)? I have to admit, whenever I go out to eat, people always stare, but I always thought it was because I looked so GOOD...

Maybe my hand was, like, swollen or something?

Anyway, check out the cardboard cutout of the man right behind me (who's he supposed to be anyway? must be famous German popstar or something) in the photo - it looked kind of phony up close, but in this picture it looks like he's practically got his chin on my head! Ooooh! Spooky, right? Totally.

Maisie out.

Al Franken and tummy time

This picture isn't Maisie, obviously, but instead what we did yesterday.



Along with our friend Sarah, we went to a broadcast of Al Franken's Air America radio show at the Brave New Workshop. It was funny and interesting to me and Sarah, and intensely boring to Maisie, who slept almost the entire time.

(Incidentally, Sarah and I are now convinced that he's going to run for Senate. At one point he made a joke about the contents of Spam, and then said "There goes the Austin vote...")

But because no post is complete without a cute picture of Maisie, here is a shot from today's tummy time session. She hates tummy time, but is getting really good at pushing herself up and controlling her head!

Cousin Dylan

Maisie's cousin Dylan came over yesterday to visit her and me.



Dylan is three and loves to help me with Maisie. He holds her, will help me burp her, and gets very distressed when she cries: "What does she want, Auntie Leah? Is she hungry?" (Usually, yes.)

They are very cute together!

One month

Yesterday was Maisie's one month birthday!



She spent the day cheering for the Vikings. They lost to Chicago, but that's okay because we still had fun watching the game with our friend Abi.

She also celebrated by doing her favorite thing, taking naps on people.

Bath time

One of our favorite things to do is give Maisie a bath. We know she doesn't hate it, because she doesn't yell at us, but we can't figure out if she enjoys it or not. She always looks like she's trying to figure out what on earth is going on.



"I just don't understand, Mom and Dad! Why am I wet? Where am I? What's happening here? Someone, please, tell me what's going on!!"


But even though she seems unsure about it, we definitely enjoy Maisie's bath time!

Thanksgiving Comb-Over

Dear blog,
I was hanging out at my grandpa's house on Thanksgiving (a totally overrated holiday in my opinion, I mean, what goes with milk?) and I totally had the post-lunchie nap thing going when all of a sudden my mommy yanks me out and someone takes this crazy picture. It looks like I have a freakin' comb-over, for goodness-sake!
What about my street cred!? I'll be like, yo, how's it hanging Jordyn? Hesus? And they'll be like: Hey Donald Trump. Buy me a trike?

My. Life. Is. Ruined.


In this other picture I was totally giving this wicked gang sign and I totally blinked.
Now it just looks like I'm saying, MU. I mean, MU? What's that? Shout out to MU? Muscle Umbrella? Milk Up?

Maybe like people used to say, Saddle Up?

Milk Up, dawgs.

Maisie out.

Baby, it's cold outside!

Winter's here... bundle up, everyone!

Maisie supposes her toeses are roses

but Maisie supposes erroneously.



Definitely not roses, though they are cute! Note the close connection between her second and third toes: this is one of the first things I noticed about her when I first saw her after she was born. Aaron and I didn't know this at the time, but this is a Jalonen trait that she inherited from my grandfather Robert Jalonen. She shares it with my uncles Bob and Emil, too!

Some of Maisie's new "firsts":
We watched "Singin' in the Rain" not too long ago, which I think may have been Maisie's first DVD movie... either that, or "Return of the Jedi."

Yesterday, Maisie took her first trip to the Mall of America with me, her Auntie Laura, and her cousin Dylan. This wasn't her first trip to a mall - we'd been to Har Mar a week or so ago - but it was her first time at the Mall.

Monday, she went out for Monday Night Football for the first time.

And Sunday afternoon, Maisie got carded for the first time. There's a casino about halfway between the Twin Cities and Ames, at the Top of Iowa rest stop about two miles south of the border on I-35. I suggested that we stop there for lunch on the way back from Thanksgiving weekend (first trip to Iowa!), since the casino would surely have a restaurant that would have better food than our other option: fast food drive-through. But when we went in, we got turned away because to get to the restaurant, you have to walk on the gaming floor, and nobody under 18 is allowed on the floor. Even though Aaron promised not to let her gamble, we got turned away.

Oh well! Now we know better than to try to take Maisie to a casino!

Thanksgiving

We had a great thanksgiving! We spent Thursday at Auntie Laura's house, celebrating with Leah's family. Then this weekend we traveled down to Iowa and celebrated with Aaron's family. Maisie got to meet a lot of relatives over the last few days, including her adorable (second?) cousin Bryce, her grandma Jo, and her great-grandparents Dieter.

Now we are home and all tuckered out from all the travel!

Maisie!

I am starting this blog to help our distant friends and family keep up with Maisie, Aaron and I, and also hopefully to serve as sort of an electronic baby book. Seeing as how I work in front of a computer, I feel like it'll be easier to keep up with updating a blog than it will sitting down and writing in a baby book.

So, to start us off, a cute pic of me and miss Maisie. In it, she is 8 days old.



I like that one because you get perspective - you can see what a tiny little peanut she is.

The second picture lets you see her little face better. It's not the greatest picture of her, and doesn't really do her justice. But neither Aaron nor I are particularly photogenic, so it doesn't surprise me that our daughter might not be, either. Still, she's all up in the adorable, I think.