Graham is nine months old. (And I got a new job and we're moving.)

We had Graham's nine month appointment yesterday. As expected, he's still chub-o-licious.
22 lbs., 11 oz. (81st percentile), 28 1/4 inches tall (50th).
And for those of you who read the blog but aren't on Facebook, I got a new job! In August I will be starting as an Assistant Librarian at UC Santa Cruz, where Jonathan is a professor. Sometime around then we will also be moving, hopefully into the house that we had a bid accepted for on Monday. It's been a pretty exciting week! We'll provide full details on the house once it's closer to actually being ours, but it's 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, about 1300 square feet, huge great backyard, hardwood floors, built around 1950, and we love it. Especially because it's conveniently near a pond, a great elementary school, and the university. So that's awesome.

Cool things about Santa Cruz include being able to have your first kite-flying experience happen to be next to the ocean.


Not cool things about Santa Cruz are that it is farther from Helen and Happy Hollow.

Also farther from our pediatrician, Dr. Lee, who was already a bit of a drive north. Fortunately, he's recommended a couple folks in Santa Cruz. Now I just need a dentist, optometrist, primary care doctor for grownups, and a stylist. Bakeries appear to be covered, so that's good. Here are the boys with Dr. Lee yesterday. He's been absolutely great, and Finn is always excited to go see him. Yesterday he insisted Dr. Lee listen to his chest as well as Graham's, but didn't seem to mind skipping the ear light.

The Theater Experience, + Eating

Finn is a big fan of Toy Story, and Toy Story *2*! (He strongly emphasizes the two.) He has two Toy Story hats (one for home, one for school) and recently got Toy Story Crocs. Oh, and the pajamas. In the runup to TS3, there was clearly much more TS gear at Target, which he asked about. While Daddy was watching basketball briefly on TV, there were two TS3 commercials, which he asked about. I broke down and explain that people were making a NEW TS movie, but it wasn't finished yet. So it seemed like a good time to try the theater. We prepped him by talking about the huge screen, the lots of seats, and the popcorn. We didn't prep him for the loudness, which kept him with his hands over his hears for the many advertisements and 5 ponderous previews. I think he used up a good half-hour of his movie attention span before TS3 even started.

He liked the show, it thankfully wasn't too loud, and it held his attention for probably the first half. After that he did pretty well, but preferred to stand, sit on the floor and peek between the seats at the screen, or move from lap to lap asking questions. Sitting on either side of him kept him from crawling down the isle. So it was pretty successful, and we had a great time! Thanks to Rebecca watching Graham for us!


Speaking of Graham, we've previously told you that he is quite skilled in the consumption arts. He's quickly ascended the food ladder from milk to chunky baby food, to bread rolls, and to cheerios, not necessarily in that order. I'm pretty sure that he can drink out of a straw. Let's just say that he is advanced for his age. Buying Finn a muffin and Graham a roll to suck on is now a standard part of our Sunday morning farmers' market routine. Here is a picture of Graham with his two favorite things.

Lastly but not leastly, we all managed to more or less swing simultaneously in four swings this weekend, and I managed to get some video. Since Graham likes swings so much, Finn is starting to come around.

Family Swing from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Oh, and here is Graham sucking down a root beer at that same park:

Watch out, Finn

Because Graham will soon be getting into all of your stuff. Behold:

Army crawl from Katie on Vimeo.
Look at those teeth! The forward movement starts about a minute in. I thought about editing it down, but then I decided I wanted to post it before he was walking. FYI, Finn started doing this at almost exactly the same age - 8 1/2 months.

What a fun thing to come home to! All 3 guys gave me a very VERY warm welcome, and it was even better to come home than it was to get away. I had a great weekend in Chicago, seeing sights, catching a Cubs game, and just generally enjoying the luxury of uninterrupted sleep and of not planning, worrying about, cleaning, or arranging anything. If you're in the area, I highly recommend tours from the Chicago Architecture Foundation. Also, beer and jagerschnitzel from the Berghoff. Here is Finn with his souvenir (which prompted his declaration "I'm gonna scratch some bears!").
And here are the boys being cute on a bench last week, just because.

No Frills Blog Post

Katie is in Chicago visiting her friend Nina and generally having a great relaxing time. Here at Camp Fortney, we Fortney boys have been to the farmers' market, San Francisco Zoo, Helen & Arthur's house, the park, the toy store, and a few other places. Here are some pics from the events:

You can't ride the real bears at the zoo, which is always a bummer. Since it was 90 degrees down in Los Gatos, going up to San Francisco, where the weather is usually crappy and cold (sorry!) was a nice change. The sun did come out after our 3rd hour at the zoo. Both boys also got to pet turtles and a bunny. Graham got very excited for the turtles.
Here is Finn modeling his "new hat." Which doubles as his current ball container. Speaking of balls, we picked up a basketball, soccer ball, and baseball bat and ball. He prefers baseball so far, as he should. ;)
Above, Mr. Cutes "rides" on this dolphin at the park. Finn was busy impressing a 3-year-old girl on the seahorse.
Yay double swing! Graham had a great time (See movie below!). Finn has a long-standing aversion to swings (He's more of a slide man) but spent a good 30 seconds on here before deciding that he was done. This park was up in Mountain View (Rengstorff) and Finn told me that we would be coming back.
Finn is laying on his stomach on the left. This is on the plaza at the farmers' market. A nearby yoga studio has kids classes, and they had one outside to drum up some business. Finn walked over and stared for quite awhile before they kindly invited him in. I was stuck under Graham, so he was entirely on his own. The women basically thought he was there without parents for 10 minutes. This was some sort of relaxation part. I'm not sure why he is the only one on his stomach. Also, he bypassed the standard downward dog with his own one-legged version, which left everyone impressed. Even though he's 18 months below their minimum age, they said they'd love to have him. :)

Baby swing!!

Baby Swing! from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

I'm still here. And by the way, I still knit.

In the month of May I took very few pictures and wrote exactly one blog post. I had a nice Mother's Day, I survived another short Jonathan trip, I went to Happy Hollow a lot, I worked, and I tried to keep up with these crazy Fortney boys.
I also finished knitting an afghan for my mom that I started back in 2007. I hardly touched it between Christmas 2007 and when Graham was born. Funny story: I thought my passport was lost for about two years; I recently found it in a box of pins, clips, needles, and other knitting paraphernalia, along with Finn's and my hospital bracelets. So here it is, my mom's 2007 Christmas and birthday present, finally mailed shortly after Mother's Day 2010:
Now that that's all wrapped up (just in time, because it is now WAY to hot to knit with most of an afghan on my lap), I've gone back to my other giant project from 2007, my "Learn to Knit" afghan, from the Learn-To-Knit-Afghan Book. Fortunately, it's several small pieces, so I can knit even if it's warm. After this, I'm only knitting small things for a while, like hats. Possibly thimbles.
I've also been cooking some more, now that it's summer and we have tasty things to eat. I think this week I'm going to be too afraid to turn on the oven, but if I wasn't, I'd make this again. We end up licking the pan every time.
And because I can't do a post without any pictures of the boys, here's something we did a couple weeks ago. Finn had a fun project for school about how many pets and siblings he had and stuff like that. He didn't feel much like coloring that day, so we printed out some pictures to cut out and glue on. I like the resulting fit-them-all-on-a-4-by-6 collage.
More at Flickr. No really, I just uploaded some last night.