Busy busy!

Looks like Jonathan beat me to the blog tonight, but I'm going to post anyway - there's been too much going on to wait! Graham got his first tooth on Sunday, the day after he turned six months old. He now eats rice cereal, applesauce, bananas, and broccoli, and loves it all.
Finn, of course, had to get in on the action when he saw us attempting to take the photo above. He has many teeth, and will show them to you if you ask. Or, you know, if you don't.
My mom went home yesterday. Having her here was so wonderful - I almost didn't miss Jonathan at all! (Just kidding. But she does wash more dishes. Hint, hint.) We watched New Moon, and it was just as awful as I was expecting, so that was fun. Last Thursday we went to the newly reopened Happy Hollow, where Finn was very excited, after hearing about all the animals they have there (jaguar! lemurs!), to hear that he would get to see a DONKEY. Here he is feeding his new friend Maybelline.

Feeding the donkey from Katie on Vimeo.
And here's my mom with the boys, the best shot we got with these wiggly boys the one time we thought to get the camera.
Fortunately, things haven't descended into complete chaos because my friend Angie has come down for a few days to help out and squeeze my cute children. Yay help! More goodies at Flickr.

Still not home

This is week #2 in Santa Barbara. Now I'm here for a big exoplanets conference. Last week was just part of a longer-term workshop, but that's not important. What is important is that Graham is a cute baby and is 6 months old now. Look at that kid!

I've taken to calling him "portly," which is a word you don't hear enough of any more. Another phrase no one says anymore, which I like, is "by and by," as in "by and by, daddy finally came home from Santa Barbara." You can find it in a few Little Golden Books from the 1940s. Finn has a few in his ever increasing collection.

In preparation for Easter, the Los Gatos Bunny Fun Hunt was last Saturday, and Arthur (almost 2) and his mom Rachel came down. There was a big egg hunt, and best of all, a big inflatable jumpy castle. Finn LOVED it. We should get one permanently. You know, for Finn. And me. Here are Finn and Arthur after the hunt. Note the new Toy Story hat for Finn. He's got two now---one for home and one for school.

I'm excited to come back and see my boys in 2 days!

The View from Pismo Beach

This Spring has been a blur of short trips all over the country to give various talks and such. This week and next week (with a trip back home on the weekend) I'm down in at the University of California, Santa Barbara, for a workshop and conference on "exoplanets," aka planets around other stars, aka what I spend my time studying. It has been quite fun--there is a big collection of exoplanet researchers here, so it is like being in an astronomy department where everyone studies something very related to what I do.

I'll be glad at the end of next Friday and when I can go home and just BE for a few weeks. I miss my family!

My friend Sarah Justin, who I've known for...almost 18 years...since we were sophomores in high school, lives just up the coast in Pismo Beach with her fiance Joel. Apparently it has been awhile since high school, but it doesn't seem like it. Sarah and Joel have a beautiful house with a fantastic view of the Pacific Ocean. Here we are before I headed back down to Santa Barbara:

Happy St. Patrick's Day

...from Finnster McMonkey McBean and Grammy O'Grammersons.
Graham is officially a sitter now, sometimes for several minutes at a stretch. Between that and the gorgeous weather the past few days, we've been having some good times this week.

Shout out to the Kearney Heidgerkens for the cute matching shirts!

Mom's Visit

Hello folks! My Mom was in town for almost 4 days last week, on her spring break from teaching ESL, and we had a great time. Finn was a little confused as to why Grandpa wasn't there too, but alas, he was "at work." My Mom did most of the boy-watching duties on Monday and Tuesday, and still had time to clean up the house. Yay! We'll be seeing my Mom and Dad again at cousin Elise's wedding in April. Here is the 4 of us, as taken by Katie, on Santana Row in San Jose.


Finn has really been getting good at riding his bike this past week. He can go really fast and can coast almost 20 feet with his feet up. I think he will have *no problem* moving over to a pedal bike by age 3. And to think that I was 6 when I learned to ride! I think both boys will never have need of training wheels. Might be time to start concentrating more on ball sports.

Coasting! from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

I'm coming at you from the Tempe, AZ, tonight, as I'm visting ASU early this week. Thankfully for me and the family, this is my last school visit for awhile. Although there is a conference to be at later this month....

Graham is HUNGRY. Finn is hungry for consumer goods.

We were going to wait until closer to the six month mark to start Graham on solids because honestly, we just don't need any more moving pieces in our dinner routine. But I'd noticed him staring at Jonathan's pizza the other night, and then this happened:

Mmm, naan. from Katie on Vimeo.
Note how he grabs my hand to help guide it back to his mouth. Since then he's sampled some of the traditional first foods - rice cereal, mashed bananas. Jonathan also slipped him a bit of strawberry at the farmers market this morning. The rice cereal was not his favorite, possibly just because it does not go from bowl to belly FAST enough, but here he is giving it a shot:
And I've been meaning to mention that Finn has has become a big fan of online shopping. We let him pick out his next pair of shoes, and from hundreds of possibilities including fire trucks and muppets he was adamant in his selection of "the green scary ones." Thank you, Zappos, for your super speedy shipping.
Since then he has also selected a hat online, and thank goodness we had that option, because it was apparently very important that his new hat have "Buzz AND Woody" on it; one or the other simply would not do. His Uncle Allen and Aunt Keisha got him some Toy Story PJs for Christmas, and even though he hadn't seen the movie yet, they were an instant favorite. Now that he's seen Toy Story and Toy Story 2, he's become a pro at spotting the merchandise. And so it begins.

Photo comparisons part 2

Hey, who's that kid?
That would be me on the left, in one of the great photos my mom just sent me, circa-I'm-not-sure-when. Photographic evidence that I probably deserve whatever's coming.
Second, here's a series we took of Finn back when he was about four months old.
As an experiment, we put Graham in the same outfit at about four and a half months.
The results speak for themselves, and do not surprise any of us. And just for fun, here's a short movie of Graham the other day, being his cheerful self.

Typical Graham from Katie on Vimeo.
For those of you who can't get enough, we also have recent videos of butterfly watching and of Finn checking out the baby chickens at the hardware store, and a few new photos over at Flickr.

A messy month ahead

It is never easy to take care of both boys all by yourself. This is course falls upon Katie much more often than me. Part of my job involves travel from time to time, like going to give talks at other universities, or to exoplanet conferences. Since Finn was born I've definitely cut back on the conferences generally, but at the same time the number of invited talks I get is something that I'm judged on at tenure time, so I pretty much accept every direct invitation I get. Katie's job has no such requirements, so the travel is very one-sided. This month I had two 3-day trips to Boston and Tucson, and next month it is Minneapolis and Phoenix, with two five-day trips to Santa Barbara at the end of the month. Thankfully Katie's Mom is coming to town! It is hard to be away because my boys grow up so much in just a few days! And I know that they miss me so much. Katie is certainly building up a massive reserve of goodwill points.

One of the fun things about clothes recycling is that we can see all of our fun baby clothes again! Like this classic dress shirt onesie that Finn grew out of way too fast. Apparently your baby can't help but look like a suave man-about-town in it!

Last week, to celebrate a big award that I won, we went out for sushi. Finn was very well behaved and enjoyed several things. He wasn't a fan of tuna or salmon, but he did eat most all of a piece of unagi. (Which is eel.) He also liked the miso soup and they made him a special soup of rice and tofu. He used the chopsticks with limited success. Graham, mister happy, was a big hit with the staff as well.

Me and My Boys

Finn is getting more grown up every day! Even messier temper tantrums count as growing up, I guess. You gotta go through that before you can grow even more and never have temper tantrums. Right? Right?!

He is also really fun because he's a pretty good talker. Last weekend we went down to Santa Cruz to visit my office and to see the last of the monarch butterflies, down by the beach, on their migration. Finn: "Go see butterflies in Daddy's office." While at my office he got to see my 2-foot animatronic "Dancin' Shoutin' James Brown." Scary. Finn: "I don't like him." Finn a week later: "Daddy's office. I don't like him." Here is the crew on my office couch.

I have no reason to post this next picture, except for its extreme awesomeness. Pirates love spoons! Arg!

Graham has been testing our patience with his poor sleeping habits the past few weeks. But in the daytime he is irresistible.

Finn has been slowly mastering riding his Strider bike. He has not gone down to the farmers' market again, but he does like going on the driveway, and sometimes into the neighborhood. What a goof!

Bike riding with Daddy from Katie on Vimeo.

Happy Valentine's Day from the Fortneys

Brotherly love!