Robyn's Graduation

On Friday, Robyn officially finished her MFA in screenwriting from UCLA with a graduation ceremony that was outside on a spectacular LA afternoon. Robyn's parents were here and both Jack and Avery went as well. Knowing how hard it has been to juggle the classes, meetings and writing with being a mother, we were all so proud to watch her walk across that stage and get her degree.

Avery slept through most of the ceremony and Jack had a hard time finding Robyn among all of the black robes and ended up playing with his cars or climbing on trees behind the audience, but both kids were great. After graduation, we went to a reception were Robyn got to see a lot of her friends as well as several who graduated last her but were there to help celebrate. All in all, it was a fantastic day! Below are pictures of day and weekend.

Robyn's UCLA Graduation

Avery Grows, Robyn Wins

Avery continues to grow at a rapid pace. At her two month checkup, she checked in at 12 lb. 4 oz and 23 1/2 inches long. That means she's grown almost 6 pounds and 4 inches in only 2 months! She's shot up from 17th percentile to 85 percentile in two months and at this pace, she'll be the biggest three month old around. Needless to say, the doctor was very happy with her progress and said she's doing great! She's super sweet and loves napping in her pink vibrating chair and trying to talk to Mommy, Jackie, and Daddy.

Robyn found out some great news this week. Her script, "The Dog Conspiracy" which is a family comedy, won two awards this week. The first is called Oliver's Prize and is awarded to the best family or kid oriented film. The second one is the National Association of Theater Owners Fellowship in Film and is given by the faculty at UCLA for both an individual script as well as overall great performance in the classroom. It's one of the bigger awards UCLA gives so she's really excited.

Robyn also has a couple of big events this week. The first is the Screenwriters Showcase which is Monday night. At this event, the students and faculty celebrate another good year and showcase a few scripts. It's always fun, most of Robyn's classmates are there, and then there's a big party afterward. The big event though is graduation, which is Friday afternoon. It's hard to believe that three years have past, but they have, and Robyn officially earns her MFA on Friday. She's worked really hard for it and has somehow managed to do it while having one toddler and being pregnant with Avery. Jack, Avery, and I are all very proud of her!

Below are links to some new pictures.

Memorial Day 2008

Avery & Jack, End of May, Early June 2008

Recent pictures of Avery

Sorry, we've been pretty bad about posting pictures of Avery. Here are a bunch with some of Jack as well and a few random ones with Robyn or me.

Avery 4 to 8 Weeks

Avery: Growing Little Girl

We took Avery in for her four week checkup on Friday and were pretty amazed at how much she has grown. We knew that she'd been often and eating a lot, so we knew she'd grown, but she has REALLY grown. At her four week visit, she was 9lb 4 oz and 21 3/4 inches long. That's almost 2 pounds heavier than she was two weeks ago. Two pounds in two weeks and 2 1/4 inches in 4 weeks! She's gone from being a small baby to being right in the middle of the range in only two weeks. She's clearly following in the footsteps of her big brother!

Speaking of, Jack is doing great and his teachers at school say he has been very happy recently. He really likes being a big brother. He's also been pooping in the potty at school which is a really big step forward. He got the baseball tee out this morning and was smacking the ball all over the backyard. Unlike two weeks ago, he was listening to my suggestions and realized that I can help him hit the ball farther. Moms and Dads do know about some things.

Robyn and I are doing ok and we managed to take the whole family to dinner at our favorite Mexican food place last weekend. This two kid thing is not easy, but it's doable. It's tough on the days that I go to the plant b/c I leave early and can't take Jack to school. Not that it's easy on the other days, but it's tougher then. It's hard to believe it's already been a month since Avery was born. Time really flies.

Below are some pictures.

Avery Elizabeth Paris - March 29, 2008

The newest member of our family joined us on March 29, 2008 at 2:23pm. After all of our concerns how how small she was, she weighed in at 6 lbs 5 oz and measured 19.5 oz long. There was a bit of confusion about her actual birthweight though. The scale in the delivery room showed 6 lbs 0 oz but she weighed 6 lb 5 oz a few hours later in the nursery and weighed 6 lbs earlier this morning, so everyone has concluded that there is no way she only weighed 6lbs at birth. Regardless of how much she weighs, she's doing great. She wants to eat essentially anytime she's awake so that has been challenging but it's a great sign. Robyn is recovering well and is already free of all tubes, is eating solid foods, and just took a shower. Looks like we'll be at the hospital until Wednesday but Robyn and Avery are doing great. So far, Avery seems to have a very laid back disposition and only cries until she realizes that someone is taking care of whatever ails her (dirty diaper, need for food, etc). She also loves to be held which has been great for dad and Nanny (Robyn's mom).

Jack has been really excited to see Avery and has been really cute around her. He keeps saying, "She's so little" and "she's so cute" and has been talking about her to pretty much everyone we see, nurses, doctors, kids at school, people at the cafeteria, etc. He told us he wants her to come home so that he can show her his toys and teach her to ride his tricycle. Such a good big brother.

Below are some pictures form her first 24 hours.

Easter Egg Hunt

Jack got invited to an Easter egg hunt at his friend Zion's house and he had a blast. Before the egg hunt, Jack played and swam in the pool in the pool with Daddy. The actual egg hunt went really quickly (that's what happens when you have lots of three year olds), but they all still had fun.

Robyn's doing great and we found out on Friday that the baby is growing fine. She's still a bit small for her age, but the doctors aren't concerned anymore.

Baby #2 Update

We're down to the last three weeks now and we're certainly ready for the little girl to make her appearance. Well, we're not quite ready as we still need to do some rearranging in the house and buy a few things, but we're excited nonetheless. Jack is getting excited as well and was talking about how he will get to show the baby how to do things and will get to hold her. He also likes reading his book about being a big brother. His future baby sister still does not have a name yet, although we've narrowed it to two.

Below are some pictures of Robyn and the new baby to be, in utero! We found out from the doctor last week that the baby is a little on the small side, so he wants Robyn to try to take it easy and to get monitored at the hospital twice week. Everything looks ok so far, but we'll need to keep an eye on how well she is growing.

Trip to Palm Springs

Two weeks ago, we went out to Palm Springs for a weekend of relaxing before the baby comes. Although Robyn is winding down her last quarter at UCLA and needs to finalize her last two scripts, it seemed like a good time before things really get busy. We got in Friday afternoon after a quick stop at the outlet malls and spent most of the weekend relaxing. Robyn got a motherhood massage and Jack & I went to an outdoor zoo called the Living Desert. One of the attractions is the largest model train set I have ever seen. It's HUGE! I didn't think I was going to be able to get Jack away, but eventually we went to see the giraffes, zebras, bighorn sheep, etc.

One common activity was feeding the ducks that were outside our room. Jack had an absolute blast chasing them and having them eat out of his hand. On Sunday, we couldn't leave until we fed the ducks which turned out to be more work than we thought since most of them were hiding from the wind. Eventually we found some on the 18th fairway of one of the golf courses and managed to feed them while staying out of the way of golfballs.

Jack Riding His Bike and Trike

One of Jack's new favorite hobbies is to ride his tricycle or bicycle (depending on how he feels). He's getting good at both of them and likes riding around the backyard or around the neighborhood. He rode is bike over to his friend Zion's house which is about 6 blocks away! Oh yeah, and he likes to ride in his footed jammies.

Jack's Third Birthday Party

On February 9, Jack celebrated his third birthday. Yep, hard to believe he's three, but he is! The party was at a place called Joey's Gym, which is a big play place. Jack, Mommy, Daddy, Nanny, and Poppy all got there early to setup which gave Jack lots of time to play on the equipment before the other kids got there. He loved that and by the time the kids started showing up, he'd already started sweating. The kids ran and played and followed along with a bunch of games. After playtime, they had cheese quesadillas, rice and beans (all of which Jack declined in favor of fruit and cheese). For the cake, Jack wanted ice cream cake with the Cars theme and a big Lightning McQueen on top. He loves ice cream, but still doesn't really like the cake part.

Baby #2: It's a Girl!

We're excited to announce that not only are we having another baby, we found out today that it's a girl! We are really excited for her anticipated arrival on April 6. Above is a picture of the beautiful girl.

Halloween

Ok, so we're not as timely with the postings as I would like, but at least I didn't go three months between postings this time.

Last week was Halloween and we took Jack over to his friend's house for a little trick or treating and a lot of running and playing. He had two potential costumes and tt took a bit of coaxing, but he eventually opted for "Mater" from the Cars movie.

At his friend Zion's house, the kids (mostly boys) ran around for a bit, as boys tend to do, and then the dads took all of the kids trick or treating in the neighborhood. He was hesitant at first, but then soon learned that if he went up to the house, they gave him candy. Pretty soon he was running out ahead of me with his little green jack o' lantern dragging behind and yelling, "there's another one Daddy!" He also learned that if you just kept standing at the door amongst a crowd, the owner of the house would sometimes forget that they had given you candy and would give you another piece. We hit pretty much every house we passed with the exception of one where the owners had gone all out on the decorating. I'm talking smoke machines, giant spider webs, tombstones, and some sort of goblin booth at the front of the house. Jack stared at the house for at least minute and then said he wanted to just go to the next one.

In the end, he got tons of candy, which I think he has sort of forgotten about, and had a great time.

Back From Hiatus

If you're reading this for the first time, which you probably are since I didn't email anyone when we started this blog three months ago, you may have noticed the big gap between the posts. The reason is simple, Kristen showed me how to set it up a while back and then I forgot/got busy/got lazy, etc. I did think about updating several times, but I never got to it. Anyway, the Paris blog is back and I'll try to keep up this time.

This was an interesting weekend with an unusual combination of events. Our anniversary was this week (9 years for those keeping track) and we went to a great French place for a romantic dinner. The next day, we drove an hour and half into Riverside county to a demolition derby at the fair. Jack loved watching the colorful cars crash into each other and I must say Robyn and I had fun too. If you haven't been to a demolition derby, it's worth checking one out. Jack also hit the petting zoo and even rode on the back of an elephant! What's a trip to the fair without an elephant ride?

Other than good restaurants and dusty fairs, we've been busy. School has started again for Robyn, Jack is attending preschool, and I've been working on the fresh pomegranate season.

More to come, I promise.

Recent Picture

Here's a picture of us at a Santa Monica farmers market on Fathers Day.