Up to new tricks

Trying to make up for lost time, since we were sans camera for several weeks. Here are some new pictures showing you what Nicole is up to these days.

Click here for pictures.

The camera's back, and so is football season

The camera was fixed and delivered about 4 hours before kickoff. Unlike the Ravens, I didn't drop the package as soon as the Fed Ex person handed it to me.

Nicole enjoyed her first real Ravens game and was all dressed up, as you can see. There wasn't much good to come out of it, though, except for these pictures. Plus, we learned that the magic cookies still have some of their powers. For those who don't know, eating Jessica's chocolate chocolate chip cookies brings good fortune to the Ravens. It all started last year when the cookies brought them back from a 21-0 hole against Tennessee. In fact, I packed some cookies when I flew to Louisville on the day of the playoff game against the Colts. However, they lost my luggage -- with the cookies inside -- and I didn't get it until it was too late.

Fortunately, Jessica had just whipped up a batch of the cookies this weekend. They were in the freezer, waiting for Yom Kippur, but the Ravens needed the help early. So, with them trailing 19-13 in the fourth quarter, we quickly wolfed down a cookie. About a minute later Ed Reed ran back a punt for a touchdown to put them team up 20-19. Sadly, that was all the cookie could do, as their powers are no match for Billick's play calling or the referees' penalty calling. I won't be surprised if Nicole's first words are "Why the hell aren't they running the ball?" after I was shouting it for the last 6 minutes of the game.

Looking forward to a better result on Sunday. In the meantime, enjoy these pictures.

Monday morning quarterback

I know you are all super curious to learn about our big weekend. Well, Los Dos Molinos was all that it was cracked up to be, and more. We had a great time with Laurie and Knut. Plus, the food was damn spicy, just how I like it. Unfortunately, we don't think Nicole liked eating it the next day. I may have pushed the limit with how much heat she can tolerate. She wasn't her usual happy self on Saturday night when we went out with Mandy. Luckily, we were at such a loud restaurant that no one could her her crying.

Our camera is due to arrive today. Kevin's camped out waiting for the FedEx truck to arrive. He's got Nicole's Ravens outfit ready to go for the big game tonight, er, at 4pm. We promise to post some pictures as soon as possible. Go Heap!

Oh, and Kevin got to upgrade his birthday iPod to the new 4G nano, it's pretty cool.

Is it fall yet?

Just kidding. The weather has gotten a bit cooler here, and I heard that it's officially the end of monsoon season, so we're pretty excited. Another thing that has us happy is that Canon has shipped our repaired camera, so that should be arriving momentarily. You know what that means - lots of new pictures of Nicole will be hitting computer screens across the country soon.

We got a big weekend ahead of us. Tonight, Kevin and I are making the trek to south Phoenix with Laurie and Knut for dinner at Los Dos Molinos. Will it meet Kevin's expectations after all these years (and past attempted trips)? We'll let you know. Nicole will be hanging with Grandma and Poppie tonight. Nicole had a brief visit at daycare this morning, it was Grandparent Shabbat and how could her grandparents resist an invitation from Nicole's shayna punim?

The rest of the weekend will be spent baking (by me) to prepare for the annual break the fast soiree at Hermvy's house. Seriously, I think the entire Jewish community of Phoenix attends this thing. Other activities (not that they are less important than the baking) include watching football and finally getting to see Mandy. This all will lead up to the big event -- the Ravens game on Monday night. Who do you think will win? Kevin's looking forward to giving Nicole the scouting report in person as opposed to giving it to my belly during last year's football season.

Oh, and in case you were curious, Nicole ended up getting her dad an iPod Nano for his birthday. She's a big spender. I think we need to cut back her allowance.

One problem solved...

Our photos have been moved from Yahoo to Shutterfly. The links on the right side under "Pictures -- in case you missed them" have all been updated. Also, you can now just go to langbaum.shutterfly.com to view all of our albums (it's the handy link at the bottom of the list as well).

I changed the links in the most recent posts but was lazy and didn't go back and change all of them in the archives. If you want to look at pictures, better to click into the links on the main page rather than going through old posts.

Unfortunately there won't be more pictures for a little while. Our camera succumbed to the Arizona heat and had to be sent back to Canon for repair. If all goes well, we should have it back in a week. We promise to take a bunch of pictures as soon as it is returned. Nicole's looking different every day. Her hair is really growing (she must get that from her mother) and she seems to be getting taller (she gets that from someone other than her mother).

Also, it's been four nights in a row so I won't jinx things by saying that Nicole is sleeping through the night. She's good from about 8-8:30 pm until at least 5 a.m. Sometimes she'll go to 6. Needless to say it's made our lives, and Jessica's in particular, much better.

Please bear with us

A couple of technical issues will likely prevent access to the photos currently on the site and keep us from adding new ones for a bit. One is that Yahoo is getting rid of its photo system, so I'll have to move all of the pictures somewhere else and change all of the links. So if you look for pictures and don't find them, I'm in the midst of that changeover. On top of that, our camera seems to be on the fritz and we can't take pictures right now. Also working on getting that addressed. In the meantime, you'll just have to take our word that Nicole is still adorable.

Casual Friday

In response to Smitty's comment regarding my lack of posting, all I have to say is "sheesh to you". Let me reiterate my Institute's motto:

Banner Alzheimer’s Institute…
…ending Alzheimer’s disease without losing a generation…

Yes, I am saving the world. Or at least a small percentage of it (a percentage that increases with age, but I won't go into those stats here).

But Smitty's comment did inspire me to blog a little bit. But I can't do it at the office, given that work blocks most websites, even the most innocent of ones. Email has also been a problem. Case in point, I emailed my CV to my work address only to have it denied because the word "Kraut" was used too many times. You see, back at Hopkins I co-authored many papers with Mike Kraut . . . yes, that Kraut was obviously referring to a bad, bad thing. Kevin used the word "crap" once in an email sent to my work address and it was returned to him as undeliverable due to foul language. I think if the amount of energy that went into blocking websites and emails was used instead for good, we would have already ended Alzheimer's disease.

Ok, enough on that note. Work is actually great. Nicole is doing super, too. She's been enjoying her daily treat of rice cereal and we're encouraged when a fraction of it actually ends up in her stomach. Her biggest complaint right now is not knowing what to get her dad for his birthday on Tuesday. It's a big deal you know, her first birthday gift to him. If you have suggestions, she'd love to hear them. You can email her at nicole.langbaum@gmail.com