First Rollover

Tonight I was trying to take pictures of her so I put her on her stomach on the couch. She was obviously tired of me doing this because she wouldn't look at me so I kept calling her name and flashing the camera to get her attention. Well she sure showed me! The next thing I knew she rolled over onto her back and then smiled. She was so proud of herself for her new-found mobility. Granted the couch does slant in at the middle, I'm not sure how she would fare on hard surfaces. Anyway, I got some pics and a video of it.



She is also spitting now which is oh so becoming of a young lady. Actually, I think it's hilarious. I love the face she makes when she does it. I think she's trying to imitate noises we make with our tongues. I'll have to get a better one later but here's an idea.

Basil Chicken in Coconut-Curry Sauce

I've been inspired to try new recipes lately and I finally made it happen this week..\ I'm not usually one to try exotic dishes, but Tally has really had a thing for curry lately. This one is out of the Better Homes & Gardens (the red checkered one or pink if you're Jade) cookbook. I thought it tasted good and Tally & Janelle said it was good too. You be the judge.



Prep: 25 min.
Chill: 1-2 hours (chicken marinade time)
Cook: 15 min.
Makes: 4 servings

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
2 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cracked pepper
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 large red onion, chopped (1 cup)
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 fresh jalapeno peppers, seeded and finely chopped (I substituted for red peppers and my fingers are still burning. It made the dish go from medium to hot - exactly what I wanted)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 14 ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons snipped fresh basil
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
3 cups hot cooked rice

1. Cut chicken into 1-inch pieces. Place chicken in a medium bowl. In a small bowl stir together the curry powder, salt, black pepper, and chili powder. Sprinkle spice mixture over chicken, tossing to coat evenly. Cover and chill for 1-2 hours to allow spices to penetrate meat.

2.In a large nonstick wok or skillet cook and stir onion, garlic, and peppers in hot oil over medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Remove onion mixture from wok. Add half of the chicken to wok. Cook and stir for 3-4 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Remove chicken from wok. (If necessary, add additional oil.) Cook remaining chicken as above; remove from wok.
3. Combine coconut milk and constarch. Carefully add to wok. Cook and stir until slightly thickened and bubbly. Return chicken and onion mixture to wok. Stir in basil and ginger. Cook and stir abou 2 minutes more or until heated through. Serve over hot rice.

At Last...Toes Meets Mouth

Kelsey finally figured out how to get her toes into her mouth today. It kept her occupied everytime she found them. I'm sure they have many more fun-filled days together to look forward to.

My Little Eater

Last night after feeding Kelsey, she still seemed hungry. It was dinnertime, so I sat her in the Bebe Pod & spoon fed her rice cereal. As you can see, she was so hungry it looked like she was trying to eat the cupcakes off her bib! I tried not to get her dirty because I had already given her a bath but no such luck. It got everywhere, including all over me. She kept trying to grab the spoon to feed herself. I guess I wasn't quick enough for her voracious appetite.

New Play Mat

This week, Tally brought home a new play mat for Kelsey from the FAO Schwartz-esque toy store on the Bahnhofstrasse called Franz Carl Weber. It's a Kaloo mat I've had my eye on for a few months now. Well, she loves it! Here's some pics I took of her on it.


I didn't know I had a "Label Looker" at such a young age. It's as if she's saying, "Ah it's Kaloo? You shouldn't have."

My Laughing Baby!

This song, "The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson is Kelsey's (& my) favorite song right now. Seriously, Kelsey starts smiling when it turns on and laughing when I sing it to her. I tried to record it but she wont do it again of course. If you scroll to the bottom of the blog, you can put the music on pause so you can here here laughing in this video I took the other day.



It's funny how babies can look like both parents. She looks a ton like Tally and everyone comments about that (and I agree). However, in this video, she looks a lot like me when I was a baby.

Heath Ledger Found DEAD!?

Can you believe it? How sad is that! I'm on the phone with my mom right now and she just told me. I almost cried! Who knew that my "10 Things I Hate About You" highschool hearthrob's death would still have such an effect on me. Anyway, it's a sad day in Hollywood.

We were just there in NY near Soho too...

On another note, check out the 4 months post, NY post, Christmas post, beach post (new video)... they're a couple posts back.

Kelsey is 4 months old

Kelsey weighs 15 pounds (6.82 kilos) and is 24 1/4 inches (61.6 cm) tall now!


Over the last few weeks, she's learned some new tricks, tried some new things, and had a few firsts:

First Rice Cereal
We tried it for the first time a few weeks ago in California. My parents got a kick out of watching her. She liked it so much but doesn't quite have the tongue skills to help it down. She did NOT like when we took that spoon away!

Touching her Toes


First Ponytail


Putting her binki in by herself
Unfortunately this doesn't happen all the time and never at night (she's still swaddled although that may change by next month as she gets better at this).


Gaining interest in eating and drinking
She would drink her milk out of a water bottle if she could right now. Her little face lights up when I hand her a water bottle. Sometimes her hand can't quite time when to come together to grasp it yet, but she's getting better at that. She likes for me to give her a sip but usually reacts with a disgusted look in my direction as if to say - that's not milk!? Today she also reached for my piece of banana bread I was eating. I let her have a lick and she went full force towards it and started sucking it. She loved the taste and wanted more but gagged on the pieces that went down to her throat. I know it's still a bit early for that but we had to have a little fun. (Note to the Lang family: This does not mean you can feed her chocolate and sweets next time you see her)

Falling asleep by herself
Before we went to the states, you could never lay her down awake and have her fall asleep. Somewhere on the trip, she would get fussy sometimes when we'd hold her to rock her to sleep. So, frustrated, we would put her down (swaddled, with a binki, and her "lovie" over her eyes) and she'd fall asleep! Now she'll do it almost every time

Arching her back
She started doing this when we'd put her in her car seat and she'd object.

Talking & Laughing more
There's never a dull moment. It never ceases to make me laugh when she blabs and even yells at her little frog mobile that hangs from her car seat or her stuffed animals or when it's directed at me! Tally and I usually put a story line to it which keeps us entertained.

First time going to the Pacific & Atlantic Oceans



And by the time I post this (January 22), her first illness! My poor baby could hardly breathe last night so I put her down in her car seat. That seemed to help. I hate seeing my little girl suffer. If she's not over it by Thursday, I'll take her to the Mutterberatung (town nurse that's only there certain days - you can just bring your baby and ask her questions). Maybe I'll try some vapor rub or something.

We're Back in Switzerland!

It's 12:40 am in Switzerland on Friday so technically, we got back yesterday. Tally is finally sleeping after being up all day, not sleeping on the plane and then working all day. He passed out at about 8pm. It would have been sooner but the Framptons had us over for burgers since we didn't have any food in our cupboards/fridge and we were too wiped to even think about the store (THANK YOU AGAIN!!) So if all goes as planned, I'll hopefully get to go to sleep soon, go to the store tomorrow, unpack the remaining 3 bags, and work on this blog. Keep checking below this post to see our vacation as I've been working on them as I go so the dates match up. Good night, wish me sweet dreams and a sleeping baby.

New York City

On our way back to Zurich, we stopped in New York for a few days so Tally could attend a conference for work.

We stayed in the Millennium Hilton which is right across from ground zero. I stayed here a few years back when I traveled with Goldman.

This is the view of ground zero from our hotel window. The huge hole in the ground will one day be filled with the new Freedom Tower. But the twin towers will never be replaced.

The stories of 911 never cease to amaze me - the heroic efforts, the loss and devastation, the legacy that it has left behind. As we talked with the bellhop at our hotel, he told us his story. He was working at the hotel at the time and when the first plane hit, they evacuated the hotel. His life was spared, but many of his friends were not. He remembers watching people jump from the building and almost shudders as he recalls the horror. He volunteered with the fire department to help in the search and rescue efforts and took close to 3,000 pictures of the aftermath. When the media offered to pay him for the photos, he burned them (a huge loss for history's sake, IMHO). He said he didn't want to make money off the carnage of his friends. The hotel didn't reopen until 2003. Wherever you were on 9/11, you remember and to one degree or another, it has changed your life. I know I will never forget.



Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island


Kels & I went to see the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island on a whim the first day we were there. We ended up having a lot of fun and seeing a lot of cool things. People thought I was nuts to be taking her by myself, but it wasn't too bad. It was a chilly outside, but not bad enough to keep us inside all day and it wasn't snowing so we seized the day.




Looking up Lady Liberty's skirt (not on purpose)


Ellis Island - I'm sure some of our ancestors came through here, but it would have been nice to know which ones/where/what their story was before going.


A Different Skyline


Tally's favorite bull



While here, we also got to see the Barlows in Connecticut. The kids hadn't changed too much (thank goodness) and Alyssa still doesn't have pregnancy "fat face" so there weren't any surprises. We had pizza, danced around with Mia, and the girls made a record-time Costco run. Our point & shoot broke so it was our last chance to get a decent price on a camera.

Kelsey and I also got to have lunch with Abbie, which was wonderful as always. She's doing really well too. This picture is horrible quality, thus the new camera.

Real Photoshoot

I've been trying to post these for awhile and I just figured out the problem - I ran out of memory for pictures on blogger!? Has anyone else had this problem? I deleted some old ones so hopefully it wont happen again for awhile.

I finally got Kelsey's pictures taken in a studio. Here are a few of my favorites. Let me know if you want one. I ordered about 100 pictures.






More to come...off to see New York!

Christmas Festivities

For Christmas this year, both of our families went to Utah. My uncle just built a "cabin" up near Pineview Reservoir so most of my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. were up there from Christmas to Kelsey's blessing. Meanwhile, all of Tally's family came into town (sadly almost all of them moved away from Utah soon after we did) for the holidays and the blessing as well. Once again, it was so wonderful to see everyone and not being close to family is the hardest part about living here.


We spent Christmas Eve with Tally's parents and two of his siblings and their kids. We carried on the tradition of having the kids re-enact the story of baby Jesus. This year, since she's the only baby, she was baby Jesus. Unfortunately for her, Mary was too little to hold her so her older cousin Anna (the donkey) took over for Mary.


This is Kelsey with "Mary and Joseph." The boys kept saying, "but baby Jesus wasn't a girl!"

Kelsey with last year's baby Jesus - we couldn't believe how big Edie was since she was crawling last time we'd seen her!

Christmas morning, we awoke to see what Santa had brought with Tally's mom, dad, his sister Paisley and her family. It was a blast getting to see kids who actually know what Christmas is, enjoy opening presents.

As for Kelsey, she was interested in what was going on but had no clue about the presents. She got a new Princess binki, onesies, new bottles, and a whole lot of stuff at the shower.



Then we went to the cabin up in Ogden to spend Christmas Day with the Langs.


Here's Kelsey with her "cousins." They're actually my cousins kids but since our family is tight, they'll probably just call each other cousins. This is my cousin Ryan's son James who was born just about 2 weeks before Kelsey.

Here's my cousin Shannon's daughter Madison (she's so grown up now!) with Kelsey.


These are Tiffany's three girls, Brooklyn, Ellie & Sadie. I love how Ellie is holding Kelsey! Her face is like, "help me!"