Now...including the adults

As I said in my previous post, I also have a bunch of photos of us with the kids. The first 3 are from last week:

We used the self-timer function on my camera to grab this one. Luckily, it takes 5 in a row, so you can get at least one good one!

Evan snagged these of me with the kids. This is the only time I can remember Henry actually sleeping up on my shoulder!

Over the weekend Carrie came to visit. The main reason was because she babysat for us on Saturday night while Evan and I went with some friends to see Lewis Black in DC. He was hilarious, as always (this was the 6th time I've seen him live!). Earlier that day, however, we had some fun family time at the Lovettesville Oktoberfest. The weather was beautiful so it was a nice day to wander outside. The streets of the little downtown were shut down so everyone could walk around. There was food, shopping, cloggers, music, and of course, beer! We also took the opportuniy to take more family photos.

Just the kids

We've taken a number of really cute family photos over the past week; frankly, there are too many to put into one post. Therefore, I will split them into two posts! Up first: a few of the kids

And I'm really irritated with myself right now. I had some RIDICULOUSLY cute photos of Henry from Saturday night, and some great ones of Natalie before and after her haircut yesterday, that I just accidentally deleted off of my camera. So there is no backup, and no way to rescue them. I'm sure I'll get some equally cute ones again, but right now I'm mad at myself.

Natalie's first (and second) dance class

Last Friday (Sept 17), we started Natalie in Baby Ballerina classes. They hold the Baby Ballerina classes at the Creative Dance Center in Ashburn. The founder of the program, Miss Lori, is Natalie's teacher. She used to be at her own little studio, but she had to close for financial reasons. Her program got bought out by CDC, so that's where we go.


I took Natalie to a trial class at the original location last summer, but I thought she was too young to really get much out of it; instead, we ended up doing a year of gymnastics at My Gym and Apex Gym. However, over the summer she really started getting interested in dance, so I thought starting in the fall we'd try it out. I'm glad we waited, because Natalie loves it!
 
The class is ridiculously cute. Most of the little girls wear pink (although this past week we had 2 in black and 1 in purple), although they can wear whatever they want. The class starts out doing a modified circle time on "lily pads", and they get to wear flower crowns (Natalie's choice in week 1)

 

or tiaras (her choice this week)

After doing "the bunny dance" and some warm ups (point, flex, lots of little games), it's time to pretend to be butterflies,
 

 
then wear tutus and butterfly wings (although Natalie hasn't wanted to wear wings yet)

 
The last 10 minutes or so is princess time. Week 1 was Sleeping Beauty

 

And Week 2 was Cinderella

The activities have been mostly the same both weeks, but with some things different to keep the kids interested. One of my favorites last week was when the kids did a "show" for us mommies, with Ms Lori teaching the girls a short routine to do for us. Here's the brief video I took of the "rehearsal" for the show.
 
 

 
I am really proud of Natalie so far. She is one of only 3 kids in the class (the other 2 girls being the ones next to her in the above video) who reliably pay attention and follow Ms Lori. I'm so glad we've found an activity that she likes so well! Now if I could just find a leotard that fits her better...

Henry rolls over

Finally, I managed to get a good video of Henry rolling over. Here it is, for your viewing pleasure

Scotland Parts 2-4: Wandering Edinburgh

I had planned on doing 3 separate posts for the remainder of my pictures from Edinburgh. Part 1 was already posted; Part 2 would be Edinburgh Castle; Part 3 would be Hollyrood Palace; and Part 4 would be random things from the city. However, I am ridiculously behind on posts right now, and I just don't have the time/energy to sort through all of them.

So, I've made a Picasa album here with ALL of my photos from Edinburgh. Feel free to page through at your leisure. However, I am going to put a few of my favorites up here.

Evan and I taking a self-portrait

Edinburgh Castle

The Castle at night

Hollyrood Palace (the Queen's home in Scotland)

C'mon, don't you want to go see the rest? Take a look! And for those of you who saw them on facebook, there are more here in the Picasa album than I put there.

At the Burke Festival

Last weekend (Sept 11), we met up with our friends Will and Jon, and headed over to the Burke Centre Festival (in Burke, VA). We chose to go there as our friend Cody was running a booth there; he owns Apple Frankies with his dad. They sell "special-event foods" such as smoothies, lemonade, sweet potato fries, and, most importantly, funnel cakes! Super yummy funnel cakes. So, we all got to have some free funnel cake and smoothies while we caught up and walked around the fair. It was small, but quite cute.

First up: the moon bounce!

I think this is one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken:

And the three of us (Henry was asleep in his stroller)

Will & Natalie

Natalie holding up a small umbrella

Natalie watching the dancing puppets

Natalie made a sand art butterfly.

Here she is filling the bottle

And here's the finished product

Time with Grandma & Grandpa

While we were in Scotland, Natalie & Henry were watched by Grandma Lynn by herself from Tues-Fri, and then Grandpa Doug came to help out over the weekend. They did a great job of keeping the kids super busy, and everyone seemed very happy (if tired!) when we arrived home.

Lynn took Natalie to the pool, where she did a great job of sharing her water toys.

On Saturday, Grandma & Grandpa took both kids to the Catoctin Zoo in Maryland. We hadn't been there yet, but I had been wanting to take the kids. They said Natalie had a great time! Here are a few pictures that I took off of Grandma Lynn's camera

I love this picture! It's like they're both "peeking" at the camera.

And this one may be my favorite: the aftermath of a day at the zoo.

Scotland Part 1: The Science

Well, sort of. I figured I'd throw together the best pictures that I have from Scotland involving the actual conference. In terms of the "science" involved, I only have one picture:

Evan snuck this picture on Thursday (the first day of the conference). I was standing in front of my poster, discussing it with another conference attendee. The poster was from an "in press" article that should be out in the next issue of Behavioral Neuroscience (whenever that is! - hopefully soon); I wanted to get the data out into a community who would appreciate it, and many seemed excited to hear our findings. Later that same day I gave a 20 minute talk in front of the ~150 conference attendees. The talk was a review of my dissertation work; since it's older, I wasn't as interested in it as I was in the more recent data in my poster, but the talk was still well-received. Evan took about a 15 second video of my speaking, but I didn't really feel the need to put it up here. :)

On Friday evening there was a conference banquet. After dinner a big name in the maternal behavior field (Robert Bridges) gave a talk

The banquet was a lot of fun! It's always entertaining to get a bunch of older, dorky neuroscientists together with alcohol. I have a number of ...entertaining pictures of my colleagues dancing. :)

I also have a few nice pictures. Here are Evan and I:

Myself with Craig Kinsley (my advisor from University of Richmond) and a fellow postdoc Catherine (she's doing her postdoc with a colleague of Craig's)

After Bob's speech, they brought out a traditional band and the music started!

There was a lot of dancing! The band leader did a great job of instructing everyone on the steps for each of the different dances they did. My favorite was...The Virginia Reel! We used to dance it every year at the Collonade Ball at UVa. Myself and one other attendee were the only ones who knew it, so we ended up demoing for the entire banquet!

As I posted on facebook, it was pretty funny to instruct people from Scotland, Japan, France, and Australia (and that was just in my little group of dancers) on how to do the "Virginia Reel". But everyone picked it up very quickly, and it was much easier to dance with only 4-5 couples per group, and not the 10+ couples that ended up in a group at the Ball every year.

Natalie works out

We finally set up our Wii Fit about 3 weeks ago. Turns out that as much as Evan and I have enjoyed using it, Natalie really likes the Wii Fit games as well! When either Evan or I play we give Natalie her "own" board (a plastic container lid) so she can stand on it and feel like she's doing the same thing we are. Her favorites are the hula hoops, step, and a balance activity where the Mii character wears a penguin outfit.

While I was at my Zumba class last week, Natalie got to play on the actual Fit Board. Evan took two different videos, and I liked them both so much that I couldn't choose between them, so you get them both.



On a personal note, I actually really like the Wii Fit! I wouldn't say it's a great sub for going to the gym, but I was doing different exercises toinght for about 35 minutes, and had to towel off a little sweat and change my shirt when I was done! As part of my exercise, I tried the basic stepping to the beat (that Natalie is doing above) for up to 30 minutes, and I can change the input on the TV and the Wii will still count the steps. So, I can get a little exercise while I watch TV! I will definitely have to do that soon.

Onward and upward

Tomorrow is my last day at NIH. In the past 10 years, I've moved three times and gone through two graduate schools. Those endings and moves were difficult, but no where near as hard as leaving this position will be. There are so many reasons for this, both professional and personal.

Professionally:
1. I have learned so much. My PI has been a wonderful mentor (in fact, we nominated him for NIMH mentor of the year, and he won!). He allowed me to focus on animal behavior, while providing me the opportunity to expand my knowledge in other areas as well (genetics, cell biology). My scientific knowledge has truly grown in the past 4 years.
2. I have become a better researcher. I think this is exemplified by one of the best compliments I have ever had. At my going away party last week, my boss said that he has always been impressed by the care that I take with my work, and unlike some other people in his lab, he has never once questioned any of my results, and he knows he can trust the data I produce. That really meant a lot to me.
3. I've had the opportunity to speak in front of large groups of people, enhancing my public speaking skills.
4. I have been primary author on 3 primary research articles from this lab (and 2 others from my graduate research), and primary author on 1 review. I have co-authored 2 other reviews, and 2 other primary research articles. Not bad for 4 years! And I will hopefully get one more paper out in a few months, after more data is collected by a coworker.
5. I have made so many professional connections. I fully believe that my research career is not over, and I will be doing research myself again one day.

I've known for 4 months that I would be leaving NIH in September and starting at Noldus, but that doesn't make this day any easier. I've been slowly packing up my stuff for the past couple of weeks, but as of today I am officially "homeless" in my lab. My coworker Barney took over my desk area (I did have the best one in the lab), my "replacement" Julia (a recent college graduate who will be working for a year to assist in carrying out experiments) took over my computer (which I wiped clean of all of my stuff), and the last of my items are packed into one last box. Tomorrow I am making sure Julia knows exactly what she needs to do to finish up my experiments, Barney is taking me out to lunch, and I'm just going to double check that everything is wrapped up.

Personally, these past 4 years have been huge as well. A house, two children, many new friends, reconnected with some old ones...amazing. And I'm about to be 30! On top of that, I'm moving on to my first "real" job. I guess I really am an adult. To prove that I am, I have to try and get through tomorrow without crying at work. It really will be a sad day for me.

Henry turns 5 months!

Today Henry turned 5 months old! What does a typical day consist of at 5 months? You start out by taking a nice morning nap (first on Mommy, then wrapped in a nice cozy blanket on the couch)

You then have playtime with your sister

And spend more time hanging out with Mommy

(again, Natalie took this photo!)

And finish out the day with some more advanced tummy time

All in all a pretty good day (frankly, a good weekend).

Let's see...what's new? Last week we started solid foods. Natalie never really took to rice cereal, so we skipped that completely with Henry and started with oatmeal. He's been doing great with it! So, yesterday we added in apples, and he seemed less excited than with the oatmeal, so we'll probably stick with oatmeal primarily for now. But he seems to like solids, so I think he'll continue to do well with new foods.

I don't have his height/weight stats, but he's definitely growing! We've cycled out pretty much all of his 3 month size clothes, and most of his 3-6 months are too small too. Luckily, with the weather cooling off he can actually wear his new 6/9 month clothing (and it's SO cute!).