Great Grandparents Visit

Two weeks ago, Blake met his great grandparents on my side of the family. My parents drove with them so they wouldn't miss out on any Blake time. Teenie was very happy to see my father again and hoped for the same amount of attention she received at his last visit. I think Blake won though. It was great having family around.

This isn't a story about Blake

I know its crazy, but I do think about other things sometimes. This story is about backups, and for those of you who came here expecting baby photos I'm sorry, they'll be back with the next story :)

Backups are best summed up by a quote from a co-worker of mine:

backups++, using_backups--; # Warren

Now, you'd expect me to say here that I just had to use my backups, but luckily I haven't yet (*knock on wood*). Shannon is always on me about the huge amount of history we have stored on our computer (I should note that we have a MacPro with a 450GB hard drive) and how I am to never lose it. Ever. So I've taken that advice to heart.

Until today, my backup solution was two external hard drives:

• One 75GB LaCie
  
• One 150GB Seagate
  

The LaCie is used only to backup photos (30GB and counting, through the Aperture Vault feature) and I use the Seagate to backup the rest of my computer (including photos) through rsync. The LaCie has about 40GB free, and the Seagate is down to 30GB free. So I'm running out of time.

Also, the Seagate has picked up an annoying habit lately of unmounting itself from my computer without prompting. I have a feeling its due to a bad cable, but haven't diagnosed it. I probably should soon.

Either way, it gives me an excuse to fix up my backup strategy, and to try out Time Machine. So, as I wait for the 1,078,265 items on my computer to copy over to my new 1TB MyBook, I figured I'd write this article describing my new backup strategy:

• One 75GB LaCie external hard drive
  
• One 150GB Seagate external hard drive
• One 1TB MyBook, configured with RAID 1 to give ~500GB of capacity, used for Time Machine.

So it looks like I'm ready for a disaster. The LaCie covers the case I just hose Aperture; I can reinstall it and restore from the vault. The MyBook covers the case where I delete anything from my computer, for easy restore and browsing through all of the versions of a file. Also because of RAID 1 and the two hard drives in it, I'm also covered if one of the hard drives die. I can just swap it out.

But all of these drives are within 12 inches of each other on top of my computer. For that reason I'm taking my Seagate drive (encrypted, of course ;) off to my friend Peter's house to cover the event of a fire, meteorite, or playful infant that destroys my computer and all of my backups at this house. Every couple months I'll take it back and re-sync it. That way in the event of disaster we don't lose 10 years of history, just maybe a few months.

I feel much safer now (or, I will once I get that extra hard drive over to Peter's house).

I don't mean to tempt fate by posting this story, but I figured it would be a good geeky diversion. Also, I figured I might inspire other people to start backing up their computer :)

Happy Four Week Birthday Blake

Here is a video of Andrew and Blake spending some quality time together.



Here is a video of Blake being put in my new Beco Baby Carrier. They just came out with the new and improved Butterfly model after a recall of their buckles. We enjoyed our long walk to the park where Blake had his first teeter-totter ride.

What kind of parents are we?

Yesterday was take your son/daughter to work day so Blake made his first appearance at Google. Andrew was happy to see Blake and immediately attached his pager to Blake's belt. Like father like son. Although he didn't get to jump in any of the bouncy houses he enjoyed seeing where his daddy works.


Amy and Chris came by on Tuesday to meet Blake. I was showing them how the Moby wrap works and decided to put Teenie in it. She thought this was the best and fell right asleep once I put her in it. She is seriously having a hard time transitioning from being the baby. I told Andrew he should carry Teenie in the Moby wrap and I could carry LuLu in my new Beco carrier to the dog park just to see how people would react. It would be even more hysterical if we had Blake in the stroller too.

Remember, I don't get out much these days so this is my new form of entertainment.

Resemblance?

My grandfather just sent me some pictures of when my father was a baby. I know people say Blake looks just like Andrew, but I see so much of the Burton family in him too. You decide!

More Photos

To the left are a couple photos I took while Shannon's parents and grandparents were here last Sunday.

So I got to playing around...

Turns out iMovie makes it really really easy to make small music videos. So I took a Jack Johnson song I had on my computer and put it together with a bunch of pictures and videos that we've taken so far, just to see what I could do.

Here's Blake's first music video:

Happy Three Week Birthday Blake

For Blake's 3 week birthday I worked from home and hung out with Shannon and Blake. We went for a walk with the dogs and ordered pizza for dinner. Quite the exciting day!

Here are a couple videos I took of him today:


And the second:

Day at the Park

We got out of the house again! This time we went to a local park so Andrew could fly his new remote control airplane. There is some problem with the controller so it cuts out halfway through his flights. Why is it that things like that never seem to work, but men love it anyways? Blake did baby things like sleeping and feeding while at the park.









Our friends Jinnah and Megana came over to meet Blake. Megana hand embroidered these onesies for Blake. I am blown away at how cute they are. I have the most talented friends!


Here is Blake after his nap when it was almost 90 degrees outside.

Happy Two Week Birthday Blake

Blake has been on the outside for two weeks now. He seems to enjoy his world (except for diaper changes) and loves to feed, feed, feed. He went to the pediatrician for the first time and got his first shot. We both cried! Breastfeeding has still been quite challenging for the both of us. A few days ago I got a blocked duct and yesterday it turned into mastitis. I am now on antibiotics and feel much better today. I am hoping we will get through these feeding issues in the next week or so to give ourselves a break. Since the weather is nice we are hoping to put out a towel on the back lawn and give Blake some naked baby time. We might follow that up with Blake's first bath. Andrew got his RC airplane in the mail yesterday so we will see if I can pull him away from his workbench for 20 minutes. I am sure you will see lots of pictures in the future of Blake in the stroller watching his daddy fly his airplane high in the sky.

Here is Blake after feeding in what my midwife calls a "milk coma."

This morning I sat with both my babies.

The most awesome diaper bag!

I am so lucky to have received a wonderful diaper bag as a baby gift from my crochet group. Here is the bag in all of its glory. I thank Britt for all of the beautiful crochet work (and Caroline too) and Cynthia for her sewing magic on the liner. We have already schlepped the bag many places and have received ohh's and ahh's. I wanted to enter it in the State Fair, but Britt said I had to use it right away instead of just looking at it.

The bag filled with all the baby essentials

We got out of the house!

Today, the family unit got out of the house to run errands. We stopped by our favorite baby boutique for some necessities and then hit up Target for some baby supplies. I can't believe how much stuff we need in addition to what we thought were the basics. Things first parents must learn I guess.

Here is a picture from our first walk last night around the neighborhood. Blake looks like he is swimming in the stroller.

Grandma Ellen made Blake a bright, wonderful quilt for him to play on. Isn't it great!

By the way, nobody warned me that milk can come out of a baby's nose when you burp them.

Great Aunt Shirley, Erin, and Cliff came by to meet Blake for the first time. You can see the pictures on Andrew's family blog at: http://www.famblog.org

Blake, Day 6

Has everyone had enough of Blake yet? I can't help but keep posting pictures of the little guy. He gained two ounces in the last two days so he is right on schedule with his weight gain and comes in at a burly 6lbs. 5.5oz. Treesa, my Midwife's assistant, came by today to help me with our lactation problems. Blake wasn't sucking so great at the beginning so they had me pump to bring in the milk and now Treesa said my body responded so well to the pump that I am now producing enough milk for twins. We will find a middle ground soon enough. My parents stayed with us for a few days and now Andrew's family is here until the end of the weekend. Ellen has made delicious meals and everyone hands Blake around for their fix of baby TV!

MY PARENTS WITH BLAKE

PICTURE TIME

THIS WAS THE OUTFIT ANDREW WORE AS A BABY (the onesie says Born at Home)

ANDREW'S WORK TEAM SENT THIS BABY BOUQET TO US TODAY (the flowers are socks and other fun clothes)

BECAUSE BLAKE HAS A BIT OF JAUNDICE WE HAD TO PUT IN SOME SUN TIME TODAY

WALTER AND DAVID ENJOYING BABY

THREE GENERATIONS OF BOYS

WALTER TELLING BLAKE TO WEAR HIS MIDDLE NAME PROUDLY

Here is a video I took yesterday morning.

Waking up is hard to do

Sometimes Blake is a little sleepy in the morning.