The not-so-much-a-vacation California experience

Heaven gained an angel on November 18th. Scott's Grandma Parsons passed away from a quick fight with lung cancer.  She was one incredible lady and she influenced so many people's lives.  She is terribly missed already...

We flew out to California on Wednesday November 20th for her funeral.  Her viewing was on Thursday and her funeral was on Friday.  It was a terrible reason to get all the family together, but it was good for everyone to be reunited... I hadn't met a lot of Scott's family before.  We enjoyed seeing Grandpa Parsons and the rest of the family and being able to reminisce about the past.  

During her funeral, I learned many amazing things about Grandma Parsons.  She was the most selfless, loving woman.  She was the cleanest woman I knew.  She was not judgmental, and she was always there for her grandchildren.  I loved that about her.  One thing stuck out to me most, however--I loved how much she and Grandpa Parsons loved each other.  I learned that they were each others' first loves and held hands for the first time at ages 12 and 13.  I think that is so sweet.

Here are some photos from the dinner after the funeral:

The sign above everyone says, "All Because Two People Fell in Love."

While we were taking photos, Grandpa Parsons went for a long, much-needed drive so we weren't able to get a photo with him.

After all was said and done, we had one day to explore.  On Saturday, a bunch of the cousins drove to San Francisco.  I had never been there so I was excited to check it out.  

We first went to China Town and ate at this yummy Chinese restaurant.  Then we went to the Golden Gate Bridge.

It was super windy on the bridge, but it was so fun and extremely beautiful!

We headed home on Sunday.  It was Kaiser's first airplane experience, and all in all--he did well.  We had a layover at LAX both ways.  On the way there he fell asleep for a lot of it.  

He cried for about 5 minutes and of course that felt like an eternity.  On the way home, I couldn't have asked for a better baby.

It was nice for Scott and I to spend more than 1 day together.  But it was an awful excuse to get to go.  Grandma Parsons, you will be terribly missed.  We are glad that we now have another wonderful angel looking down on us!

Rice Cereal?

Shortly after Kaiser turned 4 months old, we began to experiment with giving Kaiser solids...

We started with a little rice cereal...

I don't think he liked it.  Hah.  We wondered if maybe he just needed to get used to eating off a spoon, so we kept trying.  This was always his response. 

At a football game a while back, I let him have some of my banana.  He loved that and would probably have gummed the whole thing if we let him.

He is also a fan of apples :)

Since then we have given him peas, squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, and baby oatmeal. He seemed to really like those!  He has also tasted some fresh pineapple, and a couple licks of jam and chocolate syrup :)  He has eaten everything great since that yucky rice cereal! I don't think we will be giving him any of that anytime soon...

Kaiser's FIRST haircut!

On November 10th we gave Kaiser his first haircut!  He was 4 months and 10 days.  His hair was getting super long, and slightly out of control :)  I loved it of course, and didn't want to cut off the long beautiful locks!  But Scott thought that it was time.  So we cut it!  We cut at least an inch off all over his head. 

Here are the before and after photos.  They are the best I could do!

It's sad how much older he instantly looked.  It might be a while before his next one :)

Kaiser's FIRST Halloween

For Kaiser's first Halloween, we decided that he would be Batman!  At first, I was thinking Kaiser should wear a cute, squishy, fuzzy costume...but as we were looking, I couldn't find what I wanted in his size.  So when Scott found Batman, we decided to go with that.  And we are so glad we did!

Isn't it so cute?!

The night before Halloween, Scott tried it on Kaiser for the first time and he came to visit me at work!  I couldn't stop laughing because he looked adorable in it!

We showed him himself in the mirror and he made the funniest faces like he didn't recognize the baby behind the costume :)  He just kept staring at it and trying to grab one of the bat ears.

He was definitely a hit!