The crawling baby

Abby surprised both of us with her first crawling feat a few weeks ago. Looks like we are going to need to baby proof a little earlier than anticipated. We hope you enjoy the video. I'll try to be better with updates.

From San Jose to Tahoe to Idaho

Well we had a wonderful trip this past week at our family reunion in Lake Tahoe. We missed Cody, Jenny and Joe...oh yeah and their families. I'll figure out a way to post some pictures from Virginia City. We had a great time discovering old gold mines and hanging out. The next day we spent on the beach at South Lake Tahoe. I have some great shots of dumping Koy and Jeff off the tube behind the boat. Christina did a great job capturing the emotions of being pulled behind the boat!

After leaving Tahoe, we headed to Reno for a few days with Steve, Madi, Baylee, Don, Julie, Siera, Jeff and Hayley. While in Reno Abby modeled a few Patagonia jackets. Needless to say which one she preferred. I hope if looks nice on Lily.
So much for keeping pace with our once a month post. I'll try to make up for it this month with a few more posts. I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Say "Cheese"

Abigail has started smiling and it's so much fun.

- Enjoy!

Bath Time!

Abby's First Bath

These pictures of Abigail's first bath are too cute not to post! So far Abby has been really fussy whenever we've given her a sponge bath or changed her diaper. However, once she felt the warm water scooped over her, she seemed to really enjoy it.

Suzi's Special Speghetti

You know how good home cooking is? After last year's Thanksgiving, my sister Suzi whipped up some incredible spaghetti. I was full from the leftovers and anxious to get on the road, however, the smell of this spaghetti was intoxicating. Of course I sat down to try it out.

Three plates later with a full mouth I said, "Sis I have to get this recipe from you sometime." Sometime finally arrived this afternoon. Here is the recipe, verbatim from the phone call in which it was relayed to me.

- 1 lb. Hamburger
- 3/4 lb. sweet Italian Sausage
- Drizzle pan with extra virgin olive oil
- couple sprinkles of fennel

Brown up this mixture really good

- box of smooth tomato sauce (14-16 oz)
- can of diced tomatoes
- 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
- sprinkle of cinnamon
- 1/3 cup of brown sugar

For some reason she hesitantly told me the last two ingredients like I would think she was crazy or something. At this point of the story I have to provide a disclaimer for the recipe. Suzi did tell me that she always guesses and I was incredibly impressed that she pulled this right off the top of her head while waiting for Jordan's lacrosse game.

Lately, Christina and I have been on a bit of a cooking kick. After I finished class at UCSD, I had a little more free time, so I dusted off the Chinese cookbook from my mission and made some Chinese dumplings, which turned out amazing. Ever since I've caught the bug and browsed through all of Christina's cookbooks.

So I was really excited to get this going. Attached is a picture of the sauce still on the stove. We are suppose to let it simmer for another forty minutes (which means a total of an hour). Yep I wrote this post in the last ten minutes waiting for the sauce to finish.

So far, it tastes incredible, bringing back lots of good memories from last time I tried it! Probably going to make next year's Parker cookbook!

Bon Appetite!

Abigail Rae Harding

Abby, Abby-Rae, Abi-girl:

This first picture of me holding Abby when she is only a few hours old is Christina's favorite. She is probably 3 hours old to be more exact!

We are still trying to figure out which nickname is going to stick. We are so happy at the arrival of our baby girl. Finally, I've found some time to post some pictures. Of course you will probably see a lot of these in the future as well (we are really proud parents)!


Abby asleep - Day 3Abby - Day 3 - hanging out at Dr. Sukhdeo's Office. If she would have waited another 45 minutes he would have been able to deliver her. His shift started at 7:00 am, and she came into the world at 6:15.


Lots of sleeping in the first week - Daddy loves Abby! Mommy says Abby loves Daddy too!

Abby love Mommy too - Day 2 - Just home from the Hospital!
Sweet Abby -
Sometimes - not so sweet Abby - Just Kidding we love to hear her cry, it means that those lungs are working correctly. Of course we probably wont love her cry if it was too persistent. And when we remember how wonderful she is (see image above).

Hanging out with Uncle Mike - Day 5


Abby loves Grandma Parker - We are so relieved she is here helping us out!


Abby signing off for the rest of the Palo Alto Harding Family. We are so happy and tired. On that note sweet dreams!