Thanksgiving visit with my family in California

Laurel's uncle Matt and cousin Emma

dancing with aunt Christie

the cousins with Papa

Hello...

on the back deck

self-spoonfeeding yogurt

Still more unbelievably cute cat pictures...

Hope I'm not interrupting anything!

Laurel the young reader

Laurel the young percussionist

I just love looking at Laurel's toes pointing back when she sits like this.

Vacation, and my cousin's wedding, in Taos—August 2005

in front of the Creek right behind our condo

with my lovely wife at the wedding reception

the siblings all together (Christie, self, Allie, Jonathan, Elisabeth)

on a hike through the woods...

Laurel's first birthday party!

Cake for the Cakes!

Laurel loves her rubber duckie.

The day we went to the Zilker Kite Festival (if only I'd brought the camera there!)

Laurel's first Christmas, visiting my parents

Deidra and I find this pose just priceless.

Tiredcakes with her holiday dress on, at a dinner with Deidra's Austin relatives.

A reluctant, undernapped Cakes at a photo shoot—Halloween, 2004

Laurel's birth-announcement picture

The "side-hold" in action.

This one's from a sonogram that was done just a couple weeks before Laurel was born so they could measure how big she was getting. I've rotated the picture sideways so she's right-side-up, in case that makes it easier to pick her out. You're looking at her face, and it looks as though there's light shining on her right cheek. Her right eye is also visible, as are, faintly, nose and mouth.

From the 20-week sonogram (the one that told us it's a girl!), this picture shows her face in profile, with top of the head to the left and body to the right.

Li'l "Scooter" Newman, at 11 weeks. Our first visual proof that there was a tiny new human being in Deidra's womb. She's lying on her left side: head on the right, with cranium and eye sockets clearly visible, as are all four limbs.