Steve's trip to NY

Steve had another business trip to NY to work on his fire safety college project. He claimed that they sat in meetings all week but the pics from his camera say otherwise. Looks like it was just and excuse to get a bunch of pyros together to light stuff on fire...

While he was in town he also got a chance to meet up with my cousins Michele and Will. You may recognize Will from SNL, he's a regular on it so Steve and Michele got back stage passes for the show and joined the cast and crew for the after party. Steve claims he was hanging out with The Rock and Justin Timberlake but didn't have the photos to prove it.

Michele is also expecting her first baby in a couple months so everyone is excited to see more baby pics...

Jaydon was really happy to see his daddy back.
Especially since he came home with lots of gifts. First was his Fireman outfit which he sported while helping daddy catch up on a few e-mails and phone calls.

It's also good to just hang out in too.

Next was his policeman outfit

And don't forget the fun new play mat/blanket that makes all kinds of jungle noises. Each head makes a different sound and the blanket is soft and cuddly too.

Jaydon's 1st Party Invite

Jaydon got to attend his first party for his friends Will and Jade's 1 year old birthday. The party was Tinkerbell and Pirate themed...
Will was a pirate and
Jade was Tinkerbell.

Jaydon was wide eyed most of the party and enjoyed seeing all the fun.
Jaydon and his girlfriend Ella spent most of the party in their baby carriers but did give the pirate ship cut outs a try.
Jaydon is the monkey and Ella is the ship's mate.

Video Clip Test

Here's a short video of Jaydon playing on his Jungle Gym mat. I haven't used the video feature on the camera much and it took several days to finally get blogger to accept the video so consider this a trial run. Let me know if you have any issues.

Go ahead and ignore the sound on the video, I had my pump going while videoing not realizing how well the sound would come through on the clip. Next time I'll try not to multi task...

I also wanted to post the pic of Jaydon's awesome tie dye outfit that Grandma Forte bought him. I just realized today that he needs to graduate to the 3mos size clothes before he gets to big for them!

As Samena his nanny said "Oooh Very Colorful".

Al Malki Baby Art

Stephanie was brave enough to volunteer her house for an all out Al-Malki baby art party. There have been 9 babies conceived and born while their parents were on assignment here in Doha and living in our compound (Al-Malki Gardens). Aimee Jackson and her parents are moving back to London so it felt like an end of an era that needed to be documented. What better way then covering our baby's in paint!
William (and mom Kelly) was our brave test subject and went first. He seemed to be as interested in trying to figure out what in the world the adults were doing to him this time.
Ella (above with his mom Cheryl) and Jaydon were the last to go, being the newest babies we thought they would the hardest but they just slept the whole time. Jamie became an expert baby foot painter. Jaydon opted for his signature color...baby blue.

And for those counting I said 9 babies but there are only 7 prints. Well one baby is in Australia seeing family and the other is being born as I type this. Sheri (refer to earlier baby shower post) is the last one of phase II and she's in labor right now. I think Aiden saw how much fun he was missing out on and decided it was time to come join the world!

1 Month Old

Boy does time fly when you're having fun (and sleeping in increments of 30 minutes to 2 hours...it's amazing how much better you feel after 2 hours of sleep). Jaydon is already 1 month old and for all his fans out there here's more pictures of the little guy from his birthday and others we found on the camera.

Jaydon helping daddy figure out some details on his fire safety college design project. Steve plans on fitting this picture in during his presentation to his clients next week while he's in NY to show them how hard everyone is working (on his first trip away :-(
Jaydon's humongous bear taking over a little of the babysitting duty. You may remember this bear from the flower bouquet EM gave to Jaydon...freezer is still full of chocolates from it.

Dreaming about driving his first sports car

These pictures were taken on his 1 month birthday:

Tummy time
Jaydon does a lot of smiling lately but never for very long so documenting it is very difficult. This was the best picture I got of about 20 different takes, it's a little fuzzy but still adorable.

Grandma Goes Home

Today Grandma Forte went home after spending about 4 weeks in Doha helping the new family figure out how this baby thing works and making sure we ate gourmet meals every night. These are pictures from her camera over the past few weeks you might enjoy. We're going to miss having her around!

Jaydon will be missing his Grandma, she makes such a good napping spot.

These pictures are of the Doha skyline taken from the new Museum of Islamic Arts.

Jaydon's first few minutes of life (notice the time on the clock).

Steve gets to meet his son - these are the first pictures taken of the Connor boys together.

Can't forget the first bath (at home).

1st Week...

Here's a few pictures from Jaydon's first week... It's never too early for a first date, this is Jaydon with his girlfriend Ella who was born 6 days before he was...going for the older women already (just like his father)

Self explanatory..."My Mummy is Yummy"

1st trip to the pediatrician, they had these great blood red lip couches that we couldn't resist getting a picture on. By the way he passed his first check up with flying colors (but still waiting to get back up to birth weight)
Jaydon's 2nd date with Ella along with Ella's proud father Derek.
It was an exhausting experience for him :-)

Sleepy boys...

Exactly 1 week old

Another cute picture with daddy

One more flower bouquet, this one from Steve's company.

Cutest Photo EVER!!

No we didn't pose him, he just fell asleep on his daddy's lap like this :-)

Jaydon Comes Home

So night No. 2 at the hospital was an eye opener. Grandma felt tired and decided to sleep at home giving Mariah and I some good quality time with Jaydon. Turns out Jaydon's idea of quality time consists of an all night crying session. There is no doubt that he has strong lungs.

After staying up all night I decided it was time to go home. We did all of the inspections and tune-ups, both Mom and Baby passed their inspections. One fun moment for me was going downstairs to pay the bill. First you have to understand that this is the equivalent to a private hospital, and we were paying cash - no insurance (we file separately back in the US). You can imagine my surprise when they handed me $500 cash back (Mariah got a discount for being an ExxonMobil employee). All said and done we only had to pay about $4,000 USD for the whole thing - room, delivery, food, shots, etc. All that without insurance. There is no doubt that health care in the US is screwed.

So we made the trip home without incident. I was worried, what with the hazardous driving conditions in Doha and all. I have to admit walking into the house with the little guy was a real experience. Very happy to have him home.

So here are two fun photos. Remember that the Arabic culture is very family oriented and built around social relationships. One standard thing here is giving gifts, and especially large gifts for new babies. So RasGas (the local Joint Venture that Mariah works with) sent us an incredible flower and chocolate basket, about three feet tall. Not to be outdone ExxonMobil sends us another basket, three feet tall by three feet wide, which included a massive bear. Healthy competition is good, but we will be eating chocolate for the next three years.

I am still behind on blogging and photos, I'll keep trying to catch up. More to come........