I Know, I Know!

Yes, I KNOW it has been a while since my last post, but a) I have been busy, b) I have been tired and c) I haven't had much to post really...alas, I have gotten multiple demands from all over the globe to update this space, so who am I to deny the people what they want??

So, um, lets see...I had a photo shoot this past Wednesday for Men's Health magazine - and before you ask:

1) Yes, REALLY.

2) No, I don't know which issue yet...

3) I was surfing their website, clicked a link to share my weight-loss story, and was promptly interviewed and, now, photographed.

So, I met with the photographer and his crew at Coney Island on Wednesday afternoon right before a storm was supposed to hit us. To make a long story short, I had to run back and forth over and over and over for 2.5 hours. I had to trot, sprint, smile, be "intense", and do so for I would say at least 150 photos. It was very hard work, but the photographer Justin Steele (www.justinsteele.com) was a super nice dude, very professional, and from the few photos I saw, takes some awesome and flattering photos of this flabby bastard!! :) He said he would email me some, and when he does, I will post them. Needless to say, I am still sore 3 days later, and the sunburn is just starting to subside.

Now, of course, your Ella fix:

Not thrilled about being trapped in the laundry basket.

First Mother's Day out of Angela's uterus...!

Standing up all on her own!

Here is a little compilation video, including the ever-so-popular "If You're Happy and You Know It" hand-clapping!

Long Island Marathon (10k)

Yesterday was the Long Island Marathon...and half marathon...and 10k race (which I ran). It was quite cold and brutally windy at the starting line (at 7:30am), but I bounced around, up and down, over and over to keep warm. Some guy addressed us over the loudspeaker and then Kevin Covais, the kid from last years American Idol, sang the national anthem. Shortly after that, the horn blew, and off we ran...directly into the wind. With the adrenaline pumping, I hardly noticed. I reached the 1 mile marker in 7:30, which is quite incredible (for me). I decided I had to slow my pace down or I would burn out...I hit the 5k spilt, and my time was 26:40, which was better than my best 5k time. I again told myself, "Slow down dumbass, or you won't finish!" As usual, I don't listen to anyone, including myself, because I refused to slow down. I finished the race in 53:48, which destroyed my former time of 1:00:54. That is equal to an average of 8:30 per mile. Which is insane. I finished 122 out of 639 runners. I then went home and immediately signed up for a 10-mile run in a couple of weeks. Then I went to the gym. I think I have a problem.

Planting Fields

The weather was with us today, so we thought we would take Ella for her first trip to the Planting Fields Arboretum up on the North Shore. We decided to take a picnic lunch, so we stopped at the highly-touted "Whole Foods" in Hicksville...and let me tell you, we could have spent the whole day in that place. Not only is it a supermarket-type of place that blows Trader Joe's (which I go to at least weekly) away, but about 1/3 of the place was dedicated to lunch-type-food, i.e. salad bar, cold food bar, hot food bar, sandwiches, sushi, etc. You know how they say not to shop when you are hungry? Well...I was hungry. REALLY hungry. So I stood in line for a sandwich and let Angela get the rest of the stuff, otherwise we would have had bags of food for our lunch and I would have to get on the elliptical for a couple of hours to undo all the damage. Our menu consisted of a grilled chicken and mozzarella sandwich with sun-dried tomato pesto on ciabatta bread, brown-rice sushi (eel and avocado roll), a yummy salad a la Angela, a Quinoa (pronounced Keen-wa for those who don't know) Cake, and some snow peas with bacon and lemon zest (I let Angela eat that stuff...the lemon and bacon killed it for me). It was very difficult to get me to leave that place, let me tell you.

Then we get to Planting Fields, and an "Arbor Day Festival" was in full swing, which kinda pissed me off because there was a zillion people there...not the usual peaceful relaxing day at all. But we made the most of it, ate our lunch, wandered around a bit and went home with full bellies and tired legs. Not a bad way to spend a day.

Updated Family Photo - of course, Ella refused to look at the camera.

"The Menorah Tree." That's what I call it, anyway.

My girls!

Playing with daddy on a bench in the woods.

Smile!

Cooooool - Arch-y!

Special Request

This one is for Nanny and Poppy:

Race Day!

Today was the first race day of the season for the Spar household, thus we ventured out to Jones Beach for the 3rd Annual Race For Spinal Victory. Last year, this race was my first ever 5k and I finished in 28:51 then. Ella was firmly entrenched in her momma's uterus, and was mere months from joining us in the air-breathing world. This year, Angela decided to walk the 5k along with Ella (in her stroller, of course).


Here is myself and my darling little daughter, who just looks pleased to be alive. In fact, it seems she is flipping off her momma. Not nice at all! This is a pre-race photo.


This photo was taken intra-race by Angela - she saw me coming and snapped a quicky. You can just about make me out running towards the camera right in front of the lady with the red sweater.


Here I am from the previous photo, cropped and blown up a bit! I managed to finish the race in 26:58, nearly 2 minutes better than last year. I was well pleased with that!


Here's Angela and Ella finishing the race in a very respectable 52:04 - not half bad for walking 3.1 miles!!

Next up - 10k run on May 6th. Stay tuned...

9ish Month Update

Ella had her 9-ish month check up today, and is now 19lbs 13 oz, 27.25 inches long with a 17.25 inch head circumference. She has to get 1 more shot next month, has a touch of eczema on her cheeks and screams when strangers touch her. That's my girl!!

Things Will Never Be The Same Again...

Thus it begins...no longer will we be able to plop Ella down and expect to find her in the same position. Oh no. Now...she's mobile.

Mmmm. Bean-y.

Phot-izzle's

Fire Marshall Ella

If you look closely, you can see her first tooth on her lower jaw!

Me - if there is anyone left out there who cares what I look like!

Razor-mouth

So, FINALLY, Ella's first tooth has decided to erupt and MAN is it sharp. Like, if you need to have some glass cut, we can just let her chew on it for a bit, should do the job nicely. She is also now 8 months old (as of yesterday), and she is eating real food - in fact, we went to Pancho's for dinner tonight and she thoroughly enjoyed her child-sized spicy beef burrito. Yes, I am joking. But she does eat melba toast. If you consider that food.

Anyways...the photos:

Mmmmmmmelba!

Rockin' the shades.

Swingin' at the Clark St Playground!

For The People

Today was a slow lazy day as we sat indoors to allow the snow to melt outside. Angela went to work while Ella and I hung out and partied all day! Oh, by "partied" I actually mean "ate, slept, and stuck lots of things in Ella's mouth." But, as always, I wouldn't rather be anywhere else! Until she screams. Then I would rather be ANYWHERE else.....but that is just a fleeting feeling, soon replaced with shame and remorse. Until she screams again. Then the cycle repeats.

Anyway, here's some more photos/video for the masses.

"That's MY PIG!"

Cutest ever...yet again.



I love how she tries to eat the camera at the end. I told you she is a good eater!

An Apple A Day...

So, we decided to let Ella taste a solid apple the other day. This is what happened:




Angela and I going out to dinner...alone...for the first time in a LONG time.


Ella's new sunhat. She got new sunglasses too...but they are too small for her oversized Spar head, so they must be exchanged for big huge baby ones.


This is NOT Ella in a retro-type photo. This is Angela at 10 months old.

Mo' Ella...

"Whatchoo talkin' bout Willis?"

I think we need to splurge on a hat that actually fits.

Nevermind, she looks hella cute in the big hat. :)

Cutest EVER.

Demand!

You know, ever since Ella arrived, this blog has really become "Ella's Blog" more than anything else - I have never had such demand placed upon me for ANYTHING as much as I do now - all relatives, anytime I talk to them, DEMAND photos/vids of the little one. Not that it bothers me, mind you, I am just saying. Oh, and Happy 7-month Birthday to my little punkin! (Feb 27th) :)

First Word???

Now, I think maybe we are stretching our imaginations a bit here...but you tell me:

Yee-Haw!

Ella started making this scrunched-up nose face over the past 2-3 days which I find hysterical - she keeps doing it and snorting in and out through her nose as if she smells something funny. This is the best we could accurately do as far as photographic proof, but check out the video below (she does it a couple of times) - she is riding her rocking horse (courtesy of Aunt Gloria, Uncle Bruce and Cousin Lauren!) for the very first time, all on her own!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sitting Pretty

You know, some days just are not good ones. For instance - yesterday, the first two patients I saw were young animals with serious problems: first was a 3 year old boxer dog that came in for me to "check breathing" - the dog was breathing very hard, and at first glance, the first thing I thought of was kennel cough. Upon examination, didn't really fit with the criteria for kennel cough, and I found several masses on the dog's body. Immediately alarm bells went off - masses in a boxer = scary. Turns out, the dog has Mast Cell tumors, and I shall begin the process of staging to see whether this is amenable to surgery/chemo/whatever. This is a 3 year old dog.

Next appointment was a 10 month old kitten that came in for me to "check breathing." God damn breathing. AGAIN. Well, surely this couldn't be any big deal - 10 months old, maybe having an asthma attack? WRONG. He has a huge tumor in his chest (which happened to be full of fluid), and is now in kitty heaven. 10 MONTHS old.

So, yeah that was a major bummer of a day. But now Ella can sit up on her own, so I am happy again. :)

Here's photos! And video!

Ella chewing on some frozen banana - I thought it was a good shot of her lovely eyes.

Happy chick.

Sitting up with no assitance!

The next Beethoven? This picture totally reminds me of Schroeder from Peanuts cartoons.

Sharp Stuff

Marty and mom were kind enough to buy us a shiny new set of knives from Sharper Image a week or 2 ago. They are great - much sharper than any knife I have had in recent memory. Today, as Ella sat in her exersaucer and Angela worked, I decided to make myself a nice healthy salad. I began slicing and dicing, and was having a good ol' time. Then Ella decided to start crying...so I said to myself, "Self - you better make this quick." So I was chopping up my lettuce a bit more quickly, when I noticed bright red liquid covering the leaves. "What the hell...?" Yes folks...I sliced a chunk of my finger off. Just like my mom did several years ago with a bagel knife. I promptly removed the slice of flesh from the knife and discarded it. I then wrapped the chunkless finger to stop the bleeding, washed off my lettuce, and carried on with the salad (which was delicious, I might add). I finally got the wound to stop bleeding an hour or so later. I removed my self-made bandage to show Angela when she got home and, wouldn't ya know it, it's bleeding again! Yippee! I won't photograph the wound for fear of making some people puke, but its a pretty decent size...hopefully it will heal in time. Anyway, here, for your viewing enjoyment, back due to popular demand.....Ella!

The girl can practically sit up on her own now.

Self-timers rock.

Exersaucer = best thing ever.

Ella obviously agrees.

Getting SO huge! And always smiling!

Oh, and here's some more video...not that thrilling, but its what the people want:

Mmmmmmm!

Today marked 2 weeks since we started feeding Ella "solid" foods - and she is a champ! When she gets strapped into the high-chair, she knows what is about to transpire. When the tray clicks into place, her eyes light up in anticipation. When she sees that spoon...she does what is illustrated above - her tongue shoots out of her mouth and she is ready for action. For more on this developing story...see the footage embedded below. :)

Muscle Man

I got pulled over by the police today...

...for carrying THESE GUNS! :)