boots!

chloe loves my boots. my favorite things: watching her run down the hallway with just the arms of her jammies on and the feet trailing behind her like a cape; her wrapping her arms around my leg and squeezing; her little lips when she wants a kiss (only wish she'd close them!); her shoulder shrugs and big smile when i come home from work; watching her play with dave; her dancing whenever and wherever she hears music (home, the car, the store); handing her a stuffed animal and watching her give it a big hug.

SF Aquarium 1/11/09

The family took a trip to San Francisco today to visit the aquarium at Pier 39. We hooked up with my friend Jean whom I used to work with at Whole Foods and her roommate's 18 month old daughter, Leni. You walk through this tunnel and the aquarium is all around you. Super cool. Then there is the "rock interlude" area between the tunnels and the "touch the sealife" exhibit. (can't believe how un-childproof this place was!) It was such a beautiful day that we ended up hanging outside and saw some sea lions and finally the carousel before heading back home. Lots of fun. This last pic is Chloe's response to dad's pancakes. :) I think she likes 'em.

Congratulations Kiki!

On December 27th, 2008, my beautiful friend Kiki was married! The ceremony was lovely and the reception was elegant and fun. I wish Kiki and Octavio all of the love and happiness in the world.

Happy New Year!

Whew! Can't believe that it's 2009! Merely 2 years ago, I was in Berlin and didn't even know that I was pregnant. Last year, we were so sleep deprived that we don't even remember what happened over the holidays. So, here we are in 2009 and Chloe is 15 months old and we get more than 6 hours of sleep in a row (mostly). Had a wonderful holiday with the family and as always as I write on the eve of going back to work, it goes too quickly. It was awesome to have the time off and relax and cook and eat...sadly, all the treats I ate have already caught up to me and I can't fit into any of my work pants! New year's resolution: Work out more, duh. Anyway, it was great to visit with everyone that was in town. Chloe had a great time opening presents although I'm pretty sure that she didn't really know what was going on. She's on the verge of talking. Lots of inflection and "almost" words... like "appo" (apple), "nananana" (banana), "ba ba ba ba" (bottle), "da de" (daddy or sometimes dog), "dis" (this?) ..she actually came and found me in the other room and came in saying, "mama?" not really, but it sounded a lot like it. sometimes it's hard to decipher what it is that she wants...and trust me, she KNOWS what she wants, but struggles to express it sometimes and has little breakdowns. She's fascinated by the fridge and wants you to open it..thinking she's hungry, but then she just wants to play with and touch all the condiments and then won't get out of the way when you figure out she's just messing around! We started working on feeding herself...and you can see the result. She ended up ditching the spoon and just used her hand! Today we tried more solid foods with a little fork and that worked better. She still loves dogs and got a stuffed one from Auntie Kate from Christmas which was a big hit. She can identify many farm animals (thanks to the little farm from Uncle Mike) and she understands quite a bit. Her 15 month check up was earlier this week and she's 25 pounds (75th%)....we had some blood taken to check for allergies and surprisingly, she's not allergic to many of the things that we thought were causing her itchiness. We still think she has a lactose intolerance, but she's not blatently allergic to dairy. It's a relief to know at least...so her diet has started to expand a bit this week and she's not complaining! She had 2 oranges yesterday with lunch and had some eggs for breakfast this morning. Anyway, life goes back to "normal" tomorrow as I return to work and Dave resumes daycare duties. Ho hum. It's been great being home and not thinking about school AT ALL! Oh yeah...so I've opened a shop selling things that I have crocheted. I hope you get a chance to check it out: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6600362

also, i realized that i hadn't uploaded a bunch of photos to kodak gallery in a while. here are 2 albums: http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=b2h0app.7cyxes61&x=0&y=-x44sy8&localeid=en_US

turkey day/at the park

this video is for mike....

hope everyone had a great thanksgiving. it was pretty mellow for us. just the 3 of us and my gramps for dinner. then chloe and gramps had some fun playing together while we let our dinners settle. my favorite part of the evening was when chloe wanted to wear gramps' watch and she put her wrist inside the stretchy band so they were "sharing." so cute. regret not getting that in pics. oh well...grandpa stan, gramma k, and uncle scott came over for dessert.had a nice and relaxing time and ate TONS. yum. such a change from last year where dave and i had to really think about what we did last year as we didn't really remember! we were so sleep-deprived!



got a box of goodies from nana katy today and had to try some new stuff on and head to the park. we call this "what people in the 80's thought people will wear in the future"












her newest love is rice cakes (see tucked under her arm), playing "rapinator" with her phone, playing with her shape puzzle (you know the wooden ones with the handles on the pieces), laying on the cat, playing with dirt, and dognapping. she walked all the way to the front door to the playground toys at the park. of course, i had to carry her home as i forgot the buggy. man, that's a long way.

these girls adopted chloe and let her ride in their wagon for a quick minute before flitting away. she wants to play with the big kids sooo badly. can't believe our girl is only 14 months old. she's looking like such a big girl with her "big girl clothes." then again, compared to the girls in the wagon, she looks like a little round babe. :)

tell me she doesn't look like kate...

continued hilarity at 891 spinosa. has learned to "twirl" her arms and enjoyed a birthday card that i got that plays the twilight zone music. put her hair in pigtails last weekend and i SWEAR, she looks so much like aunt kate at this age. what do you think? got a box of goodies from nana katy and promptly put on her dress and blue crocs....which she loves. likes to show you where her head is and if you ask her where her nose is, she'll stick her finger in her mouth...close. lots of pointing and kisses too.

14 months old

uncle mike came last weekend for halloween/jenn's birthday. had a nice visit albeit a rainy one. (and had a little costume reminiscence from the garage arsenal) chloe had some fun times walking around in the rain and going to the dog park to point and bark at the dogs. unfortunately, one of the days' walks was cut short because she grabbed a cactus in someone's yard with tiny little hairs that got everywhere & all over her hands/wrists/everything. definitely learned our lesson about letting her try to walk all the way to the park without the stroller. whoops! had a great birthday lunch with stan, kerry, mike, dave, chloe, elisabeth, and paula. super glad that i could have chocolate cake this year compared to last year! whee... chloe's new thing this week is to twirl her arms together like when you do "pat-a-cake" and the "roll it" part. she continues to be hilarious. she particularly enjoys giving mom very wet raspberries on her tummy and eating everything in sight. is a very sweet hugger and will occasionally give a kiss when prompted.