November

First order of November business was a trip to Oregon for a football game.  We stayed in a hotel in Portland for a few days and squeezed in a few other fun things, like the grand opening of a new park, a walk through the "Saturday Market" (on Sunday, ironically*), and the mandatory stop at our favorite doughnut place: Voodoo Doughnuts.

*Funny story - my sister and her boyfriend had come along for the trip with us, and they had ventured off on Sunday morning while the rest of us got a late start.  When we called them to figure out where to meet, she told me they were at the Saturday Market.  At the risk of making us both sound stupid, I had to ask..."you know it's Sunday, right?".  Facts confirmed, we did indeed meet them at said market.  Maybe you had to be there.  I thought it was funny, anyway.

Didn't take very many pictures on that trip, just a few at the new park...

Blake loooooved the swings.

Also on the trip, BLAKE ATE AN ENTIRE APPLE.

This is what was left - the stem and some bits of the skin.  I kid you not.

Next, we had our friends (Cian's parents) take a nice picture for our Christmas cards.  You've already seen that picture, of course, but here is my most favorite out-take...

Blake's face?  I LOVE IT.

One day we took a trip to a local kid-friendly spot I had heard about called Country Village.  It was a very cute little cluster of shops and restaurants, with a creek running though, and at one end a playground and even a train ride.  

We went mostly for the train.  Hollie rode in the caboose all by herself!

 November 16th, 2012 - the day we found out (via Facebook) that Hostess was going out of business.  Like the good Americans we are, we joined the mad rush at two different grocery stores to grab what we could.

The haul...

Hmmm?  What paleo diet?

Last but not least, Thanksgiving.  We had a fantastic [mostly paleo] meal with my sister and her boyfriend.  Hollie loved helping me roll up the [non-paleo] crescent rolls.

That's all for now!

More later.

Back-tracking [October]

Blake turned 18 months a few weeks ago, and we just got around to taking her in for a check-up last week. She was...

25 lbs. 13 oz (75th percentile)
30.5 in. (25th percentile)

She is looking great.  Healthy as a horse!  A round of teething last month brought in two lateral incisors on the bottom and the first four molars, and she is putting them to good use.

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Let's get caught up on pictures!

Waaaaaay back in October 2012, Hollie's school held their annual fall festival.  Luckily, at the same time we had Daniel's mother and her parents visiting, so they came too!

Hollie had her face painted like a panda...

...and then danced the night away!

One night, we took care of our friends' son, Cian.  Blake had just started giving very nice kisses, and he was very patient with her.

And finally, Halloween night!  Hollie was a witch...

Blake was a little girl with no patience for a costume, who really just needed to be bundled up anyway, and I was the mom who bought the last few things left in the Halloween aisle earlier that day.

We opted not to leave a pumpkin out to rot in the rain, so here are our homemade window decorations!

Bats and pumpkins, cut out by Mommy and painted by Hollie

White papers with spooky drawings by Hollie

Stack of mini-pumpkins by Mommy

Next up, November.

Snip-its

Hi everyone!  We had a wonderful Christmas and New Years at home (with Daniel's birthday in between!).  We are so lucky that, being in the aircraft industry, Daniel gets over a week off from work at this time of year.  Also, yet another perk of living on the west coast...the kids got to watch the ball drop in Times Square at 9pm and then call it a night!  Granted, that it pretty late for them anyway, and a bit underwhelming in the end, but you get the point.

Some Christmas morning pictures!

While Daddy and Hollie get down to business...

...Blake says, "I will not be in the mood for this until I get some food in my belly."

I love this picture:

Very first little boy clothes (thanks Mom!)

Daniel on Skype with his parents

H&B still digging that cash register out of the package

Merry Belated Christmas!

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Some other random happenings

The other day Hollie came across the Pull-Ups that we used when she first started not wearing diapers at night.  We used to call them "night-time underwear", and it's been a long time since she's used them but we still had the remnants of the last box in a closet.
The first thing she said was, "This is my cowboy underwear!"
"Hmmm...okay!"
Then she pulled it onto her head and said, "Nope, it's my doctor hat."
" ..... "

I had an awful dream a few nights ago.  I was in the hospital, and delivering the baby.  After he was born, I immediately went home to shower and change clothes, which in itself is odd.  When I returned to the hospital, no one could tell me where my baby was, because we hadn't given him a name yet (Daniel was never present through all of this), and that I couldn't even go in past the front desk because, though the clock on the wall said 3:15, the guy at the counter said "visiting hours are over at 3:30".  It was vivid and had me awake in a panic, but there was one interesting detail...that was a little McBurney boy!  Unlike the mini-Daniel we've been anticipating, the baby in the dream was pale with light brown hair.  We will just have to wait and see!

One afternoon, Hollie had me sit on the couch (except it was actually a car), so that she could drive me to a "snow mountain" where we could go sledding.  After turning the toy keys in the invisible ignition, she stopped and pulled a stuffed bear out from under a pillow next to her, and said, "The motor wasn't working.  There was a polar bear in it."  We never made it to the snow mountain...got side-tracked to bear cuddling.

She is a wonderful story-teller.  Just today she had us all sit around her to hear about some baboons that live in a house, and some bunnies that grew up to be tigers.  Then she made up a song which had us all tapping toes, then drumming on the floor, then waving our arms, and I don't remember the rest.  Her imagination is truly limitless.

Blake is beginning her vocabulary!
For a while now she has been saying...
"Hiiiiii!"
"Byyyyye!"
"MaMAAAAAA!"
"Yessssss"
"Nooooooooo!" or "Nonononono!"
and has recently added...
"Dada"
"Hah-lah" or "Hah-ligh" for Hollie (it still blows my mind that "Hollie" wasn't her first word.  She is sooo attached to her big sister)
"Ba" for bath
and, most recently,
"Ni-ni" for night-night
"Eeeee" for cheese

When asked, she can also identify some parts of her body asked: eyes, hair, nose, teeth, ears (sometimes), and her favorite: belly!  She doesn't say any of them yet, except when she calls all of them "eyes".

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At the moment we are enjoying a visit from Daniel's parents.

Hope to post more soon!

Oh, brother.

We have a lot to catch up on!  Two holidays, a road trip, family visits, we're having a boy...and, most recently,

...another haircut at home.

Last Thursday.  Girls left alone for ten minutes (maybe) while Daniel and I were talking in another room.  It's the sort of thing that truly only happens when you least expect it!

In her own words, "My hair was too long!"  Her bangs took a pretty bad hit, along with one whole side of her head.  She got her first trip to a real [kids'] hair salon to attempt to even it out.  I tried to get a few pictures afterward, but really the best way to see it is in this video.

Later I got these adorable pictures of Little Sister...who, by the way, also got a few snips/bald spots.  I was taking pictures of Hollie brushing her teeth, and felt a tug on my shirt, again and again.  This is so normal that I mostly ignored it...until I looked down and saw this!

I must say...that's a new one!

I hope to back-track and post photos from the last few months, and then get back in the habit of posting regularly, or at least more often than every few months.  

No more summer

Well, after that short week of sunshine, summer came to an abrupt halt and we've been under the rain and gloom ever since.  Except for those eerie moments when it rains while the sun is shining.  Isn't that weird?!

This has made the kids, especially Hollie, surprisingly antsy.  We've taken a few walks in the rain, but a recent bit of congestion has kept outside time to a minimum.

So, we've been keeping busy...experimenting in the kitchen (dijon-maple chicken, seafood gumbo, pumpkin bread, mmmm), visiting the library, preparing for a visit from Abuelita and her parents (see you tomorrow!!), and converting antsy into artsy...

Yep, we visited the pumpkin farm with Hollie's school, and lived to tell about it!  

In case you're wondering, she is holding a tiny kitten.  

Keeping the kids rapt attention + giving instructions to the big people.

When I found out that I would be driving one other student, and that I would be responsible for him and Hollie, I decided to leave little Blake with my friend Heather, instead of take her along as I had planned.  I'm very glad I did.  This farm was a madhouse of school groups being herded from one activity to another...and there was a LOT to do.  We played on a playground, watched a duck race, visited the petting zoo, rode a tractor trailer out to the field where we chose our pumpkins, and rode back to cap off the afternoon with some ice cream.  The little boy who rode with us, Cole, was a bundle of energy...and not a hand-holder.  He certainly kept me on my toes!  The best part of the trip (for the parents and teachers, I think) was going out into the field to choose pumpkins.  The open fields surrounding the pumpkin patch prevented any kids from making an unnoticed escape, unlike amid all the farm buildings where we were constantly mixed in with other groups and we could barely keep track of each other much less the two or three kids we were each responsible for.

The best part for the kids, I'm guessing, was the ice cream.  Because we were on a farm, naturally I expected that we were going to sample some homemade pumpkin ice cream made with fresh milk from a nearby dairy farm, or something like that.  I was sadly disappointed.  

The kids weren't!

You may have noticed Hollie's unusual outfit.  She likes to pick out her own clothes, and I like letting her.  She usually lets me point her in the appropriate direction for long vs. short sleeves, shorts vs. pants, etc., but that day, she started without me and came out of her room wearing this...

That's Cole, by the way.

That's a black skirt over blue pants with white spots.  Daniel and I saw her at the same time, and I think our jaws both hit the floor!  Of course, we never asked that she change.  It's just a trip the farm...if it had been for a nice dinner (with a three-year old??) we might have had to make some gentle suggestions!  Anyway, the more I looked at her clothes the cuter she looked, and her teacher loved it too.

It was a fun, busy day!  That's all for now.  Can't wait to see the girls' great-grandparents and show them our new home!

Second summer

For the past week or so, we've been enjoying a spell of unseasonably warm weather!  Before that, it was starting to get chilly and gloomy, and I was coming to terms with it, and then...poof!  Here comes the sun, little darlin'.

One Last Trip to the Beach [most likely]

This was the very first photo I took when we arrived at the playground, and I still had the camera on an indoor setting.  This photo is still definitely a keeper though!

Maybe you can tell...Blake does NOT like holding hands.  She is super affectionate in every other way...she has even started giving the most adorable kisses!  Not a hand-holder, though.

Anyway, upon arrival we were greeted with cries of "Hollie! Hollie!!" from the swings.  Two of her classmates were there!

Here is one of them (I didn't get her name), waiting patiently to use the monkey bars.

Hollie insisted on bringing her umbrella.  She cannot wait for the first rainy day, so we can go for a walk in all our rain gear!  We brought the umbrella "just in case".  Blake happily held it for her while she played with her friends.

What a back-drop!

Beautiful.

I think she really looks like Daniel here.

The only picture I got of them together.  They're not fans of that routine.

The three classmates!

We even got to see a train go by on the tracks that run along the coast.  

Blake was SUPER EXCITED!

Have I mentioned that I love living here?

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One night last week we got to babysit our friend, Cian!  In the past, he has made Blake a little nervous, especially when I hold him (mom holding another baby = not cool), but this time, she didn't mind so much.  

She even gave him a few kisses!

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I'm feeling much better.  We had another ultrasound which gave us a solid due date of April 13th (not a Friday, I checked).  Definitely getting a little belly.  

Last night was Mom's Night at Hollie's school.  All the moms got to spend an hour in the classroom letting the students show us around.  The hour went by really fast, and Hollie made it clear what her favorite things were.  She traced some shapes with a pencil on paper, had me read a book to her, and we did ALL the puzzles.  She loved it.  

Occasionally when I pick Hollie up from school, her teacher, Miss Cindy, tells me how much fun Hollie is.  She is always happy at school, and the other kids love her.  So strange for me to hear, because of course at home she has bad days and bad moods - though I have to say, since starting school, she seems happier in general.  

There's probably more, but I can't remember.  We still don't have the pictures from our photo shoot yet.  We have a busy couple of weeks coming up!  Can't wait.  :)

All in one day?!

There were three papers in Hollie's school folder this afternoon.

One was about her very first field trip, coming up next week.  This terrifies me, to my core.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to chaperone.  They're going to a pumpkin patch (aka child abductor convention, right?).  Lots of deep breaths.

The next was about the first round of parent-teacher conferences.  Not so terrifying!

And last, the proofs from her very first school portraits, which were taken last week.  The only danger here is of me crying every time I look at them.  She's such a cutie!

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All of this made me completely forget about Blake's photo session at a local park this afternoon!  We made it just in time, and she did great, and Hollie even jumped in for a few shots.  I'll be getting all the pictures electronically, so I'll be able to post them when I get them sometime next week.  :)