SF fun

Yesterday we met T at work and took K to the city to see the lights, look at the kitties in the Macy's windows and grab dinner... The best part of the day for K was the fire trucks... which were everywhere. I tried to get my car washed before meeting T (just in case you are wondering why it rained yesterday) and we were told it was a 90 minute wait... So instead I had to find something to do in Redwood City... We went to Mervyns to get new bootie pajamas when we spotted a fire truck outside of the babies r us.... K was so excited we ran over to it and checked it out... little did we know we would see eight more fire trucks while in the city. K loved it and even got one firefighter to ring the bell. Dinner was definitely the best part of the day as we went to Cafe de la presse.... a yummy french restaraunt. They even had macaroni and cheese on the menu... way more cheesy and buttery than what we have at home! Every time we see a fire truck we sing hush little baby don't say a word... papa's going to buy you a fire truck. K is starting to miss N's and her friends. She wants to go back to school. Guess Mommy is a bit boring.

One of the best Christmas' ever

Christmas rocked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got to try the jam I made this summer from the apricots that we borrowed from the orchard down the way... with some tasty scones, we had fantastic mimosas... Gma S made an incredible xmas dinner... and we just had a great time! I tried to make a fruit tart... Whole Foods makes everything look easy. My pastry cream didn't turn out and so thank goodness Safeway was open so we could purchase the ingredients necessary for a redo... The presents were great... My family gave me a fantastic bracelet (that I eyed in Boston) and a beautiful creamer (that I eyed in Cambridge) careful what I show Pmogi!!! and T bought me a beautiful ks travel make up bag, picture frame and a perfume I had been eyeing.... once again... careful what you show pmogi! K was thrilled to see her babies and has not mentioned Lucy once... Our babies are swinging and sleeping and being pushed around in their new stroller... The best part of course... the post xmas sales... after that no more shopping...

A perfect holiday

We spent the weekend exchanging gifts, going out to dinner and visiting friends which was fantastic. Sunday was probably one of the best days... We met our friends S&R in Santa Cruz for breakfast and a walk near the beach... K loves loves R and spent the morning following him around... grabbing his hand when it was time to cross the street... and the funniest thing of all... as we were walking she picked flowers for everyone.... R got a beautiful bloom as did Mommy and Daddy... S however got a little tiny bloom..... K loves her R! S&R also gave K a beautiful horse who we named crash... she has been sleeping with him every night. He takes up more room in her bed then she does. We went into downtown and wandered around... enjoyed our favorite coffee from bad ass and as we were wandering we discovered carriage rides... K loved loved her first carriage ride ever... I forgot the camera as I wish I could have caught her face. We finished the day by wandering on Fulton in PA with pmogi and gma s to check out the lights. K loved the lights and was dragged from each house... Her favorite thing was baby Jesus who she spent the rest of the night talking about because she wanted Santa to bring her baby jesus!

On Christmas Eve K and Daddy went shopping for Mommy presents... I think I am the only person who went to the mall to have lunch and not shop, but we all met after they were done at Oakville. We hosted Christmas Eve and K spent most of the evening playing doll with one of her cousins... She enjoyed holding him and sorta enjoyed sharing her toys! One of the funniest things about K shopping with Daddy is that the presents always come out while we are going along our day. As soon as I saw her she announced that she had gotten me candy... The best part was as after we split up I took K to the grocery store... We are driving down the road when she asks if I saw the Santa... I said which Santa thinking I missed it when she said you know the one I took the photo with... You can guess what one of my presents was. Our first ever Santa photo!

lucy who...

Tonight we had to make a run to target after getting K... Somehow right next to the kitty food section... there were babies... babies with strollers, beds, changing pads... and well more babies... After two weeks of working on pulling Lucy together... Gma C got the stroller, we found the baby, the bedding, the carrier, the diaper bag. Gma S and Pmogi found the cradle bed.... there was a change of heart. K no longer wants lucy... she wants these babies.... and everything that comes with them... The particular style she wanted only had one left so we split up and T bought them... but what do I do with all the lucy stuff and most importantly will she want it later... For now we have both safely tucked away in the garage. K is very serious about her new babies though so I see an exchange taking place...

The holidays are here!!!!!!!!

The mommy's group had a great holiday party on Saturday.... K loved it and was the last little one to go... holding on to toys and saying she didn't want to leave.... how can you leave tons of new toys, unlimited apple juice, tangerines and most of all friends!

T and I went to our annual city day... tried a new breakfast place... in search of a new city breakfast place... wandered the marina checking out trees, shopped, hit the grove for lattes and finished the night at town hall for dinner and union square for lights... We are taking K next week....

Yesterday I sorted hundreds and hundreds pounds of pasta at Second Harvest... K heaven... followed by my first slice of cheesecake factory cheesecake at my office's holiday party.

Tomorrow is the last day of school for K for 12 days... The adventures are about to begin... Last year we did a number of day trips in the area... so we are gearing up for some fantastic family time and lots of adventures!

An average weekend

- AuntJ came down for the weekend and hung with K... K was thrilled....
- Mommy's calc final is tomorrow... lots of studying and best of all lots of help from the most awesome husband and tutor in the world.... THANK YOU!
- farmers market fun with twee twee and our favorite musician. reenacting the market at home with singing last night while demanding Mommy dance...

T and I had an awesome date on Thursday night as he drove down to meet me at my conference in HMB and spend the night... Power relaxing as the conference went so late... enjoyed all the amenities... didn't enjoy the run outside due to the nasty wind... beautiful view from the gym inside... bad idea to think outside was the place to go... loved loved the panna cotta...

Tomorrow night the holidays will begin at 8pm when calc ends and my first quarter back in school is over... Let's all hope I do ok on the final and the grade counts as I am still not in the class due to a missing prereq... the thought of taking it at a jc to save time, money and make it easier is totally failing right now.... Loved the SCU stuff.... hated the calc would be an understatement...

Another baby

One of our Christmas gifts from last year is hot again... A doll from Aunt J... who is now named epsie and our first girl doll.... We love her!

K had another spectacular weekend.

- Big Game... she loved screaming GO STANFORD and high fiving everyone... She also loved the watermelon in the press box while visiting Daddy's friends.... The barstools and the long hallway for running were exactly what she had in mind.... We went to one of our favorite restaraunts in Palo Alto after the game as a family... K almost fell asleep on the drive home, but loved her day especially as it included a morning with Gma S and her weekly visit to Whole Foods for the shopping cart and cookie...

- Sunday we went to a fantastic breakfast with M&J, hit the farmers market and spent time reading with Aunt J.... T and I went to Peets and had a mini date over a cappucino while K caught up with Gma C after being away from her for a weekend... Very dramatic for the both of them. I think we have made it through 30% of our books being read at least once.

The bummer I was I brought the camera and a dead battery for most of our events...very useful!

Friday

We made it through the week... well almost... one midterm, one final and one final paper.... We are ready for the weekend.....

K and the girls at school are in love with their babies... We all practiced bouncing them on our knees at drop off this morning... All the girls have babies, strollers, bottles and they take turns putting the babies in the crib, highchair etc... Here is our latest baby we must have.... Lucy... Santa hurry.... we need Lucy....

and even more pics

Thanksgiving!!!!

Cooking... fun... K making stuffing... even better.... time with family and good food... great!

Visiting family in Sacramento and having K play with cousins... awesome... having her not try and sneak in our bed last night because she played too hard... great. Having Gma C come home with us for a few days... fun... K is in heaven and avoiding her parents....

Mommy and K hitting the after Thanksgiving sales and seeing Clancy (the pottery barn kids bear... life sized and moving... heaven for K- we all know how she is with stuffed animals)... Finding more babies for Santa to buy.... Having to wait for Santa to come.... so hard!

Going to the park... spending time with Daddy so Mommy can study for finals... spending time with Mommy so Daddy can golf... awesome again!

Needless to say we had a great weekend.

photos from trip

So I am dreaming of a way to move to Manhattan

I am in love with Manhattan... even as I froze this past weekend... I loved it... I love the vibe, the shops, the fact I throw my shopping budget out the window and buy too much, the cool cafes, the food... everything. Unfortunately there are no golf courses within a ten minute drive so we are never going to live there... Regardless it was a glorious long weekend with pmogi... We hit Nolita, SoHo, the Meatpacking District, Madison, the Met, the MOMA, Sarabeths (YUMMY), SoHo wine bars, a couple new places (Good Enough to Eat - great food) and the Little Pie Company (shock I know... great pie).... It was fantastic... cold... and so much fun! K scored loads of really cool clothes and is going to be wearing brands I have never bought... but it was so much fun to buy for her.

The most memorable moment.... as we had found a few you know little things in Boston our luggage was a bit large coming into NYC.... so after looking for a handicapped spot for our wide load at the subway station... we saw the booth on the other side of the gate and decide we should just go through the emergency exit.... we weren't going to fit through the little turn things... we had fares on our tickets and were wandering over to the booth with the tickets in hand when two NYPD came up to us and asked for ids... I am thinking it is so nice for them to come help that I present my fare cards and explain we are too wide to fit through... well they were not amused... apparently... they thought we were trying to avoid the fare... ha as if $4 is going to help our budget at this point.... they start talking about arresting us... I am shell shocked... arrest us... for what... anyway off they go with our ids while we start to get extremely nervous.... we got two fines... AHHH! So now we must contest our fines because the cameras felt we were trying to sneak through.... Can you believe this? Apparently the co felt since we held our cards out when he came up to us... we knew the system... As you can tell I am annoyed, but extremely amused all at once. Wish me luck contesting.... This has not been a good year for tickets... my first traffic ticket ever was almost a year ago to date and now this.... Pmogi will never go back to NYC after this.

Back home... and so happy.... MoCa hung with me all last night and K was soooo excited this morning... I have given her third baby who has been named Butterfly and is at school with her... I have painted her fingernails... we are back together

what fun...

T found K in our bed last night... she skipped the ask and just climbed in.

I have been on the East Coast since last Sat for work although I did find time for a bit of fun last weekend although it is way too cold for a CA wimp...

Highlights include:
Drinks at the top of prudential tower
Shopping in south end and on newburry
Boston Fine Arts Museum
Breakfast in Beacon Hill
Dinner and shopping on the north end

NY details to follow

How many days until Thanksgiving break?

(Thanks Lady M for the pic.)

pics

November!

How can it be!!!

Fri night we watched Stanford volleyball followed by a great dinner with M&J while K hung with Gma S in prep for a fun weekend.... Saturday we went to her favorite shop... not only does she get a cookie... she gets to push the big girl cart around for grocery shopping. We spent the late morning at the park for swings and at lunch with D,T and M.... It was really fun although I think K's favorite part was the lollipop after lunch! We had D&J over on Saturday night and as always K was really excited to have guests and ran around like a crazy girl.

Sunday was definitely a great way to end our October adventures... We went to San Francisco and met AuntJ who joined us at Eats for my favorite fruit crepes and the Marina for playing in the park, wandering the shops and an early dinner at Cafe Balboa... K loved her shell pasta and ice cream treat and especially enjoyed waking up from her nap at a Union Street toy shop... Trying to enjoy those last few days of indian summer before bundling in for winter.

But you don't have any lollipops!

Last night was really fun... and really tiring for our girl! We ended up all meeting at her school and going trick or treating with all the kids. K opened her lollipop before we even left the first driveway and galloped from door to door asking for candy... or picking through bowls for the most appealing candy or simply wondering why some people didn't have lollipops... When people offered her to take two... she did! She was so tired that she didn't even have the energy to ask to sleep in our bed five minutes after laying down. She has made that part of the routine... she asks, we say no and she goes to back bed. This morning she remembered the candy that we promised she could eat today and so after we ate breakfast instead of elmo crackers or fruit she had eight m&ms as her car snack while we drove to school... We are excited about the candy. She is hoping to go trick or treating tonight, but I told her it is a once a year thing.

A little bummed

A little bummed this morning to miss the school's halloween party as I have class... T is going to the party before heading home so we can get a little group wandering in. Our neighborhood is great for going out as there are so many kids and a lot of folks really get into it.
K was quite excited by last night's earthquake and when Gma C called in to check in on her... K told her about the shaking and how scared MoCa was. She also went over to the couch and described the earthquake and the earth settling just like Daddy shared with her.... It was an exciting night for her and so she spent her third night ever in our bed. MoCa sleeps with us every night and was also really scared so there were four of us in our bed... We are a bit sleepy this morning.

AHHH BOO!

We carved our first family pumpkin on Sat at a friend's Halloween party. There were about fifty pumpkins to choose from so K had a lot of fun picking out her pumpkin… Her favorite part was definitely cleaning out the pumpkin… We are lighting him every morning at breakfast… eek! K had a slow start on Saturday, but yesterday was in much better spirits and back to eating food… We had a family day with lunch in Los Gatos followed by an afternoon in downtown Santa Cruz before meeting our photographer from our wedding for our holiday photos. We went out to the beach which hopefully will turn out well, but as always was very cold! We had dinner in town before heading over the hill for another crazy week of work and school.

Mommy... I am all wet

K woke up in the middle of the night with the stomach flu. We ended up doing a family sleepover (even MoCa came) in her room as she ended up throwing up most of the night... Her spirits were pretty high considering she took four baths, used all her sheets/pjs and had to sleep with a beach towel on top of the crib mattress. I took the day and stayed home with her napping, reading and going for a walk to explore the neighborhood pumpkins, which look awesome. T came home early and set up her big girl bed which she is sleeping in for the first time tonight... Hopefully we are through the worst of it and she can enjoy her bed...

I don't want to go to the farmers market

Yesterday as we pulled into the market I unclipped K only to turn around and see her seatbelt back on... "I'm not going to the market, I am staying in the car. I want to go to the party." K's higlight of yesterday was going to the Mom's group Halloween party. It was so good she took a two and a half hour nap immediately afterwards... very unlike our action girl! She had a really good time at the party and enjoyed playing, observing and treats although she was very concerned that her treat basket didn't contain any candy.

On Saturday T and I went up for our annual Oct Napa trip. The repeat highlights included tasting at Joseph Phelps and lunch at Auberge du Soleil. New cool experiences including tasting at Darioush (persian inspired winery) and Jarvis where we got an incredible tour where we got to smell french oak barrels, see the wine as it was being repumed in different vats and a great tasting. It was a neat behind the scenes tour. We also had dinner in downtown Napa for the first time ever at a great Italian place. K spent most of the day with Gma S, which she loved. She got to go to church, play at the park before heading home to spend the evening with G showing her toys, clothes etc.

School is crazy right now... T and I are having to split up to hang with K and so we aren't getting as much family time as we would like. Friday night we ate together which was great! Luckily this should be one of the worst quarters and I am 1/3 way in! In the meantime I was lucky enough to hear closing call at the local Starbucks every night this weekend! K is being a great sport and enjoying errands at Home Depot with T and grocery shopping with Mommy so we are quite lucky....

a couple more

a few shots

I played a lot!

The bed is moving along although it is a bit of a transition... We have had a couple nights where it was hard to get her to stay in. On Sunday morning K requested to wake up at 4am. We explained no did the songs, back rubbing etc. but couldn't get her into her bed... So T told her she could stay up, but it had to be in her room and we still needed to sleep. As he walked back down the hall the light went on and stayed on until 7 when she came into our room... We asked her what she did while we slept and she said she played A LOT! She insists that she didn't go back to sleep, and her toys were out so it seems that she kept herself occupied for three hours rather than sleeping in her bed. This morning she woke us up at 2am as one of T's socks must have gotten stuck to her blanket in the dryer... As she found it while she was sleeping she got up and brought it back to him and then went right back to bed.

We went big girl bed shopping and found something yesterday! We have to order it and are skipping our normal shop as they were so rude to K on Saturday about testing beds using a noisy voice etc in the shop. Apparently they only want couples in the shop... so we went to Stanford yesterday and did a mass big girl shopping run! Exciting! New bedding... the best part!

K and I went to Los Gatos on Saturday and had an incredible time... We stumbled on a few boutiques with open houses so K had brie and crackers every twenty minutes and played with a million toys as so many of the shops have great toys for the kids. The best part was K's trip to Icing on the Cake where she got to pick a pink cookie. The pumpkin cookies were made from pumpkin so they weren't as appealing as the sugar cookie with frosting and sprinkles. Hard to believe. As we were having friends over for dinner that evening I bought some cookies... Hands down the best cookies ever! I recommend everyone check them out.

On Saturday M&J came over and we had a great time with them as always! K loved loved the visit! She put on California (her Hall costume horse), shared toys and puzzles and just had fun! It was funny to watch her run around with friends as normally she is a bit more reserved.

I have my first calc midterm on Tuesday so I spent much of the weekend studying and K spent some extra time with Gma S so T could help tutor his fantastic math student =). he had a lot of fun as always. Since we also had dinner with my family twice this weekend K got extra Gma time... always awesome!

Two nights in

K loves her big girl bed slumber party (translation: mattress on floor as we need to order a new bed. Not sure on the toddler bed, but it all depends on if the furniture shop really requests 14 weeks for delivery) The first night was forty minutes of "I have to go to the bathroom" until I finally had to tell her that she needed to show me she was ready for a big girl bed by staying in it. That must have stuck with her because she went to bed after that without a peep. In the morning she asked me if it was time to wake up before leaving. Another big milestone although it will be more memorable when she has a real bed in her room.

I bought her a pumpkin cookie as a treat this week... She loved it. We made it last for four snacks and since she is crazy about Halloween it was a real hit. We are going to get another one tomorrow. Not a good idea for me to have sugar cookies in the house, otherwise I would make them! A funny moment about the cookie and a two year old version of sharing... T was out one of the times she was eating her cookie and so she told me "I want to share with Daddy" I explained he would be home later and she could give him a piece. She said oh no I want Daddy to watch me eat the cookie... I asked if that is what she meant by sharing... She nodded immediately. Hmm... a different version of sharing, but a very funny one.

If you are wondering

If you are wondering why it rained last night... It is because I washed my car at lunch yesterday and the rainy roads made it dirty again on the way to school today! I wonder if the dealership would mind if I went back today... Hmmm. I bet they are bummed I know about the free car wash benefits.

We are looking for a new bed for K. A big girl bed! She has been asking for a big girl bed the last few weeks while reading stories with big girl beds and we are have had two accidents in the morning because she needs to go to the bathroom as soon (and I do mean as soon) as she wakes up. So we are going shopping for a big girl bed this weekend. K being mine wanted to go at 7 this morning and was bummed to hear the stores are closed. This morning we pulled the crib mattress out of the bed and are selling a sleep over as I am sure it will take 2-3 months for the bed to come. I am thinking of skipping the toddler bed and going straight to the big girl bed... Too drastic? I hope not!

And finally K has been working on a Brooklyn accent. I am guessing it is a residual from the Dora episodes in Singapore, but we keep hearing baaaanana and cccattt. It is very humorous.

Gma C feel better (photos from K at school taken by TB)