obsession

any time dottie sees a ball, she says, "ba" over and over and over again. you might say she it is a little bit of an obsession. she has a collection of bouncy balls at the house that she goes back and forth between. she laughs when milo tries to get them from her and even sometimes goes for his. i wonder what the next obsession will be? we are hoping it's something that starts with something other than a B!

goin' my way

one of dottie's favorite new christmas toys was this little bike with a trailer (from the murphy grandparents). she sits on it and makes a little car sound...as you can imagine, it's pretty darn cute!

santa came to milwaukee

to see more photos of our christmas, click HERE

dottie had so much fun in milwaukee this past week when we went to visit the family. she was excited that santa found her in milwaukee, hooray!.........one of her top front teeth poked through on christmas day (this makes 3 teeth now).................she played a little in the massive amount of snow that came down while we were there and proceeded to melt. she didn't quite know what to think but we think she liked it and she got to show off her new snowsuit......she met ella opat (who was born 3 days before she was) for the first time and thought it was nice that she shared her toys...............played with 3 dachshunds at the same time and loved every minute of it (thank you to jackson, chloe, and finn for putting up with her)........she got to see auntie steph's expanding belly (only 19 more weeks)..............she loved seeing her grandma cam, grandpa bill, auntie steph, uncle paul, aunt ellen, aunt mary ann, aunt anne, uncle paul, james, and of course her great grandma clara

christmas

we just got back from milwaukee yesterday after a very fun christmas! here is a picture of dottie christmas morning playing with her new drum. more pictures to come later today or tomorrow.

cute girls

anna came over with the fam today to take pics for their christmas card. aida and zayneb were as adorable as ever and even let us snap a photo of them with dottie. very cute! aida was excited to hold dottie in lap and they both very sweetly gave her kisses when they left.

kisses

lately we have been amazed by how much more dottie is understanding. she knows and can point out a handful of words....baby, ball, book, birds, bear (all B words!), milo, monkey, mommy, daddy, car, kitty, bla bla (her mobile above her crib), kisses, nose, ear, etc.
here is a little sampling... (for some reason, she gives slobbery kisses on the nose. she does it to her babydoll too. who know where she learned that from!)

xylophone

lately when dottie goes into her toy box, she ends up pulling out the xylophone. the thing that has impressed us most lately is that even if the mallet for the xylophone is in the deepest part of the box, she somehow finds it and pulls it out knowing that they go together. then she proceeds to make some music! today she also found out the you can't crawl around with the mallet in your mouth because you are bound to almost choke yourself (or perhaps her mom found out not to let her!)

dottie gets a lift

we went for lunch with our friends basak and lula today and then went to their house afterwards for a little playtime. lula gave dottie a little lift with her new walker. the only problem was that she just wanted to keep on going when she got to a dead end which makes for a smooshed dottie!

ralphie...i can't put my arms down!

we are heading back to milwaukee for the holidays and i am a touch worried about keeping dottie warm in the cold weather. we tried a snowsuit on her today that was a touch big...

11 months old

dottie is officially 11 months old today! do you think she is ready for the hills with her daddy?

1st christmas present

today dottie received her first christmas presents in the mail from her uncle rollie and aunt nancy. we haven't let her open it yet but she is VERY curious about what is inside (notice the "deep in thought tongue")

just her size

this is not the tree we ended up with but it was awfully tempting because it was just dottie's size.

why is santa so scary?

spur of the moment, dottie met santa for the first time today at a local shopping center. in this picture, she really looks like she's having a great time but in reality, i don't know how the guy got this shot. she honestly started crying, with some major tears, the minute she sat on his lap. wow that photographer was good! why is it that santa is so scary to most babies?

spaghetti = bath

last night we went to our local spaghetti joint for dinner. it was seriously crazy how much she loved the spaghetti! she slurped up the long noodles and shoved them in her mouth. the more we put in front of her, the more crazy she got for it! needless to say, dottie really enjoyed the leftovers today and went straight to the tub afterwards... we were worried for a moment that her face was permanently orange!

for marie

oh yes we did!
dottie's mullet in pigtails...

lula and her pig

last saturday, we were lucky enough to be invited to lula's first birthday! basak and her husband did a lovely job decorating for the big event and lula was as darling as ever. her cake was a little cupcake with a pink pig of top. dottie loved lula's new red piano!

holiday shopping?

dottie was quite intrigued by mom's wallet this morning...

beauty school drop out...

...go back to pre-school....

at least someone ate turkey...

chuck and i came down with the flu on thanksgiving so needless to say, between the 2 of us, i think we at a total of 12 saltine crackers. talk about a feast! it was a VERY long day taking care of a 10 month old feeling about as bad as it gets. the worst part about it is that dottie didn't even get to nibble on her first thanksgiving dinner. in lieu of the big feast, she got this sad jar of "turkey vegetable" dinner. (we made up for missing all of the gluttony yesterday and made a mini thanksgiving feast!)

yesterday at the park...

crawling towards the slide!

another dottie?

but this dottie happens to be a goat!
this past sunday, we made out way over to nick, marie, and siena's house with our friend allie. we had a lovely afternoon...ate lunch, the girls played, and then we went on a lovely walk through their new neighborhood to a local playground. at the playground we spotted 2 goats. of course the girls were interested in them so we went to check them out and found out that their names are dottie and arthur. the owners thought it was a hoot and so did we! unfortunately we didn't get the greatest shot of dottie with dottie. oh well! to see more photos from our day, click HERE. (we went a bit snap happy because the day was so beautiful!)

danger dottie

dottie's new not-so-safe trick is to stand up in her high chair at the end of her meal. don't worry grandparents, we are now strapping her in. (notice milo looking like he is making sure she is safe. really he is just waiting to see if there are any more scraps that might fall his way. milo loves his new relationship with dottie!)

on a record keeping note, dottie now loves feeding herself and has almost stopped eating pureed foods. she LOVES peas, noodles, cheese, steamed carrots, and has finally mastered the pincher skills so she can get those little round peas into her mouth.

heart bum

we stripped dottie down for lunch so she wouldn't get food on her dress and then she just ended up in her tights and undershirt for the rest of the day. pretty cute little heart on the bum...

dottie's first 1st birthday party

today started to string of first birthday parties we are excited to attend over the next several months! her friend liam had his party at our local park, holly park, in bernal. the weather was gorgeous and the kids all crawled around, tasted cupcakes, ate some cheerios,... dottie had fun trying out the playground equipment.

sweet malcolm

penny and malcolm came over on friday morning to say hi. malcolm is 4 months younger than dottie and it was fun to watch them together now to see just how much their age gap is tightening. before we know it dottie is going to be passing malcolm notes in school telling him how cute he is (or maybe i should say texting! do they even pass notes in school anymore?) this picture is of dottie showing of her piano to malcolm. she has started "bopping" to the music when it plays. pretty darn cute i must say!

a little bit stripey

we went to rachel and isaiah's house today for a little playtime. they really played nicely together and matched nicely too!

heath ceramics

yesterday we had a fun trip to sausilito to eat at FISH and check out heath ceramics with jim and albert. dottie liked the colorful tiles at heath!

mexican food, music, and skating...

yesterday we heading to the ferry building for some mexican food and little people watching with our friends pooja and ian. dottie was very into the clarinet player who had set up shop by our lunch table. after lunch, we checked out the ice skating at the embarcadero. yes, very weird, ice skating in san francisco in 80 degree temperatures...

10 months and counting

time flies doesn't it? we can't believe dottie is already 10 months old today! we are really loving every minute of it. more about dottie at 10 months tomorrow but until then, some pictures from a visit from our friends jim and albert from chicago...

chompers

i was finally able to capture a shot of dottie's new teeth! pretty cute eh? lunch all over the place...not so cute!

spicy wings

i am going through pictures tonight so will post some good ones of our trip back east but until then, i thought i would post this silly picture. we stopped at a restaurant known for their wings called Quaker Steak and Lube on our drive back from toronto. we fed dottie the usual baby food and finger foods and a very select offering of chicken from the wings with no sauce because i was worried it would be too hot for her. well, she was so into the chicken that i couldn't keep it coming fast enough and eventually gave it to her with the sauce on it. she LOVED it and ate it faster than any other food we have offered her. her fathers daughter perhaps with the spicy food? (no, she didn't eat it straight from the bone. this was just for the photo opp!)

fall

living in san francisco, we don't get to see the changing of the seasons like we used to growing up. it is just beautiful right now...

cousins

we are in sewickley right now for a pre-holiday gathering with the murphy family. dottie has had a ton of fun playing with her cousins, ellis (4) and sadie grey (almost 2).