christmas 2009

we just returned from a lovely trip with both sides of the family in connecticut and nyc. we took MANY photos so have to weed through them but until then, happy holidays from us and have a fun new years eve!

santa claus

yesterday we went downtown to do some last minute holiday shopping and of course we had to stop by to say hello to santa to tell him what dottie wanted for christmas. dottie was pretty thrilled to meet him and upon being asked what she wanted she said what we thought was "table". interesting request to say the least but went with it only to figure out later that she was saying "skateboard". kinda of funny because that is one seed we hadn't planted in her mind. perhaps santa might surprise her with something else...

(the huge smile on her face took some exciting descriptions of waffles with ice cream and blueberries on top)

dutch door press t-shirt

dottie modeling one of our new dutch door press matryoshka t-shirts!

dottie and her daddy

dottie has been lucky enough to get some good quality time in with chuck as of late because he is taking the month of december off before starting his new job on january 4th. these pictures are from a fun morning walk we took down valencia street for breakfast at boogaloos and some holiday shopping.

"yellow t-shirt kids"

at dottie's "school", they get out and go the the library, a park, ride the bus, or go to an indoor rec center pretty much every day so the kids aren't bouncing off the walls. to keep the kids in order, they all walk in a line and hold onto the rings that you can see in the picture. they also wear yellow t's so they are easy to keep track of. many of my friends in the neighborhood have spotted dottie with the group and everyone seems to refer to them as "yellow t-shirt kids". it's not often we see dottie in the infamous yellow shirts in the little line so we had to grab a snapshot!

practicing for next year

this past monday, chuck returned from being stuck in tahoe overnight because of massive amounts of snow. he left his gear in the living room and dottie was totally into it. she kept on saying "snowboard" and then wanted to be buckled in to the bindings. dottie is not quite ready this year but perhaps next year (and maybe a smaller snowboard!) and it doesn't mean she can't practice beforehand. her daddy can't wait!

sunday morning

sunday morning, dottie and i went on an outing with my friend allie. allie suggested that we drive over to north beach for "the best breakfast in the city" at MAMA'S. i had never been there so was pretty game besides the idea of parking in north beach. we got there and seriously waited in line for 40 minutes and moved about an inch. realizing that we would probably be there for hours beyond dottie's naptime, we decided to opt out and go to the ferry building. we had a great mexican brunch and got to watch some musicians play christmas music. a lovely way to spend a sunday morning while the hubby is up in tahoe!

waiting on the steps at mama's eating some cheerios


allie and dottie in the LINE!!!!


christmas music at the ferry building and checking out the flute (getting ready to ask auntie steph to play when we see her in a few weeks!)

isa turns 2

sunday evening we were invited to isa's 2nd birthday party which was at a kids yoga studio and had a cute owl theme. penny and her kids went and all of the kids (and the parents) had a ball trying to do poses and such and then ran around in circles after consuming a lot of delicious chocolate cake.

the birthday girl




wyatt, malcolm, dottie, and a bunch of yoga mats

visitors from the east bay

marie, nick, and siena came over the bridge for a visit today. breakfast at our house and then a really nice walk up the hill to check out dottie's favorite, enzo. dottie had fun running around showing siena all of her toys (top pick of the week, PLAYDOUGH!) and trying to politely force her to wear one of her cowboy hats.

we were also excited to run into lula and john at enzo and thrilled to wish them a congratulations because of lula's new sister, adele, born 2 days ago. later in the day i got a chance to meet her and she is just precious!

dottie and siena doing some hand holding...


fun that dottie, lula, and siena were all able to hang together. we didn't capture the smiliest moment but really, they had fun!


chuck and nick, still looking cool even though they are at a kids music show

holiday tea

dottie an i were thrilled to be invited to erin's holiday tea again this year! it was honestly a perfect way to get in the holiday sprit because erin and sonia had their house completely decorated for christmas. erin truly outdid herself with food that martha stewart would have been drooling over. she even made homemade macaroons! there were 5 kids there and 4 of them were right around 2. by the end, after about 5 cookies each, several of them were running around in circles squealing! dottie's favorite moment was being given a huge lollipop that she actually never even ended up tasting. she was honestly just as happy licking the wrapper and i think frannie was too...

Thanks...

Thanksgiving 2009 certainly gave us lots to be thankful for:

1) Thanks for Grandma Cam and Grandpa Bill being able to join us for the holiday. Dottie has reached the age where she "gets" grandparents, so they in-turn, got lots of love.



2) I'm not sure which I'm more thankful for in this next picture...my sweet corduroy sports jacket, or the fact that it looks like Mara has poured herself a giant glass of gravy. Let's just say it was great dinner.




3) Thanks to my parents for treating Dottie like royalty. Here she is waving to some of here subjects from the train at the zoo.



4) Finally, thanks to whomever invented baby wipes. They have the small little adult versions at Baby Blue BBQ, but thankfully Dottie was traveling with her own pack.




Finally we're thankful for all our friends, family, and dottie blog readers.

Hope you had a great thanksgiving! More photos are available HERE

reading in a box

because everybody needs a spot to relax and read up on counting...
she honestly sat there reading that book and several others throughout the day in her box the other day.

lula's turns 2!

this past weekend we had an action packed weekend that included one very fun birthday party in celebration of dottie's friend lula turning 2! it took place at recess which was pretty much heaven for all of the kids and on top of that, dottie's favorite, ENZO, played. she was honestly in all her glory! she saw him that morning and then had a repeat performance later in the day. lula looked absolutey adorable in a little tutu and played the part of a party girl by having a ton of fun with all of the kids and blowing out for candles.

ladies who lunch

after the photos, we met up with frannie and kim and went on a lunch date at a local spot near us called toast. going into lunch with 2 children around the age of 2 could honestly go either way and this lunch was as smooth as it could have gotten. honestly, dottie and frannie chatted as if we weren't there about things like blueberries, trot old joe, sunglasses, juice......and kim and i were able to enjoy at least a little normal adult conversation. they followed lunch up with a major case of the giggles walking back to the car trying to (and maybe succeeding a little bit) pick some yellow flowers. the pictures, pigtails and all, sum it up quite nicely!

school photos

dottie's "school" (daycare) had a photographer come this week to do individual photos and a group photos. dottie and i popped by for the group photo on wednesday because it was not her normal day to be there. i must say it was pretty hilarious watching them try to get all of the kids lines up and ready to shoot. i actually don't think they got one shot where everyone was in the picture but they tried. here are some pictures i took during the photo shoot. the photographers pictures will be posted on monday and i will surely share them. as you can see from the pictures, dottie didn't really know how to take the whole thing. she just stood or sat in the same place and went with it...

silliness

a little glimpse into the silliness with dottie, malcolm, and wyatt this past weekend...

tahoe

this past weekend, we were more than happy to join our friends penny, jason, wyatt (3), and malcolm (1 1/2) up in tahoe for a night. the kids got wild and crazy with each other running around with fireman and cowboy hats. we also went down to donner lake from their house and did some stone throwing into the water. amazingly enough none of the kids ended up wandering in the lake. dottie was so pooped from all of the playing that she literally slept the whole way home.

aida and zayneb

this morning we were thrilled to be able to get together with anna, aida, and zayneb. anna is my business partner and at the moment we have pretty opposite schedules so our girls haven't seen each other in forever. aida and zayneb were off from school today because of veteran's day so we seized the moment and decided to do some major playing at golden gate park today. the girls had a great time and dottie ran around behind them saying, "aida" and "zayneb" as well as she could while trying to keep up. it was vary hard to get them to leave for lunch because they were having so much fun!

fairyland

this past sunday we were inspired by friends to over to oakland to check out fairyland. the little amusement park was built in 1950 which pre-dates disneyland and disneyworld (which is very obvious in a lot of areas). all of the rides and sights were perfect for a nearly 2 year old and dottie literally squealed with joy about almost everything we did! i am pretty sure her favorite part of the day from the train ride on the jolly trolly with a close second to actually getting to go in the 3 little pigs house before is got blown down. she could have stayed for hours. she also rode the little ferris wheel all by herself which we were very proud of her for. every time it came around she waved at us and didn't want to get off at the end. the visit to fairlyland ended with a very special treat. dottie got a little red cowgirl hat which she loves almost as much as her red fire hat (aka "chief")!

to see even more pictures, you can click HERE to check out the whole album. the colors at were totally amazing which you can kind of see in the photos.