happy halloween!

will post more pictures later after trick or treating....

a nice friday!

chuck is out of town today and we were busy! storytime this morning at redhill books and a little playtime at the park with friends afterwards. lunch. nap. nap. nap. nap. up to sonia and erin's to hang out with twins, cory and fisher (adorable!!) who they were watching this afternoon. shenanigans at sonia and erin's then off to dinner at valentina's after the twins were picked up. dottie has officially passed out and i am enjoying the evening. looking forward to halloween tomorrow. i am thinking dottie is going to enjoy the treats more than the tricks after sampling mini m & m's this evening...

(the adorable pink hand knit scarf dottie is wearing in the 2nd picture showed up in the mail today from our friends the lindens. dottie won't take it off she loves it so much. thank you dave, julie, lily, and andrew! and it matched her outfit perfectly weirdly enough)

miss potato head

after playing with hutch's mr potato head last week in sewickley, we decided we needed to get one for dottie. she can't decide if she likes dressing up mr potato head of herself better. she walked around with the crazy looking yellow buck toothed smile in her mouth for like 20 minutes. not the best look......oy!

pittsburgh

this past week, dottie and i went to sewickley to visit my parents for several days. we fit a lot into a small amount of time and got to do just about everything we wanted to. i was a touch concerned about traveling on my own with a 21 month old who had just started to really push her limits but she did amazingly well, thanks to the iphone and all of it's amazing kid app's and a couple of videos that she watched on my computer.

dottie LOVED hanging out with kiki and grandpa so much that she walked around the house calling for them when she didn't know where they were. she had so much playtime and book reading with them that i think she is going through withdrawal now that she is back in SF.

we also got to see kate and jordan.....heather, hutch, and bj....sarah......anne, andy, ellie, and mrs. caldwell......mrs. pickard....many of my parents friends..... it was a very full trip!!!!

in other news, dottie met another dottie roughly her same age! we checked out a children's clothing store in shadyside called THE TINY DOT (adorable if you are in the area) and found that the store was named after the owner's daughter. the 2 dottie's had a ton of fun running around together...

here are some pictures.
for even more pictures, click HERE for the whole set.

grandpa bill

this past week, dottie was pretty lucky because her grandpa bill came to san francisco on a business trip with good friend/business partner david noshay. dottie was thrilled to see him (right after she figured out his beard) and cried as he left. she is already counting down the days until thanksgiving when she gets to see him!

claire and scott

my cousin claire and her boyfriend scott were out here for a visit this past weekend. claire ran a half marathon on sunday (yes, in san francisco up the hills!)... but had time the rest of the weekend to hang out in the city. we were thrilled to get to spend some quality time with both of them. dottie was happy to do a little showing off and lucky to get a bed time story read to her by claire. we already can't wait to see them again. time for a visit to chicago!

(they borrowed jackets from us for an evening walk and i realized after we got all geared up that we looked like a crayola box all together!).

fiesta on the hill

this past sunday bernal heights had their annual FIESTA ON THE HILL where they block off the main street have a little festival with music, food stands, petting zoo, pony rides, .... this picture of dottie on the pony was from the highlight of the day for dottie (along with seeing enzo and doing a little dancing of course).

where the wild things are

in honor of tomorrow's release of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE...

dottie will have to wait a couple of years to actually see the movie but until then, she is LOVING the book!

thumbs up!

this past monday, our friends marie and siena came for a visit from the east bay. it was a lovely morning and the girls had fun together being silly. dottie showed siena a new game she has been playing with us for the past couple of weeks. when she is in her stroller, she calls out, "stop" and puts her palm then she says, "GO!". it makes for a very long trip when you have 2 toddlers telling you to stop and then go as you walk down the street with them. siena was happy to show dottie how to give a really nice "thunbs up" gesture which dottie has been practicing since their visit (unfortunately we didn't get a picture). she even did it during swim class this evening. ooooh! and they were excited to get their hair done up by marie (which didn't last long of course). It was certainly cute while it lasted. lastly, we can't forget the fun stop at the pet store to check out the fish (aka "sushi" by siena)....

thank you marie and siena for a very nice visit!

pumpkin patch 2009

last year we went to a pumpkin patch with dottie and we had fun but she was about 10 months old and didn't quite get all of the bells and whistles (hayrides, bbq, mazes, jumpy castles, and of course, the pumpkins!) of the typical pumpkin patch. this year was quite different. she was in heaven!
she pretty much wanted every pumpkin she saw and tried to pick them all up and put them in our wheel barrow,
repeated "pum-keen" over and over again,
was hard to pull off of the jumpy castle,
got silly in the maze,
wanted to ride in the wheel barrow with the pumpkins,
and thought the tractor that pulled the hayride was totally cool.

the only way were able to pull her away was to give her a little pumpkin that she could carry with her to the car and held it the whole way home. when we got home, she actually wanted to take it to bed with her!

a very fun trip to the pumpkin patch!
(we took a ton of pictures. if you are interested in seeing more from our day, click HERE!)

smile!

nice when you get both kiddies to smile for camera...

dottie and piggy

until just recently, chuck and i hadn't realized just how much dottie loves her piggy. at night and for her nap, she sleeps with a monkey ("monk"), a piggy ("piggy"), and an owl ("hoots). by far piggy is her favorite and the one she grabs when she is sleepy or sad or happy... last week we noticed that piggy was looking a little worse for the wear so i grabbed him and her other friends and threw them in the wash. the door to the washing machine is glass and at dottie's eye level so she watched as i did this. i closed the door and turned it on and as she watched piggy start to spin, she went into absolute hysterics crying (of course chuck and i had a bit of a laugh about it). the worst part about it was that there was no consoling her with her dear piggy because piggy was stuck in the washer. it took much distraction to get her to forget about him until he was done being washed.

a couple of days ago i ordered 2 extra piggies so we can have a little more rotation. when they arrived today, dottie was in heaven. she kept looking at them saying "new piggies" and she hugged them and kissed them and of course took all 3 of her piggies to bed for her nap.

(i took these pictures right after the new piggies were unveiled. pretty big smile, eh?)

frannie's last solo hoorah

yesterday morning we went to the zoo with kim and frannie. the girls had a ton of fun together running around and giggling but the funny thing is that we didn't actually end up seeing to many animals. we saw giraffes and went to the petting zoo but they were much more into the big web made of rope, the carousel, and some cool tunnels. we had lunch and nearly got attacked by some not so shy seagulls who ended up stealing frannie's sandwich and then headed home. we were dropped at around naptime and were excited to learn later on in the evening that kim (who's due date was today), jon, and frances welcomed a new edition, jane rose, into the family last night. we can't wait to meet her!

snack time

when i dropped dottie off this morning, she jumped right in to snacktime with her buddies. it was so cute, i couldn't resist taking a picture with my phone of some of the kids at the snack table. all of the kids wear those yellow shirts when they go to local parks so they are easy to spot...

princess dottie

dottie was out with chuck this past sunday while i helped throw a baby shower for our friend jennifer at our house. she was excited to come home and find lots of things to check out before people left. she was even more excited that jennifer left her tiara at our house!

playdate with lula

cute pics from a playdate with lula late last week. (the cute little red top on dottie is one that was mine as a toddler. my sweet mom just sent me a box of fun finds from my childhood!)

a brave girl

most saturday mornings for several months now, we have been going to see a local musician who plays music for kids in our neighborhood. dottie absolutely loves enzo and even begs to listen to him at home now. she says, "enz, enz, enz..." over and over again while pointing at the computer until we put him on. at the start and the end of the show, enzo plays a little welcome and goodbye song where at one point in the song, the kids go up and shake his hand. dottie has been very reluctant to go up to shake his hand but usually comes home and wants to practice by shaking our hands. all of the practice has been worth it because last week, chuck asked her if she wanted to do it, she said no, he was talking to someone, and all of the sudden she was up shaking his hands beaming with pride on the way back to him. this week she gave us a repeat performance. way to go dottie! (don't ask about the girl in the undies! she got up and stripped down and just went with it.)

"sit"

dottie has taken to ordering us (or anyone else who is around, including milo) to "sit....sit....sit....sit" pretty much anywhere and everywhere we go, especially if she has a book in hand. it's never on the couch or a nice comfy seat, it's usually on the floor, in the middle of the steps coming out of a store, on the curb, etc. this picture is from a walk we took the other evening. a very tempting spot to "sit". living a little dangerously dottie!