the elf on the shelf

the elf on the shelf works wonders around here. if you haven't heard of it and have kids, look into it for next year. it is amazing!!! the elf comes out right after thanksgiving and leaves right after christmas. we named ours "peppermint" and he hides in new places every morning and reports back to santa in the north pole every night about whether or not kids are good are bad. dottie is VERY scared of a bad report to santa so has been on her best behavior for the whole month. hopefully santa will agree with peppermint that she and esther have been good girls this year! we shall see... (the second picture is of his hiding place this morning)

anticipation

when dottie woke up this morning, she asked me, "has it been 2 days yet?". we told her yesterday that we would be going to tahoe in 2 days to see both sets of grandparents and santa would come. it's just amazing to us that she seems to understand the concept of waiting 2 days. hooray for grandparents and santa! tahoe here we come...

christmas cheer

we should all have one of these...

geting ready for the big day

i selected other pajamas and dottie insisted on wearing the santa ones (thank you erin and sonia!) to bed tonight because she is so excited for christmas.

she is also randomly wishing people a merry christmas on the street or as in the case this evening at the hairdresser, "feliz navidad". we have no clue where she learned it but it was hilarious because the woman who cut her hair speaks spanish as her first language and she must have picked up on it.

(and in case you are wondering, yes, milo does have a crazy looking little mustache! we often times refer to him as "mustachio")

happy birthday allie!

our dear friend allie celebrated a birthday last week and we were lucky enough to celebrate with her. we all made cupcakes together (with pink frosting of course) and dottie of course helped allie blow out her candle. happy birthday allie!!!!

christmas tree shopping 2010

tree shopping this year was quick. esther had a meltdown at the lot after having a blowout diaper and it didn't make tree shopping easy. the moments in the pictures below were short lived. we went into the lot, picked one out, and scurried home only to find out when we got home that the tree is pretty crooked! i'll post pictures later of our silly little tree later this week. dottie has been quite in to decorating the tree though she keeps on taking the ornaments on and off which has resulted in several broken ornaments!

isa the ballerina

we attended isa's 3rd birthday party recently and it was as darling as can be! it was at a little ballet school called tutu school and was full of lots of pink and tutu's. isa looked adorable in her birthday tutu and piggy tails! dottie absolutely loved it and danced around with her wand that she got as a favor for days afterwards. happy birthday isa!

dottie school notes...

at dottie's little daycare/school, the teachers write in a little book every day she attends to let us know how the day went. reading the book is something we have come to look forward to after pick up because we get a little glimpse into dottie's day. she of course has her bad day entries but as a proud mom, i feel i have to post good ones! here are a couple of the most recent entries: (they are very "boone" heavy because she has just become really chummy with a cute little boy named boone at school. i will have to take a picture of him and post it!).

november 18th
---dottie looked absolutely fab in her pink outfit. all day, "look at me. i'm pink. i'm pinkalicious!". we went to upper noe today and she told a lady at the park about her little sister esther :-). loves of ice cream playing with boone with all kinds of wonderful flavors. dottie was a delight all day! great lunch and thomas after.---

november 2nd
---dottie came up from doing art wearing full pirate regalia and it made me laugh. she would not take it off for the rest of the day....---

december 6th
---it's official!! dottie declared today, "boone is my boyfriend!". it was love in the bathroom-both of them peeing at the same time time. boone beamed! downstairs he saw dottie as she arrived and wanted to see her straight away. coleridge park today and photo session. dottie has a pee accident just prior to lunch. was sooo upset. thankfully recovered quickly and had a good lunch.----

december 9th
---Dottie and Boone were SO SWEET! Today at songtime-holding hands and getting together like a cute old couple. Dottie was very sweet at the park. She saw a little girl (I think her name was Sparrow) that was apparently someone you met at the coffee shop and they had a top time running around and playing on the playground together.---

december 16th
---Tara brought in some musical instruments today and played them for all of the kids. Boone and Dottie sat together mesmerized. It was really fun! Today when I was putting on Dottie's trousers, I put the pockets to the back and Dottie said, "Oh! The tag always goes to the back. Remember that!". So funny. Our Dottie rules!---

music together

we signed up recently for music together with 2 of dottie's friends, nola and lucy. dottie hasn't taken it since she was at least a year and a half old and it was so fun seeing her back in action again. she really loved it as you can tell in the first picture!

school picture

dottie little daycare had pictures taken last week and i came for the group shot. these pictures are just snapshots i took so didn't capture it like the photographer did. funny to wrangle a bunch of 18 month - 3 1/2 year olds (as you can see in the second picture). it rained the day of the photos so it had to be inside which was a bug bummer!

dottie is in the red cardigan...

snuggly girls

santa!

this past friday, we headed down to the macy's winter wonderland with kim, frannie, and jane to meet santa claus. you can tell just how excited dottie was by the first picture of her running in to see him. when it came time to tell him what she wanted for christmas, she got shy all of the sudden and couldn't spit it out because she was so in awe of him i think. this is going to be a really fun christmas!

esther...

at 9 weeks.

cute shirt: courtesy of aunt julie, tom tom, ellis, and sadie grey
cute blanket: courtesy of my aunt janet and uncle roger

heather and andrew

last week our friends heather and andrew were here for thanksgiving with andrew's parents and sister. we were lucky enough that they found the time to swing by the house and to meet esther for the first time and hang out a big. dottie was very taken with andrew after he read to her and put together a little band with her instruments. after they left, she made sure we knew that "andrew is cool!". heather is pregnant and due with their first baby, a girl, mid-february so they got in a little practice! heather and i used to work together at paper source in san francisco long ago and now they live in brooklyn. it is so fabulous that we have really kept up our friendship and it seems like no time has passed when we all get together. i can't wait for our girls to all be friends! check out heather's super cute blog, HERE!

happy turkey day!

happy thanksgiving! this year we hosted thanksgiving at our house. we actually ended up ordering the staples from whole foods which ended up being delicious! we made a side and then our guests brought some as well. sonia, erin, allie, and kate joined us so chuck was certainly surrounded by women this year. sonia and dottie named the turkey millhouse. it was a lovely day!

tea for two

dear santa...

dottie is putting together her christmas list already and she is pretty sure about what she wants.



it's a little hard to hear so here is a translation:

1. little tiny pink rocks (or "wocks" as she likes to say) in a bottle **her cousin sadie grey got these at the field museum in chicago
2. sparkly pink shoes with purple velcro **converse sneakers that she saw me pull up on the computer
3. woody and buzz with wings and jesse....on a horse **all little figures from toy story 3

and in response to my question about santa: "you....have.....to......be......a....good......girl". we are definitely using this to our advantage already. she is VERY worried that is she is naughty, santa won't come! :-)

chicago 2010 claire & scott's wedding

claire and scott made an adorable bride and groom and got all of the details of the wedding just perfect! we all danced our hearts out into the night (especially dottie and ellis who started dancing even before dancing even started. who know our little girl had so many moves?) and with the time change working to our benefit, dottie finally hit a wall at 11:30 or so.

to see more pictures from the wedding, click HERE

chicago 2010 rehearsal dinner

we had a lovely time running around chicago with everyone but we had the most fun at claire and scott's wedding festivities. friday evening, scott's family hosted a really terrific rehearsal dinner at a restaurant right downtown where we feasted! the food was delicious and dottie got to try her first shirley temple (and for sure not her last for the weekend!).

click HERE to see more pictures from the rehearsal dinner



claire and scott




my aunt marsha with me

chicago 2010 (family)

we were so excited to go to chicago to celebrate with claire and scott at their wedding! along with seeing claire and scott, we were thrilled that so many other family members would be there as well. dottie was over the moon that she got to see her kiki and grandpa and also tom tom, aunt julie, ellis, and sadie grey. to add to all of those people, my aunt marsha and cousin jack and his fiance katie were even more of a bonus! so many people so little time!!! sadie grey is about 14 months older than dottie and the older they both get, the more fun they seem to have with each other. they were running around hugging and holding hands like two peas in a pod. it was adorable to watch and ellis was a great older brother and cousin and got silly with them too! a funny thing about these pictures was that at one point, we met up and sadie and dottie matched. i promise, it was not planned but it certainly looked cute! we checked out the bean at millenium park one day and the field museum on another rainy day...

to see more pictures from this set, click HERE

chicago 2010 (friends)

as many of you know, before moving to san francisco, chuck and i lived in chicago for 2 years. for this reason (and many more of course), it's always nice to go back to chicago and visit with old friends. it had actually been quite awhile since our last visit so we had several babies/kids to meet and some serious catching up to do. here are some pictures from our visits with friends. we had so much fun we honestly wish we lived closer!

to see more pictures from our visits, CLICK HERE

a visit with andy, kerry, evangeline, and jack
we happened to visit on evangeline's 2nd birthday so had some yummy cupcakes with her to celebrate and met jack henry who was born just 4 days after esther



and dinner with good friends jim and albert



and a lovely breakfast in oak park at josh, laura, jacob, and leo's house along with suzanne, andres, and joaquin

the midwest!!! (milwaukee)

about 2 weeks ago, we all went back to milwaukee and chicago for a visit with family and my cousin claire's wedding. esther did a great job on her first plane trip and slept the whole way there (and back for that matter!). we packed a ton into 6 days and took so many pictures that we are still weeding through them. we decided to break the photos up into different parts because there were honestly over 700 photos. this first part is of our visit to milwaukee to chuck's parents house. we were so happy that on top of seeing his parents and ellen (a close family friend), our friends, dave, julie, lily, and andrew linden made a trek from rochester, minnesota to spend some time with us and meet esther. dave and his family go way, way back with the mortimore's and dave was the best man at our wedding. dottie had so much fun with lily and andrew that she is still talking about them. we only wish we lived closer so we were able to see them more!! dottie was also over the moon that after having spent time with grandma cam and grandpa bill in mexico the week before, she got the see them yet again!!! we also got a chance to have thanksgiving with everyone 2 weeks early. nothing like starting the feasting early!

click here to see more pictures from our trip to milwaukee