Thursday, December 22, 2011

esther walks!!!

the minute she was born, esther has decided to do things her own way. she started "scooting" on her bum at around 8 or 9 months, learned to crawl at 13 months (and still preferred to scoot), and now it looks like she has decided to walk (but still might prefer to scoot, who knows!)! she has been playing with the idea over the last couple of weeks taking 5 + steps here and there but we are thinking this might be the real deal.

happy hanukkah!

out of nowhere, dottie started making a menorah with her duplos yesterday. though she didn't know it, her timing was perfect!

Happy hanukkah!

what's wrong with this picture?

we got a very small tree this year because we will be in tahoe for christmas (we leave tomorrow!!!). after decorating it, we realized it was all in vain. as you can see, esther has been interested in the bottom 2 feet of tree. 4 ornaments broke and we are now thinking that it was crazy to keep on trying. we are now loving our weird looking tree...

what's wrong with this picture?

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

advent calendar

Dottie has been more than excited about the advent calendar my mom and dad sent this year. As a child my brother and I received this same advent calendar (an old Coca Cola crate filled with presents for each of the 24 days before Christmas) from my great Aunt Jackie and we looked so forward to it every night before Christmas. My mom took some of the old toys and trinkets that we used to open and added some new ones and it is just wonderful. We will of course continue the tradition for years to come. I will take a picture of it when all of the presents are open. Tonight Dottie opened two little mini pirates and a parrot! She has been letting Esther open up about 1 of 5 presents at this point. She will need to be a little more giving next year I think...

5 days to go!!!!!

advent calendar

Sunday, December 11, 2011

free standing

esther made big strides yesterday with balance and was standing for about a minute at a time without any assistance at a birthday party we went to. notice her perfect timing with the music at the end of the video!

sweet reid henry

the girls had such fun stopping over to hang with reid henry last week. he has grown like crazy (he's 4 months old!) and was very interested in what the girls were doing. esther kept on scooting over trying to give him hugs and kisses!

Reid Henry

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

the christmas list

I asked Dottie to circle "a few things" in a toy catalog that she wanted to put on her list for Santa. Yikes!

Dottie telling us what she wants for Christmas

Santa!!!!

Dottie and Esther couldn't have had more different reactions to Santa this year if they tried. Dottie was SO excited and Esther was horrified. I had to take her out of viewing range because every time she got a look at him, she started screaming! Dottie was so star struck that she couldn't even get the words out to Santa of what she wanted for Christmas. Great outing with Kim, Frannie, and Jane. Santa, lunch, and ice cream cones afterwards while watching ice skating at Union Square.

(Santa looks like he has had a long day in the picture of Dottie with Santa. Poor guy)

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Thursday, December 1, 2011

esther at 14 months

We realized recently that we hadn't really mentioned much about Esther's recent milestones and rapidly developing personality. We have decided that turning 14 months old is as good a reason as ever to update you!

PERSONALITY
Esther has absolutely blossomed in the last 1 to 2 months or so. She has really gone from being a baby to a little being who understands directions, can communicate with the words she has ("no" and "more" being favorites ), points and says "there" when asked to point things out, says yes and no about things she likes and dislikes, gives hugs and blows kisses, gets excited when her daddy gets home from work and excitedly goes to him to say hello, the list goes on. It's clear though that she'll be a force to be reckoned with in months and years to come...

FAVORITE THINGS
She loves milk, lions and making roaring sounds (she sleeps with a lion and we can often times hear her in her crib roaring away undoubtedly hugging her furry little friend), sucking on her 2 fingers, the scooter aunt stephanie got her, bath time, biting people (and then smiling like she has done something naughtily), climbing on anything precarious and death defying, our neighbors (sometimes more than us we think), and of course, her big sister Dottie!!

COMMUNICATION
She is still quite the chatterbox. She wakes up chatting to herself and then chats to others all day long. Her list of words is getting longer by the day. Here are a handful of her favorites: mama, no, dada, no, hi, bye bye, no no no, roar, baby, there, no, bottle, dot, no, ball, dog, balloon (butchered of course), and even managed to squeak out a full sentence ( Hi Dada ) recently. She shakes her head like crazy when she knows she doesn't want something and nods her head in favor when she does. Our neighbor has even taught her a bit of sign language which she picked up right away.

PHYSICAL
Esther is still scooting on her bum all over the place and just added the crawl about a month ago at 13 months. She prefers standing to get places but will also turn almost any somewhat mobile object into an impromptu walker ( stools, doll houses, etc) She can now stand for about 6 seconds without assistance which just happened this past week. We will see on walking..it will be a bit yet. We have been told by many people who's children chose to scoot that walking was delayed until about 15 or 16 months.

SIZE
We haven't been to the doctor with her since her 1 year appointment so we don't really know how much she weighs but she is definitely still a bit of a pip-squeak. She is still very comfortable in her 6-12 month clothes and can't be more than 19 pounds or so. She is just taking her sweet time to get into all of those cute 12-18 month hand me down's from Dottie!

FOOD
Esther still isn't that into many foods (but loves milk!). She does like broccoli. Go figure. (Learning from her buddy Malcolm that if you are picky about what you eat, at least make it healthy!)

SLEEP
Bedtime is around7:30 every night...assuming her parents are on top of things, and will generally sleep until 7:30 the next morning. She typically sleeps through the night with the occasional wake up here and there because of teeth, etc. In the past 2 weeks or so, she has actually sleeping in until more like 8:00 or 8:30 but we are sure it won't last. She switched to 1 nap a day right around 13 months and it is usually anywhere from 1 1/2 to 3 hours.

NICKNAMES
Dottie has started calling Esther, "Estie" for some reason. We had always planned on using Essie as a nickname if there ever was one but we will see... I am is still calling her "pants" with some other descriptive word before it like "fancy pants" or "fussy pants" or "crazy pants".

TEETH
2 on the bottom, 1 on the top (she has been waiting for at least a month and a half for the other one..it's just starting to poke through) We're certain the dentist will be a challenge, as she was far more horrified with her sisters trip to the dentist than Dottie was.

IN SUMMARY:

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Saturday, November 26, 2011

bowling!

Yesterday was kind of grey around here so were headed to the bowling alley with Penny, Jason, Wyatt, and Malcolm. Esther was actually pretty into it when we let he have some turns and got really excited when she knocked pins down. Dottie was as into it as she has ever been also getting over the top excited when she had her turn. The rainy season is upon us...I am thinking we might be frequent visitors to the Serra Bowl this season!



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thanksgiving 2011

We had a lovely thanksgiving this year with the Svane's (our next door neighbors) and Allie. Chuck's culinary skills executed an amazingly delicious turkey along enough sides to feed an army. By the end of the evening, we were stuffed and our house was well played in (aka. trashed). Bring on the holidays!





how many necklaces?



Monday, November 21, 2011

tooth brushing

Esther is learning some skills from her big sister.
She has 3 little teeth so far and we are waiting on the 4th! (If you can believe it, she's has had only 1 top tooth for at least a month and the other one still can't be seen)

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Tuesday, November 15, 2011

field trip to the ferry building with sweet peas

Dottie's preschool went on a field trip to the Ferry Building downtown yesterday to check out the farmer's marker because they are doing a unit on fruits and vegetables. I was lucky enough to help as a chaperone and because Chuck works right across the street, he came for a bit too. The kids all got assigned a kind of fruit or vegetable that they had to look for in the market and purchase.
This week, they will make vegetable soup at school and have the fruit for snacks.

4 apples to hunt for at the farmers market



Monday, November 14, 2011

Vegas!

Dottie, Esther, and I traveled to Vegas to meet up with Chuck after a business trip this past week. We did it up complete with gondola ride, the circus, a trip to Paris and New York, a visit to the lions, iced hot chocolate at Serendipity, and pretty much anything and everything Vegas has to offer that didn't include gambling. We had a fantastic time but I am pretty sure at the end of it all on Sunday, we were absolutely Vegased out! The kids were so pooped out that Esther slept in until 10:00 this morning and Dottie until 8:30...

A huge highlight of the trip was the constant game of bride spotting which was even more fun because we were there on 11/11/11. They were expecting around 5,00 weddings that day and I am pretty sure we saw at least 400 of the brides. Dottie would shout out, "Mom, there's a bride!!...There's a bride!!...She's so beautiful!". One of them even gave her a bouquet! On our 10 minute gondola ride, we witnessed 2 weddings and an engagement. Vegas is one crazy place!

To see even more pictures of our trip, CLICK HERE.

venice?

11/11/11 bride in Vegas







good buddies...

dottie and boone.
she still claims that he will be her future husband...
we're pretty okay with that because he is pretty darn cute. she just has to wait at least 20-30 years!

Dottie & Boone

Friday, November 4, 2011

DOTTIEEEEEEEE

for some reason or another, dottie insists that all of her "E's" must look like combs.

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Thursday, November 3, 2011

miss. moustache

esther was not feeling the love of the moustache at boone's birthday party last night...

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Tuesday, November 1, 2011

halloween 2011

This year Dottie went out as 2 scoops of ice cream (sadly I couldn't pull it together to make one of the scoops mint chip and unfortunately many people thought she was a cupcake which she was quick to correct them on it!) and Esther was a very cute little pink piggy (she actually even kept the costume on the whole night)!

The whole day was a complete success. Chuck came home from work early so we could all head to a party at Dottie's school and then on to Cortland Street in our neighborhood for trick or treating. We ended the eve with a little hanging out at friends houses afterwards. Esther loved her first lollipop ever and I am pretty sure Dottie has had only 1 or 2 pieces of candy total. The rest she is sorting and sorting and then sorting again. The highlight of her evening (besides trick or treating of course!) was handing out candy at Kim and Jon's house. She treated it like a very, very important job and could not be distracted by anyone or anything.

Too see even more pictures of our halloween, CLICK HERE.

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Icecream!

The gang

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Friday, October 28, 2011

elmo

have you ever met a kid who doesn't love elmo?

Thursday, October 27, 2011

pumpkins

we stopped by a little pumpkin patch in pacifica right before swim class today to pick up some pumpkins for carving this weekend and snapped this quick pic

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curls

as esther's hair starts to get a little longer, it is looking like it's starting to get a little curly!
curls!

Saturday, October 15, 2011

sun

the weather has been unbelievable lately and we have been enjoying not having to bundle the kids up. a rare thing in SF

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face painting!

with ella and erna at noe valley harvest festival

Face painting!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

gymnastics

Dottie recently started a friday morning gymnastics class with her friends Frannie and Maisie (far left in the first picture). So fun to watch to girls tumbling and jumping and balancing together. She loves it and Esther can't wait to be able to take a class soon too! She "scoot, scoot, scoots" all over the mats during the class as you can see in the 3rd picture.