food

food has been a bit of a challenge with esther so far. we have tried bananas, avocado, peas, apples, butternut squash, and of course, rice cereal. we had not had much such with any of the above foods. she is a touch stubborn (perhaps like one of her parents...:-) and she closes her mouth as soon as she sees the spoon with food and won't open it for anything! yesterday we decided to just let her do it herself and see if that made any difference and we tried cheerios as well. as you can see from the photo, she had a little bit of fun with it and we were able to get a little in her mouth here and there! we have decided to just strip her down from now on when we feed her...

the nail polish incident

today i heard dottie calling for me from her room while she should have been napping. when i went in to check on her, i walked in only to discover her fingers, toes. hands, feet, belly, legs, and just about everything else on her body was very carefully painted with her pink hello kitty nail polish. i had to walk out of the room and take a moment to laugh of course and then came back in "very upset about it" with a camera to take pictures to "show daddy just how naughty" she had been. she explained to me, "i was getting myself a little bit pink on my fingers and toesies". i rubbed her down with nail polish remover and cotton balls and threw her in the tub. through her tears while she was being rubbed down, she was happy to point out that the nail polish remover was pink too. oh boy dottie!

the craziest thing about the whole this is that she didn't get any nail polish on her sheets or anything else except for a spot of pink on the frame of her bed and a little puddle on the floor where the bottle spilled when it fell out of her bed.

grandma cam and grandpa bill!!!

a few weeks ago we had a really wonderful visit from dottie and esther's grandma cam and grandpa bill. camille had the opportunity to come out here for a very cool workshop at LIFE LAB in santa cruz (very cool stuff! click on it to check it out) about land based learning. after the workshop, we heading up to tahoe for our annual snowboarding trip with them and chuck, dottie, and grandpa bill proceeded to get the lead out on the slopes. we also celebrated chuck's 37th birthday together.

dottie is getting a little better on the snowboard and only ate a little bit of snow this time around!

to see more pictures of their visit, click HERE.

life is good

dottie with sladie & rosa
(note: another little pink dress from my childhood that my mom sent. dottie loves it because it's pink and green, her favorite colors!)

baker beach

a couple of weeks ago, the weather was absolutely gorgeous so dottie and i headed to baker beach with kim, frannie, & jane, and jim & kevin (i left esther home because of the heat). sometimes with the in's and out's of our day to day, we honestly forget about where we live and just how lucky we are that we live in such an amazing city where we have so much at our fingertips. going to the beach is something we don't do that often so when we do, it's pretty amazing to hang out on the beach and look up at the golden gate bridge...

dottie, frannie, and kevin


dot and the golden gate bridge


frannie, jane, and dottie


kevin, jim, frannie, dottie, and kim

the perfect pink lehanga

ian and pooja were just in india for a visit to pooja's family and came back with this gorgeous pink lehanga for dottie. pooja said that several people were involved with the decision of getting the perfect one for her and i am pretty sure they were spot on... pink and sparkly! she loves it so much that for the past week, she has had it in her bed when we got her up from her nap. pooja and ian were over this past saturday night and pooja helped dottie put it on just the right way...

heart hat

popsicles

my business partner anna and i both have 2 girls and for some reason it has been very difficult to get together for playdates because of our opposite schedules. as i mentioned before, spring break was last week so we were FINALLY able to pull it together! the girls had so much fun hanging out together and were fortunate that there was a popsicle cart right by the playground for a little sweet treat after lunch.

zayneb (3.5), dottite (3), and aida (almost 6)


dottie and aida

skate betty

cupcakes...

another rainy day activity!

dottie and frannie


dottie, frannie, and jane

wednesday playdates

over the last 2 months or so, we have been getting together pretty regularly with dottie's buddies carter and rosa and their mom's and rosa's younger sister who is a month younger than esther. it's been a nice thing to look forward to on a day when i have both kiddies and the 3 kids get along great. these pictures are from a day a couple of weeks ago. it was wet outside so we decided to host the playdate here. as you can see, the kids had a ton of fun with the dress up clothes grandma cam made!

catching up!

we have a bit of catching up to do from the past couple of weeks. dottie (and the rest of SF) was on spring break last week so we had tons of fun with many friends AND grandma cam and grandpa bill!

in the meantime, this photo is of dottie in some overalls that were mine as a child. thanks so my mom who took great care packing them away years ago, dottie (and soon to be esther) is now enjoying them!

6 months old and a new trick...

esther is officially 6 months old as of last friday and in honor of her 1/2 year birthday, she decided to sit up for us! she started doing it last thursday evening (when the video was taken) and in the last 3 days, she has gotten to the point where she rarely falls over while doing it. she is quite proud of herself and of course we are excited too!

i took her for her 6 month check up today here are her stats:
weight: 14 lbs 2 ounces
height: 43.1 cm
head: 25.25 cm