"cheese"

As I think you might know, these girls are no stranger to the camera. Esther hasn't embraced it until recently (and she has to be in the right mood). Now, whenever I go to take her picture, she makes the silly face you see in the pictures below, sits down on the ground no matter where we are (grabs dottie if she is around) and and says, "cheese". If she is not into have her picture taken, she shakes her finger at me and says, "no, no, no, no, no,no, ....". Gotta love it!
(cute pants in top 2 pictures made by her talented Grandma Cam!)

personalities

dottie decided that she wanted to read to esther the other day. i thought it was so cute that i started to film it and couldn't help giggling because the video ended up capturing dottie and esther's different personalities to a tee...

upside down dottie

Esther and Amiga

(our next door neighbor's puppy)

Happy Valentine's Day (a day late!)

New Valentine's Day outfits from Kiki and Grandpa for the girls (Grandma Cam and Grandpa Bill also sent some adorable outfits too but it was a touch chilly for them yesterday! We love them!!! You can also see a Grandma Cam creation in the first picture of Dottie writing a name on a Valentine...).

Of course none other than ice cream cone valentine's for the kids from school and the neighborhood...

For more Valentine related pictures, click HERE

language (esther)

I have been trying like crazy to get a good video of esther talking and this video is about as good as i can get because she is a tad stubborn and seems to not want to "perform" when the camera is on... (unlike her sister who actually called me into the room the other day for a good photo op of the 2 of them hugging on the couch :-) She has had a language explosion in the past couple of weeks and repeats many of the words we say to her or points to things and says the word. I started to count the words in her vocabulary and lost track at about 25. She has also been putting 2-3 words together on the random occasion saying here saying, "bye bye dada" or "love you". Of course they are not super clear but they are distinct words for each thing she is referring to as you can see in the video. It's so very cool to watch it all come together!

****pardon the crazy "beast" in the background!

morning

ice cream!

with ella and erna on one of many gorgeous evenings we have had this winter

"mommy"

by dottie

benihana!

with jason, penny, wyatt, and malcolm.
dottie was a little intimidated at first but wyatt made sure to show her just how cool it was!
a monster our of rice! where else can you go for that?

nose picker

Esther has found her nose (or perhaps what might be inside of it...)! i am a horrible mom for posting this picture but I can't help it. It is so classic and Esther will surely be delighted to look back on it down the road.
:-)

uh oh

esther has recently discovered just how fun toilet paper can be

close ups

of esther at 15 months

the notz family is back!

If only for a weekend...
Our friends John, Basak, Lula, and Adele have been living in Turkey for the last 18 months (to be near Basak's family) and have just moved back to the states. Sadly for us, they are not moving back to SF but have moved to Chicago near John's family (lucky for them!). I met Basak at the NY Stationery Show in May of 2008, soon after Dottie was born, and we became fast friends. Lula and Dottie are only 2 months apart in age AND we both ran letterpress card companies. Could it get any better! Thinking back on it, I am pretty sure that Lula was Dottie's first real friend. Even thought the girls hadn't seen each other for more than 18 months, they got along like 2 old friends and even included their sweet younger sisters, Adele and Esther, in on the playtime.

There are many past posts with Dottie and Lula but here is a particularly cute one of them together when Dottie was about 17 months old. (click on their names)

esther loves babies!

From an early age, Esther has loved any and all of the baby dolls that we have in our house.
She kisses them, feeds them, puts them in her stroller and walks them around...
When we had a playdate with Anna and her girls recently and Esther was absolutely enthralled with her daughter. I am pretty sure Esther thought she was a babydoll! The only problem was that she is (at just about 6 months old) almost as big as Esther wasn't so keen on being held for too long by a 15 month old. When we went to take her away, Esther started crying and saying "more, more, ...".

4 year check up (dottie)

at 4 years old, Dottie is:

38 lbs (75th%)
42 1/4" tall (90th%)

So far so good on her vision. Fingers crossed that she will take after Chuck in this area...

As you can see from the picture, Esther is still a little intimidated by the doctor's office. By the end of the visit, Dottie had her convinced that it was pretty cool!

milo has a new best friend