bowling part deux

we had so much fun bowling a couple of weekends ago that this past weekend, we decided to go again. this time all of the bowlers were much smaller in size. dottie and i went with kim and frannie (2) and met penny, jason, wyatt (almost 4), and malcolm (2 in may) there. they had a good time i think but it was a little interesting trying to keep their attention on bowling. how could they concentrate on bowling when there were call buttons to push (over and over again), slippery lanes to slide on, bars to hang on, ....you get my point. i think the guy who ran maintenance on the lanes was pretty happy to see up depart!

the most fun of the bowling outing for all of the kids had to be letting lose in the empty parking lot and field afterwards. it has been incredibly wet and rainy here so when the kids walked outside and it wasn't raining, it was time to have some fun, puddles and all.

accessories...

dottie is definitely 2! up until this point we have been able to choose an outfit & shoes in the morning and pop it on her with no complaints. in the past week, she has been picky about just about everything down to the color of her socks. today, we chose the very green outfit but she INSISTED on some key accessories: sunglasses, a cake hat, and her ice cream cone. fashion plate or fashion victim?

2 year check up...

and dottie insisted on wearing her boots.

we are happy to know that dottie still has a very large noggin! her head size ranks in the 97%! still following in mom and dad's footsteps (my nickname in college might have been "melonhead"). dottie got a clean 2-year-old bill of health!

yippy kai yay!

this past saturday, we all mosey'd on down to lemos farms in half moon bay for farm yard fun and pony rides to celebrate dottie's 2nd birthday. last year we had a pretty big party with mostly adults and this year we decided to make the focus a little more on the kiddies so we invited about 10 of her buddies with their parents to do some pony ridin' with her! both set's of dottie's grandparents joined us for the big day too so dottie was in absolute heaven!

click HERE for more pictures. giddy up!

happy 2nd birthday dottie!

today was dottie's second birthday and it couldn't have been a more perfect day! the sun was shining and dottie got spoiled rotten with love and attention (and perhaps some gifts). she started the day with a serenade by the baristas and a heart shaped banana cake they had made at our local coffee shop and ended the day with a chocolate cake and more happy birthdays from friends and family. she also got to spend most of the day with kiki and grandpa which couldn't be beat and looks forward to her other grandparents coming this weekend. hooray for birthdays!

on a silly note, dottie is very into ice cream at the moment! she honestly can't get enough of it. until yesterday, she has been carrying around this pink foam ice cream cone that she end in milo's toys i think. anyway, in the past 2 weeks, she has gotten 3 different sets of ice cream toys and she is in heaven. funny enough, she has 2 pink plastic cones (pictured below) that she will not let go of. if you ask her for a lick, she says no. even if you pretend to cry, she is happy to give you a vanilla, chocolate, or even mint chip, but not the strawberry one. today she even took her nap with one of them and my parents went to get her when she woke up and she had the cone stuffed down her shirt "in her tummy". silly dottie!

practicing for the big day...

dottie's 2nd birthday is on thursday and today i brought banana cupcakes in to her school for a special treat. her teachers sent me this picture. they said she loved being serenaded by all of the kids!

christmas with the mortimores

the final stop on our tour of the east coast, was christmas on the upper west side. dottie was especially excited to see her cousin eli


Click HERE for the full slide show








Click HERE for the full slide show

murphys and mortimores in nyc

after tom and julie's place in connecticut, the whole murphy clan drove into the city for lunch and coffee with the mortimores. 1 very hip coffee place later, we walked away with these memories


Click HERE for the full slide show






Click HERE for the full slide show

christmas with the murphys

over the holidays, we were fortunate to be able to fly east and see both families. chuck's sister stephanie's family lives in NYC and my brother tom and his family lives in connecticut. even better, all of dottie's grandparents came as well. our first 4 days were spent in rowayton, connecticut. the highlight for dottie of this part of trip was being able to get silly with her cousins ellis (5) and sadie grey (3).


Click HERE for the full slide show

Click HERE for the full slide show

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

dottie tackles new (big) words with a little slapstick. the funniest part about this was watching her watch the video of herself later. every time she gets to the part where she falls, she laughs hysterically.

who is it?

dottie's favorite song to dance to as of late...

STRIKE!

this past weekend our friends brian and abby invited us to go bowling with them. the first time we took dottie bowling, she had fun but she didn't get that into it. this time, she had a blast and even ended up scoring 120 points in one game with several strikes (with the help of a bowling track that we positioned and she pushed the ball down). the bowling alley even had cute little dottie sized bowling shoes!

getting ready to bowl...


dottie and brian...


watching her daddy bowl...


a satisfied bowler...

christmas 2009

we just returned from a lovely trip with both sides of the family in connecticut and nyc. we took MANY photos so have to weed through them but until then, happy holidays from us and have a fun new years eve!

santa claus

yesterday we went downtown to do some last minute holiday shopping and of course we had to stop by to say hello to santa to tell him what dottie wanted for christmas. dottie was pretty thrilled to meet him and upon being asked what she wanted she said what we thought was "table". interesting request to say the least but went with it only to figure out later that she was saying "skateboard". kinda of funny because that is one seed we hadn't planted in her mind. perhaps santa might surprise her with something else...

(the huge smile on her face took some exciting descriptions of waffles with ice cream and blueberries on top)

dutch door press t-shirt

dottie modeling one of our new dutch door press matryoshka t-shirts!

dottie and her daddy

dottie has been lucky enough to get some good quality time in with chuck as of late because he is taking the month of december off before starting his new job on january 4th. these pictures are from a fun morning walk we took down valencia street for breakfast at boogaloos and some holiday shopping.

"yellow t-shirt kids"

at dottie's "school", they get out and go the the library, a park, ride the bus, or go to an indoor rec center pretty much every day so the kids aren't bouncing off the walls. to keep the kids in order, they all walk in a line and hold onto the rings that you can see in the picture. they also wear yellow t's so they are easy to keep track of. many of my friends in the neighborhood have spotted dottie with the group and everyone seems to refer to them as "yellow t-shirt kids". it's not often we see dottie in the infamous yellow shirts in the little line so we had to grab a snapshot!

practicing for next year

this past monday, chuck returned from being stuck in tahoe overnight because of massive amounts of snow. he left his gear in the living room and dottie was totally into it. she kept on saying "snowboard" and then wanted to be buckled in to the bindings. dottie is not quite ready this year but perhaps next year (and maybe a smaller snowboard!) and it doesn't mean she can't practice beforehand. her daddy can't wait!

sunday morning

sunday morning, dottie and i went on an outing with my friend allie. allie suggested that we drive over to north beach for "the best breakfast in the city" at MAMA'S. i had never been there so was pretty game besides the idea of parking in north beach. we got there and seriously waited in line for 40 minutes and moved about an inch. realizing that we would probably be there for hours beyond dottie's naptime, we decided to opt out and go to the ferry building. we had a great mexican brunch and got to watch some musicians play christmas music. a lovely way to spend a sunday morning while the hubby is up in tahoe!

waiting on the steps at mama's eating some cheerios


allie and dottie in the LINE!!!!


christmas music at the ferry building and checking out the flute (getting ready to ask auntie steph to play when we see her in a few weeks!)

isa turns 2

sunday evening we were invited to isa's 2nd birthday party which was at a kids yoga studio and had a cute owl theme. penny and her kids went and all of the kids (and the parents) had a ball trying to do poses and such and then ran around in circles after consuming a lot of delicious chocolate cake.

the birthday girl




wyatt, malcolm, dottie, and a bunch of yoga mats

visitors from the east bay

marie, nick, and siena came over the bridge for a visit today. breakfast at our house and then a really nice walk up the hill to check out dottie's favorite, enzo. dottie had fun running around showing siena all of her toys (top pick of the week, PLAYDOUGH!) and trying to politely force her to wear one of her cowboy hats.

we were also excited to run into lula and john at enzo and thrilled to wish them a congratulations because of lula's new sister, adele, born 2 days ago. later in the day i got a chance to meet her and she is just precious!

dottie and siena doing some hand holding...


fun that dottie, lula, and siena were all able to hang together. we didn't capture the smiliest moment but really, they had fun!


chuck and nick, still looking cool even though they are at a kids music show

holiday tea

dottie an i were thrilled to be invited to erin's holiday tea again this year! it was honestly a perfect way to get in the holiday sprit because erin and sonia had their house completely decorated for christmas. erin truly outdid herself with food that martha stewart would have been drooling over. she even made homemade macaroons! there were 5 kids there and 4 of them were right around 2. by the end, after about 5 cookies each, several of them were running around in circles squealing! dottie's favorite moment was being given a huge lollipop that she actually never even ended up tasting. she was honestly just as happy licking the wrapper and i think frannie was too...

Thanks...

Thanksgiving 2009 certainly gave us lots to be thankful for:

1) Thanks for Grandma Cam and Grandpa Bill being able to join us for the holiday. Dottie has reached the age where she "gets" grandparents, so they in-turn, got lots of love.



2) I'm not sure which I'm more thankful for in this next picture...my sweet corduroy sports jacket, or the fact that it looks like Mara has poured herself a giant glass of gravy. Let's just say it was great dinner.




3) Thanks to my parents for treating Dottie like royalty. Here she is waving to some of here subjects from the train at the zoo.



4) Finally, thanks to whomever invented baby wipes. They have the small little adult versions at Baby Blue BBQ, but thankfully Dottie was traveling with her own pack.




Finally we're thankful for all our friends, family, and dottie blog readers.

Hope you had a great thanksgiving! More photos are available HERE