Easter 2012

We had a very fun easter weekend this year!
Egg dying Saturday night with Wyatt and Malcolm (and of course Penny and Jason too!) and then a very fun easter brunch with them and their extended families at Park Chalet which was topped off by also getting to see Frannie, Jane, Kim and Jon who were brunching with their family there as well. I would say that Dottie got more excited about Easter this year than any other holiday so far. For the past 2 weeks or so, she has been asking about how much longer she has to wait until Easter. She was also very sweet to leave the easy to find eggs for her younger sister and hold our for the tougher ones which ultimately left her with less eggs... We weren't sure how into Easter Esther, at 18 months, would be but she had fantastic time dying eggs with the big kids and then was so excited when she spotted an egg during 1 of 2 easter egg hunts she went on.

To see more pictures of our Easter, click HERE.

dottie hits the slopes

from our trip up to tahoe with Grandma and Grandpa Mortimore

check out the little unprompted pose at the end... :-)

off to the mountain with G & G Mortimore

Last week Chuck's parents came out for their annual trip to the mountains to get a little skiing/snowboarding in. We spent some time in SF and drove up to Tahoe for 3 nights. We had an absolutely lovely time with them and even ended up getting a little snow in Tahoe (that melted within hours falling).

To see more pictures from their visit, click HERE.

Highlights of their visit...

Grandpa Bill took swim class with Esther


Who could drive up to Tahoe and not stop at In-n-Out burger (no buns for Grandma and Grandpa!)



hitting the slopes with Grandpa


A post bath snuggle


and making delicious cookies with Grandma

Target

A quick trip to Target last week was made much more pleasant because of this super duper cart that kept the kiddies strapped in... Last time we went, Esther was all over the place and wanted nothing to do with the normal cart!

puddle jumping

the rain has finally come to san francisco and the girls have been having a ton of fun with it

bolinas

Chuck and I have been in San Francisco for almost 12 years and I am pretty sure this is the most gorgeous winter we have had. This past weekend we ventured up Highway 1 to Bolinas with the Svane's for some lunch and playtime on the beach. The weather was so perfect that the girls, including Esther (who LOVED it all!), actually got in and stayed in the water looking for shells. It was a perfect early March day.

to see the picture set from Bolinas, CLICK HERE.

Esther doing a funny little pose on 1 knee...

roary the lion

Dottie has her well loved "old piggy" that she can't live without (unless she forgets him at Lowe's or the supermarket.) and we have been wondering if Esther will become attached to anything and it has finally happened! Sweet "Roary the lion" has made his was into her heart. She snuggles up to him when she is sleeping (he's the little one in the picture). We can also hear her ROARING at him when she wakes in the morning or is tired and can't fall asleep right away at night.

self portraits

from dottie's school

"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