the lone tooth

you can actually see it now! still no sign of a second one.

music class

for about the last 10 weeks, dottie (with esther in tow of course!) has been taking a music class after school with dottie's buddies maisie and boone. it is something all three of them grew to look forward to asking every day i dropped her off, "is it music class today?". the music studio is a block away from dottie's school so we all walked down together at the end of each thursday and they danced and sang for 45 very fun minutes. they also got to learn some kind of new instrument every week! the teachers at little music makers, irena and josh, are amazingly talented and write all of their own music and play just about every instrument know to man. we are skipping classes this summer because of busy schedules but we will for sure be back in the fall.

it was also pretty fun watching esther participate every week. the music really captivated her for the whole 45 minutes and from the beginning, she wanted to shake a tambourine, hit a drum, or just bounce to the music!

another party trick for esther...

CLAPPING!

she is so thrilled with herself that she is clapping that she honestly does it all day long. when she wakes, when she sees people she loves, when she has no toys to play with...

jack and katie's wedding

over memorial day weekend, we headed to kansas city for jack (my cousin) and katie's wedding. it was a super fun weekend... tom and ellis came from connecticut, my parents came from pittsburgh, of course we got to see my aunt marsha, claire & scott, katie & jack, and lots of family on the o'connor side who it was nice to catch up with.

esther went swimming for the first time ever and many hours were clocked in the hotel pool by ellis and dottie. we also had a fun time checking out kansas city (while the girls took much needed car naps). The wedding and other festivities were perfectly put together and we all had a great time eating, talking and of course, getting crazy on the dance floor!

i will note that time difference worked in the best way possible for us. the girls stayed up quite late while we were there but then unbelievably slept in until 10:30 every morning. chuck and i haven't felt that well rested since dottie was born. yay for hotel black out curtains and time changes!!!

to see more pictures of the wedding, click HERE

problem solved

esther isn't too interested in crawling yet and has figured out other methods of getting things we try to lure her across the room with.

first tooth!

if you look really hard (and i mean REALLY hard) on the bottom left, you can see the beginnings of esther's new tooth that popped through last friday. amazingly enough she has not fussed even one bit about it!

ella and erna

dottie is over the moon to have 2 new friends next door, ella (4) and erna (3...just 1 month older than dottie)!

san mateo county fair

all i can say is, YES!!!!, it is county fair season again.

today we headed 20 minutes south of the city to san mateo for warmer temperatures (72 instead of 62) and the san mateo county fair.

we enjoyed...
the world's biggest pig, chickens, cows, tractor rides, corn dogs, kettle corn, ice cream cones with rainbow sprinkles, cotton candy, pulled pork sandwiches, fresh lemonade, a fun house, the scrambler, roller coaster rides, fishing for frogs (and the silly mustache glasses prize we won), and of course our friends penny, jason, wyatt, malcolm, jon, kim, frannie and jane!

sadly we did not get to enoy the "zillerator" because the kids were too short!

it was a good day! so good that dottie and esther zonked out within 5 minutes of driving away from the fair.

to see more pictures, click HERE

catalog shopping

kiki and grandpa come for a visit

my parents were invited to a wedding in the napa valley in may so we were lucky to get a visit from them in san francisco before and after the wedding. the girls had a ball with them and were sad to see them go but excited that we would meet up again in kansas city for my cousin jack's wedding 2 weeks later...

to see more pictures, of their visit click HERE





longtime friends from sewickley also invited to the wedding so we had a little pre-dinner wine and cheese at our house one evening...

esther's newest trick

face drawings

as it turns out, dottie is a bit of a perfectionist. when we suggest to her drawing something, she isn't usually happy with how things turn out because they don't actually look like what she is trying to draw. she then gets frustrated and asks for a little help. lately she has been a little more daring and has started drawing faces. here are a few of her first attempts...

esther meets elle

i have been doing some serious slacking lately in keeping up with events on the blog! i have a handful of things i need to catch up with and this is one of them. at the end of april, esther and i drove up to santa rosa to see my dear childhood friend jenn festa (now giordano) and meet her new baby girl elle. elle was as darling as darling gets and esther loved meeting another new friend who's hand she could try to suck on. i can't wait to see them again sometime soon and know that elle and esther will become sweet friends as they get a little bigger.

to see fun pictures of us as kids, etc... click here and here

oshkosh

b'gosh!

first drop off play date

2 weekends ago, dottie had her first drop off play date with her favorite school buddy boone. she played and had lunch and by the time we got there, was so excited about it all that she didn't want to leave. a big bonus for us also was that chuck and i got a chance to hang out with esther by herself which was really nice and never really happens.

classic

every time i go in to wake dottie up from her afternoon nap, i am usually surprised to see that she is zonked out in a new dress up outfit or as mentioned before, sometimes absolutely nothing. today was classic.

this is how i found her...
-with a hot pink feather boa on
-in her fairy princess dress
-wearing ladybug wings
-with her hand in a tissue box (with her beloved piggy inside)

say what?

"ma ma"'s day

perfectly timed, esther decided to say "ma ma" for the first time today. she even did it when prompted doing a video chat with her grandparents later in the day!

esther vs. the dinosaur

punk rock dottie

dottie went pink and green at the grattan school festival today in cole valley

esther at 7 months (and 4 days...)

future snowboarder

dottie decided that esther should try out her snowboarding gear today.
she just wanted to eat the boot, not put it on.

out cold

several funny things about the first photo:

1. dottie is sleeping in a pillowcase which she does regularly and usually just in her undies
2. when i put dottie to bed, parrot (dottie's doll) was wearing esther's old 0-3 month skull and crossbone one piece outfit
3. when i went in to wake dottie up, dottie had managed to pull parrot's outfit on, inside out, and then fell asleep in it (see second photo of dottie still groggy from her nap and not happy that i was snapping a picture)
4. of course the fact that dottie is striking a similar pose as parrot...

easter brunch

in keeping with tradition, we headed to park chalet with the ricci's and godbolds this year for the second year in a row for easter brunch. what started out as a very rainy morning ended up being an absolutely gorgeous day! it was perfect weather for the adorable yellow easter dresses that their grandma cam made them! there was an amazing spread of food and bottomless champagne which the adults were loving. the kids ran around in the grass for an easter egg hunt and the easter bunny even came for a visit!

to see even more pictures from the day, click HERE.
(missing from the pictures...sandy, sean, tiff and her brother)



penny, jason, wyatt, and malcolm




gigi (pam) and floyd






scott, floyd and jennifer

easter morning

easter morning we woke up to dottie talking in her bed with her stuffed animal friends about whether or not the eater bunny had come. she was lucky to find out a short time later that not only did he come but he also "had gotten to the grocery store in time to buy the cupcake eggs" dottie wanted (you can see them in the second picture). of course she had fun running around finding the eggs all over the house and made sure to include esther in on the festivities by letting her shake her candy filled eggs like a rattle. dottie's favorite easter gift of the day was her ice cream pj's that she put on the minute she found them in her easter basket. esther was fond her new book as you can see in the pictures.