New Year's Eve

Drawing by Maggie

This is me and my dad (Papa) standing on a beach, talking to a pelican. There's a heart next to my name because Maggie loves me. :)

Wild Animal Park

We wrapped up our whirlwind tour of San Diego's greatest hits with a stop at the Wild Animal Park Monday morning. We rode the carousel, saw lots of animals and (the girls' favorite thing) played on the playground for a bit before heading home.

Sea World

Coronado Island

La Jolla

At the hotel and on the beach in La Jolla.

Legoland

We are on a short vacation in San Diego with family, staying in a great old hotel right on the beach in La Jolla. On Friday we went to Legoland.

Merry Christmas!

Our morning started with Jane waking up at 6 a.m. as usual. While my mom held and entertained her, I took advantage of the few minutes of peace to make myself a cup of tea and get my camera ready. It wasn't long before I heard rapid footsteps and Audrey yelling "Santa was here! Santa was here!" Audrey and Jane started unloading their stockings while Maggie made a sleepy appearance. It took her a little longer to warm up into the spirit, but then she got excited to empty her stocking and check out the other gifts from Santa.

Jane got a little giggling Elmo and her first baby doll:


Audrey got the pink poodle she'd asked for:


And a jewelry box:
Robert and Bob playing the Wii:
Maggie and Robert trying out her new Pixos:

Maggie's big Santa gift: a big-girl bike!

Santa brought Audrey a Big Wheel. Unfortunately, she found it hard to drive.
Maggie, though, was a natural on her bike.
Audrey traded in the Big Wheel for her trusty old trike and had a much better ride.
This is my favorite photo of the day! Doesn't Maggie look great on her bike?

Christmas Eve

We had a happy (and busy, as usual!) couple of days leading up to Christmas. Maggie and Audrey joined me in the annual tradition of baking (and eating) lots of cookies. This year everyone's favorite was the M&M cookies we made a double batch of. Mmm.


My brother, SIL and two nieces (ages 4 and 7) arrived from Chicago, and everyone has been busy playing, eating and making merry. Grandma helped all the girls make a gingerbread house.
On Christmas Eve the girls got dressed up in the Christmas dresses and we went to the afternoon family service at our new church, La Canada Presbyterian. The service consisted mainly of familiar songs and a telling of the Christmas story. It was very nice and perfectly suited to the kids. Even Janey did pretty well during the service, and helpfully organized all the flyers and envelopes tucked into the pews.






At bedtime, the girls put on their Christmas PJs, opened one gift each, and set out the snacks for Santa and his reindeer. Maggie had been planning for days that she would set out one plate with cookies and milk for Santa, and another plate with a dish of water and carrots for the reindeer. It all went well except for Audrey eating a few of the carrots, but we managed to convince her to leave enough for Dasher et al. After that it was pretty easy to get them to bed so the visions of sugarplums could get started, and so Santa could come do his work!

Jane is 18 months old

Happy 18-month-day to Jane! (A few days late.)


Jane turned 18 months old on Dec. 17th. Today she had her check-up with the pediatrician, and was pronounced to be in perfect health. She weighed 21 pounds 12 ounces and measured 33 inches tall. She's continuing to be in the same percentiles she's been in all along. She met most of her developmental milestones, except the ones having to do with walking, of course. But on that front, Jane has made a lot of progress in the last few weeks. She cruises easily now and transitions from object to object, finding creative ways to get around (and still dropping to a crawl when it's convenient). She will also let go and stand unassisted for several seconds at a time. It's exciting seeing her make so much progress, and I'm really looking forward to her being able to walk independently. I feel confident it will be before her second birthday.

Jane is happy and loves to smile, laugh, play and explore. She likes to crawl along and push a car or truck across the floor. She likes to dump toys out of containers and put them back in. She also likes to sort and line up toys or other objects. She loves to look at books and will sit by herself "reading" books and turning pages. At night we read her stacks of board books and it's never enough for her. She has clear favorites and gets very happy when I open them up for her. Some of her favorites are "Baby Boo," "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (a kind of strange version with photos of a bear and rabbit...but she loves it!) and "The Foot Book" (Dr. Seuss).


Jane has recently started being affectionate with the many dolls and stuffed animals we have around the house. She will pick them up and hug them, and she likes to use them as pillows too. Ever since she was a tiny infant, Jane has liked to cuddle her head and face against people and objects. She still does this to me all the time when I'm holding her, and I love it. She will also cuddle her head down onto anything soft.

I call Jane my personal organizer. She goes around the house, room to room, emptying any cabinet or container she can find. One of her favorite things to do is empty out my purse. She is quite meticulous about it and will spend a lot of time carefully pulling each and every object out of my wallet. The other day I heard her dump out the purse in the other room. I waited a minute before intervening, and when I finally went in I saw her sitting amid the mess with a lollipop in her mouth. She had found the emergency lollipop in the zippered compartment of the purse, taken off the wrapper and put the lollipop in her mouth. It was the first one she'd ever had, but she'd done it all like a pro! Jane is actually quite dexterous. I have to be really careful because she can open baggies, jars, bottles and all sorts of things.

She puts her organizing skills to work in lots of situations. The other night in the bath, she had at least 15 toys floating in the water. I watched as she carefully lined up the plastic toys on the edge of the tub, all equally spaced, with the three ducks all together and then the other toys next to them. Then she found all the decal-type toys (letters, numbers, a flat whale, etc) and stuck them to the side of the tub--again, evenly spaced and in a neat row. It was fascinating watching how meticulously she organized everything.


This is such a fun and intense age. Jane is developing and learning so quickly, and she has to be watched constantly because she is always climbing and therefore always on the verge of falling. But she even takes her falls in stride, not pausing for more than a second to cry a little and accept a hug and a kiss for comfort, before getting back to her busy schedule. Even though it's tiring and sometimes boring, even though I sometimes feel a bit selfish and wish I had more time to myself, I feel honored and blessed to be nearly always within arm's reach of this wonderful little girl. Her funny antics, constant learning, little words, cheerful babbles, tight hugs, blown kisses, and sweet smiles make my heart happy.

Dear Santa

Maggie and Audrey got to see Santa today at Audrey's preschool party. Audrey wasn't a bit shy about climbing up on his lap and smiling for a photo.

Maggie crashed the preschool party (her school had a minimum day, and I actually sprung her out of class an hour early with her teacher's blessing). She was a little shy about going up to Santa, but she consented to having her picture taken, and she shyly told Santa that she wants a bike.


After Santa finished with all the kids and was ho-ho-hoing and jingling his way out the door, Audrey ran after him in a panic and shouted "Santa I want a pink poodle!!" It was great--everyone laughed, and Audrey looked quite relieved when Santa said he'd see what he could do.

Audrey had good cause to be concerned, since she hasn't written her letter yet. Maggie mailed hers quite a while ago. She only wanted to make a list of her desired items, and had to be talked into adding Dear Santa at the top and her name at the bottom.


Meanwhile, Jane has finally decided that she'd like something Elmo for Christmas. Just recently she has started pointing him out and has even said "Elmo" a few times. For a while today I thought I might be one of those insane parents who pays a gazillion dollars to get a last-minute tickle-me Elmo delivered in time for Christmas...but don't worry. I came to my senses and realized Jane will be happy with just about anything, including my other gift idea for her: a big box full of tissue paper.

Kindergarten winter concert

The girls

Here are a few of the portraits we had done before Thanksgiving. We got one pretty good shot of the whole family that we'll be using on our Christmas cards.

Knock knock

Who's there?

Three girls.
Three girls who?
Three girls DO fit in this cabinet!

Jane's getting bigger

Bittersweet: Jane getting bigger, stronger and braver all the time. She has turned into a climber and gives me daily (sometimes hourly) heart attacks with her antics. One of her favorite things to do is climb onto the couch and lean over the arm, head pointed south, while she tests gravity.

Luckily, she also climbs onto more appropriate things, like the ever-popular rocking dog:

She also loves to seat herself at the little table and chairs we have in the living room. She sits down several times a day with a book or some paper and crayons to do her work. Amazingly, she actually draws more than she eats the crayons.

Catching up

I'm not sure why I have lost my enthusiasm for blogging in recent months. Maybe I'm just out of the habit. But I feel bad that I'm letting weeks go by without keeping track of the girls' happenings. I will admit that I blog mainly for selfish reasons; it is really important to me to have this journal of our lives that I can look back on whenever I want. So I guess I need to remind myself of that goal and try to get stuff on here more often.

We've also had a sad event to get through. Robert's grandmother Corinne died last week. Maggie and Audrey loved their GG very much and have been feeling sad--especially Maggie. We made a quick trip to Northern California over the weekend to attend the memorial service (just Robert--I stayed at his aunt's house with the girls during the service) and to be with family. It was good to be together and reminisce over Corinne's photos and journals.

Now we're just getting through one day at a time around here. Robert recently finished a really demanding time at work and is back to normal medium-busy. I seem to spend the majority of my time and energy just keeping everyone fed and clothed and on their way to where they need to go.

We do have the Christmas tree and lights up, but otherwise we haven't been very festive, I'm afraid. I'm hoping to improve that between now and Christmas with some gifts and cookies and crafts and other activities.