Family Photos

I never had the chance to blog about this, but we had a GREAT family vacation to San Francisco for a week. We spent part of the time celebrating my sister's 35th birthday with her family, our family, my parents, and Nick. I really love for Zadie to have time with her cousins. We spent the rest of the week in the city with Tori's friend Nika and her family (thank you, Nika, for the kind hospitality!). Hanging out in the city is always great, but this time it was even more special because Nick is now a freshman at San Francisco State and he accompanied us just about everywhere we went. Aside from being good company, he's a huge help with both kids.

Kim was kind enough to take some family photos of us, which I was very excited about. These are the first good photos we've had of Skip and we really treasure them. I will post more in upcoming posts of each kiddo, but I thought I'd start by posting the family shots. Kim had her work cut out for her since Zadie was in the worst mood ever!

Thank you, Kim, for your awesome photos! You can check out more of her photos on her blog.

Halloween

It took me a while, but I'm finally posting Halloween photos! This was really the first Halloween Zadie was actually engaged in the whole event. Tori made her a tin man costume from The Wizard of Oz. Most of you probably know that Tori has dressed up as a tin man practically every single Halloween. It was nice that she passed this costume along to Zadie this year. As you can see from the photo, it turned out pretty cute and we got a TON of compliments. We went to the "walk streets" in Manhattan Beach, which is packed with tons of families. Given the locale, it's fairly well-to-do. Zadie's costume was the only homemade costume we saw ALL night!! Nice work, Tori!

Maybe Skip will be the tin man next year and Zadie will be the lion. If her hair is longer she can be Dorothy. Anyway, this year Skip was a skeleton. I'm not into gory/scary costumes, but it just so happened that this little pajama outfit was amongst some hand-me-downs that a friend sent and so it went perfectly. Not sure why Linda painted his nose black, but it looked cute.

A prize to anyone who can tell me what Linda is dressed up as. She's wearing a footed pajama outfit that she found at a garage sale (who knew they came in adult sizes?) and her nose is painted black and her hair is in little pigtails. It's the nose that throws me off because otherwise I would guess she was dressed as a baby or something. Whatever the case, it was enough to get her a bag full of candy and she had a good time.

It's really funny to me when I think about what must have been going through Zadie's head this Halloween. We hadn't told her anything about the holiday at all, but all of the sudden one day we start dressing her up in a box with shiny stuff on the outside, paint her face silver, and ask her to carry around a silver axe. She duly complied, but she was really taken aback when she looked in the mirror and saw her face painted. Anyway, then we walk a few blocks and take her from house to house to trick-or-treat. There were lots of other oddly dressed people and they were all going around getting this stuff in little wrappers. See, Zadie has never had candy and I really don't think she understood what people were giving her. She never asked to have a piece. But she was still very interested in getting more of whatever people were giving and kept doing her infamous "Mo!" at all the houses. She didn't seem to take a lot of joy in getting the candy, which was just fine with us!

Thanks to Tori's sister Katie for taking these photos. She and her husband Leo are pictured above with their brand-new baby boy, Gavin.

He's a Looker!

I've really been enjoying Skip lately. He's almost four months old and is full of smiles and coos. I've actually decided that I'm kind of over that 0-3 months stage because this is way more rewarding.

I'm also loving how CUTE Skip is! This photo is Exhibit A, with more to follow. I find myself always telling him how adorable he is, but then I think of Grandma Linda and how she always tells children that they are resilient and quick to laugh and kind and all that stuff and so I tell him those things, too. We don't want him growing up thinking he can skate by on his looks!

Oh, and the other thing that makes Skip like 500 times more adorable is that he has been sleeping through the night for past few weeks! The Kate and Tori training program has been a smashing success and he typically sleeps from 7:30pm to 6:30am. This makes me like him (and everyone else around me) much more because we are finally getting our much-needed sleep! As of yesterday we put Skip on a new training program so that he can fall asleep on his own, rather than us having to put him to sleep or having to give him his pacifier every three minutes when it falls out. He fell asleep tonight -- without his pacifier, which was only by accident -- within about five minutes!

Okay, sorry to brag if you're reading this blog and your kid is keeping you up at night (Jenna!). I'm just pretty excited about all this. I'm a much better parent when I'm rested!

Kate & Tori's Big Anniversary Weekend

Sadly, I don't have any photos to post, but last weekend Tori and I left the kiddos with my parents and we spent two nights at their house in the mountains to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. There couldn't have been a finer anniversary present than TIME alone together. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for the great gift!

I love for Zadie and Skip to spend time with my parents (and not just because we get a break). Zadie loves playing outside on my parents' deck and is really well-behaved while she's there. Skip isn't super aware of his surroundings just yet, but he definitely loves all the attention my parents give him and he responds with lots of smiles and cooing. Oh, the other thing Zadie loves is that my dad lets her drive his car around in the driveway!

I've also heard that Zadie had some ice cream that weekend, which would be the first time she's ever had any. Oh, dear!

Surprise Visit From Grandma Linda

Two weeks ago we got a call from Grandma Linda telling us she was driving to Texas and had decided to take a different turn and come see us instead. She was here in a few hours and we had a great five days together.

The weather was kind of grey and cold while she was here, so we actually didn't have as active a weekend as we usually do when she visits, but of course we still fit in two bike rides. At this point, Skip really doesn't like riding in the bike trailer. He pretty much screams his head off until he starts choking and we have to pull over and stop and someone has to take him home. But we're confident once he gets a little older he'll enjoy it as much as Zadie does. If he wants to go on adventures with Grandma Linda, he better come around!

It always takes Zadie about a full day to completely warm up to Grandma Linda once she arrives, but then they go off on all kinds of fun adventures together, like to the dog park, Jamba Juice, bike rides, etc. Skip isn't quite big enough for the full Linda experience, but his time will come soon enough! In the meantime, he gives her plenty of smiles and she does reiki on his flat head.

Fudgesicle

Kim took some WONDERFUL photos of Zadie over Labor Day Weekend and I haven't posted them yet because I was trying to give equal opportunity to Skip, but it's hopeless at this point. Skip will have his day in the sun when Kim takes his photo in November.

This is my very favorite photo that Kim took. As many of you know, Zadie really hasn't ever had anything chocolate except on her first birthday when the crowd revolted after Tori tried to take away her chocolate cupcake. So she was quite enjoying this fudgesicle at my parents' house.

And this is another great shot of Zadie. This is the one we're going to put in her portfolio when she becomes a child star. Haha. You can check out some of Kim's other photography on her blog.

Away with the Grandparents

My parents picked up Skip and Zadie this past Sunday and kept them for three glorious nights. It was a really busy work at week for us, so it worked out perfectly for them to take over. We had just got Skip trained to sleep through the night, so he came through during their time with him. I really wanted both kids to be perfect little angels since my parents are actually going to babysit AGAIN next weekend when we celebrate our anniversary. And it seems the kiddos came through big time. Here is an email my dad wrote to my family:

The kids were incredibly good. This was my first extended time with Skip. Kate recently wrote on her blog that he is the best kid ever. I read this right before we picked him up Sunday. I figured this was well placed propaganda. However, I came to the same conclusion. I’ve never seen a better baby than Skip. I particularly liked the fact that he was so generous with his smiles. He would even laugh out loud at his Granddaddy’s shenanigans and tried his darndest to talk to me . Zadie is more active and kind of bossy but, GOSH, she’s sweet! I was amazed by how protective she is of Skip. She LOVES her little brother.

So thank you, Mom and Dad, for your excellent care. I tried calling a few times to see how it was going, but my parents were always so busy they didn't have time to talk!