*más

Posting some pictures that Jessie forwarded from her camera.  So many good ones!

she looks so pretty and grown up here!!  I love how she always layers on the Christmas gift costume jewelry as she opens it...

fun with uncle ben - matty and tio playing a duet in the background:

a delicious Christmas dinner. the stewed prunes were such a good accompaniment - who would have thought?  I can't remember the funny nickname someone (ben b?) gave them, but that's just as well.  

helping edie with a drink on the way to the mission:

 waiting for tacos at pedro's:

the mission was so beautiful. we had such a nice relaxing afternoon, just walking around, sitting on the grass, feeding the fish in the fountain.  reminded me of some of my favorite isabel allende novels [I think her Zorro takes place in this setting?]

even more to come! 

*cotidiano

It's nice to have things back to normal after the busyness of the holidays. Here's some *everyday* moments from the last 2 nights:

Vera dressing up as a "movie star fairy cinderella who cooks dinner":

She's so cute with her daddy. They both are.

vera made us all get fancy tonight for dinner. edie even had a barrette and a necklace.. then she picked up a disney princess coin purse thing - nooooooot yet!

I remind myself of my mom here.

cheering for the 49ers [such a good game!! I do like to watch football - it reminds me of growing up] I love how babies always seem to think you are clapping for them and then they clap too.

*15 months

At some point during our trip, Edie transitioned from that cute wobbly toddly walk to a little speedster.  Like you take your eyes off her for a second and she has disappeared around the library shelves, or into the front yard of your relatives' house and is walking over a stone bridge toward the little garden waterfall...  She is just the cutest thing still and we are having so much fun getting to know her.  She has stopped biting when she's angry or tired - now she throws down whatever she is holding and then will throw down anything else in reach too. She also will swat at my face or grab Vera's hair.  Sometimes my reprimand sparks the cutest little quivering lip sad face and she is quick to give a kiss and a hug, signing "sorry."  It's so stinkin cute and hard not to laugh at her feistiness.

In the last month she's also started signing please and thank you, several animals, friend...  She asks to watch Baby? Baby? all the time and knows how to open the DVD player.  It doesn't matter how many times I say no, Mama does it.  She also will not stop walking around to the back of the tv asking for "baby" - I'm wondering if she thinks the babies from the video are behind there??  She LOVES babies, followed a poor little 3 year old around the library today asking to hold her baby doll.  

What else is she doing......  one thing that I want to remember from our Christmas vacation was sitting around the dining table 'quizzing' her on all the family's names - we'd say wheeere's Lola?  and she'd look right at her or whoever else.  She knew she was on the spot and had the cutest look.

She and Vera are so cute together - giving each other lots of kisses, falling down hugging, playing hide and seek, reading.  She asks for "Wawa?" a lot, I love it.  She's also saying "Daddy" and it's so adorable.  One day at the tidepools I was wearing his flannel and she thought it was so funny, kept patting me and saying Daddy! Sorry I keep saying it, but it really is all so adorable :) She will often babble away about something and then laugh about it, and then repeat the gibberish again.  Babadbda ghheez hahahaha.  babada gheez hahahaha.

She's a pretty good little eater, though if she doesn't like it she will not just spit, but sputter it out her mouth all over the place.  She seems to be gaining some weight which is great.  I am still nursing her twice a day and she is finally doing ok with cow's milk.  I think she's just got a sensitive little gut that takes some time to get used to digesting new things - even as a newborn with breastfeeding, starting solids, milk protein..

I'll take a picture tomorrow perhaps and add it later...

*quilt!

I have had "make a quilt" on my list of things to do for a long time now.  I saw this one on Katie Did a few years ago and have had it in my head ever since as one I'd like to try.  She later did a tutorial of this go-to quilt.  [her blog was one of my absolute favorites as far as the beautiful, creative, original, modern things she sewed up.  her girls were adorable, fun little models too!  thankfully she still has her archives up, you should look through them if you need sewing inspiration] With Ben's immediate family we choose one name and have to make our gift - I knew this was what I wanted to do this year for Matty.  I even copied her colors because I liked them so much and thought he would too.. though I did choose the quilting thread colors :)  As usual, it took me forever to accomplish each step: buying the supplies, the fabric cut, the layers assembled, etc.  I had the invaluable help of my friend, Sydney, from church - she is an accomplished quilt maker, winning first prize at the Utah state fair at least once [imagine the quilters here in mormonland!].  She showed me how to get started and some really good tips along the way. It was a little embarrassing to show this expert my sloppy job, but I guess that's the nature of your first project.  I am really excited to experiment and get a little more creative with piecing things together and such. I started a board a while ago on pinterest of all the quilts I am inspired by.  

Anyway, I was awful proud of myself
and glad I have a blog to let you all know about it :)

It was about 60"x70" and a little difficult to manage through the sewing machine at times!

*flores

Edie is really into smelling flowers lately [wait I just realized it was only in California... no flowers around here!]. I just follow her around, my heart swelling with the cuteness of it. 

 she tried to eat this one if I remember right.

*navidad

We had a very memorable Christmas this year at Ben's parents!  The days were filled with activities: a hike above El Moro, tidepools at Shaw's Cove, shopping in Venice Beach [walked out of a store as Tim Robbins walked in!], Disneyland, San Diego [among the highlights were my turkey cobb sandwich at Con Pane], the Mission at San Juan Capistrano and visits with friends.  It was pretty busy and I did feel badly for Edie who only napped in her bed twice the whole time.  She was a little trooper though and is on her way to sleep recovery now :)  It was really neat to get out and really do and see some things I hadn't before - and with such good company.  

We ate extremely well as always - I especially loved my poké bowl at Tommy's, the take-out Indian for Christmas Eve, the smoked salmon spread on Christmas morning, the gorgeous roast and fixings Christmas night, and then a veritable feast of Chinese and Filipino food that we had on January 1st to celebrate Ben's grandmother's 100th birthday [she was in Hawaii].  I wish I had pictures of it - artwork I tell you!

There was plenty of downtime at the house too. It was so special to see the girls really feel at home with everyone!  There is nothing, nothing, like seeing your kids connect with your families.  I didn't take a whole lot of pictures, but am hoping for the rest of the family to share theirs... :)

peeking into her stocking while waiting for everyone to wake up:

 I always look forward to how Matty is going to wrap his presents each year.  This was a teeny japanese chapstick [bought at the amazing japanese imports store in venice beach, such beautiful things!] in my stocking:

 Lola and Grandpop and their two grandgirls:

 nice, Edie:

 Our old neighbor, Tio, lives in California now and came down to spend Christmas and the week after with us.  It was very sweet how Vera still connected so well with him after all this time!

Her playdough ice cream store.  Such a hit - I always wanted something like this too!

 a beautiful long hike the day after Christmas
[longer than we'd planned but wonderful nonetheless...]:

watching some baby signing time together:

Vera taught Edie ring around the rosies while we hung out on the lawn at the Mission in San Juan Capistrano.  Edie looved it.  So cute to see her try to figure out how to fall down.

 it was such a gorgeous day

watching the waves over sunset cliffs... crazy to think I walked along them every day for a few years!  we are on the point loma campus here for those of you who don't know ben... not bad, eh?

in venice beach:

I love this picture of Vera and Jessie!  Reminds me a bit of this one which I've always loved:

I just spent 30 minutes looking for that picture, mostly just reading old posts. I really really love that I've kept a blog, it's so much fun to look back and remember things.

***Hope you all had a wonderful, memorable Christmas too!***

*disney - la segunda vez

I have so many things to share about our trip, I really don't even know where to start!!  I guess I'll go with Disneyland because I don't have very many pictures to choose from.  We went the Thursday after Christmas and I was really surprised that Vera didn't ask about it before then - especially because she talks about it ALL the time at home!  Anyway, it was really an amazingly fun day with Rosie, Jessie, Ben B., Ben and the girls and I.  I almost didn't even care it was packed with people, it's just such a happy place to be.  Even standing in line isn't so bad if you have good company to talk with :)

On our way to first stop [after eating the best corn dogs you've ever had]: Peter Pan!  Vera really remembered so many things from last February - like that this was our first ride, what she wore, the teacups, the Small World song, going through the whale's mouth on that one ride..

On the Casey Jr. train. I love this picture because it was right when the train jolted to a start and Edie's teeny tiny smile is so precious to me.

toon town:

You might not know that Vera LOVES Goofy and Mickey and Donald Duck - she and Ben love watching classic Disney cartoons on youtube.  Anyway, so we were standing here in Toon Town and all of a sudden Goofy showed up right next to us. A mob of kids and parents immediately formed and it turned into a line to take pictures with him.  It was like an assembly line, super fast to get your second for the picture.  Vera though really wanted to "tell Goofy something" and after another kid was whisked into the picture spot her lip started to tremble and I could tell she was going to start crying [not in a tantrum kind of way, in the genuine sad way].  Rosie slyly inserted Vera back into the very front of the line and Vera shared with him that, "my Dad can talk like Goofy!!"  He made a big "WOW!" gesture with his hands and she was content.  One of my favorite moments.

Other favorites were Thunder Mountain - we told Vera it was a roller coaster, but didn't elaborate so that she wouldn't get too anxious.  I'd forgotten how fast it was!!  A few times during the ride she'd say my stomach hurts it hurts I want it to be ooooverrr!!  Afterward though she was able to laugh it off and I could tell she was really proud of herself.  Hopefully Uncle Ben can send a snapshot from the awesome video he took... :)  Pirates of the Caribbean was super fun, especially now that Vera is so into pirates.  She also got to meet Aurora this time which was very exciting, though I am pleased to say that her interest in princesses has waned a bit - whew.  Rapunzel did walk by us at one point and Vera looked starstruck and said quietly as she passed, "Hi Rapunzel."  Rapunzel sweetly waved and said hi back, it was pretty cute.  What else... we did the Jungle Cruise which I'd totally forgot about!  It was fun in that cheesy old Disney way.  Edie liked it.  The people watching was awesome too, of course.  It was really fun just experiencing it together with family and watching the girls' excitement.  Fun fun memories!!

*FOUND

So my sister-in-law sent an email today saying that the package [that I hoped contained Puppy] had arrived in Seattle and Puppy was not there.  The stomach ache that began when I saw her message in the inbox went even deeper. I can't express how sad it has been these last few days not knowing where Puppy was.  She would randomly ask "Bapa?" during the day and I would just reply "bye-bye" and divert her attention - we even started the code name Doug around her so she wouldn't hear us and start thinking about him.  I tried to get her to think Vera's old Monkey was what she wanted - she did start to fall for it which made me feel badly for some reason.  She had a hard time going to sleep and staying asleep - I'd hear her calling for "Bapa" in the middle of the night - so so very sad.

So anyway, I went downstairs to tell Ben the email, and to have him go in and rock Edie who was having a hard time going to sleep - and I told him to just pray.  He went in and I looked through his recycling box praying fervently.  I looked in a box on an ottoman under his table that I'd already checked and then behind it. and there was Puppy's little head poking out!!!!!  I couldn't believe it!!  THANKYOUJESUS!!!  I ran in and gave him to Edie and rocked her a bit telling her Puppy is back! Hi Puppy!!  Poor thing looked a little confused but started sucking her thumb immediately as tears streamed down my face.  Ben went to tell Vera who also teared up.  Seriously this little family loves their lovies :)

You should hear some of Ben's family lost-lovey stories!

*14 meses

Little Edie is 14 months!  Thinking back to where we were a year ago - Ben in New York on a research trip and me reaching breaking point late into the night with a colicky baby...  whew, anyway now she is a little joy. A feisty adorable little bug of a girl.  She walks around the house calling Mama? all day. Mama?  Mama? Mama?  Then when she sees me she quickly toddles over with her arms in the air and buries her head in my knees - I love it.  She and Vera also have a lot of fun playing getcha behind the couch, tickling each other, getting pushed in boxes, looking at books - it makes me so happy. 

Right now she loves shoes, cheese, Puppy ['Baba', who for the first time was nowhere to be found at bedtime. We have looked everywhere. I think he may be in the package I sent off to Seattle today :( ], emptying the dishwasher with me, Baby Signing Time [she's only even seen it like 5 times, but it is just so cute to watch her watch it: her little clasped hands, anticipation, pointing, smiling... aaaahh it's so cute], Brown Bear Brown Bear, babies, her sister, Tia [she shrieks and kicks her legs if she thinks we're going over there]... what else. She loves markers.  It's hard to keep those things away from the second child!!  She has words and/or signs for milk, apple, more, all-done, water, bird, fish, cheese, shoes, diaper [she'll tell me when she's gone poop - once right before she went! yes it's silly that I think that's pretty amazing], baby, book and of course Puppy, Vera, Daddy + Mama.  She seems less fearful of things than I remember Vera being - though she is scared of the doorbell which is kind of funny - really the only thing that freaks her out. She cries in fear and scrambles for me to hold her, little sweetie.

Anyway I really should be getting to bed.  I have a feeling I may be up several times when she realizes again that Puppy isn't with her :(  On a sweet note - Vera gets extremely concerned and even teary for poor Puppy and how sad Edie must be.

This is the usual "I'm ready for bed" position. Puppy against her cheek, left thumb in her mouth.

That's me under the covers getting a morning hug:

Looking at the fun wallpaper at the Rose Establishment. Yummy coffee and treats, beautiful space if you haven't been there yet:

bundled up and ready to go caroling with our church:

playing with playdough for the first time: