And then...

Pete and Andréa came to visit! They were on their way to Australia and fit us in as a stopover. Unfortunately, Steve and I had to work, so we didn't get to do much San Francisco adventuring with them (or get many good pictures), but we had, as always, a wonderful time hanging out, cooking, lingering over meals and generally laughing and catching up. We are incredibly blessed to have such dear friends. I have known Andréa since were in preschool together and she's been my best friend for about half my life. It is such a joy to see how much Grace loves her (and Pete).

Dancing to Gaga. If you didn't know, this requires running toward the stereo as soon as Gaga is mentioned, then gathering everyone in the room to hold hands and then furiously shuffling your feet and giggling hysterically. Try it!

Grace was absolutely delighted to have her godparents, PePe and Daaay-a, here. So were we. Hope you guys are having a fabulous and relaxing trip. Thanks for stopping by!

Meanwhile

The weekend between Pop's two visits, Sarah came to town to attend a mutual friend's wedding.

We cooked and lazed around and did some Christmas shopping and had a lovely time catching up on the past six months. Then it came time to rally for the wedding, but it was one of those chilly, grey days that made us mutter that we'd rather just stay in our sweats and bake cookies. However, it turned out to be one of the loveliest weddings I have attended! (The fabulous Ashley agreed to babysit since Steve was on call, which made it quite a fun night out for me!). The setting was gorgeous, just over the GG in Sausalito. The ceremony was beautiful and personal and had nearly everyone in tears. The food and drink and company was terrific and we had a blast dancing the night away (okay, that's an exaggeration - we had to pack it in early, but we boogied enough to make it a night's worth).

All fancied up...

The next morning, we attended the post-wedding brunch, this time with Grace. Party girl had a blast, including wrestling a fork from me to eat an entire piece of leftover wedding cake. She also engaged the groom in a rousing game of ring-around-the-rosy (could not get a non-blurring picture, but you can sense the exuberance!). We sat on the porch and enjoyed the view of the city and bridge while Grace enjoyed the rocking chairs... singing "a rocka rocka rocka rocka".

What a fun weekend! And so good to catch up with such a dear friend. Thank you for visiting, Sarah, and for being a fab date to the wedding!

She finally updated the blog.

So... where to begin. December was busy. Full of visitors and fun and very few quiet moments for blogging.

Things started getting wild when, during Thanksgiving weekend, my dad's car was stolen from the street near our apartment. The SFPD told him that they have a 95% recovery rate within 30 days. Since he was supposed to continue on to visit friends, he picked up a rental, continued his trip (sans much of the stuff _for_ the trip that had been in the car), and we all hoped he'd hear his car had been found but we were not at all optimistic. The make/model/year suggested it was soon to be parts. Well, lucky day! The car was recovered (not 5 miles from our place), but without most of his stuff. At least we now have an easy shopping list for Christmas and birthdays.

Fortunately the car was in decent shape, so Dad returned to SF for visit part2 while the car spent a few days in the shop. I felt just terrible and rotten about all this, but he was a good sport. And it meant a second visit with my dad just two weeks after the first, which was quite a treat. I'm sorry for circumstances, but we loved having him visit and Grace adores her Pop.

A few snaps from hanging with Pop...

Learning how to put stickers on ears, nose, eyes, etc. Naturally.

It wouldn't really be a visit with Pop without donuts (nonuts!).

Ice cream (ice-seee!).

Playground. Notice we are not wearing coats. It was December.

I love California.

Making Christmas cookies. Grace had very definite ideas about how to approach this. I also turned around at one point to find her with a mouth full of cookie dough. Yes, she's clearly my child, but I'm hoping she can wait a while longer before getting salmonella.

Merry Christmas!

I had hoped to get caught up on all the crazy of the past few weeks by now. But I've failed. So, a month in review will have to follow the Christmas festivities.

In the meantime, we are looking forward to a few days off, spending time with family, indulging in lots of yummy food and, most importantly, celebrating our Savior's coming into the world.

Here are a few pictures of Grace decorating the Christmas tree, and later admiring her handiwork.

Happy Christmas to all!

Miss Independent

Not surprisingly, given her age, personality and parentage, Grace has an emerging independent (and stubborn) streak. For instance, she generally prefers to read to herself these days, at her own pace, only selecting the pages she feels like reading, and often with the book uniquely oriented to her point of view. But she remains very sweet and will make sure we have our own book to read as well before bed. That or she is trying to keep us occupied.

All fall down!

Over the long weekend, Jess was in town so we had a (way too) short girls reunion at Emm's. Gavin and Grace got to join us and it was so wonderful to all be together. It didn't take Grace long to realize she had a captive audience...

And of course she wanted to teach Gavin to play, too...

Eighteen months old

Well, this post is only three weeks overdue, but I really want to write down some things Grace is up to these days. The present is so vivid, it's hard to imagine forgetting, but already my specific memories of the younger ages are fading.

Grace is a perpetual motion machine and non-stop talker. This surprises no one who knew Steve and me as children. She seems to love school (daycare) as she yells "schoo!" as soon as we pull onto the block and she practically runs in the door. Some days she'll pause to give me a kiss, but other days she's off to playing too fast. At the end of the day, she sees me and starts and laughing and yells "Maaa-meeee!" and runs into my arms. She has a snack in the car and we sing on the way home. Except on days that we take the bus. She chatters and waves while walk to the bus stop, and then sits in her stroller and exuberantly points out every bus that passes as if every bus was the first and most exciting bus ever. Once we get home she runs around constantly until practically falling into bed. When she hears Steve's key in the door, she yells "Daaaaa-deeeee!" and runs to him.

She loves to eat frozen peas and will point at the freezer and say "peas? peas? pwease?" She'll eat just about any frozen veggies we give her and really likes crackers. She heads over to the cabinet, removes the childproofing mechanism, and gets out the crackers. She also loves chocolate, cookies, ice cream and "nonuts." But she cannot sit still to eat a meal. She lasts a minute max in the high chair and then starts asking "down? down? pweas!" and straining and squirming and yelling. If she sits in my lap she must be bouncing and if she eats at her small table, she is in and out and in and out of the chair, climbing and bouncing and tackling whoever is sitting with her for hugs. I don't know if we should be more firm about this.

She just started sleeping without her binky at night. We had been trimming it down, making it shorter and shorter to facilitate the transition. The night before Thanksgiving, she laid down in her crib and said "ni-ni" and smiled at us without asking for the binky. So we didn't give it to her, and she slept in and hasn't had a problem in the past few nights. It's not so smooth at nap time, but we'll let daycare handle that next week.

She loves coloring and playing with her baby (Baby). She gets out diapers (all the ones she can find, usually) and her changing pad and wipes to change Baby. When Baby Gavin visited recently and had a diaper change, she brought all her diapers out and piled them up to help. In fact, she loves babies in general and whenever we hang out with one, she gets very possessive and wants to hug and kiss it all the time. She is still very into books, but she's not quite as patient about us reading to her. She likes to turn the pages and do the reading and will often give us a book to read, I think to keep us occupied while she reads at her own pace.

She started trying to sing the alphabet recently. She gets the tune and rhythm of some of the parts. It's pretty cute and hilarious to hear her humming away. She also loves to sing "asha, asha, asha, DOWN!" for ring-around-the-rosy.

She is fiercely independent and likes trying to do things on her own, especially put on her socks and shoes. She gets extremely upset when she can't do something she wants to, like put on her socks and shoes, or just doesn't get her way. Tantrum as art form - she's 95% sweetness and joy, but for that other 5% she is soooooo angry and has the meanest parents.

Oh, and one of my favorite Grace-isms is that whenever we cough or sneeze, she stops what she's doing and says "okay? okay?" She'll keep asking until whoever coughed answers her.

She is such a happy girl. She loves to be chased and giggles like crazy and will run laps around the apartment. And then she'll come running up to us for hugs and kisses, just to check in before taking off again.

Here's a handful of recent pictures... can you believe how fast she's growing and changing?

Hmm, what will we do about Medicare?

Yummy baby.

Ice-seee!

Loves the playroom at the CAS!

Also very into my shoes lately.

This was cute until the day she got stuck.

Peek-a-boo!

She also loves the playground and her buddy Lizzie's car.

It's easier to find the right pieces if you dump all of them out.

Start her early.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Despite the very cold, unusually cold in fact, weather, we hit the beach for a little pre-turkey, pre-football stroll. Pop and Grandpa are visiting so Grace is eating up the attention. And loving the stop at Donut World on the way to the beach (put Pop and Steve in the same car and it drives itself to a donut shop). But I digress.

Steve is taking charge of the turkey. Pop made some delicious looking pies.

We have so much to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving!

Cruzin'

A few weeks ago, on one of those perfect California-fall days, we headed over to Santa Cruz. Despite nearly a decade living in So Cal, I had never been anywhere on the coast between Big Sur and San Francisco. So this was a very exciting excursion!

We did a little hike along the coast, during much of which this is the view we had of Grace (but she was not always going the direction we were).

Then, Grace decided she had to wear my hat, but she would only wear it pulled all the way over her face. We tried to fix it, but she would yank it back over her face and giggle. Naturally she started tripping and bouncing off the raised side of the trail, which she found hilarious. A clown, that one.

Gorgeous (the scenery, too).

We found a nice little pocket beach as it started to clear.

Did I mention it was November?

And the rest of these photos tell their own story...

After losing her battle with the backpack, Grace fell asleep on the walk back. She was refreshed to check out the town and try a locals' secret burrito joint.

Happy Birthday, GoGo!

Wish we could celebrate together. We love you!

Sunrise... Sunset...

A few months ago, we went with my cousin Katy to see the two finalists in her wedding dress search. She looked amazing in both and we adore the one she ultimately chose. Her maid-of-honor is a photographer and took lots of pictures, some of Grace running around, fluffing Katy's skirt and playing with the dressing room curtains.

We all loved this picture in particular, which Katy's maid of honor sent with the comment that it wasn't so long ago that the girl in the wedding dress was in a pink sun suit.

We are so happy for Katy and Anthony and look forward to their wedding next summer.

Vacation: the end

Okay, really? It's November 21 and I'm finally posting the last set of our vacation pictures... Sigh.

We took Grace to Hovander Park, which is kind of may favorite park ever although it makes Steve think I'm a little weird. So be it. Hovander has an old house and barn and fields and loads of animal pens. We were a little late in the season so a lot of the animals that are loaned during the summer were back to their home farms, but we did get to see lots of fowl and goats and Grace had a blast. She also thoroughly investigated the pumpkin patch and test-drove the tractor.

Followed by a yummy lunch in town with Pop.

View of the San Juans as we headed south. We took the scenic route and Steve and I were so awed by the scenery that we kept pulling into the viewpoints. I guess we fast-forwarded about 40 years. I just never appreciated growing up with this type of view as the normal backdrop to every day life. At least I get it now!

Aunt Susie and Uncle Dave hosted a wonderful dinner with a bunch of the Seattle-area family. It was such a treat to see everyone, but I was having too much fun to take many pictures. Here's one of Grace showing cousin Sindy where her nose is.

And another of Grace with her new bff Juno. She had a blast with a doggie to chase all evening.
We hit the road very early again and cruised. Grace was similarly angelic on the drive home as on the way up. She was pretty darn sick of the car, though. Here she is, somewhere between Redding and the 80, with her "patient but you've got to be kidding me that we still have two hours to go" face.

Ah, what a great trip it was. We needed the break after Steve's rough schedule during the summer and to regroup before I started working. Vacation now seems a distant dream, but we're looking forward to the long holiday weekend!