Poplar Beach Pictures

I posted my favorite pictures from last Saturday's day at the beach on Shutterfly. If you want to take a look, click HERE.

Here is a teaser, which captures the mood of the day.

Lunch with GG and Grandpa

We had two special visitors over for lunch today. Grandpa and GG dropped by to say hello. Here they are admiring Andrew's new standing skills, with Julia nearby reading her book.

Date Night

Jeff and I enjoyed a much needed escape Saturday night to Quatro, where we love to sit at the bar and have dinner by sampling off of the menu one item at a time. I was inspired by the candlelight to take this picture.

Georgous day at the beach! In February!

Andrea, Hannah and Nathan joined us at Poplar Street beach in Half Moon Bay today. It was a spectacular, warm day, despite the fact that it is the middle of February. We had soooo much fun. We took many many great pictures. Here is one of my favorites, showing Hannah and Andrew together. Click to enlarge. I will pick out the top few greats of the day and either post a few more here, or post a link to shutterfly. We will definitely be returning to that beach soon! Happy Winter! ; )

Creativity with the blocks

I will admit that when Santa brought blocks for Julia and Andrew, I could imagine only tower after tower being built and knocked down. I had no idea that you could make so many things with blocks. Jeff is the creative one. He and Julia have come up with all sorts of things. Here, they have constructed a kitchen. She's got a pantry with her groceries all set up on the right. That cake you see on the green plate is fresh from the oven. And she's putting something else in the oven right now. In the upper right, partly blocked by Julia's body, is a spoon rack. Ingenious!

Julia wears her panties

Well, it didn't come through quite as clearly in the picture as I wanted it to, but she's wearing her new panties on her head! Hey, as long as she's wearing them, who am I to complain about where?



She has been going pee pee in the potty every time now for several days straight (except at naptime and at night.) She's getting so good at it!

Andrew can stand up by himself!

I am surprised to report that Andrew started pulling himself up into a standing position today. He did it a bunch of times, so I know it wasn't just a fluke. Somehow I wasn't expecting him to start this already... we've only just started getting used to him crawling! He is just so curious, and wants to explore his world. I'm excited, but also feel like this is the beginning of the end of his babyhood. He is almost a toddler.

Video: On the Sit 'n Spin

More video! This one was taken tonight, and shows Julia giving Andrew a ride on the Sit 'N Spin.

Video: Andrew crawling

I've rediscovered the video feature of my digital camera, and how to post to YouTube. Here is a very short clip of Andrew crawling. He started a couple of weeks ago.

Watch us on TV!

Kim found a way to post the video of us in the rose parade to YouTube, and I found a way to link to it on my blog. In case you missed us live, here we are!

Major milestones this week

Julia went pee pee in her potty 3 times yesterday, then decided to sleep in her big girl bed for the first time last night. Today's nap, and tonight, she is in her big girl bed too. Perhaps we are done with the crib?? The potty usage is a little spottier (she just used it once today) but hopefully we can find a way to capitalize on this momentum and get the potty training done.

Andrew is hitting major milestones this week too. He started crawling -- real crawling on hands and knees -- this week. And he is crawling up to a large object like a piece of furniture or a toybox and grabbing onto it, and pulling himself up to his knees. Jeff thinks he will be walking shortly, given the pace just this week alone!

I just love this dress, Mommy!

A friend from work gave me this dress which Juila tried on and exclaimed "I just love this dress, Mommy!" She uses the "I just love this" phrase a lot and it just sounds so funny coming out of her 2 year old mouth. Very cute.