Birthday Girl

Today was Grandma Mildred's birthday, this is what a cake with 83 candles looks like!


Patrick helped celebrate by crying every time anyone looked at him. It was a long day. He did enjoy riding around the yard in this little car....

Bless You

Patrick did the cutest thing today, he picked up a Kleenex and pretended to blow his nose and wipe it. He also combs his hair (both with a comb AND a toy rake!). I managed to snap a quick picture of him blowing.

White Wedding

We had a weekend full of weddings! Saturday we went to the wedding of a family friend (Will Potter, son of my Mom's best friend). Everything was so beautiful, I just love weddings.

Take a close look at the soles of the groom's shoes. Rumor has it that his Dad was the culprit.


Here we are at the reception (Patrick stayed with Tom's parents)


My Mom and Michael with Maggie


The groom is 6'8", the bride is about 5'2". This made for some interesting dancing.





Today Tom played a wedding in Los Gatos so Patrick and I went fantasy real estate shopping with the grandparents for kicks. We all fell in love with a beautiful Craftsman style house in Palo Alto. Unfortuntely, I forgot my checkbook so we had to pass (not sure that 3.7 million check would have cleared in any case!).

Father, Son

The official 2005 Father's Day portrait....


How stinkin' cute are my boys?

Here are few more house pictures. The outside of the house is being prepared for stucco! Our front door is also back. Today we got to "visit" our kitchen cabinets at the cabinet shop. They are just about ready and will be going in the kitchen as soon as the wallboard is up. The appliances have been ordered and things seem to be coming together!

To Daddy

Happy Father's Day! Tom assures me that he had a nice Father's Day. He started out the morning by taking Patrick for a short hike with his parents. After Patrick's nap the three of us went out to breakfast at The Original Pancake House (Dad's choice) and enjoyed a leisurely day. We had dinner with my Mom, Mike, and Nick. I took a bunch of pictures but then left the camera behind so I'll post pictures later.

Patrick is very lucky to have such a wonderful, caring, loving Dad. And I'm lucky to have such a great partner in this crazy adventure.

Don't Drink The Water

The good news....Patrick took a record breaking 2.5 hour nap this morning. The bad news...he was tired because he got up at 5:45am. Patrick used to regularly sleep until 7 or 7:30, now he is on a new schedule where he is up by 6. He just isn't getting enough sleep, I think it is because the sun shines through the window bright and early and the rental we're in just has blinds and a thin curtain. Tomorrow I might stop by the fabric store to try to find some sort of light blocking fabric so he sleeps a little longer.

This afternoon we went to a neat little park in Sunnyvale that has a water playground for kids. One of Patrick's playgroup buddies turned one today so we were there for a special (wet!) birthday playdate. Patrick seemed to enjoy the water as long as it wasn't spraying too fast. Sadly, I could not figure out how to make the water controls work but all of the kids there seemed to have figured it out.



After a busy playdate at the park we had dinner with my Mom and Mike. Patrick tried to help my Mom unload the dishwasher. Does crawling in and standing on the door help?

Sunny Day

It was a beautiful day by the bay! Summer seems to finally be here. It feels like we went straight from winter to summer since it rained all spring.

Patrick and I had a busy day. We met Monica, Malia and Makaio at Happy Hollow Zoo. Patrick seemed generally unimpressed with the animals this time but did enjoy the train ride.



In other news, Patrick has a new baby trick that my mom taught him. If you ask him what sound a dog makes he responds with a "woof woof" (that actually sounds more like "oof oof"). It's so cute. Patrick also has several new words including door, diaper, milk, more and honu. Honu means turtle in Hawaiian. We're teaching him Hawaiian in addition to Engligh. Just kidding.

Walking The Dog

My little man is 14 months old today! We celebrated by going out to lunch with a friend of mine from college whom I hadn't seen in almost 10 years. We just happened to bump into each other one day at the mall, she was out shopping with her newborn son. Her baby slept through the entire lunch while my baby tried to stand up in his high chair during the entire lunch. Hmph.

Yesterday we took Louie and Ella to the dog park. Patrick loves holding Ella's leash.

Home Cooking

Look what's cooking in our oven!

Building Blocks

Here are a few updted house pictures It's exciting to see the house actually being put back together! We now have a new roof and new windows, and the electrical wiring should be done tomorrow. Next up is insulation and wallboard, then it will really start to look like a house! Tom and I have a long list of things to do which includes ordering the appliances, deciding on a fireplace, picking out countertops (we're debating the merits of soapstone vs. granite), picking out sinks, picking out tile, and the list goes on and on.

Here's the view of the front of the house. The front window from our old bedroom was moved closer to the street.


This is the window in our family room. I am absolutely in love with the new windows. You can't see it in this pic, but on the wall to the left of the window there is a set of French doors.


View from the living room into the dining room and family room.


This is the view from the backyard.

Homeward Bound

We're home! We arrived back in San Francisco at about 9 pm last night, we're all happily still on Hawaii time, sleeping in late and staying up late. I told Tom I want to consider eeping Patrick on Hawaii time all summer but I don't think he's up for it ;) We've got a lot going on right now, we're in the process of moving into a condo we rented for the summer to get out of the contruction zone. The house is coming along beautifully, I'll post pictures sometime this weekend.

A funny thing happened while we were in Hawaii. Patrick has a "lovey". A few months go I'd read that at about 12 months, babies tend to latch on to a stuffed animal, blanket or other lovey that helps them to soothe themselves. Patrick wasn't interested in blankets and stuffed animals were fun for about 2 seconds, so I gave up hope that he would find his lovey. Well he found one. At the K-Mart in Lihue. In a set of sand toys. It is a bright PINK PLASTIC SHOVEL. Patrick enjoyed carrying his shovel all over the island. See for yourself...

Playing in the yard


On a walk with Dad


Chilling at the beach


Hanging out on the deck


Playing in the pool


Cuddling with Dad


Out to dinner


On the plane ride home


Napping on Dad


Strange kid.