Summertime

Patrick's last day of preschool was on Thursday. I was so sad. He's had an absolutely amazing teacher this year and I was very sad to see him leave. Next year he'll move to a new room with new teachers and a new schedule (MWF). This summer he's spending a few weeks at "camp" at preschool and through the city. We also have a few weeks with nothing planned, I'm hoping we can do some day trips to Great America and the zoo. I may even study up on public transportation since the price of gas is so insane.

Here are a few pictures from Patrick's last day. This is Miss Tiffany, Patrick's teacher. We are going to miss her!



These are Patrick's 2 best friends at school. Braden is on the left and John is on the right.

Aloha

I'm a bad blogger! We recently returned from a wonderful 2 week trip to Kauai. I thought about blogging while I was gone but I didn't. Then I meant to post pictures when we got back, but I didn't. So we've been back for almost a week now, and while I'm not blogging a bunch of pictures, I did manage to upload a bunch into Flickr, go check it out.

We went with Nana & Papa, and Uncle Nick and Leah. Everyone had a great time exploring the island. Patrick had a complete blast and a good chunk of every day swimming. Molly mostly enjoyed the pool, and thought sand at the beach made a tasty snack. Tom enjoyed having 2 weeks off of work and spending time with the kids. And I just enjoyed it all. So here are a few pictures, check out the rest in Flickr. I promise to be a better vacation blogger in the future :)









And how could a set of Kauai pictures be complete without an obligatory chicken picture. There seemed to be MANY more chickens this year than on our last visit 3 years ago. We were reminded of the growing chicken population every morning at about 5am with a few roosters in the yard :P

Mama

Happy Mother's Day!

We had a very lovely day. Tom and Patrick made us all breakfast this morning. Tom does not cook much at all so this was a very big deal! It's nice to have a special day :)

We've been busy and I haven't been so good at keeping up with the blog. We're getting ready for a big trip and I am a little nervous fore Molly's first plane ride. When Patrick was her age he had been on several plane rides, but with two kids it seems a little more intimidating. OK, a lot more intimidating. And I'm having nightmares about the amount of luggage we need to bring!

Patrick started swimming lessons a few months ago. He has his good days and bad days in the pool, but he is completely comfortable going completely underwater, floating on his back and diving in. He's working on pushing off from the side of the pool and not freaking out when he gets to the middle of the pool. Last week he went on his first school field trip, all the way to the zoo. This one was probably a bigger deal for me as the thought of him going on a school bus and being away all day freaked me out a bit but he did really well and had a fabulous time. Patrick has started noticing differences in people and always seems to point them out to me in a loud voice in a public place. He's become so much more of a little boy and seems so grown up. He loves his sister fiercely and is extremely protective of her. I love watching him interact with her, it gives me the warm fuzzies.

Molly is cruising around as a rapid rate but still not walking. Everyone seems to think it will be any day now but I'm not so sure. She says a few words now, including Dada and Mama and something I think means "more". Sleep is still an issue. I wrote about it several months ago and honestly, it hasn't gotten much better. I was so convinced that we had a good sleeper when she started sleeping through the night at around 5 months, but then the teething started and in the last 7 months she's slept through the night twice. Napping is also a little wonky right now, she's still taking two naps a day but they seem to be getting shorter. I thought she might be ready to consolidate to one nap but by 10am every day she hits the wall and can't keep her eyes open. Sleep issues aside, she's a very easy and loving baby who adores her big brother.

I feel like a very lucky mama today!

Maria, Maria

Guess who I got to meet tonight? The first lady of California, Maria Shriver. She had a private book signing for the Silicon Valley Moms Blog, and somehow my friend Leticia (who can be found at her blog Tech Savvy Mama, and on the DC Metro Moms Blog) managed to get an invite for me. It was an interesting event, there were some completely hard core bloggers there (as in they had their laptops out and were typing away during the Q&A, I have absolutely no idea what they found so compelling). Maria talked about her books, and signed copies afterwards. I had received an advance copy of the book but failed to actually start reading it until this afternoon. The book is short. Very short. I finished the entire thing in less than 15 minutes. But it is sweet, it mas a nice message to spend some time every day thinking about who it is you want to be, as is something that evolves.

And Maria was completely nice. She asked me about my kids, I knew she also had a son named Patrick so we talked about what a great name it was. Still not sure I'd vote for her husband though ;)

Party Girl

Molly's birthday party was on Saturday, and I didn't even cry! It was a gorgeous day, and Molly seemed pretty excited to have all eyes on her for the day. The theme of the party was cupcakes, chosen from a moment of inspiration I had when my mom gave me a giant cupcake cake pan for Christmas. It looked easy enough to make. Boy was I wrong. I called my cousin Danielle in a complete panic last week because my cake was bad. Oh so very, very bad. Danielle helped me trouble shoot some of the problems I was having, and them being the total sweetie that she is, she offered to make the cake even though she was headed out of town. The cake turned out completely gorgeous, much better than anything I would have been able to do. Molly was very tentative with it, and mostly just mushed around the frosting. It was a great day!

Check out my party dress!



Uncle Nick taught us all cool party tricks to do with orange peels.



Molly with her Godparents



Getting ready for cake in her special birthday tee



Cake time!







And today was our 12th wedding anniversary :) It ends a 30 day period in which we celebrate my birthday, Patrick's birthday, Molly's birthday, and the birthdays of several small friends. Most years Easter in thrown in there too, we lucked out this year! This year it has been really bad because Tom had a huge project that he's been working on for 2 years go live this weekend. He went to work at 4 am the day of the party, came home for the party, then went back to work. He worked today as well, and will probably be getting into the hospital by 6 am every day this week. We are VERY much looking forward to vacation in 3 weeks!

Birthday Girl

Good golly, Miss Molly is 1 today!

It's so hard to believe she's already one. The last year has just zipped on by, it seems like yesterday I was anxiously awaiting our sweet baby girl. It still amazes me to think that we have a girl, I was so comfortable in my role as a boy mom. I still get a little squee inside when I take pretty little pink dresses out of the laundry and put bows in her hair. In the picture above, Molly is wearing a dress I bought long before I was ever pregnant with her. I thought it was so pretty, wand worth putting away just in case I ever had a baby girl. So I thought it was fitting that she wear it today.

Molly has just been a precious joy in our lives. She's so similar to Patrick in so many ways (inability to sleep through the night being at the top of that list!), and so different in others. Molly absolutely adores Patrick, she is never far from his side and he doesn't seem to mind one bit. When he plays with his Playmobil men of Legos at the dining room table she will sit on the sidelines and watch, content to just be near him. Just in the last week she has started saying "dada" and "mama" in the right context. She's definitely attached to us and wary of strangers. When Tom leaves for work in the mornings she cries. And when he comes home at night she crawls as fast as she can to the door, stopping to lift her arms up for a snuggle. She doesn't seem that interested in walking yet. It's OK, I'm enjoying every minute of babyness.

Molly has her 1 year visit at the pediatrician yesterday. She weighed in at 18 pounds, 10 ounces (25th percentile) and 30 inches long (85 or 90th percentile). Her head is finally measuring in close to Patrick's in the 90th percentile! The doctor declared her nice and healthy, and wasn't concerned about her weight. We started her on a little cows milk this week, she hasn't taken to it as quickly as Patrick did but it is nice to know that she has an option other than mom! We also got the green light to start her on a few more foods like eggs.

So a very happy birthday to my sweet baby girl! You are the icing on our cake, and we all love you very, very much.

Happy Birthday, My Little Sonny Boy

Little man turned 4 today.

It makes me both happy and sad. 4 seems so old. He's no longer a toddler. He's a little boy. I have to register him for kindergarten(!) in 10 months. Where did the time go? But on the other hand, it is so much fun seeing his personality develop. Patrick is really such a sweet little boy. He's polite, and a good friend, and loves his sister to death. He loves to tell jokes, his favorite being one he wrote himself, and is best repeated very loudly and very quickly... We go to school at 20 o'clock! Laugh hysterically. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

It's hard to believe I've been a mom for 4 years. It seems like just yesterday we were blessed with this amazing little baby boy. I was so scared about having a baby, let alone having a baby boy. What did I know about boys? I really and truly believe Patrick came into our lives to teach us. Patience, humility, understanding, unconditional love, faith... all things taught to me by my son. He's a blessing and a joy, and every day we are thankful to have him.

So how does a newly 4 year old boy roll? With a bowling party of course! Imagine 14 3 and 4 year old with 6 pound balls in matching shoes. It was a miracle no fingers were lost. It was a little chaotic, but the kids seemed to have a complete blast. They all seemed to have the most fun running in circles around the table after cake. Go figure.

Molly helped to keep score

The cake was from one of the very few Carvel's on the West Coast. Yummo!



Today, we let Patrick decide what he wanted to choose and he chose a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium (surprise, surprise!). The weather has been absolutely gorgeous and summer like for the last few days and today was no exception. It was one of those rare 80 degree days at the beach, just perfect for a birthday celebration and some ice cream! Patrick even wore his new "Super Patrick" cape we gave him for his birthday.

Patrick with his seafood lunch. Seafood...see food...get it? I crack myself up. Now I know where he gets it from.

Apricot Baby

7 or 8 years ago I planted a Blenheim apricot tree in our backyard. It was my own little personal homage to the Santa Clara Valley. For 7 or 8 years I would watch it blossom every spring and be disappointed every summer when no fruit was ever produced. I decided (in my infinite botanical wisdom) that it must have something to do with cross pollination or bee colony collapse disorder and I resigned myself to the fact that the tree would bear no fruit. Very sad. Then last summer, while in the backyard of a neighbor, I noticed a huge apricot tree that was just dripping with fruit. Like there were so many apricots the branches were practically snapping off.

So imagine my surprise this week when I noticed out apricot tree had fruit! Several tiny little green apricots, so perfect and lovely. Now I just need to make sure the squirrels stay in the neighbors tree, and not mine ;)

Walking In My Shoes

Patrick has discovered the joys of walking in mom's shoes. Tom is not as amused as I am.

Baby It's Cold Outside

I'm a little late in posting this, but we spent a long weekend in Tahoe over my birthday. It had been a very long time since we'd been up there during the winter, and I've decided I am so not cut out for cold weather. Patrick loved it though. He was thrilled to be able to make snow angels and go sledding. Molly tolerated it for small periods. She absolutely hates having anything on her head right now (including my beloved bows) so she would throw a complete fit anytime we put a hat or a hood on her. I am really hoping this phase is short lived, Patrick went through a similar phase at about the same age. I took a bazillion pictures, more are posted on Flickr.





On the way home we stopped off in Fairfield to tour the Jelly Belly factory. It's one of those things I've always wanted to do but never had the chance. The factory only operates on weekdays so I was excited about seeing everything in action. Well wouldn't you know it, Monday was inventory day so the factory wasn't running. We saw a bunch of empty machines and half finished beans but Patrick loved it just the same. He brought home his paper Jelly Belly hat and has been wearing it for 3 days straight now, insisting that we play "jelly bean factory workers". I'll admit it, that one can get old really quickly.