Her First Christmas Recital

Kelly's daycare/pre-school put on a little Christmas recital yesterday. They had a little reception for all the parents with cookies & punch and then Santa came to visit and deliver a present to each of the kids. My camera was on the blink for most of it, but I managed to get a couple cute ones. Their costumes were all handmade by the teachers and they sang two songs that they had practiced for weeks. (she is the last one on the far right) Kelly made it half-way thru the first song, but ran over to me as soon as she saw me in the audience and wouldn't go back to the "stage". She was having a ball though.

She did great w/Santa again this time, but YET AGAIN I did not get a good shot of her w/him due to camera malfunctioning!! I am hoping one of the other mothers might still send me one....6 days left! I am determined to get one this year!

Christmas Card Photo Day

I love the idea of sending a photo card for the holidays. My first thought was of course to try to get one of the whole family. With 5 of us all going in a million directions, I quickly realized this was not going to happen, at least not in time for Christmas! I scaled it down to just the kids, and that was just as difficult. So, we all agreed a cute photo of Kelly would be just great (and we could let the world know about this blog so we can someday get some photos of the rest of us up here too!). Well, that did not prove to be much easier either. I decided I wanted the photo to be of her with her first time meeting Santa. I was excited for her to see Santa, but was also trying not to expect much as everyone has told me that at her age, they tend to be frightened of the burly dude.

Here she is outside of Santa's cottage waiting our turn to see him....Once inside, she did so-so - she didn't cry or seem too scared, but she was still VERY wiggly and did not want to cooperate and sit on his lap for that perfect photo op, so I didn't get the picture this year :-( ......

(but there are still 7 days till Christmas, and Santas abound, so I still might try!!!)

Since I didn't get the Santa shot, I was still trying to get a photo that day for our holiday card. We walked the mall and I tried to get one in the little car ride thing. This is a pretty good shot, but once I put the coin in to make it shake around, so got really scared of it and freaked out! So we left the mall in tears.

I decided maybe she would cheer up if we went to the park by our house, where mommy snapped and snapped away, determined to get SOMETHING for our card...

I'm not sure why (especially since she is not even facing the camera!)... but I REALLY love this photo! Maybe it is her beautiful blondish curly hair, or the pidgeon toe stance, or the cute little catholic girl skirt.... I don't know, I just like it!

But I didn't think folks would like getting this one on the Christmas card! So, as you should all know by now (because I DID get our Christmas cards out last week - whew!), I ended up choosing one of her playing in a Thomas the Tank Engine tent (which she commandeered from some kids having a b'day party at the park that day) - here is another one of her enjoying their toy! Goes to show, you just never know when that great pose, natural smile, perfect photo will happen. You just keep snappin till it does!

Guess She REALLY Loves Daycare!

I know I will get chastized from somebody for posting this, but HEY raising a kid is not all smiles, butterflys, dance recitals and happy frolicking all the time, right! Now, most kids can just rip their parents hearts out crying and screaming when they are LEFT at daycare. My kid...noooooo. My kid cries when I TAKE her from daycare!!! I'm gonna go ahead and take that as a good sign... that she really LOVES her daycare (and NOT that she doesn't want to be at home with us!!!) I must be an evil mother because this video makes me laugh so hard!

Daddy's Shirt

Kelly's been into our closet a lot lately. I swear she can walk in my high heels better than me! But she's also been eyeing the clothes a lot. Daddy's clothes rung is lower than mommy's and when she pushes her step stool over there, she can reach and pull stuff right off the hangers. A few days ago, she came walking out to the living room in this...

Holiday Parade

Sometimes I get so excited about doing and showing Kelly all the fun stuff there is to do, especially at the holidays. One of those is the Encinitas Holiday Parade. Not that I went to it every year of my life or anything, but now that I have a child, I guess I am excited to not only share with her all my own family traditions, but maybe start some new ones with her too. Well, no one else wanted to brave the cold night w/me, so off I went, just me & Kelly, all wrapped up (w/a nice hot coffee with Bailey's for mommy :-) We had to park a ways out, Kelly was tired and cold, and there were tons of people. I also realized I had to go to the bathroom right after we got there, but had to hold it for fear of missing the parade. After pushing our way thru the streets, I managed to find a little spot right at the start of the parade - perfect! It took a while to get there, and I was excited! I came around the front of the stroller to get a look at the excitement on my daughter's face too.... and this is what I saw...
All that was missing was the head/shoulder bob up & down a couple times, "Oooh. This is grrreat. Awesome! Ok let's go!" (Chevy Chase... Lampoon's Family Vacation?) She must get that from her dad! Maybe next year I'll make her be IN the parade - HA!

Thanksgiving Trip

Kelly & I had quite an adventure for Thanksgiving this year. It was a week of "firsts" for Kelly. She took her first plane ride, and saw/drove 3 three new states - Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The flight over was good and Kelly was a real trooper. Although, she did not sleep at all. She got a little squirmy toward the last leg of the flight, but no crying, no tantrums, etc! She didn't seem to have any trouble w/her ears either. She played with her new toys, watched her Thomas DVDs on the portable DVD player uncle Johnny lent us (a LIFESAVER!), and flirted with other passengers. I was VERY proud of her :-)

Cousins Patty & Nathan met us at the Norfolk airport. It was great to see them. The day after we arrived, we loaded into the car and drove 6 hours to PA. Again, Kelly was a good little traveller - of course having Nathan along to keep her company helped. We stopped at McDonald's about half way - it was her first time playing on their big playgym and also seeing the lifesized Ronald McDonald - she climbed right up and started chatting to him!

I couldn't get over how beautiful the trees looked - they were still going through their fall change and had all different colored leaves - yellow, orange, red, pink, purple. We had this beautiful scenery all the way to York, PA. There we stayed a few days at the home of my cousin Tim and his new wife Missy. They have a beautiful new house and a huge back yard with a playgym, which Kelly & Nathan made good use of.

We went on a couple walks around their neighborhood which was like a huge forest with a house nestled in the trees here and there. Kelly and Nathan had a blast jumping and falling in the piles of leaves everywhere.

Aunt Lois & Glenn, Steve & Niss, and Jerry & Maurine all joined us at Tim & Missy's for Thanksgiving dinner. It was great to see everyone! We did take a group picture, which was a bit chaotic and quite humerous - we could not get everyone to stop laughing or squirming or making funny faces... typical! I didn't get a group shot on my camera, so I am hoping I can get one from Patty or Tim that I can post here later!

Nathan was so good and so sweet with Kelly. They played together well and were very well behaved. Kelly just LOVES her cousin Nathan!

A couple days after T'giving, we drove back to Virginia Beach and vegged a couple more days at Patty's before Kelly & I left to come home... which was supposed to be Monday, but due to plane problems and delays, ended up being Tuesday. Even with the flight problems, Kelly did really well on the plane on the way home too. She is a great traveller and I had an awesome mommy-daughter adventure with her!

Thomas!

So, Kelly's latest crush is on Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. (But Elmo will always be her first!) It just so happened that Thomas was touring the country and was appearing at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, just about 15 minutes from where Nana & Papa live. We bought tickets and went on Veteran's Day, Nov 12th w/Nana & Papa. She was so excited to see the lifesize Thomas in person! We got a train ride (pulled by Thomas himself), and saw some other engines and exhibits. We all had a blast!

"School" Photos!

Here they are! For all the drama that occurred leading up to taking these, I am thrilled with the result (see "Say Cheeeese Pleeease" and "Picture Day" entries!). I'm just so relieved to finally have a really good picture of her in all her "2 year old glory"! Hee-hee! (Gary is groaning right now because he thinks I have a gazillion pictures that are just FINE!) And you can't even tell she's got ripped tights and skinned knees under that pretty pink dress! hee-hee! (Nik - I was bummed too that they didn't at least get ONE with it showing. But we'll always know the truth :-) That's my tough little princess!

Holloween - she GETS it!

Well, this was the first year that I figured Kelly would start to "get" Halloween - and I was right!! I was probably more excited than anyone this year to share some traditions with her. We started out by visiting our local pumpkin patch. She ran around yelling "PUNKINZ, PUNKINZ MOMMY!!!" for the first 10 minutes. The pumpkin patch attendee was in stitches. I told her to pick her own pumpkin - she finally settled on one of the tiniest pumpkins in the patch. And it wasn't even orange, it was white. Guess she's gotta be different! (mommy's wallet was happy too) Then I told her to pick one out for mommy. She picked out one that was just a little bigger and was orange. Picking out the perfect pumpkins - CHECK!!

On the actual day of Halloween, she got to wear her costume to Preschool. I pulled out the ladybug costume, hoping she would cooperate and wear it! With the princess costume well hidden and out of mind for days, she was actually very excited and seemed to like being a ladybug... all except for the hood (I should have learned from the crying bee last year that she is just not gonna do anything that involves a hat, hood, or anything touching her head & hair.) They had a Halloween parade at school and the teachers said she had a lot of fun. Cute costume and Halloween fun at school - CHECK!

To culminate our Halloween, we decided to join the Loys and trick-or-treat in their very family oriented neighborhood of Rancho Penasquitos. We had a nice dinner, then started to get the kids costumes on - with Nicole dressed in her pretty princess outfit, Kelly was having NONE of her LadyBug costume. Luckily I brought her own princess costume as a backup, and out they went, along with Tommy the Power Ranger.

Kelly rarely gets to eat sweets or candy, but she definitely knows what it is when she sees it now. So once Kelly received a few goodies in her pumpkin, started munching on one of them (before mommy saw her doing so!) and realized it came from those strange people at the front doors that I was hurrying her around to, it was clear that she would know from now on how to do this Halloween trick-or-treat thing!

Next year, I'm certain that she'll be up to speed with Tommy & Nicole! (they RAN from door to door while Kelly lollygagged behind a bit). Trick-or-treating with friends - CHECK!

...and giving all your loot to mommy - CHECK! You can bet Kelly won't allow that to be a part of next year's tradition! But that is when she will learn about a new tradition that I will adopt from the Loys called the Halloween Weasel. As it goes, the Halloween Weasel comes 2 nights after Halloween and takes all the candy to give to other children who don't have any - brilliant! We'll definitely look forward to Halloween again next year (and NO hooded costumes!!!) :-)

Fire Photos

Here are a couple photos from the fire. These first two were at the intersection of San Marcos Blvd. and Rancho Santa Fe Dr. looking Southwest. This was Monday morning, 10/22 about 9:45am as I was driving home from an appt w/a client in San Marcos. This was the moment I realized that the fire was huge, was moving fast and was moving toward us!!! I was literally driving under that "line" in the sky w/blue to the right of me and black/grey to the left of me. But by the time I got home, it was all black/grey and very little blue visible. And that is the color the sky remained for the next several days.

This next photo was taken by a colleague who lives in Orange County. This is from his home looking across Mission Viejo lake in Irvine. Amazing photo! Says it all.

There were a couple evenings that I was coming home, driving west and the sun was like an enormous orange/fuscia glowing fireball in the sky - I had wished more than once I had my camera with me, but didn't. But here are some add'l photos online I found that showed this image and many others, if interested: http://www.flickr.com/groups/sandiegofire/pool/

It is now just sort of a typical coastal haze out there, but we did actually get some rain last night - those big fat drops that slowly, randomly drop from the sky when the humidity is high and the air just can't hold it in anymore. It was welcomed and helped tremendously to continue the containment efforts w/all fires over 50% contained and more than half of all fires in SoCal are 100%contained - yay! Now, if we can just keep it that way!

Fire Update 2

Hi all,

Ok, got lots of emails/calls saying, thanks for the update, but what's going on NOW Kim???... Well, we are totally in the clear out here on the coast as of Wed morning or so. The winds shifted eastward again, so not so good for our east counties. But also the weather has changed and we have a higher humidity and lighter winds so the firefighters are gaining control on what is still burning. We are starting to get the actual damage numbers and it is high. There will be a lot of rebuilding and recovery still to come in the months and likely years ahead.

But all we know are safe and no homes lost thank God.

That is the quickie update for now. MOre soon!

San Diego Firestorm Update

Wow - well, as you are aware SoCal is burning up! It has been a crazy couple of days! Here is a quick update for those of you who have been trying to call/stay in touch.

The "Witch" fire, which started way out east from us in Ramona/Escondido area is now about 7 miles away in the Rancho Santa Fe area (which backs up to Olivenhein/Encinitas where we live) and the Fallbrook/Rice fire is a good way northeast of us, probably a good 15-20 miles. The Harris Fire is in the very south of SD county, a good 25 miles from us.

We think we are in a pretty safe spot as we are just 4 blocks from the ocean. But you would not believe it by looking at the air/sky here dark grey/brown and tons of ash everywhere. It smells like one big bonfire, just terrible! - we packed up all the photos, jewelry, etc and have our bag of clothes ready just in case, as our area was put on "voluntary evacuation" yesterday evening.

We have several friends & family who have had to evacuate their homes - Gary's family are all safe, they had to evacuate for some time yesterday, but are all back in their homes today. My brother Johnny is safe w/friends in San Marcos (the 15 freeway to get to my parents is completely shut down, but Temecula/Murrieta area is clear right now) Tim & kids & Liz are all at Jen/Steve's. Nadia & her family have evacuated their homes to safe ground. As has Kos & his family. Rachael packed up her things, and her dog & cat yesteday morning and left Escondido just before it really got burning. Mary & Devyn are in OH visiting family thankfully, but we are not sure about what's going on with Jeff and their home in Ramona. There are many others in Escondido/Poway areas that I have not heard from (KimV, JenH, Keely, &many others) and the Chula Vista area (Gina/Maurine) that I am certain have evacuated their homes and I pray that all we have not heard from are safe! (add comment to let us know you are ok!)

There is not a hotel room available anywhere up to Long Beach! And I heard the grocery shelves were emptied yesterday as people grabbed for rations! We don't know anyone who has lost a home in SD, but we know two people who lost homes in the fire up north in Lake Arrowhead. Thankfully, there has been only 1 death and a few injuries, so it seems people are more prepared than the Cedar fire 4 years ago and being proactive to get out before the fire comes too close.

The winds have died down considerably today so we are hoping the firefighters will be able to start gaining some control over the course of today.
Here is the local news website that is keeping good coverage of the fires locally and maps:
http://www.cbs8.com/

Will let you know if we end up having to evacuate! But for now we are just holed up airtight in the house with our bags ready watching the news!

She is now a PRINCESS!

Ok, yesterday Kelly for the first time showed me that she actually gave a darn about what she wears. This is a big change! She never really cared what I put her in... oh, sure after I would dress her and be saying, "oh, you look soooooo cute and sooo pretty in your new outfit!" she would (with some coaxing from mommy) go look herself over in the mirror and smile and be quite smitten with the image she would see. But she had not really made the connection between what she thinks looks cute and picking out her own clothes or shoes..... Until today!

A couple days ago, I had bought two costumes from a lady off of Craig's list. One very cute LadyBug costume and a Princess costume (complete w/wand!). I was thinking that this may be the last year that I get to pick what she is going to be for Halloween - a Lady Bug! I figured the princess one would get mileage for a while beyond Hallowen (once she actually started to get into "dress up", which I had noticed she had not yet!).

Well, I had taken out the LadyBug costume a couple times and excitedly said, "look sweetie, this is your LadyBug costume for Halloween!!!! Isn't it Cuuuuuttttee???". To which I rec'd a deadpan, I-don't-know-what-your-so-excited-about look back. However, when I pulled out the princess costume today, her eyes got as big as saucers and she squealed and ran over to me say "mommy, put oooonnn!" "mommy, put ooooonnnn"!!!! Naturally, I put it on her! And for the next hour she ran around the house, so excited she was almost hyperventilating! Gary & I were in awe as we watched our newly sprouted little "princess". She went from playing "baby" with Katie & Andrew last night:

.....to being a grown up little princess today.... literally!

Later today when we went to the park, she insisted on wearing her pretty patent leather pink dress shoes (with her black stretch pants and orange play shirt.) I guess this is just the beginning of my having to mention to whoever is looking sideways at her crazy outfits, "she dressed herself today"!!! That's my big girl!

Picture Day

Well, it was picture day at Kelly's daycare this past Wednesday. I was really excited about this as I have not been able to get a good "posed" 2-year old picture of her (see blog entry "say Cheeeesee, Pleeeese!). I went thru 3 outfits and finally found the perfect one that fit and looked adorable. Here she is all dressed and ready to head out to school.

Weeeeelll, on the way from the front door to the car, she took off, as she often does, and I had my hands full and couldn't catch her in time before she fell flat out and tore thru her pretty pink tights and skinned both knees. I thought about trying to snap that photo, but it just wasn't happening - I had to get to work and it was all I could do to get her to calm down, stop crying and get her to school. I thought about taking her inside and putting on a new outfit, but I just was done. So, we arrived to school with her pretty pink dress and crocheted sweater, hair in a bow, pretty pink shoes and tights with holes in the knees, and I told them, do the best you can!!! They told me that the pictures were wonderful....I get them in a couple weeks and will of course show you the final product! (they did get one with the ripped/dirty knees showing!

Sibling Fun

Many nights Kelly's bath time ends up being the exact same time as when dinner is ready! I usually get her bathed and dressed for bed and end up eating a few minutes after everyone else. Tonight I was hungry! So I leave James in charge of watching Kelly for 10 minutes while she is in her bath so I can chow down a few bites. I came back in to this.

I guess it does not matter how many years are between siblings to be able to play tricks on each other and have a little fun!

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Kelly has discovered that it is much more fun sitting in the DRIVER's seat of the car (vs. strapped safely into her carseat in the back seat). One day she just climbed in and started "driving", well that is, mimicking what we do when me & Gary drive I think. She looks like a real natural and was even making the "rhummm, rhummm, ehhhrrrr" sounds as she gripped and turned the steering wheel. She had me & Gary right down to flipping thru the radio stations! But don't worry, I'm not going to pull a Britney! I've got a good 13 years yet to worry about her getting behind the wheel and on the road for real (or maybe 11 years if she is like her mom and sneaks her parents car out in the middle of the night!). I'm already sweatin' just thinkin'about it.

Last weekend Kelly & I took a little "road trip" out to visit our friends Mary & Jeff and their daughter, Devyn, who will be 3 in November. They live in Ramona, which is a good 45 minute drive from Encinitas and is the "high country desert" of San Diego - feels like I'm out in the country when I'm there, but it is a really nice getaway. We went to the Ramona Harvest Festival which was like a mini traveling fair, complete with about 6 "rides", craft booths, face painting, a pumpkin patch, food, a beer garden w/live music, all complete with hay on the ground!Probably what the Del Mar Fair (uh, oh yeah, the San Diego Fair!) was about 30+ years ago - QUAINT and affordable! The girls had a blast on the Jumpy-jump, the "flying bee" ride, and the giant super slide. I had volunteered to take them both up and was actually a bit scared myself once I got to the top (it was a couple stories or more high!), but I couldn't hold either of them back as they slid right down without a second thought - Fearless! We had a great time and look forward to our next visit!

Smile and say CHEEESE!!! (PlEEEEASE!!!)

Kelly is 2 years and almost 4 months. I am sure that what I am about to lament about is talked about extensively as warning in many "how to tame your toddler" books, which I have not been reading at all since I have gone back to work (who has TIME to read!!!).... so I had a photo shoot scheduled today to try to get her 2-year picture. Yes, I know! 4 months late, but whatever! This photography company is the one that I contracted with whilst in the hospital, just a day or so after giving birth - oh yeah, they know what they are doing when they send their sales force into your room, two days post-partum. Either way they know they have you! You could be filled with so much love & emotion over your sweet little angel miracle that you just brought into the world that you'd sign anything that would share their beautiful little smiles with the rest of the world... or you are sobbing so hard with baby blues that you sign a 2 year contract to take pictures as a way to make up for feeling like such a horrible mother two days into the deal! Its a great gig, and yes, I took the bait. (I was both of those depending on which day you got me!) Anyway, I had one more "free" sitting left on my deal, and they come out to the house (which sounds way more convenient than it actually is once they start re-arranging all your furniture to set up their portable photo studio!). After 1 hour of sweet-talking, googly-gooing, shaking all of her favorite toys, books, dolls etc in front of her, bribing her...etc. We got exactly zero shots of her actually looking at the camera at the time he shot it!

Well, I should have known that even a professional would not be able to do this as I have been attempting to get my own photos of my little darling looking at the camera and smiling now for about 4 or 5 months, with no luck. Literally all the pictures I have of her these last several months are of some poopy-ass-mom-what they hell are you doing-look, a crying fit, stuffing food in her mouth, the blurry in-motion shot, the sleeping angel shot, or the back of her head.

I guess I had some luck at Jen & Steve's last night. We invaded their house for an afternoon/turned evening playdate. (thank you Steve for giving me & Jen a break and including Kelly in your nightly afterwork ritual of kid-bathing!) I managed to get a couple really cute ones, but of course, they are all the bathtub naked shots which are

probably not the most appropriate for posting on a public blog... but here is a fairly innocent one of her & Andrew (not showing any parts...)

and another one I got Katie, Ander and her looking at the camera but not smiling.

And here is another of her looking at the camera with a mouth full of delicious chicken fingers. Finally, the 3 of them all jammied up watching videos, with Kelly's tongue sticking out!

Ah well, once in a while, I actually get to see her smiling right at me, even but for one lost (non-photographed) moment in time, in person. I do cherish those moments right then and in my mind, if not on the blog. I will keep trying to teach her to pose sweetly for the camera so I can start getting the 2 1/2 year-old "CHEEEEESE" smiles next!