Merry Christmas!

Post-Thanksgiving Adventures

The Friday after Thanksgiving we headed up north to Santa Rosa. A little wine tasting, a little Peanuts - fun for the whole family.

First, a stop in San Francisco for lunch at Fort Mason.

Break dancing?

When we arrived at our hotel, look who was there to greet us!

There are statues of the Peanuts all over town in Santa Rosa - the home of Charles M. Schulz. Nina's favorite activity was looking for "kids".

This was in front of the Schultz museum which was fabulous fun. Nina even took in a cartooning leason.

Lola enjoyed it too! This is, by the way, her favorite activity these days. If she sees stairs, she race crawls over to conquer them.

Post-dinnner kid hunt. We tracked all over town, but never did find Sally.

9 Months

Lola turned 9 months last week, and she is just the cutest thing imaginable! She is busy crawling around, pulling up on things, cruising around tables and standing and bouncing. She loves to shake maracas and generally bang things together. She is an expert at picking up cheerios with her little index finger and thumb, and even more fun is expertly picking them up and watching them drop over the side of the high chair. Cause and effect. She loves to play the head butt game and to try to eat your nose. She watches your mouth carefully when you makes sounds and will try to repeat them.

OMG! I am the cutest baby evah!

She is, at times, a nervous little baby. She cries when I sneeze or turn on the blender (or when Nina gets too close but that is probably for good reason). She would probably be interested to walk, but she sure isn't ready to let go of whatever is holding her up. Although she is starting to have longer stretches of independent play, she really just wants you to sit next to her. She plays for a few minutes then cries and comes over to touch you then maybe returns to what she was doing.

She is content to ride in the stroller watching the bigger children play and flashing big smiles at anyone passing by.

Happy Halloween

Watch out bad guys. Spidergirl is going to "fight" you!

Lola says, Don't forget about me, I have a costume too!

Aunt Romana

Aunt Romana popped in for a short visit the other weekend. Nina and Lola both loved getting reacquainted with her, and we packed a lot of fun into a little weekend.

Lola got to go on her very first merry-go-round (but I picked the giant chicken!)

With another photographer around, we actually got a picture of Mirko.

Evening fun!

And yet another photographer!

It was wonderful to see you, Romana! We are so glad that you had the chance to visit. We love you!

Trouble

Here comes trouble.....

oh my goodness, make that double.

Little Fusser

I am not even going to attempt to get caught up on pictures... sooo, here is where we are now.....

A month is, of course, nothing for Nina, but hoo-wee, it has been an eternity for Lola. Let's see.... in the past month, Lola has started crawling (6 months 1 week, which is one week earlier than Nina for those of you keeping score at home) and then moved immediately onto pulling up to standing.....

She got her first two teeth, had her first sick day from school (hand, foot, and mouth = yuck!), and has started babbling (baabaa, maamaa). I'll have to admit though, she is a bit of delicate flower (aka Fussy Fussovich). She likes to be held whenever possible and cries as if in excruciating pain during diaper changes, clothing changes, baths, nose wipes, car seat buckling... In fact, I think she primarily learned to crawl so she could chase me down the hall, shrieking to pick her up.

Sorry, Lola, it's true.

But she is rather cute, so we think we'll keep her.

We have recently discovered one thing she does like and that is TO EAT. She is never happier than sitting in her high chair, feeding herself, well, pretty much anything - peaches slices, avocado chunks, sweet potato cubes, pizza crusts.

And Nina, well, we'll have to leave that for another post....

Happy Birthday, Grammie!

All Lola

Here is a series to show off Lola's new tricks.

Balance, hand-eye coordination, cute outfit. Go, Lola!

Note the little toe pointing out for balance.

She has mastered the army crawl, pulling with her arms and pushing with her feet. Now she is popping up onto her hands and knees. She seems to know that this is a better way to go, but still can't quiet get it. When she actually wants to lunge for a toy, she'll flop back down to her belly.

She pushes up completely off her knees as well trying to do... well who really knows?

For as strong as Lola is, she doesn't really like to play on the floor for too long. After a bit, she crumples up her face, screams indignantly, and tries to drag her little body toward someone who will pick her up. Poor little Lola.

She's a cutie though!

Zoo

We're still here! Getting back into the swing of things now that we are "single parents" once again. Lola is settling in at school, and after two weeks now has a cold. So we can check that off the list.

She seems to be chubbing up nicely these days, don't you think? Mirko claims she has my thighs, hehe! Well, it must be the milk because it certainly isn't the solid food. Don't get me wrong, Lola is very excited about food (peaches are a favorite), but she hasn't got the knack of actually swallowing too much of it yet.

And what can we say about our Nina.... It is all about pretend play these days and getting more intricate. On Friday, the base of a tree was a spaceship, and we were headed to another planet (called Massachusetts). On Saturday, a blanket in the living room was our ship, she was the captain, and there were sharks in the waters. Monsters and bad guys are everywhere.

Mirko has been having fun playing with his anniversary present. We took it for a spin at the zoo.

Bawang and Baby Hasani

When the keeper wasn't looking, this wild leopard girl made a dash for the gate.

10 Years

Happy anniversary to us!

First Day of School

Don't worry Lola. It will be fine .... eventually.

Djeda

For the last two weeks of Baka's visit, Djeda Pero came to join her. It was his first time meeting the girls, so you can imagine how happy he was!

He brought a fresh batch of goodies for Nina. A loved knitted outfit (made by her great-aunt), necklaces and bracelet. Some of those were probably supposed to be for Lola, but what are ya gonna do?

Djeda Pero also brought some of his children's workbooks, and Nina spent no time creating her own game out them.

He has also been putting Lola to work, dangling toys in front of her encouraging her to do her commando crawl across the floor. She is getting quite strong as she tries to drag her little body to get the toy and vigorously stuff it into her mouth.

Baka has been keeping our stomachs happy these several months, and Nina is eager to help out, stretching and cutting the dough for pita or mixing up the batter for palačinke.

Baka and Djeda leave tomorrow to spend some time up in Calgary with Stefan and Filip. We will miss them very much!

Swimming

We have been so much enjoying our pool this year! It is fabulous. The water is heated to a pleasant 86 degrees so even when it isn't too warm out we can still enjoy the water. And on the hot days, well, just nothing beats it! Nina has taken grandly to the water. Her favorite activity is jumping into the deep end with flair!

She jumps in and then swims about three or four feet to me. If you can call it swimming. It is mostly just wild flailing of her arms and legs, but its does seem to propel her in a forward direction. She can even lift her head grasping for breath before continuing on. So much fun!

Lola watches on eager for the day she can join in.

Here is the whole gang on a lovely post-World cup, 4th of July weekend swim.

I think it is a toss up who loves the water more, me or Nina.

July also means the Los Altos Art & Wine Fair. Face painting, glitter tattoos, and rides, what more could a little girl ask for? And we thank the organizers for placing one of the wine booths right next to the kiddie area. Like!

Once again, Lola is sidelined.

Nina bumped into one little girl from her class, and so they rode a few rides together. It was so adorable, them holding hands eagerly, but very patiently, waiting for their turn.

Ah, too bad.... my find at the fair is hidden behind Lola's head.