"circle cars"

hana got to meet santa claus earlier this month. she was excited about it and almost cut in front to two poor defenseless babies to get her chance.

hana alternates between calling him "santa" and "circle cars" (which i think is her attaching familiar words to a new concept/person). as it turns out, those two babies took for-EVER selecting their pictures. santa was annoyed. he uses the time when the parents are selecting the picture to say catch up with the kids. that's usually a couple of minutes. however, because these too babymamas couldn't get it together, hana ended up sitting on hana's lap for almost 20 minutes before she got to take her picture.

santa was worried because he said usually kids fall out by then and the pictures are horrible. but hana was a champ. we found ways to pass the time. she told santa that she wanted an "alligator" for christmas. santa looked to me for help. but i told him that hana told me in line earlier that she wanted an alligator, so she is probably dead serious, and she wants a real alligator. he looked worried. i'm sure he was thinking that he didn't want to have to put a live alligator in his sleigh. i think she got the idea from the "cajun night before christmas" book that we read just about every night. it's "the night before christmas" story but it's written in cajun - super fun to read once you get used to it - and instead of a sleigh and reindeer, santa rides in on a skiff pulled by alligators with creole names (like gaston, renee and nanette). so i'm sure she was thinking a live alligator would be no problem.

then i suggested that she also liked the scooter that cousin tony had. santa, relieved, told hana that the scooter was more appropriate for little children and admonished her to always wear her helmet. we also had time to sing jingle bells and twinkle twinkle little star. while in santas lap, hana was pretty star struck so she didn't say much above whisper over all. but she really loved meeting him and still talks about it for days after.

thanksgiving with stephanie

we had a very relaxing thanksgiving week. while jon had to work, i had the week off. my cousin stephanie came to town and visited for the week. thanksgiving day was spent with paul, nadia and cole and about 25 other friends and family. despite the size of the group, it was a pretty low key celebration. the food was awesome... and paul made a turkey that was TO DIE FOR!!!! not much in the way of left overs on that one. we all ate ourselves silly, as is tradition.
this is jon's favorite picture of hana from this day. he says "it just shows her personality..." i think it's pretty cute too.

hana wore a bow in her hair and to my surprise, the bow lasted like 4 hours! usually, when we do a bow, like for daycare or something, she forgets it's there until one of her friends comments on it. then she yanks it out because she wants to see it too...

paul and nadia set up their downstairs for the kids where a "kung fu panda" marathon and a bowl of tortilla chips kept the children transfixed, and for the most part, out of trouble.

perhaps, the biggest turkey at thanksgiving...

this shot reminds me of the pictures my grandfather used to take at family parties. he especially liked to line up multiple generations in profile and take our pictures... you can almost see the halo in this picture.

the day after thanksgiving, jenny, nadia and i got up at "0-dark-30" to hit the black friday sales. it was CRAZY!!!! but we got some really good deals. we will do it differently next year, but we'll definately do it again. after we got done with the shopping, we met the kids and the rest of the family for lunch and a trip to the park. we were pushing nap time so we didn't expect the park to be more than about 30 minutes or so (plus i'd been up since 3:30 a.m.), but the kids had so much fun, that we were there for a couple hours.

stephanie and charlotte got to bond...

hana is getting faster and faster. i may run long distances, but i'm not known for my speed. this could spell trouble down the line...

stephanie left the saturday after thanksgiving. we were so used to having her around, it was sad to see her go. we escorted her to the airport on BART. this was hana's first trip on the "choo choo train"... she's seen them around when we've been driving and she's been very interested in them. this isn't her first train ride... she had that a year ago around her first birthday, when we took the (amtrak) train in oregon from portland to eugene. but this is the first mass transit ride that she's been on where she knows what's going on and is totally into it!

after we dropped stephanie off, we had lunch at the airport, which she thought was pretty neat. and then she napped the whole way home on the train back.

showing auntie noelle and auntie simone the zoo

auntie simone and auntie noelle are my oldest friends. simone lives in hawaii now so we don't get to see her very often. so when she came through, she brought great weather which called for a trip to the zoo.

i love this picture of noelle... unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of simone because she was behind the camera most of the time...

hana tries on a tortoise shell for size.hana and mommy singing jingle bells, i'm sure...

it's official, i have seen if for my own eyes, hana is big enough for some big kid rides. she drove the cars for the first time on this trip and she LOVED it... we also rode a roller coaster. which she also loved.

"i wanna go syide!"

on a sunny november sunday, while some friends were visiting from new york, we took the kids out for a walk around the lafayette reservior and a visit to the playground there. hana is familiar with the reservior now. the walk around the reservior is almost 3 miles around, which is not typically a very long distance for me. but hana knows that it ends at the park. so the trip becomes much longer when hana starts in at about the 1 mile mark with "i wanna go syide!" this means that in order to avoid the melt down, mommy has to push the pace a bit. so it's not always so leisurely for me...
she loves a slide. in fact, for the last few months, she finds the slide on in the baby play ground (ages 2-5) to be a bit anti-climatic. it's more like a warm up slide. she quickly wants to move on to the big slide on the big kids side. she can hold her own for the most part but i have to watch her because she thinks she can swing from the monkey bars and slide down the pole. she's a bit of a dare devil that way. both her and charlotte can be a little more on the adventerous side... which means that jenny and i have to be ever vigilant in order to put of the ER visits we are sure are in our future...

after the park, we all went back to nadia, paul and cole's house for a little impromtu dance party. i continue to be impressed by the stylie moves...

note the breakdancing featured in this clip... future b-boys and girls of america, take notice... you have been served!