kidlet update...

OK... i know that you all think that i'm a bad blogger and that i don't really care if you all know what's happening with the kids. not true. the reality is that in order to update the blog i need two hands free and i need free time. unfortunately, most of the time when those two instances occur, i am asleep. i have not yet figured out how to be productive while i'm asleep so there you are. but it's one thing to be able to write stuff... let alone download pictures. so who knows when this is actually going to get posted.


ok it's 8 weeks after paragraph one... see what i mean? i'll cut to the chase. here are some pictures from summer vacation at dillon beach, which also coincided with my birthday. we went with jen and the twins, nad, paul and cole. we rented a house for a few days. it was awesome! cold but good. funny thing about that... in the bay area, people go to the beach because it's fun, but in l.a. where i grew up, people go the beach because it's hot!


on my birthday, we drove to the hog island oyster farm situated right on tomales bay. there you can buy a bag of oysters, get a shucking lesson and go to town. the last time i had a raw oyster was in 1989 right after my high school graduation... and i couldn't get it down. i tried them again on this day and i. fell. in. LOVE!!!!! in the picture, you can see that hana and cole actually tried an oyster too. cole couldn't get his down, but liked it. hana started out saying that she just wanted the oyster liquor (or "the juice" as she calls it) . but after having that, she decided she wanted to eat the rest of the oyster. so here she is eating her first oyster. she said it was good and had a big smile. but she didn't want any more which was OK by me!

running around hog island oyster company, while we feasted on oysters and beer. i braided hana's hair after a day at the beach because between the dryness in the air, the wind, and the sand, the tangles were pretty unreasonable. so braided prevented some intenst battles over daily grooming. she liked it!

the day after my birthday, we drove down to the point reyes light house. it was pretty cool and the kids had a great time. they seemed to be really intersted in it. there were 366 stairsdown to the light house (and therefore back out again) and hana did all of them by herself! i did them all while wearing kai. here we are, with nadia, right before the climb back up.

ok this is not a vacation picture. just a cute picture of kai at a sunday night dinner at jen's house. kai is 9 months old in this picture.

back to vacation... the first day at dillon beach. there was a sand bern that the kids LOVED. the vegetation made for good hiding places. the slope was fun for them to run and jump down. we have a bajillion cool pictures of them here.

this was kai's first trip to the beach. he really, REALLY enjoys sand. he ate it by the shovel full. oh, we tried hard to prevent it but we were no match for his desire for it's salty goodness. note the sand mustache.

just after taking a big bite of sand... he was frustratingly quick with that. he had sandy diapers for days after returning from the beach... but probably a very clean colon!

sigh... hana looks so grown up here. she's not so much a toddler. she's a full blown kid now. where does the time go!




so the quick run down of what they're doing:

hana is 3.5 and keeps us on our toes. she's very clever and VERY funny. she's as tall as a 1st grader practically. she wears size 5 in girls and size 11.5 shoes. she can write her name and identifies every letter of the alphabet and counts to 20. she's working on writing all of the letters and numbers and she's doing great. she's doing work that kids that are starting kindergarten in the fall are doing. she is becoming more and more of a night owl each day. i think when she can read, she will be a voracious one. she loves books and story time and "reads" books to herself all of the time. i think we will survive the bedtime wars by her learning how to read and reading books at bedtime by herself. until then, we'll just have to "supernanny" it.

kai is 11 months old now... where did the time go! just yesterday he had us under seige as he
cried out his colic for months on end. he is a very easy going baby like hana was, but also very different. he's just begun standing on his own (but only when he doesn't know he's doing it). ms. ashley, ms. leona's assistant, said that he was jumping in the crib today without holding on to anything. he didn't know he was doing it at the time. kai is also tall for his age... he's quickly out growing 12-18 month clothes. he says is name and he says mommy and daddy, but not when we're around. i guess he figures he only needs to use those when we're not there. he does sign things. his first sign was "help" (help me out of my high chair, help me get my "kramer", help me get some more food...). he also signs "milk", "cereal", "more" and "all done". i predict he will be walking soon but we'll see!