10 months

dahlia is 10 months old. wow. time is just flying by. she has been learning all sorts of new tricks. she can now wave hello/goodbye. she has stood for a few seconds without holding on to anything. this has only happened a few times. she clearly says mama to me and dada to miles. she crawls with great speed all over the house and has learned how to go up and down the two steps leading into our living room and guest room. hurray. she is learning so much. she now has four teeth. two on top and two on the bottom. so cute. she is using them too. she has decided she does not like baby food. we now give her solid fruit and vegetables. no mush for this girl. she likes to feed herself. she weighs 18.5 pounds.

mason has been so cute with her. he is always giving her hugs and kisses. he alternates calling her dahlia, pumpkin, and baby. she adores him. it is nice to see them interacting more. he likes to chase her around, crawling after her. they had so much fun this morning playing on the swingset.

happy birthday miles

yesterday was miles birthday. i thought it would be fun for us all to hang out and spend the day together, but he wanted some time alone to do his own thing. that was fine. i took the kids shopping all morning and he hung out in his office. he wanted all of us to go out to dinner at our favorite restaurant purans. i love this restaruant. most of the food is prepared with locally purchased organic ingredients. it is yummy. we have been going there for years. this was the first time we have been there with the two kids though. going to a restaurant with kids is a challenging experience. it was not very relaxing. i was exhausted by time we left. we decided that it was a bad plan. the restaurant is not very kid friendly. we will need to get a sitter next time. oh well. we tried. we went home for cake. yay. we are going to celebrate his birthday again with the whole family on sunday, but it was nice to have a little celebration at home.

back at disneyland

ray and i took the kids to disneyland last week, and jen and i took them again yesterday. yay. it is so fun to be back at disneyland. for some reason, it seemed like more work when i went with ray. the kids got super tired and grouchy. poor ray. every time we hang out with the kids at some point we ask each other "why did we think this would be a good idea?" i love disneyland. it feels like a mini vacation. oh, and the kids like it too.

a retrospective

grandma and grandpa camping


showing off her cute swimsuit


grandma and grandpa with my dad

my sisters came over and stayed the weekend so we could put together a video and program for the funeral service. they brought all these amazing photographs of my grandma. they found a drawer full of them from her house. many of them i had never seen before. miles was so nice. he did all the scanning of pictures and assembling the video. it turned out so great. here are some cool old pics from it. we had the service on monday. it was very nice. my sisters and i got up and did a speech. that was hard, but i am happy we did that for her. i wanted everyone to know how much she is loved.

i love you grandma

my grandmother fay passed away on tuesday morning. she was 91 years old. she still lived by herself and was spunky and healthy until her last day. the whole family has been shocked and devastated by the news. i knew she wouldn't live forever, i just thought we would get a little bit more warning that it was her time. i miss her. we have a very close family. now that she is gone, i feel like there will always be something missing. the empty spot on the couch that was "grandma's seat." she lived about 10 minutes from my mom and dad's house. she came to every birthday and holiday celebration. things will not be the same without her here. i know she had a good long life. i am happy that she never had to suffer. i just miss her.

labor day weekend

i hope you all had a fun labor day weekend. we had a great time. what does one do on labor day weekend? we shop of course. i had such a fun time with my sisters this weekend. we did some much needed retail therapy sessions. i feel like a new woman. my favorite shopping day was saturday. we went to fashion island in newport beach. i loved it there. the kids were really good. i think they liked that it was an outdoor mall. there was a carousel that we rode, and a really cool koi pond with lots of fish for the kids to look at. what did i buy you ask? well i got lots of random stuff. an outdoor tablecloth, flip flops, lip liner, hand soaps, sanding sugars, and a new pyrex measuring cup (somehow i broke my old one). it all fit nicely in my new canvas shopping bag. yay for shopping.