christmas vacation part ... kazillion (last part, i swear)

after san diego we went to stay at courtney's house in san clemente for a night. and not just any night, but new year's eve!  courtney and pete put on a great party and we got to stay in their guest room.  so perfect with the baby!

this was piper's chance to meet coutney, peter, alex, sidonia, slyman, smac and dave!  and on new year's day, alex crowned her 'baby hyper.' 

scripps girls and sunshine, such a perfect start to the new year!  thanks to the wucetich clan for having us, and to everyone (incl. other guests) for letting us use the guest suite!

for the record, i tried to steal pics from katherine's album, but the files won't save to my computer. bah humbug.

laura, shay, me, piper (5 mos), melissa, brook (7 mos), meghan, myles (9 mos)

back in orange county, i met up with some friends from high school.  my friend emily on the right didn't bring her kids, so she held lil' pipes for me.

and after two nights back at my dad's it was time to go back home.  as we were making our descent back into chicago, piper was mesmerized by the view.  i mean, look at this girl.  glued to the window. or maybe just holding on for dear life?

bye bye orange county, hello chicago!

so where does YOUR dad live?

mine lives in norway!

trondheim, to be specific.

congrats on your move today!

hope you got 'home' safely.

piper log

piper hit six months last week - her plog tab is updated:

http://thesmalld.blogspot.com/p/piper-log.html

awhile ago i added some tabs to the blog.  the 'piper log' tab is where i keep ongoing piper notes and, like the rest of my blog, i don't worry about grammar, typos, voice, style, etc. the goal is just to get them written down!

the photo tab is still behind schedule, but the eventual aim is to keep photo album links there.

i have no idea if i will ever get any of our videos uploaded :)

baby in motion

this first one is from piper's 4 month file ...

piper's favorite pasttime used to be standing. then no matter how she was positioned, all she wanted to do was stand up and then make you hold her while she'd jump, jump, jump. have plenty of blurry pictures of that.  so we finally got her a jumper.  she was too short for it, so note the box we had to stick under her.  as you can see she took to it quickly and we were all happy to give her the chance to stand and jump without us having to hold her. 

ps she's mesmerized by the tv here. i know, great.

pps one sock. always one sock.

have to say that i had these beautiful ideas of all natural and neutral colored baby gear, toys and products that would blend in with our home.  it's going quite well.
 

and from near the end of piper's 5 month file ...

i'm a ...

saw this on tosh.0
reminded me of a few blogging friends...

christmas vacation: part 9 (seaworld!)

my seaworld client gave me and patrick tickets to take baby piper to seaworld san diego.  i hadn't been to seaworld probably since i was a little girl.


i wondered how much piper would reallybe able to notice what was around her ... i mean she would only be 5 months old ... but she loved it.  LOVED.  she was having such a good time, she forgot to eat.  we had to remind her.  and that baby never forgets to eat. 

it was a cool and crisp day at the park.  we visited the fishies, the sharks (i was excited for that one), the flamingoes, some seals, the shamu show, a walrus and the belugas.  piper liked the belugas best.

was so much fun to see her taking it all in!  and i really have to wonder what goes through a baby's brain. 'jeez-uz, what the heck are all these things???'

couldn't believe how many strollers were there! oh my! and wish i would have known that apparently you can bring a picnic in.  although with free tix, i guess it wasn't so bad to purchase some food while we were there.  thanks seaworld!

kind of thought that bird was going to attack piper.  is that a piper?  sheesh, i don't even know.
no, no it's not.  i think its an egret. crap, i didn't read the sign.

she's tracking the baby beluga that was swimming by.
totally into it.

she was even into feeling the polar bear ice - brrrrr, cold!!! it feels like chicago!

seaworld = success for a 5 month old!

christmas vacation: part 8 (swimming)

** piper's lil swimsuit is from aunty amber in maryland - it was from when pipes was a wee babe, and 0-3m in size, and LUCKILY it still fit at 5m!! thank you amber, who knew we'd get to use it again in december?!**

the pool was kept at 88 degrees.  like tropical waters, it was the best feeling.  sure, outside the air was mostly in the 60s ... but when you have a warm pool plus a 103 degree hot tub at your disposal, no matter!

 jenny and the pipes

kiira videotaping the pipes.  look at those naftulin girls with their slim tummies!

christmas vacation: part 7 (sd)

the next few days in san diego consisted pretty much of swimming, hot tub soaking, and eating.  sounds perfect, right? 

jenny cooking up chocolate-chip-bacon pancakes:

though not sure what jeff is doing!



christmas vacation: part 6 (sd v. chi)

it was heaven! we were just a few blocks from the ocean!

let me remind you what lake michigan looks like this time of year (stole from internet):

 california:

chicago:

california:

you get the picture.

christmas vacation: part 5 (san diego)

after a flight, magic mountain, fashion island, christmas eve dining, christmas day brunching, and a visit to pasadena, we headed down to san diego to visit with patrick's aunt judy, uncle jeff, uncle kip, and cousins kiira and jenny.

they rented a house in la jolla for the holiday,

and invited us to join for several days!

i guess they rented it from ray kroc's grand-daughter.
10 points if you know who that is before clicking the link!

it was a full house the first night we got in - complete with visitors!

'reverand' flansburg (patrick's family friend who officiated our wedding ) lives less than a mile from the rental.  so he and his girlfriend stopped in for a visit.  he and his girlfriend are expecting and we had just heard the news, so it was quite exciting to meet kari and give congratulations.

piper also got to meet my college friend amber and her mama b. they had just gotten back from mexico, and were staying at amber's dad's house in la jolla, also just about a mile away. with all the chaos of our own arrival, bedroom switching, people in and out, and a very tired baby, i didn't get a picture of me and amber!  but so glad we got to see them before their early flights out of town the next morning! the chance to see them had pretty much everything to do with us driving down monday afternoon instead of waiting until tuesday.

quite a first night in sd!

nkotb

there's a new kid on the blogger!

my friend meghan from childhood! 

back in the 80's, it could happen that there were no fewer than 3 variations of a megan, meagan, meghan, or meaghan in single elementary school classroom.  so the megs would go by 'megan last initial.'  and thus, mego was born.  my friend mego since about 4th grade.  we were at different schools at that point, but brought together by AYSO soccer.  and our parents bonded.  then our brothers bonded too, just a few years apart.  i was girl devon and mego's brother was boy devin.  i would guess mego's mama still thinks of me as girl devon. 

meghan and i went to the same jr. high, but i would say drifted apart by the time circles of friends migrated with the onset of high school.  but sometimes there is just a bond you form as a child that can last a lifetime, so i am happy that meghan and i have been able to re-connect recently.  i NEVER would have dreamed we'd be pregnant at the same time.  of course, 9 year old girl devon just wasn't thinking that far ahead. 


anyway, check out meghan's new blog!
and for those of you who know her, leave her a comment!
http://carbivorechronicles.blogspot.com/

christmas vacation: piper pic interlude

multi-functional baby bath bucket

found a new use for the spa bebe tub. 
mommy puke bucket!

ughhhhhhh.

4 out of 7 kids called in sick to daycare on thursday with a stomach bug.  on the way to dropping off my 'healthy' child, piper threw up in the car.  had i not received an email about the other kids that morning, i would probably have just thought it was a lot of spit up.  but since piper doesn't really spit up, and the other kids were sick, we threw in the towel and took her to the doc. #5 out of 7 down for the count.

of course it is just a nasty virus going around and there isn't anything you can do besides let it run its course.  i nursed her like crazy and she didn't throw up again, and never got the diarrhea portion of the illness. 

however, friday morning, her mama got the virus, with a vengeance. 

and now on saturday morning, it looks like dad did not escape. 

i used to have a great immune system, but it looks like the baby is out to get us!

christmas vacation: part 4 (a godmother)

after a night of competitive gaming (a game called trains, i believe it was), i let patrick off the hook for a day and went with my dad to pasadena to see my godmother and introduce her to miss piper. 

i hadn't seen her in AGES.  i don't know how long it'd been.  maybe since i was in high school at some point?  but until i was 4, my parents rented an apartment from the small complex she and my godfather owned.  so she knew me very well when i was a little girl, and often watched me.

fittingly, her husband was my godfather.  he passed away while i was in college, and i wasn't able to make it to the service. al was a musician during the big band era and played and arranged for artie shaw, worked with billie holiday, and arranged music for various big band era songs, writing tony pastor's theme song, blossoms.

my godmother's name is dovie, but we call her dee.  she fell for al while he was touring.  she was a groupie! and they traveled all over the country as he played music.

dee and al weren't just my godparents, but my MOTHER's godparents, too! 

how cool is that?

and dee is just the cutest!

she's over 90 years old!

we also got to spend time with dee's daughter, julie, and her husband, king. yep, his name is king!  and their parakeet, sweetie.  they were the nicest people ever.  they ordered in a big family style chinese lunch and we ate and laughed as we all got reacquainted and got to know each other a little better. 

christmas vacation: part 3 (christmas!)

for christmas eve, we feasted on the menu that my dad had planned.  a modified surf&turf of salmon and standing rib roast, and it was definitely a stand-out meal.  patrick for sure didn't stop talking about it for days. 

this year our real gifts to each other were the time, energy and finances it took to all get together in our irvine home for 'one last' christmas before my dad moves to norway (which is in, oh, what, 18 more days or something).  but so that we'd have something to open on christmas morning, we did a sort of gag gift exchange between the 4 adults (me, ry, big poppa p, and grandpa frankie biffs).  dad was a good sport about wearing his gifts throughout the day as the rules CLEARLY dictated. 

dad in his 'affliction' tshirt and elf hat.

of course, piper got to open gifts too.  i thought she'd be too young to enjoy even the wrapping, but i sure was wrong!

after presents, we got ready for christmas brunch.  the poached salmon was just awesome.  we invited virginia (maggie's  new mommy - maggie used to be our dog), and my mom's good friend alison, and her daughter karen, over to partake in piper visitation and brunch goodies.

there were so many wonderful things about this brunch: honey from my nana's friends' bee farm, my great-grandmother's bran muffin recipe, a coffe cake from my dad's step sister, caviar, christmas tree with norwegian flags, my parents' wedding china, and a living room bustling with friends.

as usual, piper loved the attention!

it was a good christmas!

christmas vacation: part 2 (sightseeing)

the next day, patrick and i joined my brother and his girlfriend at magic mountain.  ryan and wendy both live in chicago, but were also visiting so cal for the holiday.  pipes stayed with grandpa frank while we screamed our hearts out on roller coasters!

the little bro and i are at odds regarding the scariest ride of the day.  i say x2, he says tatsu.  both were freak-out fun rides.  but x2 was freak-out-i'm-gonna-die-love-it-hate-it-want-to-cry-let's-go-on-it-again scary.

kinda wish i'd bought one of the cheesy ride pics, but we were too busy running from ride to ride like kids in a candy store.  actually, that was just me.  i was sooooo excited. so to quell your want for a ride pic:

here's justin bieber at magic mountain.

how did his hair not get messed up?

---

exhausted from the previous day at magic mountain, patrick and i woke up early the next morning to take piper to fashion island to visit mr. santa claus on christmas eve day.  piper wore the same dress that i wore to meet santa for the first time, when i was 5 months old, 31 years ago. 

morning at fashion island

my twinsies

making herself at home with big red.

cheking out the koi pond

shopping at anthro with the pops

family pic!