29 words and counting (and much more!)

Just like everyone says, things sneak up on you with a baby/toddler. Rosa is talking a lot now, and I wish I had kept better track of how her language skills developed. I remember a while ago she could only say Dow (meow) and Oof Oof (woof woof). Now her words are spilling out. Not always repeatable or on command, but spilling out in little bursts of repetition. And this week has been the week that it has really turned on.

I decided I would try to make a list of all the words says (to some extent in order of frequency):
Mama, Dada, No (usually nononononono), eye (look out for the the finger poking you in the eye!), nuuu (nose), maaaa (mouth), shoes, hat, tsocks, daw (dog), bow (bow-wow), dow (meow, for kitty), keys, BABY (she says this so clearly), ball, jusss (juice), cheese (can be sliced, cream, cottage, etc.), nyeeens (beans), esshhh (fish), apple (again, perfect enunciation), ava (avacado), baaa (bath), cheeef (teeth), agua, moo (cow), moon, up, turtle, outside

The other thing she's been doing lately is requesting (demanding!) the Eency-Weency Spider song. She'll be eating lunch, and all of a sudden she refuses to eat for some reason and starts grabbing my hands. I've gotten to know what she wants now, but at first I couldn't figure it out right away, and she would put my index fingers together over and over until I would finally figure it out. Then I sing the song and we do all the motions together. We do this a couple times, then she can continue eating.

Ok - enough talk talk talk - now time for cute Rosa pictures.

Big girl with her own seat riding the Muni bus (24-Divisadero!)

The above picture on the bus was on the way to the Eureka Valley Rec Center. We played in the gym with the balls. At this age, they are easily distracted!

At Golden Gate Bridge with Dada and Mama

Cousin Steve came down from Portland for the weekend.

Looking cool in Dada's engineer hat

After Golden Gate Bridge, we went to the Exploratorium. Outside, they had a bubble exhibit!

There is nothing cuter than kids chasing bubbles!

That evening, we went up to the top of Twin Peaks

Rosa liked hanging out with Uncle Steve!

My old roommate Maddy and her daughter Caroline were in town, visiting Maddy's mom. Caroline is 3 months older than Rosa and actually first met Rosa when she was 4 days old! She was SO much bigger than Rosa then. Now 3 months isn't much difference. They were too cute together.

Big girls sitting on the couch

Not sure what's happening in this picture, but it kind of typifies the toddler energy!

We just got back from a whirlwing 3-day trip to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. Thanks to Peter and Terri for hosting us all again!

Rosa got to meet the family dog River!

Frank and Vicki gave this little Reindeer to Rosa that plays the Benny Hill song - I think I STILL have it stuck in my head.

Cara and Amanda were so wonderful to have around to watch / play with Rosa - I think I am going to adopt them so they can come live with us!

Back at home in SF - here's that kitchen table I wrote about last time.

Here's the view from our living room. The cool thing is that the tall building on the right is St. Luke's Hospital where Rosa was born.

Our own personal Sears photo background! (Yes, we're lying down in this picture)

Rosa in the cool vest from Grandma Judy

Back to the present

So I think I'm caught up. The next main topic will be to post pictures of our new apartment, but even though it finally feels like we're making progress, I think I'll wait until we get a few more boxes put away, and maybe get a little more of the furniture that we are planning to get. We did make a trip to Ikea last weekend and after eating meals on our chopping block (too small and too high!) for 2 days short of a month, we are now eating at our new kitchen table! It feels so civilized! And I think Rosa really enjoys being at the table with us instead of marooned on her little high chair island. I'll get some family meal pictures soon.

Rosa has been doing so much imitating lately, both in actions and verbally - it's super fun to see what she'll come up with next! She has been feeding baby, giving baby a bottle of milk, changing baby's diaper, washing baby's face, and of course she's been pushing baby in the stroller for months. It's all so sweet to watch. Jeff took this video of Rosa just before we got the new table, on one of her last nights in the high chair with the tray.

And finally, I shouldn't post this picture, but it was just so funny and cute that I can't help myself. Whenever I do laundry, Rosa loves to get in there while I'm folding and steal my underwear and her bibs. She had at least 5 pairs of my underwear and probably 3 or 4 bibs around her neck in this picture! I think it's her way of accessorizing. She seems to be turning out to be a bit of a girly-girl... loves carrying a purse and wearing any sort of jewelery or scarf-like thing (as you can see!) around her neck. My girl's got style!

Rhode Island and Ohio extras

We just discovered that we never downloaded pictures from Jeff's camera from the Rhode Island and Ohio trip in September. Here's a few pictures and a video that I would have included in the posting from the trip.

3 generations of beachcombers



Building sand castles
Rosa and Grandpa, holding hands!

Mommy was there too!

Mmm, salty rocks...

Picking wildflowers in Grandpa Misha and Grandma Lois's backyard

Swinging on the swing built by Great-Grandpa!

Devorah and Spencer's wedding

The day after Halloween, Devorah (one of the ladies of Making Dinner), married her beau, Spencer. This was the second Jewish wedding I have ever been to (the first being Eva and Hudi's wedding in August), and I have to say, based on these two data points, Jewish weddings are a blast! They have a lot of tradition and ritual, but they also have a humorous side. There is a part where the bride and groom read from the Torah and people are supposed to interrupt them and heckle them. Since I did not know this tradition, when Hudi told me to run up to Dev and interrupt her reading by asking her to hold Rosa while I went to the bathroom, I didn't believe him. So I went and asked Dev's mom permission first. She said to go for for it, so I did, and it was a hit! Rosa hammed it up and had a huge smile on her face during the commotion. There is also a portion of the reception where people entertain the bride and groom with everything from juggling to dancing around the bride and groom in chicken suits. And of course there's the part where everyone hoists the bride and groom up into the air on their chairs. Of course both Dev and Eva are exceptional people, so I wouldn't expect their weddings to be anything less than exceptional!

The wedding was at the Fairmont Hotel, one of San Francisco's very classiest and historic hotels. The ceremony was outside and it was a gorgeous day. The chuppah was made from a sail, and there were fall leaves up and down the poles that supported the chuppah.


Jeff caught this video of Rosa dancing to the singing during the ceremony. I think it's the only video we have so far of Rosa's dancing :-)

Weddings are fun for parents of little girls because they are a built-in excuse for dressing them up in dresses of gratuitous cuteness! This dress was given to Rosa when she was less than a week old by Grandma Anita and Grandpa Frank. 16 months later it fits! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

This picture was taken during the part of the reception where everyone entertains the bride and groom. All the ladies from the Fairy bachelorette party donned their fairy wings and danced around the happy couple.

The view from the Crown Room where the reception was held was phenomenal!

A slightly closer shot of Rosa's little dress.

Rosa discovered the joy of swinging on a banister at Dev's wedding. Daddy tries to rein her in, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Of course Making Dinner played a song at the wedding...

Halloween (and Dev's bachelorette)

We moved to our new apartment in mid-October. I'll post some pix of the new place soon. It was a LOT of work, and still is a lot of work trying to unpack and find places for things. But even though we're still surrounded by boxes, life goes on! We had a very big weekend on Halloween weekend. The Thursday before was my friend Dev's bachelorette party, then Halloween on Saturday, and Devorah and Spencer's wedding on Sunday (see tomorrow's posting for wedding pix).

For the bachelorette party, Eva (lead singer of my band, Making Dinner) had the brilliant idea that we should all be fairies and Devorah would be the fairy queen.

Dev, Fairy Queen

Katie and Eva Fairies

Making Dinner Fairies

Fairy wings, eating burritos in the Mission

On Halloween, we let Rosa decorate her first pumpkin. She got to use a Sharpie - no knives this year!

Since I got to keep the wings from the Fairy Bachelorette party, when I found a little tutu dress at a second hand store, I decided to reuse the wings and that Rosa and I would both be fairies for Halloween. I love dressing up too, and while people still think it's cute, I love dressing Rosa and I in the same costumes, just like we did last year when we were both bunnies!

Here comes a whole bunch of pictures of extreme cuteness - I know there's no need to post all of them, but I can't resist!

I love this one because the little pumpkin from "Great-Grandma" Betty looks like it is glowing! It's Rosa's little fairy orb.

The street just around the corner from our new place has tons of kids on it, and they closed it off during Halloween afternoon for a block party.

Rosa got to experience her first time in the Jumpy Castle, or Jupiter Jump as Jeff calls it. I went in with her to make sure she didn't get crashed into by any bigger kids. She LOVED it!

Rosa loves any and all tricycles, bicycles, big wheels, etc. She gets so excited to try out any of these that she sees. Thankfully everyone is generally good about sharing. I think a tricycle is in our future!
After the block party, we took a quick trip over to a nearby street that is known for its Halloween decorations and trick-or-treating. Rosa didn't really get the trick-or treating idea, and shied away from taking a piece of candy at the one house we went to. Not such a bad thing maybe! But she'll probably love it by next year.


Rosa and Cowboy Daddy