I need to go potty!

I have been thinking for a long time to try to eek my way back into writing on this blog. I find the logistics of posting photos and videos cumbersome. But I do want to at least capture a few milestones, cute sayings, etc. so I'll start with that, but no pictures and videos until I either get more a lot more free time or this gets better. And so...

Today Eliza said "I have to go potty!" when she felt a poop coming! Hooray! I've gotten her to do lots of poops on the potty by catching her mid-grunt and ask her if she wants to go to the potty, to which she usually says yes (yay!). But this is the first one where she made the connection herself!  Hooray!

That's it for tonight. Now back to folding laundry.

Summer 2012

Ack. I had been avoiding adding to this blog because it takes so painfully long for pictures and videos to upload. (Especially compared to posting photos and videos on Facebook, which is so quick and easy.) But I had all these great pictures I wanted to share, so I at least have added the photos (no patience for the videos). And this time things were even worse. I think I need to come up with a new place to post pictures. But here they are, at least this one last time! Sorry for the rant.

Before the pix - a few bits of news: Eliza has done one poopoo in the potty! Eliza is full-on talking, including starting sentences with "Ummm." Rosa is doing fantastic swimming this summer! Probably other stuff, but too tired to think right now...

So on to the pictures!

Rosa and some school buddies.

Just a sweet pic!

Rosa and Daddy at Carnaval parade.

Urban cherry picking with Bronwyn!

 The cutest stuffed animals ever!

Cousins running through the sprinkler - ah summertime!

Cousins in a box!

Kiddie park!

A ride in Papa Misha's convertible!

Out in the backyard picking peas with Papa Misha.

Out in the backyard with Grandma Lois.

Chillin' in the dappled sun... (I forget why we had the carseats out of the car...)

Rosa's drawing of the backyard - pretty amazing!

My most precious luggage!

Shopping in NC - we love the racecar cart!

Papa Chuck came to visit!

The Cape Hatteras light house. (Yight house! Yight house! said Eliza)

Rosa and Hunter :-)

Double June birthdays (Rosa and Luke)

Back in SF - Eliza on top of a very windy Twin Peaks

Happy 4th Birthday Rosa! And, Eliza learns about candles :-(

Mosaic project at Rosa's school - will be amazing!

Rosa and Audrey doing their own mosaic work :-)

Rosa's life-size stronger-than-steel princess pinata!

At Mission Kids...

Rosa and I made these decorations for her birthday party. She said "I want the biggest rainbow in the world!"

Rosa and Audrey (BFF!)

Eva took us to the SF Symphony's family day!

Rosa outside the symphony hall.

My girls!

Eliza and Bea!

On the Zoo train with Paxton.

Rosa's snail house.

At the Exploratorium with the Cross family. 

First pee-pee in the potty!

With a big sister to emulate, it's no surprise that Eliza has been trying to use the little potty for weeks, maybe months now. She would sit down and make a "sssss" sound with her mouth (which I had been doing), but never any pee-pee. Sometimes I would actually sit her down on it before bath, but lately she seemed resistant, so I stopped doing that. Although whenever her diaper is off, she has been peeing on the bathroom floor a lot lately.

Tonight, she was on a mission. She went right over to the potty, sat down and I could see her little stomach muscles working. Sure enough, there was a little puddle of pee-pee in there when she was done! She was so proud of herself and said "Yay!" and was more than ready when Rosa and I put our hands out for a high five! And then after bath, when I told Jeff that she did it, she went over and did it again!

I was curious to remember what my posting of Rosa's first pee-pee in the potty was like, so I looked it up...

No and mine

No pix with this one - just wanted to record some observations. As of yesterday, Eliza is making liberal (and correct) use of the words "no" and "mine." I thought I might have recorded in earlier postings about Rosa when she started saying "mine," but I didn't. I think it was much later than 16 months (perhaps later than 2 years, because I think I remember thinking smugly "How nice that my sweet child doesn't say this all the time like all the other kids"). I think having a big sister makes you learn "mine!" at an early age.

March 2012

Well, it's been months again. And those months have been filled to the brim, mostly with goodness, and then more recently with sadness. In February, we lost our sweet Grandma Judy. She passed away very unexpectedly, and it was such a shock to all, but especially to Jeff, Aly, and Papa Chuck. We will all miss her dearly.


We saw Grandma Judy last at Thanksgiving, which we spent with Jeff's mom's family.

And then just a few days ago at the beginning of March, our Mr. Judd left us. He had had kidney disease for many years, and finally he got to the point where he couldn't eat much. The house feels really empty without him.


Here are some pictures from everything else in between since the last post:

During the Christmas season we took a trip downtown to see the lights and tree in the Hyatt hotel. The girls (Rosa, Eliza, and Rosa's friend Audrey) loved riding up and down in the rocket ship elevator!


We took the BART to get there... just liked this picture.

Rosa had her first sleepover in December. The girls finally dropped off to sleep around 10:00!

Here's what I believe to be the messiest Eliza has gotten to date while eating.

It's been warm and sunny this winter... here's a morning at the playground with a friend from preschool and his family.

I like this picture of Rosa. For some reason (the scarf I think), she looks like a little French girl to me. My friend Eva says she looks like a hippy!

We had a Christmas tree that was decorated and undecorated constantly over the couple weeks it was in the house. The scarf is to keep it warm...

And Rosa was always taking ornaments off and making little scenes with them. Eliza just chewed on them.

We did our family Christmas presents the morning of the 23rd...

We left our house Christmas Eve to go to Grandma Lois and Papa Misha's house.

Jeff put the camera on video and left it sitting by the piano (pronounced "pan yo" according to Rosa!). If you have the patience for this long video, you'll see the girls each have their own distinctive style!

And of course, there were lots of Christmas carols!

There wasn't much snow in Ohio, but we got about 1/2 an inch one day, and we got out there right way to make our snow girl!

And on the un-snowy days, we tried to get out for a walk every now and then.
We got to see some cousins - here's Rosa with cousin Chris.

We got back at about 11pm on New Years Eve. Eliza fell asleep in the cab and we managed to get her into bed without waking her up (hooray!). Rosa stayed awake (!!!), so we decided to let her stay up to ring in the New Year with us. (The dark shape in the corner is Judd!) It was mellow, but sweet.

When we got home, there was a pink sweater from Santa waiting for Rosa! Here's a picture of it, Tanti Kira.

Rosa learned to ride a pedal bike in January! She had been riding her balance bike for ages and was even doing tricks on it where she would tuck her feet up by the handle bars and swerve and swoop around. When I saw this, I thought - she is ready to try a pedal bike. So we borrowed one from school and one day that weekend I suggested we give it a try. Jeff was in the car with sleeping Eliza, and Rosa rode up and down the street with me holding on to her waist and running along behind her. By about the 3rd or 4th trip down the street, she was doing it by herself! We knocked (quietly!) on the window and had Daddy come out to watch - he was amazed! A couple days later Rosa rode her balance bike to the playground and kind of crashed into the fence at the bottom of a slight downhill slope. She got the attention of a lady inside who came out to see if she was ok (she was). So I started talking to her (I recognized her from the neighborhood), and she randomly asked if Rosa needed a pedal bike. I said, "Yes please!" And now Rosa has her first real bike! For a few weeks, she needed my help to get started, but now she has gotten the hang of pushing off by herself. So exciting!

Tanti Kira got the girls American Girl Bitty Twins, where you get to choose the hair and eye color (in this case to match Rosa's and Eliza's). When we opened the box, Rosa immediately said, "This one is mine, that one is Eliza's!" And then, "Oh... I wish she was real!" Eliza said, "Eye! Eye! Eye!" as she poked her dolly in the eye (like she does to anyone who will let her). These are very special dolls! Thanks Tanti Kira!

One day the tide was super low, so we went tidepooling. We got to see tons of starfish and anemones. We heard later that a friend of ours even saw an octopus that same afternoon, but we didn't see it.

Here's another picture of Rosa I thought was especially good - maybe will work it into the blog title one of these days. (Note to self: I need to take more pix of Eliza too!)

Jeff got Rosa these neat blocks for Christmas. Rosa loves them.

A pretty pic of downtown at dusk.
We had another sleepover! Here are the girls in the morning - the two big ones are playing "twins."