hooking up with Santa

Eloise and Owen got to sit with Santa in his sleigh the other day. Owen was up for the visit from the start, but Eloise didn't really warm up to Santa until he gave her a candy cane. A few days after this nice visit, Eloise wrote a letter to Santa with Angelica's help. Santa replied with a video email to Eloise! Who knew Santa had gone so high tech?

Big Day!

Yesterday was a big day for everyone in the family. Eloise went to her first day of preschool! Here you see her getting ready to go in the morning. She had a really fun time. It was very sweet to have her come home so happy and excited to tell us all about her day at school. Yay Eloise!

It was a big day for Matt too - he turned 40! Happy Birthday Papa! We all really love you soooooo much!

 It was kind of a big day for Owen too. He sat up on the couch all by himself. Yay Owen!

And for me... well, first Owen took a long nap while Eloise was at school. Then after Eloise came home they both took a long nap at the same time. This means that I had almost 4 hours to myself during the day! I spent this precious time paying bills and filing the important papers that have been piling up since September. Yay Mama!

No! I'm Santa!

Matt and Eloise went out and got a Christmas tree today. The whole house smells soooo nice and treeish! We all had fun putting on the lights and decorations after dinner. By the way - if you call Eloise "Eloise" while she's wearing the santa hat she'll say (you guessed it) "No! I'm Santa!" Repeat that about a hundred times and pretty soon calling her Santa is second nature.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We all had another great Thanksgiving in Capitola. Check out the Flickr page for pictures of Eloise kickin' it with Aunt Doreen and Owen chilling out with Uncle Mike. Eloise had lots of fun with cousins extraordinaire Arabella, Madeline and Elias. Owen had a smile contest with Great Grandma. Grandma Liz and Aunt Susan pulled together a huge Thanksgiving dinner like they've done it a million times before (which they have). And a special 'thank you' to Uncle John from me for the berry pie (my favorite!)

little helper

Eloise never ceases to amaze me with her desire (sometimes insistence) to help out. Here you see her doing laundry. She also likes gardening, cooking dinner, washing dishes and cleaning up in general. Yay Eloise!

real smiles!

Owen has been smiling real smiles the last week or two. We all take turns trying to see who can get the biggest smile out of him. It's a pretty easy game (as he seems to be a pretty smiley guy) and we all end up laughing!

keeping busy

We've been keeping busy busy busy these days. Eloise has been working on her "growing flowers" project and her "raking leaves" project. She's been doing millions of drawings, practicing writing the letter E, writing shopping lists, washing dishes and sweeping the floor with her own Eloise sized broom. We've even been organizing her toys!




Meanwhile, Owen has been keeping busy with his "wiggling and looking around" project and of course, his eating, sleeping, peeing and pooping projects. Oh! I almost forgot - a couple of weeks ago Owen spent the afternoon modeling for a real professional photographer. Take a look at her great photos of Owen here. Thank you Laura!

trick or treat!

Eloise had a great time trick or treating this year (her first time ever). We went over to Great-Grandma's house and enjoyed all the cool halloween decorations and creepy haunted houses in her neighborhood. Eloise dressed up as a cowboy with a mustache. Owen was an octopus (a very sleepy octopus). Eloise very quickly got the hang of trick or treating and now she has a big bag of candy! Yay!

good old Floatilla...

Poor Floatilla got really sick a short time after I took this picture a couple of days ago. She's no longer with us, but at least we can say that she didn't suffer long. We'll continue to enjoy our memories of her luxurious style when she stood over the heater vent, the crazy dreadlocks she would get on a regular basis, her late night declarations of "stroganoff!" in an almost half human voice, and the transformation of her personality from being so super shy when she first adopted us all the way until she became Eloise's best buddy in the back yard.

the Owen song

Eloise made up this nice little song about Owen. They lyrics are mostly unintelligible (at least to me). But at some point in this one I'm pretty sure that I distinctly hear the phrase "poop juice". Pretty funny Eloise!

playing together

Eloise is already having a lot of fun playing with Owen. Right now "playing together" mostly consists of Eloise strategically placing some favorite toys around Owen while he wiggles around.

finger painting

Eloise and Pata had a lot of fun doing their finger painting project yesterday. Here is Eloise making a funny face on a big orange pumpkin for halloween! If you listen carefully you can hear Owen's hiccups in the background.

smiles

I know that babies this age don't technically smile "real" smiles. But every once in a while Owen will let one of these sleepy smiles flicker across his face while he's napping.

While Owen has been having these sweet dreams, Eloise has been busy busy busy doing drawings in her new sketch book, doing more drawings outside with sidewalk chalk, playing with Aunt Doreen, going for bike rides with Papa and carving pumpkins with Grandpa. Fun times!

Hello Owen!

It was starting to feel like I was just going to get more and more pregnant for ever and ever, then WHAM! Little Owen was born in a flash! We'll never forget his super-speedy arrival (except maybe for Eloise since the whole thing happened during her afternoon nap). After all the excitement of his birth, we find ourselves with this calm, quiet, peaceful, sleeping little baby who barely even cries. At least so far.

Owen James Bear
Born at 3:55 p.m. on September 22, 2009
7 lb, 10 oz.

Eloise seems pretty pleased with the new little person in our family. She likes to hold him in this big pillow which she calls the "people parking garage".

big hugs

Eloise gives her little brother some big hugs (and zerberts) while Mama relaxes in the back yard.

changing gears

Sorry about not posting last week. I lost my trusty little camera, so no photos! I couldn't bother getting out the big camera, so today I let Eloise take her own self portrait using PhotoBooth.
I officially started maternity leave this week, so I've been busy trying to catch up on sleep (I can't get enough sleep!), get from point A to point B (I'm moving incredibly slowly!), get ready for the baby, and have fun with Eloise. Today she helped me fold baby blankets and spent a lot of time practicing swaddling her bear. Earlier this week we had a mini-mild heat wave and we turned her red wagon into a tiny swimming pool. Eloise had fun playing in the water while I sat in a comfy chair next to her for a whole afternoon. Fun times!

swimming

It took us until the end of summer vacation, but we finally made it to the pool! Eloise had SO MUCH FUN swimming with Angelica. She was happy to try kicking, moving her arms, blowing bubbles and laying on her back in the water. She was also very impressed by Angelica's underwater somersaults and hand stands.
This weekend we also went to the annual Mom's Group picnic. You can see photos of Eloise and all the other big kids (and the growing number of new babies) here.

Aunt Doreen!

We all had a super fun visit with Doreen and Rosie and Lizzie this week. It was practically a non-stop tea party and bear ears extravaganza!

big smile!

We spent the weekend in Capitola with friends. As you can tell by this big smile "Eloise LOVE Capitola cabin!" Lots of fun playing in the sand, going to the beach, going for canoe rides and eating snacks, etc. For some reason, of all the pictures we took, this is the only one that turned out OK.

going to france!

One of the games Eloise likes to play these days is to climb into the laundry basket and declare that she's in a boat going to France. Then she makes me tell her a story about all the things she does in France (eat baguettes, eat pommes frites, eat some fromage, see the Eiffel Tower, ride the train, go fast on the autoroute, etc.)
Yesterday we were out shopping and we saw a poster of the Eiffel Tower. I pointed it out to her. She got really excited and started yelling "The EIFFEL TOWER!!! Like Eloise go to in FRANCE!!!!"

Also - thanks to everyone who has given us name suggesions so far (160 and counting). For those of you who are curious, here's what we've got so far: Adam, Adam, Adamson, Agustus, Alexander, Aloysius, Andrew, Andrew, Angelo, Angus, Anthony, Archibald (Archie), Ashby, August, Avery, Ayden, Barbly, Barnaby, Barnaby, Barnaby, Baxter, Beau, Beau (Bo), Ben, Benjamin, Bernie, Bert, Bob, Bobby, Boone, Booth, Booth, Boris, Bruce, Caleb, Caligula, Cecil, Christopher, Claude, Claudius, Clive, Cochran, Cody, Connor, Cornelius, Cruz, Cyril, David, Desmond, Dorian, Edmund, Eli, Elias, Elijah, Ender, Ethan, Ethan, Ethan, Ethan, Evan, Evan, Ezra, Felix, Finnegan, Gabe, Garrett, George, Gerrard, Griffith (Grif), Gus, Hamish, Hank, Harlan, Harper, Heath, Hector, Henry, Henry, Henry, hhhhhorrrrrsid, Hugo, Hugo, Humphrey, Ian, Igor, Jack, Jack, Jackson, Jacque, Jake, Jake, Jasper, Jayden, Jem, Jerome, Joaquin, Joe Schmoe, Johnny Cake, Jude, Jules, Jules, Julian, Julius, kaiser, Kaleb, Keven, Leroy, Ludwig, Luis, Malcolm, Mangus, Max, Max, Max, Maxwell, Mister Pizza Man, Moby, Mohinder, Moses, Mozart, mylonas, Nathan, Nials, Nielson, Nolan, Oliver, Oscar, Otis, Otis, Owen, Pablo, Perry, Peter, Phineas, Pierre, Pim, Quinten, Randolph, Randolph, Reed, Reice, Rhys, Rodderick, Roman, Rory, Rowan, Samson (Sam), San Pablo, Saul, Scotch, Shattuck, Sid, Syd, Teriyaki, Thor, Toby, Trevor (Trev), Vladmir, Weice, Wes, Zach, and Zachariah.

You can always add some more to the list by going HERE. Keep 'em coming people!

suuuuuper relaxing vacation

We all chilled out over the past two weeks. Here's Eloise in the tent during the camping portion of our vacation. We camped in a few spots up the California and Oregon coast. One of the coolest things we saw were the amazing tidepools at Cape Perpetua.

After camping, we spent a week at Mana and Pata's house in Estacada. Eloise got a beauty makeover compliments of Mana.

While we were there, we also had a tie dye party, fed the fish in the fish pond, visited Cisco and Brenna on their house boat, and visited cousins Ingrid & Pierre (and their parents Josh & Christie).

All in all, it was a top-notch vacation!

what the heck?

This has been happening more often than you would think around here .... Matt and Eloise suddenly appear wearing these funny moustachios. What do they think they are? Evil magicians?

back at the ranch

We finally made it back down to the ranch this weekend. We all had a great time at the house dedication party and spending time with family. Eloise kept herself pretty busy driving the tractor whenever she got a chance. I heard that she was giving free rides to anyone who would take her up on the offer.

happy fathers day

Poor Matt was super sick with a nasty cold today. Eloise says "Oh, Papa's sick....bummer!"

FIRE

Did you even wonder what it would be like to wake up one night and see a wall of flames outside of your bedroom window? Right outside - like 10 feet away? We found out when the trailer parked in our neighbors driveway caught on fire. Matt woke up first and said "Get Eloise!" as he ran outside with our fire extinguishers. It was just a few minutes later that the fire trucks arrived. To make a long story short, they put the fire out, nobody was hurt, our house was fine, the neighbors house had some melted siding and the trailer was toast.
I think Eloise had an exciting night (evidenced by her super excited grin). She finally started to wind down after she got her own Junior Fire Chief helmet from the fire fighters around 1 a.m.

Here's the view from Eloise's bedroom window. Yikes!

goofing off

I'm not too sure what to say about this photo, except that it's a pretty good example of how Eloise has been enjoying goofing off lately. She loves wearing nerd glasses, making funny faces and telling jokes. Current favorite jokes are 1) Q: "What does a pig say?" A: "Oink oink. Boink boink!" and 2) "Cheerios...Cheery-NOSE!"

By the way - I've updated the "Name the baby" survey so that you can add your own name (so that you can get credit, where credit is due). Some of the name suggestions that have come in so far are Boris, Claudius, Weice, and Archibald (Archie). Keep 'em coming, people!

in case you didn't already know...

... it's a boy! To be arriving in late September (more or less). I'm opening the field for name suggestions - enter them here. In case you're having trouble getting started, Eloise has already thought of a lot of good names for the baby: Tovi, Feetso, Ouchie and Marla.

the new "doing dishes" outfit

I've decided that this should always (or at least usually) be the official outfit for Eloise while she washes dishes. As you can see, it's just a kitchen towel fashioned as an apron .... and shoes ... and barrettes. So practical! So convenient! So comfortable!

pajamas all day

Another outfit picked out by Eloise. This is a sweater vest and kitchen apron on over pajamas. Every morning when I ask Eloise what she wants to wear, she usually says "Pajamas all day!"

kickin it

Ahhhh, what a nice, relaxing mother's day! We spent the afternoon in the park, laying in the sun, eating strawberries and cookies and watching all the kites in the sky.

Papa's girl

This was originally going to be a post about how super tangly and food encrusted Eloise's hair was last week (the very worst ever!). But when I tried to photograph the evidence, this is what happened. Awwww.... Eloise sure loves her Papa!

beat the heat

We had a mini heat wave earlier this week. Eloise stayed cool in her bathing suit and spent a good chunk of the afternoon playing with a bowl of water with Angelica in the back yard. So refreshing!

making lemonade

Sorry we've been away for so long! A lot of stuff has been happening over the past month: we went away for a ski weekend (even though Eloise and I skipped the skiing part), we went to "messy art day" (which Eloise can't stop talking about), we had an easter egg hunt in the back yard, I finished a big work project and Eloise FINALLY finished her taxes! Yay!
While life hasn't exactly given us lemons, we've been very busy making lemonade - literally!

yes, that's right....

those are underpants on over pajamas (and the scarf is an extra nice touch). Good job getting dressed Eloise!

be free!

We spent the weekend in Capitola (yes, it was nice and sunny!) Eloise loved to run far far far far away from us on the beach.

out to breakfast

mmmmm.... pancakes on the way.

rainy weather

Eloise has been doing a pretty good job enduring all this rainy weather (especially with the help of this hat and scarf that Brian made - they are the accessories du jour).

love...

Happy valentine's day to everyone from Eloise.

happy birthday Eloise!

Two years old, sigh.

Eloise - you are such a big girl! You pick out your own outfit every day, you can play CDs on the stereo, you use the potty, you wash dishes, you can walk backwards, you can get REALLY dizzy, you like to "read" books all by yourself, and play with play-doh, and draw with crayons, the list goes on and on and on.

I can't wait to see what the next year will bring!

back rubs!

Eloise loves to give back rubs! YAY!

inaguration day

Eloise has Obama fever.

new year's resolutions

"This year I'm going to wear my princess hat more. Um, and wear less pants."

"Also, wash the dishes every day.... with no pants."