Hello Kitty

Today we made the long trek to Sacramento to visit with friends and attend our friend Scott's daughter's third birthday party. It was a fun day but the drive home was tough. Maddie hates her car seat and she made it known by screaming at the top of her lungs for about 45 minutes. It could have been worse though... she did sleep all the way up and for about an hour and a half on the way home. At the party Maddie was quite enthralled with the pink balloons that filled the room. Maddie is a little young for these Hello Kitty party favors, but she got a party favor bag none the less. I thought they were so cute!

Crawling?

So Maddie has been on the 'verge' of crawling for about 2 months now. She gets around pretty well by backing up, scooting on her bum, or rolling around. She hasn't quite gotten the forward crawl moves down yet. But today she managed to get her knees to consecutively go forward three different times!! It wasn't exactly crawling, but it was just about as close as you can get! Now we can really say she will be crawling any day now. This picture was taken at the park with our Friday play group. Maddie and I always have a blast with all her baby friends and of course their mommies too. :)

Anyone know a good rain dance?

Today is Thursday which means we had a date at the library for Tiny Tales (baby story time). Our neighborhood library is really nice and since it opened last September we've stopped in quite often for story time and to get board books for Maddie. It is within walking distance of our house and there are some nice walking trails around the new state-of-the-art building. As we walked around after our visit today, I noticed how low the water level was in the slough in front of the library (how can you miss it?). Even at low tide the water level is way down from normal; another indication of the unusually warm, dry winter we are having. So if anyone out there knows of a good rain dance, can you send a little rain our way?

Hanging on

After a couple days of rain, our wacky warm weather has returned. Even the trees are confused. While most of the leaves have fallen from the trees around here, the autumn leaves are hanging on to this one. I saw this tree in our neighborhood walk and I liked the contrast of the yellow against the blue, blue sky.

Chotchkies

I'm not much of a collector, but if I was, I would definitely be a collector of refrigerator magnets. In our travels through Europe I started picking up a magnet and a few postcards from every city we visited. My dear husband was so amused by this he started affectionately calling me chotchkie. I like the nickname a lot, it makes me smile thinking of all the places we've been together. I took this photo at about 11:30 when I realized the day was almost over and I hadn't taken my camera out today! I thought our little collection (this is only a small sample of what we have) would make an interesting picture. I'm not thrilled with it, but it isn't too bad for a last minute shot.

新年快樂 (Happy New Year!)

Today is the Lunar New Year, more commonly referred to as Chinese New Year or Spring Festival and is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. We didn't really do anything to celebrate the holiday except to hang some decorations, but since I do have a Chinese side to my family I figured I would dedicate today's post to this festive day. Last year I was in the hospital on bed rest during Chinese New Year and some of my Geneva friends decorated my hospital room for the holiday. I was really touched and now the day had extra special meaning for me because it makes me think of how wonderful my friends were during that trying time. For this year I wish everyone 恭喜發財 ("Gong hei fat choi" or "congratulations and be prosperous") for the year of the Ox.

Change is in the Air

In this historic week of change I thought I would snap a few pictures of the changing weather around here. It has been unseasonably warm and dry lately but thankfully we have been blessed with rain these last few days. Even though today started out sunny, as you can see the rain clouds are slowly descending upon our neighborhood park. I especially like how the winter trees frame this shot.

Cooking Club

About once a month or so I get together with a group of friends for what we call "The Cooking Club". We all share in cooking wonderful homemade meals that are usually based around a theme. This month's theme was "favorite foods". I wanted to get a shot of my favorite of the favorite food courses... dessert! These chocolate and caramel brownies were just scrumptious!

Penny Rose

My mother-in-law's dog, Penny Rose, is one of the sweetest, gentlest creatures I've even met. She is an angel with all the grand kids who from time to time poke & prod, step on, grab her fur, and whatever else babies and kids do. But Penny takes it all in stride and has never retaliated except maybe by chewing on a stuffed toy every now and then. This shot was challenging; taking a picture of an animal in low light without a tripod. But with a subject who is such a cutie, how could I go wrong? :)

Champagne Wishes & Caviar Dreams

Tonight Gary was on baby duty while I went to our monthly wine club meeting which was quite fabulous. This evening's theme was champagnes & dessert wines. We tasted about 10 different champagnes (and sparkling wines from California) and three ports and we voted on the best tasting. The winner? Moët of France. We also had a spread of yummy sweet treats to accompany our bubbly. How fabulous is that?

Plan B

We have had some crazy warm weather these last few weeks - warm even for California! The plan for today was to go to the Oakland Zoo with Maddie's grandparents (my dad's side). So of course the rain we've so desperately needed came this afternoon, just as we were about to head out. Instead of hanging out at the house we decided to get out and enjoy the day anyway. We went to visit the Crab Cove Visitor Center at Crown Memorial State Beach in Alameda. It's a small place, but they have some pretty cool exhibits and a mini aquarium, which is the first Maddie has ever seen. The zoo will be there when the sun decides to come out again. Right now I'm just thankful we have the rain!

Witnessing History

This was truly an amazing day. I have never been prouder to be an American than I was today. I am overjoyed and full of hope for the future. Around the globe people celebrated as Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. We watched this historic event from our living room (it was close to nap time after all). Normally the TV isn't on when Maddie is around, but as you can see she was very interested in it this morning. I had watched as she scooted herself across the floor and just as Obama was taking the oath of office she reached for the screen. What timing! I always knew Maddie was an Obama fan! :)

Plus de chocolat s'il vous plaît

It seems that since we've moved back to California we've been eating a lot of traditional Swiss meals. Tonight we had friends over and we broke out the Party Grill for another Raclette dinner (my third in three months!) We even had Kir royal apéritifs and chocolate fondue for dessert (not so typical in the traditional Swiss household I guess, but it was bought at Manor in Geneva). Traditional or not, I think the chocolate was a hit... the bowl was scraped clean which is always a good sign. :)

Comedy & Tragedy

This is a semi-candid shot of our nieces who we met at our neighborhood park today. When I downloaded the pictures to our computer, this photo instantly reminded me of the Greek comedy/tragedy mask. I'm glad to report that soon after this photo was taken, it was all smiles at the park!

On our neighborhood walkabout

On our journeys through Europe and Africa I took a lot of pictures of signs. I find them fascinating. Of course I tend to find signs in foreign lands more interesting than those I come across walking around our neighborhood, but I've been looking around for some more uncommon ones. I found this sign interesting because the trail it's on does not actually end at the lookout... it continues on through the marsh and along the Bay. It's a nice trail that Maddie and I have walked along quite a bit, especially lately with the beautiful weather. Another thing I love about this little photo project is finding the interesting in the ordinary. I love looking at the world through the lens of my camera.

Bingo!

A couple Fridays a month we have dinner with Gary's family. This week after dinner we played a friendly game of Bingo which was full of suspense and emotion! I'm not thrilled with the picture, but I love the subject matter. I only had the chance to take a couple of shots before my camera battery died, so I didn't quite capture the shot I wanted. Oh well, but that is what this whole thing is all about... learning to take better pictures (and remembering not to leave the house without an extra camera battery). ;)

First day of school

Today Maddie started on the long road to college at Little Hands school. She was all smiles as she made new friends and had fun exploring the different play stations. All of Maddie's cousins have gone to Little Hands so we had a bit of insight before we went and the school really lives up to the hype... it was wonderful!

Howdy neighbor!

We have some very noisy, messy neighbors that a lot of people complain about (including my dear husband), but I think the geese of Redwood Shores are quite endearing. There are two species of geese who live here; the more prevalent Canadian Geese and these White-fronted Geese (I think). There are actually quite a lot of different birds in the neighborhood including herons, pelicans, ducks, coots, all sorts of different shore birds, and even two swans. I love that we are surrounded by nature, even in our little corner of suburbia.

Out of commission

Okay am I just being superstitious or is it weird that two of our Nikon's memory cards are corrupt and all my pictures from today are DOA? Did you notice it is the 13th day of the year? Just wanted to point that out. Anyway, my trusty little Sony Cybershot had to fill in until I can get a new memory card tomorrow. So with a little more than an hour to go in the day I decided to take a shot of my Out-Of-Service SLR.

Good morning!

We recently got our new Nespresso machine and how I missed it so! We discovered this delectable coffee in Geneva but had to leave our beloved machine behind because of the European 220 volt plug. Boooo. But we found one here in the states and all is well again. Our basket of different colored capsules once again adorns our kitchen counter. Now when I sip my café I almost feel like I'm back in Geneva. Almost.

Not a cloud in the sky

I can hardly believe it is January with this beautiful weather. Maddie and I headed out for our daily walk and we didn't even need coats! We came across this path on our walk today (We are always discovering new places to walk around here). We took a little break on this bench and soon a woman sat with us. Turns out she used to live in Geneva! We chatted for almost a half hour before Maddie started to get restless and we had to make our way home. You never know who you may meet when you are wandering about. :)

All aboard!

I'm crazy for wooden and soft plush toys. Of course, having plastic toys is inevitable, but my favorites will always be the more natural toys like this train by Haba. Maddie seems to favor things with lights and music, so the plastic toys reign supreme for the time being. But aren't these plush passengers just too cute for words? :)

Over the river and through the woods...

...to grandmother's house we go. Well, the walk to grandma's is more like "Over the canals and through the trees lining the main road", but it is still nice 20 minute walk from our house. We try to get out and walk everyday and there are some really nice walking trails around where we live. This picture is taken from the last bridge before we get to grandma's house. I thought the moon looked so pretty hanging in the purple evening sky.

Welcome to the world!

I am so excited to welcome little Tiree Hansen to our family. She is the newest member of the family and the eighth girl (of eight kids) in her generation. Today we got to meet this little sweetie for the fist time. Maddie isn't the littlest anymore!

One of the things I couldn't live without

Maddie's sleep sheep is hard at work every night helping to sooth her to dream land. :)

New Winter Hat

We were out shopping for baby gifts when I saw this adorable hat and couldn't resist! To celebrate our new purchase we went to the park down the street from our place. Maddie loves the baby bucket swings and I love seeing her happy expressions and fits of laughter as she goes back and forth.

Back from the vet

We noticed that poor Scout has been limping a little up and down the stairs lately. So we took a trip to the vet which, needless to say, is not her favorite place (despite the fact that our vet is SUPER nice and even gave her extra cat treats). Once it was all over she was thrilled to be home, even though I didn't quite catch her enthusiasm on film.

On a winter walk with Daddy

Gary had the whole week off from work which was such a treat for us! Maddie got to have lots of quality Daddy time which included a few walks around the neighborhood in our not-so-new jogging stroller.

Happy New Month!

We celebrated the New Year (and New Month) with a long overdue visit with Pat, Kevin, and little Dash. In between all the catching up Maddie enjoyed playing with some new toys (thanks for sharing Dash) and there was even time for a story or two. I'm looking forward to lots more play dates in '09.

Fabulous feet

Since becoming a mom I haven't gotten a whole lot of "me" time, but today was all about a little R&R to start off the New Year right. I got a wonderful massage to relieve my aching back and in the afternoon I got to hang out with Chica. We lunched at an Irish pub (where else would we be?) and got our nails done. Simply fabulous (even with the crazy blue slippers)!

Happy New Year!

Our New Years baby! This is one of our first pictures of 2009 (no, we didn't keep her up all night to get this shot). I can't think of a better way to start out this new bolg. I have a feeling Maddie will be in quite a few of my posts this year. :)