Om Nom Nom!

Our Napa weekend... spent eating at kid-friendly places, such as...

Thomas Keller's ad hoc (x2). Brunch was especially delicious.



Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery. Good coffee, awesome doggy watching (and petting)!


Taylor's Automatic Refresher... only so-so.



No trip to Napa is complete without stopping by the outlets.


Playdate at our hotel with baby Eva-- Thanks for driving out to meet us, Lynne and Lance!


Carpaccio at Bistro Don Giovanni, which was not as good as I remember.


Here's a video of Boo demonstrating his directional skills.



Finally, here's a pic of Boo and Zoe, who didn't appear to miss us at all! Thanks for housesitting Stacy!

A Picture of Boo

We had a playdate with a 4 month old baby the other day, and for the life of me, I could barely remember what Gavin was like at that age. Did he still like to be swaddled? Was he almost sitting up? What were his favorite toys? And then I tried fast forwarding to how Gavin was like at a year old, and still came up almost blank. I had to remind myself by looking at old posts. You would think a mother would remember these things. So I decided to paint a picture of what Gavin's like now, at almost 20 months.

Likes: Playing outside, especially with his water table. Helping Mommy water the plants, feed Zoe, vaccum the bunny cage, clean up. Loves stamps as a reward for using the potty, which he does on a not so regular basis (1-3x a day). Trying to ride Zoe. Reading books. Watching TV. His fridge DJ toy when eating. Art class. Bath time toys. Running around. The frog fountain at the mall. Cupcakes. Creepy Bear. Trains. Puzzles. Making people sing to him. The zoo. "Norytime (storytime)" at the library. Giant Safeway (the Safeway in Menlo Park that has car carts with TVs in them!). Laundry. Playing the louder/quieter, faster/slower game with blocks.

Dislikes: Eating. Sleeping. Napping.

Favorite Books: Boo Boo, Stop that Pickle!, There's a Wocket in My Pocket, Madeline.

Language: Boo now knows a ton of words and uses simple descriptive sentences, such as "Boo Boo do." "Mommy hol me plah (hold me please)." "Boo Boo lay down." "Yay-lo eating (Zoe eating)." "Go ah-dah (outside)." "Press ra buhdahn (red button)." "Mommy more waw plah (water please)." "Hi ewabahdee (hi everybody)!" "Drive, drive, drive Mommy's car." "Boo Boo driving!" "Bye bye balloon, fly, fly, fly!" His pronunciation is poor, and now that he uses a lot of verbs, it's harder to decipher what he's trying to say when he learns new words.

Other stuff: Boo also knows how to count to 10, recognizes numbers to 10, his basic colors, his directions (left, right) and has a fantastic memory (If I tell him in the morning we'll go to the zoo in the afternoon, after we eat lunch he'll ask to go see the "ma-coons (racoons) and bats, too." He can follow directions such as "pick up all your ____ and put them on/in the ____" He still knows the upper case letters, but not the lower case letters.

Physical stuff: Boo can't jump yet, but can run, climb, and walk backwards. He's 75% height and 2% weight. He loves to run to you from across the room and attack your legs with a hug. He's still very flirty and friendly with strangers.

Here's a pic of our little train conductor.