Preschool and SF Trip

I recently enrolled Gavin in a Mommy and me preschool (more like a twice weekly 2 hour class), where the first day is spent in a typical play-based preschool setting learning about a certain activity or thing (like trains, post office, forests, Halloween, etc), and the second day is a field trip (like to the post office, pumpkin farm, etc). Gavin LOVES it! Here are some pics.

At preschool, playing...

... peek-a-boo with Mommy in a play structure...


.... at the art table...

.... at snack time...

... at the dress-up area....

... on a field trip to a local veggie garden....



Last weekend, Terence had to go to a conference in downtown SF, so we went with him. The first day, we spent shopping with Terence. The second day, I took Boo on a sightseeing trip around the city all by myself. Here are pics...

Union square...



Chasing pigeons....


Afternoon tea at Neiman Marcus with the grandparents...


Here's what we did on our sightseeing trip across the city last Sunday. After breakfast, we took the cable car to Fisherman's wharf.


Then we walked 5 long blocks to Pier 39 to see the sea lions. It was very tiring having Boo back in the baby bjorn. Lazy baby!


After we took the cable car back, shopped around Union Square, and had lunch with the grandparents, we went to Japan Town.


What a long day! So glad to be back home.

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.

Natural History Museum

This last weekend we went to the Natural History Museum, which features a living roof, an aquarium, and a rainforest. It was a total zoo, but Boo was extremely well behaved and had lots of fun looking at everything (even though he looks mad in all the photos). The fire alarm was pulled twice, and we had to evacuate twice! As I said, it was a zoo. Afterwards, everyone conked out.

Some tree frogs Terence thought were disgusting.

Boo's creepy look.

The albino alligator. I couldn't help but think it would probably make a pretty awesome purse.

My favorite gay couple.

Thanks for dinner, Matty-Matt!

One final note: James Lee ROXXS!

A Night at the Children's Theater

Palo Alto has this cute thing they call Hot Dog Theater during the summers, where the Children's Theater puts on shows during dinnertime, and people bring picnic dinners or buy hot dogs from the gawky volunteer teenagers there. It's pretty cute. The show itself was so bad it was good...

Half Moon Bay

Today we started our morning at the Bay Area Nature Preserve. In the afternoon we went with Uncle John to Half Moon Bay, where we visited a farm and the beach.

Here's the pier at the preserve:

Here they are looking at birds' nests.

Here's the duck pond at the preserve. Zoe loves it.

Here we are at Lemo's Farm, which has a petting zoo, train and hay rides, and pony rides.

Boo petting the goats:

On the train ride:


At Barbara's Fish Trap, which has really good fish and chips.

Playing at the beach, Boo's favorite part of the day:

Alexis' party & Stanford

Today we went to a 100 day old b-day party for baby Alexis with Boo and Zoe. Boo's favorite thing there was the "waw. mahl."





After that, we putzed around Stanford with Zoe and Uncle John (not pictured). Thanks for all the great pics, Uncle John!

"Ooooh! Dooh!" Let me in!


Success! "Cool, huh?" Look at all the "doohs!"


Here's the classroom where Terence fell asleep AS A TA! How embarrassing. "Chay? Up-m?"


Sitting on the "chay" is too boring. Let's do something else!


Oooh, "small groks!" What fun!

Just hanging out with "Yay-lo."

Finally, some family pics with "dada," "momma," and "Yay-lo!"

Next stop, Half Moon Bay!