All About Amelia, Simon & Hannah

All About Amelia, Simon & Hannah

Friday, October 31, 2008

The Zoo!

My mom has a big birthday coming up in a few weeks, so we had a joint celebration for her and Mils at the San Diego Zoo. This was no ordinary zoo trip, though. This was a super-special, VIP, 'behind-the-scenes' tour set up by my sister (who seems to know the right people here in SD). It was awesome. My DC friends know that I have...ummm...'issues'...with zoos and am not usually a fan. But when you get kissed by a Sea Lion and feed leaves to giraffes and stand just feet away from a polar bear you can't help but be amazed by the experience.









After the zoo we ate a fish-taco picnic at the beach

Monday, October 27, 2008

One? Three? TWO!

Here she is...our incredible two year old Millie:

We are in a birthday celebration marathon and having the best time. My WHOLE family is out with us. Yammy and Poppa are here from Maryland and the Uncles are in from Colorado. We even got to celebrate with Gamma and Gampa Greer via the webcam on Skype! Here are a few photos from Saturday (her actual birthday):


Checking out her new bike

With Julie and Mike at the neighborhood Halloween parade

Serving up cookies and sandwiches (aka hamburgers and hotdogs) at her new kitchen


Two funny things about this picture: it's pitch black outside and she's still playing, and check out all her new animals that she has lined up at the bar!


So it occurred to me that we should be practicing the answers to the two key questions she's been getting from strangers:

1) What is your name? Answer: "Mee-eee" (if you say it out loud it does kind of sound like Millie);

2) How old are you? Answer: One? (nooo...you're not one); Three? (nooo...you're not three); Two! (yes...you're two!). I think she knows the correct answer and she's just messing with us at this point.

It has never been more fun to be a mom. Millie is so funny and happy...I love watching her dance around the room to the Sesame Street theme song or the iPod commercials; I love that when she wakes up and remembers that her house is filled with extra family members she runs out to my sleeping brothers and screams "UNCLES" really loudly in their faces; I love that she is giving real kisses and extra tight hugs...not just to us, but to her friends at the park, their parents, our friends at church...; I love all the hilarious things she is picking up from listening to our conversations ("Oh goodness!"; "It's so exciting!"; "I hook you up" (with more drink, a new diaper, etc.); "Love you baby/honey/babe."); and I absolutely love how much she adores and protects Simon. It all just keeps getting better and better.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Another Week, Another Picnic

Last week we hit Balboa Park, a real treasure here in San Diego. It's the second largest urban green space in the country (after New York's Central Park) and it's packed with fountains, museums, theatres, the San Diego Zoo and lots of other attractions. We camped out on the lawn of the art museum and had some lunch after playing around the park. Check out that beautiful blue San Diego sky!

Friday, October 17, 2008

THE PHILLIES ARE WORLD SERIES BOUND!!!

A note from our guest blogger, Christopher:


We decided that Simon's first Phillies game should be memorable for us, even if he will only be able to remember it from pictures. I could not possibly pass up the opportunity to see the Phillies reach the World Series for the first time in 15 years, so Stacey arranged child care for Millie, fixed dinner in the crock pot for Millie and Aunt Julie, we bought some tickets online and headed up to LA on Wednesday night to catch Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. We knew traffic would be horrible but it was even worse than expected. I have no idea how LA residents can deal with it on a regular basis. We got to the stadium and the parking lot was pure mayhem with cars everywhere. Finally, 3+ hours into what should have been a 2 hour trip, we made it into the stadium in the 4th inning.

We were definitely a minority in our Phillies red surrounded by Dodger blue but the fans were very friendly - of course, Simon might have had something to do with that and I'm pretty sure that he prevented a few cups of ice from being hurled our way.

The Phils won so we stuck around after the game for a while to celebrate with the 200 or so other Phillies fans who attended the game. It was a great night, one we'll always remember and will enjoy telling Simon about when he's old enough to appreciate it.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Simon

Simon, three months.

Punkin' Patch, Part One


Millie's making her lifelong farmer Great-Grampa King proud!

The three of us made it out to a great pumpkin patch with our Thursday morning playgroup. We had some good, hot, stinky fun (it was also a working dairy farm complete with methane-treatment facility)! This is just part one of our pumpkining adventures because Daddy and Aunt JuJu were promised a big family outing in a few weeks.

Children's Museum

Within weeks of moving into our house we became members of the amazing New Children's Museum downtown. The kids and I go about once every two weeks, so we are making good use of the investment. There was a threat of rain last Saturday, so we all packed up and took Dad with us to see what all the fun was about.


When we get about two blocks away from the museum Millie starts screeching from her car seat "Yay! Playin'!" I'm really amazed at what she knows and remembers. This time I finally remembered to put her in some get-dirty clothes so she could really get to painting the VW bug. Isn't she getting tall?


And this room is just pure genius. Yes, it's entirely covered in mattresses and filled with foam tire-pillows! If we had an extra bedroom in our house, I'd consider my own mattress installation.


I'm usually running around around this room with Simon attached to me. He and I were both thankful that Dad was around for the chase this time!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

New Pajamas...

... which one is the ham bone???