Visit to Arizona

While Eric drove back to Chicago, Blake and I flew to Arizona to visit my sister and some old roommates and friends. It was a big girl reunion.

My sister Amy's cute baby. She was so little! I loved this onesie.

Blake and Daphne (roommate Jill's daughter). This was the best picture I could get of them.

Roommates Brie and Jill

Lydia flew from New York and Brie came from Utah. Jill recently moved 5 minutes away from where my sister Amy lives in Gilbert, Arizona. Highlights of the trip included dinner at Cafe Rio, shopping, making baby bows, learning new recipes, and talking of course. Thanks to Amy and Jill for hosting!

Goodbye California

We loved spending our summer in California. We'll miss grandma and grandpa, swimming, Gymboree, Sunnyvale friends, and beautiful parks. Eric enjoyed his internship with Cisco, and I enjoyed working at my old job on Saturdays doing speech evaluations. Blake grew up so much over these past few months. I feel like I took a baby home and brought back a toddler. Now he has 6 more teeth, drinks from a sippy cup, walks, and talks.

Sacramento

We met Eric's brother and his wife in Sacramento on Labor Day. We spent most of the day in Old Sacramento walking around the shops. Apparently I've been here before when I was younger but I don't remember it. Blake loved the horses and train.

Lately

Blake loves watching sports on t.v. When baseball is on he pretends to throw a ball. How is he already so interested? I'm in for it with these boys and sports!

We went to a Giants game last week. Blake was scared at first with all the cheering so he sat quietly on my lap the whole time and watched the game. He stayed awake until we got home at 11:00p.m. and was pretty happy the whole time.

This is what Blake does when we say "show me your teeth."

We celebrated our fifth anniversary by staying one night in San Francisco. We left Blake at home with grandma and grandpa. We walked around, had dinner, and slept in until 9:00a.m!

Pink or Blue?

It is time to blog announce that we are having another baby! I am sixteen weeks along and due February 8th. Right in time for a nice winter in Chicago. I had a checkup yesterday and everything went great. I asked my doctor if I would have time to have an ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby before we went back to Chicago. He said "I can do an ultrasound right now and see if I can tell." I think I squealed and said "Okay!" (I love my doctor. He was the doctor I had with Blake.) So he did the ultrasound and said that he was 80% confident that we are having a girl! We are so excited. Of course we would be excited either way. Hopefully we'll get it confirmed that we are having a girl but for now it is fun to think pink.

No no no

Blake has been told "no no no" many times when it comes to touching the dogs food and water. He excitedly runs over to the bowl, smiles, and shakes his finger while saying "no no no." Maybe 1 out of 10 times he actually listens to himself. He just can't seem to help sticking his hand in the water. The other day Blake was eating in his high chair and he saw our dog go over and start eating some food. Blake started shaking his finger at the dog and told her "no no no."



Blake's latest is to ask "where?" by raising one or both hands like this. Here he was watching a movie. He raised his hand whenever a character left the screen. He just wanted to know where they went.

Newport 2009

We just got back from a week of vacation in Newport from my parents' timeshare. The party consisted of myself, Blake, Dad, sister Kim + husband Brett, sister Maggie + husband Bryce, and Grandma. Sadly, Eric couldn't come because he had to work. My mom and sister Amy also couldn't make it because they were in Arizona welcoming cute baby Jill Denise.

I got many comments (not necessarily compliments) on Blake's hat throughout the week.

Playing with toys at the resort. Blake's cheeks are puffed because he is making the "vroom" sound. He has recently loved pushing cars and trains.

We took lots of trips to the swimming pool. Blake had a love/hate relationship with it. He liked it for a while, then squirmed to get out. When he was out he wanted to be in.

Three top teeth are coming in and you can kind of see them in this picture. I was wondering when he was going to get some more.

Looking at fish in a pond at Fashion Island Mall. Never had I felt so white (as opposed to tan), poor, and not in style as I did while shopping in southern California. But I did feel very modest. We also went to another mall called Irvine Spectrum. These malls were so crazy because they had merry-go-rounds, a ferris wheel, train ride, and so many cool fountains. Wow. They don't make malls like that where I come from.

Celebrating Grandma's 84th birthday.

Blake's first time at the beach. He wasn't so sure about sand. Lately, he has been helpful when I say "clean up" and he will put toys away where they go. He had sand all over his shoes and didn't seem to like it so I told him to clean up the sand. He slowly started picking it off his shoes and putting it in the pitcher. And yes his only beach toy was a pitcher from the kitchen. I'll be more prepared next year. He ate sand a few times and then tried to wipe it out of his mouth with sandy hands.

We visited the toy room a few times. I love how he is starting to play more independently.

We went for a walk every morning to the fountains and the fish. Blake learned a few new words this week including "hi" with a hand wave. Here he is saying "hi" to the fishies over and over again. He can also say "eyes" which sounds exactly like "hi" but he uses them in appropriate context. His other new word is "tee" for tree.

A round of bocce ball. I like this game but I'm pretty bad at it.

We played games most nights. We had a great time and it is a fun vacation to look forward to each year.