But before I get too weepy, let's get going with some of the fun stuff that we've been up to over the past few weeks - including Christmas celebrations at home and in Tucson!
We spent the actual day of Christmas at home this year. Both kids were completely spoiled with trucks, trucks, trucks (Grady) and dolls, clothes, and books (Clara), among other gifts.
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| "No Clara, that's too small for you!" |
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| Excavator! And rocking the shirt tucked into underwear look |
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| Lightning McQueen and Mater - the hits of Christmas |
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| Besa enjoying her "gift" of wrapping paper |
The next day, we left for Tucson to visit Grandpa, Nana, Uncle Cliff, Uncle Gavin, and Aunt Susana. The kids behaved fairly well on the flight, despite Clara taking a total of a 10 minute nap - timed perfectly so as to fall asleep moments before we landed in San Francisco. Ah well, she remained in relatively good spirits nonetheless. Despite the four of us making it to Tucson without too much trouble, our luggage stayed in San Francisco for an extra 24 hours, but with Dotty's help in the form of phone calls from Tucson to India, they did at long last arrive!
Of course, we didn't take a group picture, but we had a great time in beautiful Tucson.
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| Sunrise |
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| Restraining Clara |
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| Fun with the Itsy Bitsy Spider Book |
When we were leaving, we asked Grady what his favorite part of the trip was - it was playing "like a shot!" with Grandpa.
The desert museum was also pretty cool though, even though Dotty and I failed to note where we parked the car and spent about 10 minutes searching high and low for it. The biggest hits were the mountain lion and the snakes.
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| Mountain lion sunning on the rock |
Grady also loved the "hot pool." I mean, really really really loved it. When we went in the second night, Grady ran down the hall saying "I'm excited! I'm excited!"
That level of excitement was rivaled only by the prospect of Nana's angel food cake (picture Grady standing next to Dotty while she cut the cake while jumping up and down and flapping his arms).
Clara was a bit more reserved, but warmed up pretty well by the end of the trip, especially if I stayed out of the room.
The grownups had fun too. Matt joined my dad, Cliff, and Susana for a successful hike up Cat Mountain, joined forces with Cliff to handily beat Gavin in golf, and saw three movies! I timed getting a nasty virus perfectly for this vacation, so was not up for as much fun, but did get a wonderful massage, got some quality extra time with my dad and Dotty while the young 'uns were off to the movies, and went to bed by 8:30 every night!
Thanks to Dotty and my dad's substantial efforts, the trip was relatively seamless (lost luggage aside). We had one mis-start, trying to all sleep in the same room. I brought Grady into the room after Clara was asleep. Clara of course woke up and started doing raspberries, to which Grady responded in kind. Clara would laugh, Grady would laugh. Matt came in and Grady stage-whispered loud enough to be heard in the back row "Daddy, be quiet! Clara is sleeping!" Anyway, we moved his mattress into another room and both kids actually slept fine from there on out. Many thanks and much appreciation to them both for giving up their room, renting the crib, preparing so much amazing food, and so many other things.
We were sad to go - the trip went very fast. In fact, Grady loved the trip so much that, when I asked him at dinner where he would like to go if he could go anywhere at all, he said "Here." But it was also nice to be back home. Grady was pretty excited to get off the plane in Portland, even saying "This elevator is so wonderful!" as we rode up to the terminal from our plane. And, although he didn't take a nap the whole trip, he was out within minutes of getting in his car seat.
Some non-Christmas news to share.
Grady is obsessed with a book from Grandpa and Nana called "How I Became a Pirate." We went on a cruise with Tabitha and family, which had a pirate welcoming people on board. While we were waiting for Tabitha to arrive, we were watching the pirate. Grady was pretty thrilled:
When we got on the boat, another pirate was there and asked Grady "Do you know what pirates say?" to which Grady replied "Hey Ho, blow the man down!" It wasn't what she was expecting!
We had a special visit from my friend Alyssa, who is hoping to move to Portland in the spring (fingers crossed!). It was cool to explore different parts of Portland with her, and to get some ice cream at Salt and Straw. Even Clara got to have some and, unsurprisingly, it was a big hit!
In general, Clara continues to be a good, and amusing, eater.
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| Avocado anyone? |
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| Yes, those are rolls of toilet paper |
Clara isn't talking yet, but has gotten very good at imitating noises and every so often busts out very clearly words like "Waffle!" or "Bath!" or "Clifford!" Here she is hamming it up with "Bath!"
She has learned "SO big!"
And is surprisingly good at rolling a ball!
Grady and Clara continue to be pretty good pals, with a healthy amount of skepticism thrown in (solely on Grady's part).
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| Deciding Clara might like some of his yogurt |
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| Working around Clara at the train table |
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| Swings! |
Happy New Year, everyone!
