Why We Live in California

Because it's sunny. Well duh. And we have these beautiful mountains within an hours drive. Do we do this all the time? No. So then you have to ask, what is wrong with us? When we moved from New York I was so excited to have so much natural beauty so close and still enjoy the comforts and excitment of urban living. Well, we certainly pay for it in rent, food, gas, taxes. So why haven't we been to Malibu Creek State Park before? No excuses.

I'd love to take Addie camping sometime. We have an amazing 2 person tent that Cap and I used one summer when we camped around the country after college. It has all sorts of subtle high tech elements (or so the guy told us when we bought it) and it only weighs as much as a can of clam chowder which is rather a nice feature when lugging it around the backcountry in the Grand Tetons. But I think I want to get one of those giant tent mansions with 2 rooms and a foyer for some seriously luxurious car camping. Addie could even have her own quarters. Heck, it will be bigger than our apartment.

Walking the Baby

just cruising down the boulevard doing some window shopping.
Addie and Me.

Happy Final Monthly Birthday Addie!

Today is Addie's 11th Month Birthday, the final celebration before she must be content with only annual celebrations. I don't think she'll mind but I'll miss them. I might sneak in a half birthday celebration in October. Before that I really should start planning her actual first birthday celebration since that involves invitations, cake and picking a date and a location. Poor gal's birthday is always going to fall around Memorial Day weekend. Well, I guess that's her fault for staying in the oven a week later then planned. All I have figured out for her party is that I want everything to be yellow. That's just like me to start with the minutiae and work outwards. I'm not a big picture sorta gal.

These photos were taken this morning when I should have been leaving for work, but I couldn't resist her playing in the sunspot outside our bedroom door. She loves that wooden puzzle of a farm. In honor of Earth Day and my guilt for being a massive consumer of baby products, I found a great second hand store and came home with two woooden puzzles. Guilt assuaged!

Happy Birthday little sunshine.

Working from Home

Sick baby, mama trying to work from home, cat food and water dish upturned. the collapse of multi-tasking.

camera fun time

Guess what I got because I'm the luckiest girl with the bestest husband around? A brand new Canon Rebel Xti digital SLR camera. Yipppeeeee!

We spent last Saturday walking around our neighborhood snapping photos of everything in sight on our way to brunch and back.




and of course the prerequisite shots of Addie who is suffering from a rash which we think was caused by playing with a lemon in the sun. Yup. That's what the doc said. Plus, she had a fat lip after slipping while crawling in a dress. Note to self, mothers of little girls and people who shop for them: do not let little girls wear dresses when they are crawling.

The Extra Cheese Anniversary

Cap and I celebrated our three year wedding anniversary by postponing the celebration a day. Tuesday, April 17 was the official date, but I had my photography class which is sacrosanct - apparently more so then the celebration of my wedding. Instead, we went out last night to a press screening of the new Spiderman movie. I haven't been to a movie in ages and the last time i was at The Grove theater I was trying to watch Invincible at the mommy movie with Addie. Since our little munchkin has a fever we skipped the dinner part of the evening and instead took full advantage of our Free Concessions coupon, a license for gluttony. We sumptuously dined on nachos with extra cheese, a soft pretzel, 2 huge bath tub size sodas, Milk Duds and a Wonka Bar for dessert. Ah the romance. Oh, and I got Cap a lovely letterpress card that said "You're Great."

I couldn't find any of our wedding photos and had to grab this low resolution photo from our kodak gallery album. I'm feeling rather lo-res these days any way since I'm still in my bathrobe at 11:40 in the morning.

Happy Anniversary, Po Po. I'd go to the movies and eat nachos with you now, and forever.

Fortunately, Unfortunately or Disco Baby

Unfortunately, our laptop died. RIP.
Fortunately, we had all of our photos and itunes backed up on the external hard drive.
Unfortunately, we had to recreate our playlists. and by we, I mean Cap.
Fortunately, Cap ran out and bought a brand new MacBook.
Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to use it yet and have wanted to run it over with my car.
Fortunately, Cap is patient, and Jamie came over to help me.
Unfortunately, I'm a slow and easily frustrated learner.
Fortunately, Jamie suggested we show Addie the Photo Booth function on our new computer.
Unfortunately, she was only interested in chasing Didi.
Fortunately, Cap still snapped this photo of Disco Addie. Technology can be fun.

zoolander

Sunday we trotted off to the LA zoo to meet pals Clara and Jake and their parents. Only there were no animals except 3 little alligators. The sea lions exhibit was closed and the Children's Area was vacant except a stinky goat petting area. Surely there had to be animals somewhere?







Ah-ha. Gerenuk tooshes all in a row. so cute.

but nothing is cuter then a koala mama and baby (except Addie of course)

and look which baby has a purple tongue
no babies here, just two battling ibexes, horns a-bashing.

Late in the afternoon most of the animals were already heading into their cozy homes for dinner so next time we'll go in the morning. Even if the baby orangutan was no where in sight, we did see Steve Carell and his family. However, I was too chicken (respectful?) to snap his photo. Maybe next time.

A Year Ago Sunday

Reid took this photo of me the day of my Baby Shower on April 8, 2006. Guess I should be saying something cliche like I can't believe it! or Time Flies. or Gee, I'm really glad I'm 40 pounds thinner now. or we sure scored a lot of loot at that party half of which we've outgrown already. and of course, something about how lucky I am to have Addie and how wonderful she is. All true. But indulge me for a few sentences. What really blows my mind is that if I had gotten pregnant on a different month, a different year we wouldn't have an Addie. We'd have somebody else. I can't imagine not having her in all her Addie-cake Addieness.

On my shower anniversary weekend I was also very lucky to have had Reid, my Godson Sawyer and the Pierce-clan come visit us this past weekend. I was recovering from several 2 am late nights at work and was feeling frazzled and tired so my apologies for my lackluster performance. I had planned on taking Good Friday off and playing with everyone, going to a cook-out and Easter Egg hunt at Baby Tayloe's house, but sadly I had a major deadline at work and missed the festivities. Cap took Addie and I hear there are cute photos of the 3 babies in a wagon. Please share! Thankfully we all got to hang out on Saturday and go to the Beach and the Santa Monica pier despite the gloomy weather. The two kiddos together were just deliciously cute even falling asleep together in the crib. What makes me sad is that we live so far away from each other and I don't know when we'll see each other again. Soon I hope. In happy news, today is Reid's Birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Happy Easter

We took Addie to, where else but, Roxbury Park dressed in her Easter finery. Thanks Gran! The weather wasn't as warm as I had envisioned so there is the addition of a long sleeve shirt and pants, but we can't really complain since the rest of my family is battling snow and ice in April.

Addie wasn't quite ready to celebrate so we took our Easter caravan on an hour trek to Starbucks for a dulce de leche non-fat latte. Mama gets a treat too.

Pop Pop, Nana and Uncle Drew sent Addie a basket of eggs and bunnies for her first Easter. The bunnies are webkinz which is a virtual pet and, what I gather, is all the rage. I imagine this is just the beginning of Addie thinking her parents are luddites, "Gaaaawd Mooooom, you don't know what a webkinz is?" However at the moment she has stuck to her tried and true - twigs and leaves and eating paper.

Happy Easter!

Pretend

This weekend we closed our eyes tight, clicked our heels, pushed the stroller 5 blocks down the street, and pretended we had a house with a yard and a 10-person hot tub. We're on kitty duty for a co-worker of Cap's who has a lovely home in our neighborhood. Addie pretended that if she could just grab the waterfall the right way, she could hold it in her hand.

We schlepped over a picnic blanket, a bottle of white wine and 3 bottles of formula. Camped out on the lawn, Cap and Addie developed a game where she'd take a rock out of the planter, hand it to Cap, he'd hand it back and she'd return it to the planter. The entire time she narrated the exchange. Then she'd squeeze herself in between the planters and poke at the mud. Laa naa nala laa na.