handprint!

Too much fun.

Natalie is getting pretty good with her colors. She knows them all pretty much and if she's not being lazy, she'll talk with you about them.

And her newest trick is "counting". Though she'll only accurately tell you how many of something you have if the number is one or two, she can count all the way up to ten, and sometimes eleven, (though from eleven she goes back to eight, so I think it's just another seven to her - does that make sense? It's late.) I'll get that on tape soon.

Happy almost New Year!

toddlers are fun at Christmas

On Christmas Eve, we worked hard after bedtime to help Santa set up the kitchen for the best effect.

This picture is pretty much taken from Natalie's bedroom doorway.
And sure enough, on Christmas morning, promptly at 6:30, our little elf woke up and we let her out of her cage... I mean, crib.

She groggily checked out the tree, and then stumbled right over to the little kitchen. Doesn't our kid have the best bed-head you've ever seen?!
And then she gave me this look.

Sometimes I wish she could be this age forever! So the kitchen was a hit.

And then we moved on to stockings, (I realize it still says "Baby's 1st", but I promise, this year I'll get around to making her a forever stocking.)
And had a little breakfast. After some sustanance, (and coffee), we moved on to opening presents. Natalie got the hang of this pretty darn quick. By the time her presents were all done she was ready to move on to everyone elses.
But she was patient and waited until my parents arrived to open any more.
After second breakfast, and a little nap, Natalie was ready to get over to my Aunt's house. If we could only find her...
We made it over there, and had a nice hearty Italian dinner. Halfway through, Natalie wanted to eat with Kenz, (she might have just been after the spaghetti - I'd served her lasagna).


And then we enjoyed more presents. Natalie was again very patient and helped Lara pass them out. She was a little stumped by my four, nearly adult male cousins. All with similar hair colors and style, three of whom just flew in from Wisconsin the day before, (and she hasn't seen since she was seven months old!) But she did her best.
And then, since Natalie was the youngest, she got to open the first present. Don't be too impressed, that lasted about two minutes.
Natalie spent the rest of the night playing with Kenz's new Barbie Dream House with Kenz and Steph. The rest of us spent the next few hours eating dessert, drinking coffee, and playing game after game of "Catch Phrase". It got pretty wild, I must say.

By the end of the night Natalie was positively pooped, and almost ready to admit she was ready to leave.

I wish you could have all been there. But if you weren't, hopefully your Christmas was as nice.

Dear Santa

You are a hard guy to reach!

I just want to tell you

that I really want

a little toy kitchen

for Christmas!

And I've been so good.

Love, Natalie

Last weekend we made two attempts to visit the very busy head elf at two different malls.

In Cherry Creek Mall, which I remember from my childhood as having amazing decorations, and being The Mall to go to at Christmas, we, (really my DH) waited in for nearly an hour when we were told by Santa's elf that including Santa's lunch break, we had at least another hour and a half to go! We decided that Natalie would be asleep by then, or at least way too cranky for pictures, so we took a few ourselves, and hit the road.

The decor was cute, but nothing like my childhood memories. I guess that's always how it is. The next day we tried Flatirons Crossing mall when Santa opened. We hopped to the end of the line, and though, hey, this isn't so bad. Then we were told that that was just a break in the line, and the end of it was really way over there. Santa's elf had no idea how long the line would last. No thanks. Not for us.

So we waited 'till Wednesday when my DH had a day off. He really wanted to be there for Nat's first Santa experience.

To get ready for the event, we painted our nails with festive colors.

And dropped a letter in the mail to the big guy so he would remember.

At Macy's at 29th street they have a great Santa and do daily story times with him when they open. Natalie wasn't too into the two, long stories they read, but it got her somewhat comfortable with the big guy. After the crowds dispersed we got some time with him to ourselves. I sat with her on his lap first and we talked for a bit about what Natalie wanted for Christmas and how good she'd been.

And then we tried for some solo shots!

Not too bad!! I'm glad we finally got our chance to hang with Santa.

That time of year again

The holidays are coming so darn fast, I can't believe it. It's going to be so much fun this year since Natalie actually knows what's going on a bit more. Last year at this time she was just learning to crawl.... boy how times have changed.

She enjoyed looking through the ornaments and putting them on the tree. (Chewy is always a fan of the Christmas tree as well.)

And some things never change - the beads were a hit this year as well!

And Nat has added some seasonal words to her vocabulary as well. She knows "Christmas Tree" and "Christmas Lights", as well as "Santa", "Reindeer", and "Rudolph". She is going to tell Santa that she wants a "Kitchen" for Christmas, (if we ever get close enough to talk to him - I'm very disillusioned with this whole Santa process, let me just tell you!)

But don't let all of that make you think we are neglecting her Jewish heritage completely. Natalie helped light the Hanukkah candles this year and even said some of the first night prayer with us. She piped in with the last word of each line or so, though she stumbled on the word "Hanukkah" pretty badly. Not bad for a first try.

cruisin' back to LA

Our last day on the boat we did a lot more of the same... lots of eating... And some playing around on deck.

We hit some really rough seas that day and night, and a long patch of fog as well, so we got to hear the boat's horn a lot, which was interesting.
The next morning we arrived back in LA.

We spent some time at the pool with my aunt and uncle and cousins before they're evening flight.


And then the next day we hung out with my grandparents in Hollywood.

Natalie liked stepping in the footprints and handprints of the stars. She even got her picture taken by some Japanese tourists checking out the Shirley Temple square in front of the Chinese Theater.

We found many of the stars of our favorite Hollywood celebs.


And it was interesting being on Hollywood BLVD when it was all blocked off in preparation for the parade that night. We missed the parade start by about 6 hours, but there were many people already camping out along the sides of the parade route to claim their spot, even that early.
We took a little drive around Hollywood, but this is as close as we got to the HOLLYWOOD sign before getting hopelessly lost in a crazy hill neighborhood... but house watching was just as fun, and Natalie took a nice nap.
After seeing my grandparents off the next morning, we took a ride to Manhattan Beach which was near our hotel. It was a beautiful day, though the water was very cold. We got to watch lots of wetsuit clad surfers and boogie boarders, and search for shells.
And of course, enjoy one last meal before our trip home. Like Mother like Daughter. Poor kid.
We finished off our vacation with a stop at an ice cream parlor. What better way to end a day at the beach?!
So that was our trip! We made it back, safe and sound, and are so glad to be home. Even if it's below zero outside.

Thanksgiving... in Cabo

We started off Thanksgiving day by getting up early and taking a tender to the Cabo San Lucas marina. The harbor was too small to dock our large ship. We had to be back on the boat by 1pm, so we wanted to get out and see the town before we ran out of time. Cabo was by far our favorite port of call. It might have been so nice and quiet because we got there so early and there was no one up to hassle us. We walked around the whole marina enjoying views of boats and fishermen bringing in their catch.
Natalie enjoyed practicing her stairs.
And we made a couple new friends as well.
DH got especially friendly!!
One of Natalie's new phrases is "carry me", though only DH and I would probably understand it as such. I'm not even sure how to write it out phonetically!
After a tour of the marina we decided to take up one tour guide's offer of a glass bottom boat tour of the harbor and all it's nooks and crannies. I was drawn in by the promise of sea lions!!

There were two big boxes in the bottom of the boat with glass bottoms... it was like looking in an aquarium!

Here's another view of our ship... there were two big cruise ships out there.
On the other side of these rocks is the Pacific... the water is much rougher and very dangerous over there.
Here's a sea lion lazing in the rain... luckily our boat had a cover on it.
More sea lions on this big rock, and our mammoth ship peaking out in the background.
Divorce beach... the Pacific side version of the Lover's beach on the gulf side.
The sea lions right next to our boat... waving. Natalie got a kick out of these guys.
Pelicans, (or Mexican turkeys as all the locals kept telling us... I'm not sure if that was in honor of Thanksgiving or a yearlong joke.) We got to watch one steal a fisherman's catch. Oops.
Natalie fell asleep at the end of the boat ride.
After our boat ride it was time to find some lunch. We got a recommendation that this place, Tres Islas, was a great place for seafood.
DH agreed to the excursion though he doesn't eat anything that lives in water. I said, "every place has either a chicken or vegetarian item on the menu".

But I was proved wrong shortly thereafter. Here he is after looking at the menu and being very stoic. He made me try the dip on the table because even it looked risky. It was Tuna.

This is what I got. Pescada Relleno. Seafood stuffed fish. Very yummy... though Natalie ate most of the octopus for me.

She also scraped the tuna dip bowl clean with a spoon.

She's definitely my kid when it comes to eating... at least for now.

We had to wait for a tender on the way back and Natalie fell asleep again.

She slept all the way back to the ship, and then woke up when we got back on. So we had to wear her out playing if we had any hope of making it through an 8:00pm Thanksgiving dinner later!

We played with Grandpa...
And went swimming!

And sure enough we made it! Here she is all dressed up for the occasion.
Unfortunately we neglected to get a family shot! Now what will we use for our Christmas cards!?

So that was our last day in Mexico. We had one more day of cruising left, and then two in LA before we got home. So that should be one more Vacation post before we get back to normal life. It's nice to relive that lovely weather writing these posts. We have had light snow and below freezing weather now for a four days and it's getting pretty old. So anyway, stay tuned.