Updates

We have been so busy since getting back from London…..the kids are growing by leaps and bounds.  Norah crawls so fast she’s hard to catch!  She is cruising around – walking by holding onto things and is constantly getting tangled up in our legs.  She will be walking very soon!  Sammy is doing wonderfully.  His swimming is improving every week.  He is almost 100% potty trained (whew!)!  We are now gearing up for the holidays and our trip to Florida.  Sammy can’t wait to fly on a plane again.  He is such a good traveler!  That’s it for now I guess.  We’ll keep you posted!

Norah’s 1st Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we shared it with our friends the Brough family, the Schwartz family and the Teeter family.  I gotta say it was very relaxing not cooking.  Even more relaxing was all the girls of babysitting age who passed Norah around all afternoon giving me a chance to be with the adults!  She had a great time playing with everyone….so did Sammy.  At 9 pm when we finally headed home he was begging to stay.  What a terrific time.  I am very thankful for such wonderful friends!

Baby's First Thanksgiving

Wearing Sammy's pilgrim hat

I'm a little turkey

Pumpkin Patch and Light the Night

Last weekend we took Sammy to the pumpkin patch to pick out this year’s pumpkin.  Sammy had a blast.  First we picked our pumpkin right out in the field where it grew,

At the pumpkin patch

then we took a wagon ride to the petting zoo.  Sammy loved feeding the goats!  Norah was interested a bit too.  On the return wagon ride they shot off the pumpkin cannon.  I loved that! and then Sammy ran through a hay maze.  Norah mostly played with her socks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night was Halloween so we took the kids to Light the Night at Calvary Church as we have done every previous year.  I have been sewing frantically all week to make the kids costumes.  They went as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.  They looked great if I do say so myself.  Sammy was very excited all week about dressing up.  He anxiously watched his costume being pieced together.  We walked around and saw all the different booths and things going on.  We bumped into friends too.  Noah was dressed as a knight.  He looked great!  Even Mitchell was there in a tiger suit. He was too cute!  The kids both got balloons.  Sammy picked another pumpkin to bring home and he played games for candy.  He had a very good night! And I think our Tinkerbell did too!

London

We are finally back in California if not entirely back on California time.  We had a wonderful visit.  The flight out was rough.  The seats were very narrow and because we were in the bulkhead the trays came out of the armrests and couldn’t be put up.  The bulkhead seemed like a good idea because we were given a bassinette/seat that attached to the wall for Norah after take off, but she didn’t really like it and because we couldn’t move the armrests, Sammy couldn’t stretch out and truly sleep.  It was a very long flight!  As soon as we got in we went straight to the hotel.  Jeremy got a nap while the kids played and I unpacked.  We tackled the transportation right away.  We found the train station and took it to Putney and then walked to our cousin’s house for dinner.  We had dinner at Beth and Ira’s with Jeremy’s mom and stepfather and his aunt and uncle.  It was a delicious turkey dinner; like an early Thanksgiving complete with stuffing.  The next day Ira and Beth took us all to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard, unfortunately it was called off due to rain. It really wasn’t that bad!  So Aunt Marye and Uncle Arnie headed for the Imperial Was Museum while the rest of us went to get a bite to eat.  Afterward Beth and Ira left us and we walked to Trafalgar Square and to the National Gallery.  It was an amazing gallery!  The artwork we’d only seen in books was right there in front of us, inches away!  Sammy particularly liked the Monets.  He said they reminded him of the show Little Einsteins.  Too cute.  That night the kids stayed home with Beth and we took a short tour around the grounds of the Tower of London with a Yeoman Warder and then saw the Key Ceremony.  The same ceremony has been going on every night for hundreds of years.  Very cool!  Afterwards we had a pint at the Yeoman Warders private club bar.  What an evening!  The next day we went to Greenwich and visited the National Maritime Museum.  Sammy really enjoyed the hands on exhibits. The one thing I did think I wanted to do in Greenwich was go to the Royal Observatory and stand on the official Meridian Line.  Unfortunately it was raining too hard and we couldn’t!  We did so much else on our trip…we did finally get to see the changing of the guard and from inside the palace gates!! That was really neat.  We went back and toured the Tower of London again and saw the inside exhibits, shopped Portabello Road and got crepes, Harrod’s and got ice cream, saw Picadilly Circus, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, rode over the Tower Bridge.  Best of all we got to spend time with our family!  Beth and Ira’s dog, Buck, made a big impression on Sammy.  He is still asking to go to Buck’s house!  He loved riding the trains and the underground and the buses.  We had a wonderful time; I wish we could have stayed longer!

Preparations

Well, for those of you who haven’t heard yet, we are going to London!  It’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that we can’t miss.  Jeremy’s cousin has been living there with her husband the last few years, but they will be moving back to the states soon.  So, here parents, Jeremy’s aunt and uncle, are going to visit.  So are Cookie and Itsik.  We decided we better go too!  This week has been crazy getting a certified birth certificate for Norah so we could get her passport.  Because of the short time frame we had to expedite those too!  Then getting a good flight and finding a hotel…….anyway we are all set.  We are heading out October 4th.  I can’t wait.  We are trying to plan some fun activities for Sammy while we are there too so he will have a great time as well.  It’s so exciting!

Norah likes bubbles

It was a nice afternoon, so we went outside so Sammy could blow bubbles – something he loves to do.  We put Norah in her Bumbo seat.  You may have to turn the volume all the way up because I caught this video on my iphone and I can barely hear it at the beginning.  Enjoy the kids!

My First Bagel

Daddy went to New York last month and he brought us back bagels.  Mommy let me have one.  Yay!  Real food like everyone else.  I loved it!

chomp

I like it

Gone to the Fair

We headed to the OC County Fair for a fun family afternoon. Thanks go to Eric and Emily for the tickets! We had a terrific time. Sammy loved the food and the rides.  We saw some animals…..he passed on the elephant ride.  Can’t blame him, they are kinda stinky.  He definitely liked the rides best.  He drove his own bumper car for the first time and even better a bumper boat.  Here he is afterward:

That was great!

I think that look says it all!

Disneyland

We had a fabulous day!!!! Sammy’s first trip to Disneyland went like a dream. We met our friend Tiffany early in the morning at Starbucks. We got Sammy a juice

Sammy at Starbucks

and while there he saw someone get one of those frappachino things with lots of whipped cream and chocolate sauce. He turned to me and said “Mommy I like coffee!” I told him that was not coffee and said he would get plenty of treats later. We got to the park pretty early and went straight to Fantasyland and into line for Peter Pan.

In line for very first ride

I had forgotten how dark it is in parts and Sammy was a little nervous but never scared. He said he liked it afterward. Next we went on King Arthur’s Carousel and the circus train. He liked those too, but not nearly as much as our next ride, the Finding Nemo Submarines.

With Tiffany on Nemo

I had to take him on it again later that day. He loved it and mentions it daily! From the line there he spotted Autotopia. He really wanted to drive the cars. I was nervous that he wasn’t going to be tall enough, but he just made it. He laughed and smiled the whole time on the cars even though he could barely see over the steering wheel.

Where's the driver?

He loved driving! That also merited a repeat visit later in the day. We went on the new Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. Honestly I think I had more fun on that one than Sammy did. He was getting a bit hungry so we stopped for popcorn and then headed over Adventureland. We did the Enchanted Tiki Room and the Jungle Cruise. Then we headed to the Pirates of the Caribbean. He had been so excited about pirates until we got in line. He got a little nervous but Tiffany and I told him how brave he was and besides after we went on it we were going to get ice cream. That perked him up and he went on without a fuss; he even liked it. We headed down Main Street to catch our friend Jimmy Ford playing.

Jimmy on drums

We timed it perfectly and got to hear him play while our “ears” we’re gettting our names stitched on. I got Sammy a pair of Lightning McQueen-style ears.

Nice ears

They are so him! We did the Winnie the Pooh ride, which he loved.We were about to go to the Haunted Mansion when we realized how late in the afternoon it was. Tiffany had to leave to go to a wedding reception. That’s when I took Sammy back to Nemo again. Autotopia was down, so I took him on It’s a Small World and the Disneyland Railroad. He really liked the railroad. Afterward Autotopia was running again much to his joy! We caught a parade and just walked around for a bit. He asked to go on Winnie the Pooh again so we did. By now, it was nearly 8 and I was hungry and he agreed to stop for dinner. I was pretty tired by then so we started to head down Main Street to leave when we heard the announcement that the fireworks would start in 10 minutes. We couldn’t leave without seeing those. So we found a spot to watch them. Sammy loved seeing Tinkerbell fly by the castle and then the show. His eyes were just shining. After I told him it was time to go, he looked at me and said “No Mommy, we go Nemo.” He loves that ride! I said sorry, Nemo had already gone to bed and it was past his bedtime too. He tolde me “I doan like a bedtime.” He would have closed down the park if I would have let him. When we got to the car, I changed him into his pajamas fully expecting him to fall asleep on the way home. Nope! He sang the whole ride home and then wouldn’t go to sleep until some time after eleven. I know he had a great day and I was so happy to have been able to give him some special Mommy-Sammy time. As much as he loves his sister, I know it has been a big adjustment for him the last six months and I think he deserved a special day. He was so good. He didn’t complain about the lines, he didn’t pitch any fits about getting or not getting stuff, he just had an amazing day. Thanks to Tiffany for sharing it with us and taking so many great pictures. Hopefully she’ll want to go with us again.

Watermelon Picking

Yesterday we had the chance to go on the Tanaka Farms watermelon picking tour. Our friends Dana and Ilan came along. We had a great time. The tour was good as it usually is and of course we got to pick our watermelons to take home! Sammy and Ilan had a great time running around at firstBut then we loaded on to the wagons and got to sample some fresh veggies. Watermelon was of course the highlight of the morning. Sammy enjoyed seeing them growing out in the field, but picking some to bring home was best!Norah just hung out in her Suggli wartching everything. She fell asleep as the tour was ending. Afterwards it was time to rest and play with big brother at home.