Happy Birthday, Malia!

You are one today, you little charmer!


We love you!




I remember when my firstborn turned one. It was so hard to believe that a whole year had gone by, yet my life had changed so completely that my pre-motherhood days seemed like a distant memory. I certainly couldn't imagine my life without her!

Happy Baptism!

We wish we could be there! Have a wonderful day!

15-Nov-07 a science and art lesson

Got some new pictures of Malia! Here is my favorite one:

Hello, little smiley! Can't WAIT to see you!

It was fun to see the kids in Katie's class so excited to see her again on Tuesday morning. I think she enjoyed that very much!

Here are some photos from the last time we went to Huntington Gardens (Nov. 1):

Surprisingly enough, we found something there we had never noticed before:

You drop rocks through this thing, and they bounce off all the metal nails and it makes a beautiful chiming sound. Nick spent lots of time on this. What could be better than picking up a handful of rocks and dumping them, then being rewarded with a beautiful, musical sound?!

We had to go do the experiments again, which we so enjoyed last time:

First, you put a drop of nectar (from one of three types of flowers) on the sensor plate of the refractometer.

Then, you look through the eyepiece, and read the number corresponding to the boundary between blue and white zones. This tells you the concentration of sugar. (Doesn't this look like a lovely museum? It really is.)

Lantana = 20%, Salvia = 25%, Lavender = 30%.
Butterflies prefer nectar with 15-25%, hummingbirds prefer 20-25%, bees prefer 30-50%.

Here are some of our favorite artworks from that visit:

Pinkie and Blue Boy, mounted across from one another
Blue Boy is by Thomas Gainsborough, c. 1770. The outfit is a costume of 1630's style dress, as Gainsborough painted this as an homage to the works of Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck (1559-1641).
Pinkie is by Thomas Lawrence, c. 1794. Sarah Barrett Moulton (called "Pinkie" by her grandmother) was 11 at the time of the painting. Her younger brother, Edward, was the father of poetess Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Children playing (there was another one of two sisters that we liked as well)
This is Clavering Children by George Romney, c. 1777.

I have always loved this one by Mary Cassatt of a mom and her toddler daughter.
Breakfast in Bed, c. 1897
Mary Cassatt was an American expat living in Paris, and was a close friend of Edgar Degas. She often depicted women and children.

24-Oct-07 'til tomorrow...

I guess I shouldn't have called them "wildfires" yesterday. It appears that most of them were set by arsonists. Can you believe that?

My eyes felt better today, although the schools still didn't let the kids outside because there is a lot of particulate matter (ash) in the air.

You know, we don't get the Santa Ana winds here in Pasadena/South Pasadena. We get other kinds of winds (the colder ones), but not usually the SAs and this week was no exception. Absolutely no wind here. We must be shielded from them. They come from the east and our mountains are on the north, so I don't know what the shield is, but there must be something. Growing up in Santa Ana, we sure got the winds. I remember there were times in elementary school when I thought the wind was going to pick me up off the ground. Going outside was so difficult; walking was tough against the wind and with all the dust flying so hard, you had to keep your eyes closed. I HATED those winds. But it is still weird even after 16 years hearing that they are happening and not actually experiencing any wind.

I titled this "til tomorrow..." because it looks like J might have chicken pox. The spots that she's got (more every hour this evening) don't look like pox, but the nurse at the ped's office said that's because she had the vaccine. She has a fever and the spots, although she's not complaining about itchiness (two of the spots look like they've been scratched, though). The nurse said to monitor her tonight and call them with the status in the morning. We'll see what tomorrow brings...

Look at this, Shannon sent more pics of Malia!!

I can't approve of her outfit...

But that is one cute baby! Hi Malia!

Transitions

September is always a time of transition, but this year it's really out of control. Oh, I've probably had more major transitions, June 2000 being the biggest of course with the birth of my first baby, but nonetheless I am really feeling it now.

I am experiencing a weird feeling -- it seems that we are really done with the baby phase. Nick will always be my baby, but I guess he's not a baby anymore. I've been sorting through the boxes we still hadn't unpacked after our November 2006 move, and finding baby blankets that we just don't need anymore. I've packed them away for our church's Giving Bank, but it was actually really hard. They're just baby blankets, but they seemed to symbolize a period of my life that really defined me. It's jarring to realize I'm not in that phase anymore. I've got friends and family who are just entering that phase, or haven't entered it yet, and here I am done with it! Congratulations to Shannon, who is embarking on this momentous time, which shakes you to your foundations and through a series of imperceptible shifts, you redefine yourself completely. Kind of like that age-18 phase when you are master and re-creator of your identity. This makes me realize there will be more of these phases, which is uplifting. But still, it sure is a big transition for me. My kids are preschool- and school-age kids now! I'm a go-here-go-there school mom now.

My first-ever niece was born yesterday morning. Shannon and Cory are parents now, which is wonderful. Malia is absolutely gorgeous. What an earth-shattering thing it is to become parents. Nothing will ever be the same. I'm overjoyed that I now have two nephews and a niece, and I feel that our family is so blessed. It's tough being far away from them, though. I am jealous of my sister-in-law (whom I adore) because she got to hold her yesterday! So welcome, Malia, you have really made my day. You were the one who inspired your Auntie Barbra to start the blog she's been contemplating! Little darling!

Katie's in second grade. Yesterday was her first day of school. All of the parents tell me that Mrs. Norton is wonderful and we're in for a terrific year. I am really looking forward to it and the possibility of the parents being more relaxed than they were in first grade. I'm all for relaxing and supporting the kids in their enjoyment of childhood!

Here is my niece Malia in my sister-in-law's arms!