Sent home

Well, Charli turned 4 and has started wanting nothing to do with her parents. Here is poor, dejected Brian, home early after being sent home from Kelly's school. Previously when Charli and Brian would go to Kelly's preschool, Brian would stay there. This time, he was instructed (by Charli) to just drop her off and go home. *sigh* Soon it's going to be "just drop me off at the corner" and no kussies...

fd&c something or other

Happy birthday Kate! We loved the ice cream cake (especially the green icing)!

a thanksgiving change

This year we had Thanksgiving at Brian's grandmother's place, instead of Naomi coming to Jerry and Donna's as she usually does. She might be moving to a smaller apartment, so she wanted to have us all over while she still had the room for us! It was cozy, but definitely enjoyable, and Charli and Buster had a fine time.

Buster uses the walker

Charli decorates a cake with Kelly and Katy

Buster has a little nap

Big hug for Grandma when we leave

On Friday we went to the farm to cut down our Christmas tree

and here we all are, Christmas tree cut down and happy as clams!

big four

Charli turns 4! 4 4 4!

awesome cake baked and decorated by Kelly

Charli loved playing this with Grandpa. Not so much with Mom, who makes her follow the rules.

Charli Lawler scooted!

a very fine visit

Bienbaw and Grampa came for a visit and we had a lovely time. Unfortunately, I've gotten quite lax in taking pictures, thus you get some very slim pickings. :(




Railroad approved








Ponpons and fevvers











*sigh* I tried to upload a cute video here, but for some reason it won't go. I'll try again later.

go raiders!

Grandpa Jerry and awesome Aunt Kelly came out for the third annual Raiders weekend. It was our most successful Raiders weekend ever! What made it so, you ask? Well, THEY WON! It was a terrific game, the defense was awesome, and we had a great time. The other games we saw, they were always ahead until the last quarter, and then they lost it. But not this time!

We sat in the Black Hole (the Raiders end zone, stuffed full of hard core fans), and if only we could charge the random public for the swear jar, we really could have paid off Charli's entire college tuition - they actually chanted $5 words. Fortunately, Charli couldn't really distinguish anything, so she didn't learn anything inappropriate. I think we may not be taking Charli to the games anymore, or if we do, we will definitely not sit in that section.

The rest of the weekend was nice, too. We ate pizza, went to the farmers' market, drew pictures, read books, went to bluegrass night, and generally had a good time. Jerry and Kelly tried to see Al's boat on Monday while Brian and I were at work, but it poured rain and things didn't go quite as planned. From what I heard, they took the ferry to Sausalito for lunch and then Jerry dragged poor Kelly around all the shops for the rest of the afternoon.

good weekend (other than the stress)

Such an eventful weekend we've had! Brian's parents came in on Friday, and we had a lovely lunch at Luna Park. Then we hung out, and then we had Little Star pizza for dinner, and Nina and Bella stayed and had pizza with us. Charli and Bella are so cute together! Also, Charli has learned to say "pizza".

Saturday we went to the farmers' market, where were in time to get empanadas - yay! The peaches were delicious, and there were some delicious white and yellow nectarines, too. And, of course, we got some strawberries... The pear and cherry tomatoes are starting to show up, too, although they weren't very good this week, except at one stall (yay samples! Charli has learned to say "sample"). In another couple of weeks they'll probably be awesome! Then we came home and Charli napped while the Cardinals crushed Kansas - unfortunately, we didn't see much of it because there was a rain delay, so the network decided to show another game in the meantime, and then didn't switch back to the Cardinals after the rain delay was over. Then we had lovely stir fry for dinner, did I don't know what, and headed for bed.

Sunday was Father's Day! Happy Father's Day! *big kiss*

We celebrated by going to the model train over in Berkeley again, this time with Charli wearing her new, special engineer overalls. Next we have to get her an engineer cap - not that she'd wear it. Once again, Charli was transfixed - we rode in one of the open cars this time, and Charli stood by my knee and didn't move for the whole ride. I tried to turn her around once, so she could see the things on the other side of the train, but she immediately turned back and took up her initial stance, so I didn't try again. The train runs out and back, so she got to see everything on the way back anyway. This time we also got to see the other trains running, although we didn't ride them - last time they weren't running. They are small! Charli thought they were pretty interesting, though.

I can't remember what we grilled for dinner when we got home, but it obviously involved corn, because here's Charli eating her first corn on the cob ever! After that, I let Charli bash her head, and then on Monday Jerry and Donna had to leave. Waah!

fun with kelly

Kelly came out for a totally laid back weekend. She got here Friday and I showed her lumosity.com, Sam's new employer. That took up pretty much the whole the time until Brian got home and they headed off to the ballpark for the evening.

Saturday we went to the farmer's market and missed the empanadas AGAIN! Man, we suck at that. But we got lots of other yummy things and had a good time anyway, as we always do. Then we sat around for a while, like we do every weekend after the farmer's market, and then we wandered over the Castro to shop and visit Tiny Tots and look at our house that we never got to see the inside of, much less buy. On the way back, some incredibly rude gay guy crossed paths with us and referred to us loudly to his friend as "breeders". Wow! I've totally never heard that before! Crazy!

Sunday we all went to the game. We headed out early and took a walk down the Embarcadero - it was really nice. We left the stroller at Brian's office and headed for our lovely seats just off home plate. Those are some nice tickets! Charli likes garlic fries and churros. Sam did not get beaned by any foul balls. Maybe around the 6th inning we headed inside to try to get Charli to take a nap, which didn't work at all, as expected. But at least she actually could run around a little bit, as opposed to when we're sitting out in the seats. Brian and Kelly and Sam headed back to the seats for the last inning, but we still didn't win. :( Boo! At least we were dressed for success.

Monday Kelly found out that our favorite spa, re:fresh, had closed. Boo! But on the other hand, she got to go to bluegrass night at Amnesia - yay! So, all in all, a highly successful weekend (except on the Cardinals side), and one we hope to repeat again soon!

lovely weekend

We've had a lovely weekend with Mambaw and Grandpa. Charli is very into reading now, and loves to bring you a book and sit on your lap while you read it to her. Mambaw and Grandpa (and Mom) approve. Mambaw reads fun Pat the Bunny books. Grandpa reads very serious german books. :) Everyone's favorite part though, which I never got a picture of, was when Charli was walking along and reached up for Grandpa's hand. *sniff* So sweet...

While she was here, Mambaw taught Charli a life skill - putting on lotion:



Now she likes to run around to everyone sitting on the couch and pretend to put lotion on their hands. Then we have to pretend to rub it in.

Charli also likes snuggling stuffed animals now, providing they are very soft. Take, for example, the bunny that Kelly sent last Easter...

We also ate lots of food - we roasted chickens and made pork chops and pancakes and had Little Star Pizza and brunch at Maverick and went to Pork Store, but it is not enough! We realized that we've never taken Donna and Jerry to Mission Beach Cafe or Craig's Place! They'll just have to come back again soon, I guess.

training day

Yay, Donna and Jerry are here!

Today we went to Tilden Park, over in East Bay, and took a ride on the Redwood Valley Railway. It was super cool! The Redwood Valley Railway is a model railroad that gives rides on weekends. It's run by a model train hobby group (I can't remember the name), and they make all the parts themselves and try to run the railroad just like a real railroad. They have several engines, all beautifully maintained, and they have repair trains, and roundhouses, and all kinds of other train stuff for which I don't know the technical terms. Everything is built to scale, including the water towers along the track and any associated buildings. It's crazy. There were even some people out on the line, and I don't know if they were just trying to provide more stuff for kids to look at, or if they were actually hobbyists/volunteers at work right that moment. Clearly, I choose to believe they were working on the railroad, all the livelong day.

So here we are at the station. It's just $2 a ride - a bargain! Everyone gets off, and then everyone gets on, and the conductor says conductor-y things like "All aboard!". Charli didn't really have any idea what was going on, and she was a bit worried when she thought her dad was throwing her out of the train window, but that was just for my photo op. We all squished into one of the closed cars rather than an open car, because I thought Charli would enjoy standing up on the ride, and in these cars she had things to hold onto. Once we got going, she just stood at the side and watched everything go by. She was fascinated!

Here we are standing under one of the bridges so you can get a sense of the scale. As we were walking around afterwards, we found more model trains - these model train hobbyists are gung ho! They have another model train that is smaller than the RVR, with accompanying buildings and such, that you can also ride on, but it was closed when we were there. And then next to that is a real model train (i.e. one that is too small to ride), with a long track and a model town and I didn't see any roundhouse. I think the middle sized model train runs along it, so maybe you can ride the one train in order to look at the other. And as a matter of fact, you can see part of the middle sized railroad from the RVR, so if you're there at the right time, you could ride on the model train and see people riding on the other model train so that they can see the other OTHER model train.

After that, we visited Lake Anza and scared some ducks, which flew away quacking. Charli thought this was immensely funny and laughed and laughed, and we even think she said "duck". She has not repeated it, though, so it's always hard to be sure.

development

It seems that during this visit to St. Louis, Charli has learned to do a thousand new things. She does things every day that she has never done before - it's crazy! In addition, she has been so good that I can barely believe it. She has hardly cried at all the entire weekend, even though faced with many people that she really doesn't know that well, and even though her sleep schedule has been erratic at best, and completely missing at worst. She has been so tolerant, easy going, and happy that all I can think is that Brian's and my temperaments really are genetic. :)

As you saw from the previous day's video, Charli is standing up more and more, and she really tries it on her own. She really wants to walk around, too - you can practically hear what's going through her head: "No, I don't want you to pick me up, just give me your finger. And now give me your other finger, and hold still while I stand up. Now walk me this way. Come on! (pause, look around) OK, now over this way! (pause, look around again) There's nothing over here. Let's go over to the stairs!" Etc. etc.

Previously Charli loved when someone else played peekaboo with her. Now, she likes to play peekaboo with you!



I don't have pictures or video for anything else. :( You'll just have to settle for text.

Charli has gotten a lot more verbal in the past few days, using more consonants and vowels in a string than she used to. She sounds a lot more conversational than she used to. Now she can make baby sounds, like 'goo goo ga ga'! She can also say 'uh oh' very clearly, althought she still has no idea what it means.

Charli has really been working on her containment. Now she knocks down the towers we build, and then starts to put away the blocks we used to build them! She really likes to put things away. She also figured out that the white disk thing on the floor was the lid for the block canister, and proceeded to try to close it. Along those lines, Charli is just getting better at imitating and figuring things out. She figured out how to make the annoying bunny dance by pressing its hand, and then proceeded to try to press another toy's hand to see if it did anything. She also understood how to make the, uh, jack-in-the-truck pop up after Brian showed her a couple of times.

Charli's manual dexterity overall is definitely improving. She tries to put things on her head. She tries to use a spoon. She waves a lot, and means it.

This is all I have time for now, I really have to go to bed. Good night!

christmas tree day!

Yay! Today was Charli's first Christmas Tree Day!

For those of you who don't know, every year the day after Thanksgiving we head out to the Heritage Valley Tree Farm with everyone we can gather together and cut down Christmas trees. Then we go back home and eat tremendous amounts of Christmas tree soup. This year we are having a longer visit, so we had Christmas Tree Day the day AFTER the day after Thanksgiving. So we bundled Charli up and went hunting the wily Christmas tree. The trees actually were not that wily this year, despite the fact that there were more people at the tree farm than we had ever seen at one time. We had a relatively quick yet successful hunt, and brought back a couple of lovely specimens.

After we get the trees, Christmas Tree Day is not over, though! Usually there is some tossing around of the football, but this year the football was flat, so instead Charli practiced her new trick, which is giving her mother a kiss (no one else!). She started blowing some kisses, though, and she is much less discriminating about that.

Then we go get the trees shooken (technical term) and bagged and paid for, and the tree farm sells us hot chocolate and hot apple cider and lots of homemade cookies. Charli likes cookies! And then we take lots of family and friend pictures, and we feel very convivial and holiday spirited and sure that the Christmas season has truly started. Happy holidays, everyone!


After pictures, it actually is time to leave the farm, so that we can go back to the house and eat Christmas tree soup! Christmas tree soup does not have Christmas trees in it, like how stone soup has a stone in it. It has ground beef and lots of vegetables, and it cooks all day long while we're out getting the trees and is totally awesome. Charli loved it and ate a ton. That's my girl!

After dinner Charli practiced another important trick, several times and very noisily:

happy turkey day!

Well, here it is, Charli's first Thanksgiving dinner (look, there's the back of her head)! Of course, Charli has been through one Thanksgiving already, but I'm not sure if that one actually counted - it definitely didn't involve any dinner, or even any turkey. This time it counts, there is no doubt!

We had a delicious deep fried turkey, as is customary and proper. It turned out beautifully (customary and proper), and we also had a delicious smoked turkey breast that chef-in-training Pete made. We also had some other food, too. Not too much, of course, we don't want to get fat or anything. Just a pile of mashed potatoes, yummy stuffing, boatloads of gravy, cranberry marshmallow goodness, corn souffle, sweet potatoes and green beans, etc., etc...

We basically hung out all afternoon with the family, watching Charli play with a thousand toys she's never seen before. Everyone built block towers and waited for her to come knock them down, which she did with fervor. The Schweisses have a hip hop Easter bunny dealio that sings and hops and is tremendously annoying, but Charli likes to dance to it, so it must be ok. She also liked the train, the shape ball, the turtle thing, the spinny bell ringy thing, the noisy car... she wasn't very fond of the weeble wobble chicken, though. Peter and Katy and John were all great with Charli, although Katy did try to steal Charli's bib.

After dinner we had much celebration - today is Katy's 17th birthday! Happy birthday, Katy! It's also my dad's birthday, which I'm sure is being celebrated back in Colorado even as I write this blog post. Happy birthday, Dad! And we had some more Charli birthday celebration, too. Charli was fascinated by the candles once again, and tried to grab them. Fortunately, Katy's got fast reflexes. Charli enjoyed the frosting and overall it was another great day.

And oh ya - Charli gave me 2 kisses! People saw it! And later she gave me another! It's so rewarding. That makes the day REALLY great. Of course after that, she would only give Daddy kisses - I would say "give me a kiss!" and she would pucker up and lean way over to give Brian a kiss. After a couple of those I had to send Brian away and put Charli to bed.

We are so fortunate and grateful to be able to spend this time with our wonderful family and friends. Can we say "thanks", Charli? Thanks!