Chocolate Fever

Matilda stayed up past her "normal" bedtime and discovered that is when we break out the desserts. She cornered Tim on the couch and quickly reveals what she thinks of Joe Joe's (TJ's superior take on Oreo's).

Wallace Would be Pleased

Tim occasionally comes home with swag from work. An entire wheel of cheese possibly qualifies as the strangest, although most useful. Here is the divided Parmesan stockpile, headed for the freezer. Please send recipes. Matilda is starting a cheese rich diet.

More Pictures from Ithaca: Gram's Birthday

To make up for my lack of posts here is a whole load of photos from Gram's 81st birthday celebration.

Gram smiling with a collection of old photos she was given by Cousin Heather.

The octogenarians communing with sheep while Dad gives the mini horses some scratching.

Gram introduces the sheep to her newest great grand baby, Caleb.

Like any good family gathering there was smoked meat: a ham and a whole turkey!

And there was a nice cake for Gram to yell at.

Dad and Brian actually posing for a photo....who are these people?

Gram enjoying having all three her boys in one place.

Gia survives yet another family gathering. A truly brave girl!

Matilda's second cousins teach her about hill rolling amid the beautiful landscape.

The obligatory family portrait.

To cap off the evening Brian hit a few golf balls out into the field. Immediately after assuring us he wouldn't endanger the livestock, Brian proceeded to drive one right into the donkey pasture, sending them running to the other end.

Word of the Week

Baa. Everything is Baa to Matilda. I can't imagine why. Our visit home was great as always. Matilda seemed to dig the animals even more this visit, if that is possible. The farm has expanded to include two new mini horses. As you can see above, the donkeys are keeping a close eye on them. And though they seem just the right size, Matilda restrained herself from saddling them up. Instead she got to ride Mint:Matilda loved her some boxer on this trip. Even now as I type she is pointing at the screen waving hi and yelling to Jack. Both boxers were so good with her and submitted to many body slams and ear tugs without complaint.

Despite endless efforts, Matilda was unsuccessful in her week-long quest to feed the parrots some tender baby fingers.

Spring

Spring was in full force during my trip home. It was so beautiful with all the fruit trees, dogwood, red bud, and (best of all) lilacs blooming. Since I haven't been home for spring like that in so long I didn't even need the 8 months of hard winter to make me appreciate it!

1 Year and 200 Posts Later

It seems like I should mark 1 year blogging somehow but I can't quite decide how. Perhaps by taking a break from the blogosphere? Don't fear dear readers, it is only a short break as I vacation to the remotest parts of New York, untouched by the internet. I'll be back next week reinvigorated with new material and too many photos for sure.

Fuschia Pink

Happy Mother's Day to Me

After packing Tim & Matilda off to the playground I went to get my 2nd Annual Mother's Day haircut, plus a little color. It is actually brighter than it looks in these pictures!

Happy Mothers Day

For Mothers Day Matilda got me a very thoughtful present. She choose to vomit on Daddy, not me. At dinner. In the middle of the restaurant. Hope you all have equally nice, considerate gestures on Mothers Day from your own.

(Thanks again to A & A for being so tough.)

Bow to the Marketing Powers, Child

Today we introduced Matilda to the Mouse. She was quite perplexed by him personally, but enjoyed his carousel and fountain. She was also very taken with Minnie's dishwasher. She doesn't appear to have contracted princess-fever yet, but we will be watching for symptoms. Many thanks to the Herrmans and their pull for getting us into the Kingdom for free.

Fork

Last week we discovered Matilda does really well eating with a fork. We have been handing her a loaded fork and she'll jam it right in, usually on target. The amazing part is she will then usually hand the empty utensil back for a refill. A spoon is harder and she'll often dump the contents before they make her mouth. Yesterday for an experiment I let her try to feed herself yogurt, partially to see if she would get interested in actually eating yogurt (a normally shunned food) and partially to let her practice scooping food with the spoon. It all started out well, but quickly deteriorated into a finger painting session on the kitchen floor.

Fire Update

The view from our roof at 9:00pm

Too close to our beloved Observatory for my taste. Most of our neighborhood has lost power now, not us yet. Very loud with the constant buzz of the helicopters. We have our flashlights stocked with fresh batteries and Victor dug a fresh moat so we are waiting to see what happens.

Evacuated

To escape the 97 degree heat today, Matilda & I met Gigi & Stephanie at the Autry Museum this afternoon. It turned into quite an adventure as one hour later the museum was closed and entire park evacuated due to a fire. It appeared to be a small brush fire as we headed in, but between the heat, low humidity and high winds the fire rapidly grew out of control. Even still we can hear the hum of helicopters overhead - a combination of news choppers, police and fire fighters. We did manage to squeeze in a bit of fun during our hour there though:

Matilda climbs onto the saddle in front of a camera. Through the amazing magic of cinema Matilda suddenly finds herself in the old west!

Bad Hair Day

Matilda woke up with particularly crazy hair this morning, and then exacerbated the problem by rubbing milk-soaked Chex into it. Quite the look.

Feliz Cumpleaños

Tim and Matilda celebrated his birthday today with new tee shirts and excessive amounts of barbecue. While the tee shirts are reminiscent of the wrong Mexican holiday, I couldn't pass them up. Matilda seems to like this skeleton Chapulín and was too cute in her own skeleton shirt.

Baby-sicle

Last weekend we went to the beach and froze. It was 20 degrees cooler in Malibu than our neighborhood. Poor Tim was least prepared and spent most of the time wrapped in a towel. Regardless of the cold, Matilda had a blast digging in the wet sand, chasing birds and just taking it all in. After an hour of hard play she was thoroughly soak and cold so we hiked back up the hill for a wardrobe change and snack in the car before heading home.
On our trip back, we happened upon this tri-tip and had ourselves a fantastic warm-up meal.

Tin-ga-lay-o!

Ven, mi burrito, ven.

Taking a page from Evvie's book, Matilda & Tim started going to Music Together class on Saturday mornings. And while I am loving the free time and they seem to be enjoying it, the super catchy songs are going to slowly drive me mad. I spend the whole day singing one or another of the numerous new songs we've learned. If I so much as unconsciously start humming a tune she'll catch me and off we go again with another round of Come, Little Donkey, Come.

With our class enrollment we were given a song book and CD of the songs with instructions to play the music often for her. Tim refers to it as his homework and was so cute last week trying to listen and prepare for the second session. I think he was nervous the other parents would be judgemental if he fumbled the words. Matilda has always seemed to enjoy music but the timing for this class is perfect as she is going crazy for it now. Anytime we sing a song or play music for her she will sign "more, more" until we comply. Tim reported that after only one class she already got the whole routine down and was leading the pack toward the basket of instruments last Saturday.

She Smurfed Smurf!

As the Smurfs have a near and dear place in our hearts, Tim and I introduced Matilda early on to the little blue men. All our hard work paid off and today she said smurf over lunch; it sounded like "urf". First she was pointing out the smurf on my glass, and then these on the shelf so I brought one over. This poor fellow had to get covered in beet juice and mashed potatoes for the remainder of lunch.

Downtown Adventures

To alleviate some of the new-job-who-to-eat-lunch-with-stress for Sarah, Matilda and I ventured downtown to enjoy lunch in the company's cafeteria. Turns out the reasonable prices attract some crazies, but I was quite entertained by the kooky old lady who cut me in line and shared many qualities with my own Grandma Margie. And Matilda was entertained by their beautiful courtyard which meets all of her specifications: fountains, flowers, fish, helicopters overhead.

We took the subway to Union Station and before meeting Sarah spent a few minutes enjoying the beautiful garden. And......wait for it.....you got it, sniffing.

Matilda was so inspired by teasing these beggars she even started saying fish today. Although it sounds more like quiche. Maybe she was just putting her brunch order in early, and we are misunderstanding her as usual.

After a satisfying lunch we headed off to the Central Library to enjoy their enormous children's section. Here Matilda finds one of the Francis books that I forgot I had as a child, although not this large version.