August 11-13, 2012: Mothershead Family Weekend

With Uncle John living all the way in New York City, and him having an amazing new job (the NED show) that has him traveling around the globe, we don't get that many chances to spend time with him.  In fact, we hadn't seen John since he first met Ellie at Christmas time.  So, we were all thrilled when John notified us that he'd be spending nearly a week in California during the summer!  Due to work schedules, for us, that meant a long-three day weekend with my favorite brother.

 

We spent Saturday at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, playing miniature golf at Neptune's Kingdom, fighting the crowds on a walk up and down the boardwalk, and dominating carnival games.  It was exhausting, but it was a blast!

After that, we determined that we would spend the rest of the weekend relaxing.  And so we did.  On Sunday, we took family pictures at the park, and we celebrated a very belated birthday for John with a great family dinner and a delicious German chocolate cake (John's favorite).  Uncle Gene and Beth, and John's friend Amanda, even came and joined us in the fun!

On Monday, with Grant and Jeremias having to work, the nuclear Mothershead family (Dad, Mom, Heather, John and me) plus grandkids spent the day at Foothills Park in Palo Alto.  We ate a picnic lunch, lounged around on the picnic blankets, and went head-to-head in the Mothershead Family Olympics - croquet, Molkky, and bocce ball.  To my dismay, Mom won the "all-around" gold medal after annihilating us for the gold in croquet, racking in a silver medal in Molkky, and finishing with the bronze in bocce ball.  I came in a close second, going bronze-bronze-gold.

It sure was hard to see everyone leave on Monday night!

August 4, 2012: 10 Months Old!

Ellie turned a whopping 10 months old while we were on our recent family camping trip.  She is growing like a weed, and she continues to be interactive and fun.  Some of her latest milestones include:

• Getting a third tooth (she now has two on the bottom and one big one on the top right).  Check out this smile!  Thank you, Scott Marmer, for taking this great shot!

• Raising her arms high in the air when we ask her, "How big is Ellie?" so as to indicate that she is "soooooo big!";
• Starting to wave "hello" and "bye-bye" when prompted
• Holding our iPhones to her ear to look like she is talking on the phones;

 

• and - as you can see from this video - she is sure to be walking soon!

We sure love this little girl!

August 3-5, 2012: Smith Family Camping Trip!

I'm not sure whether we are brave or crazy for taking our 10 month old camping!  But we had a terrific time spending a long weekend with Grant's extended family at Lake Nacimiento.  Several of Grant's relatives had never met our little cutie pie before, so Ellie enjoyed getting to know her second cousins/first cousins once removed (we'll have to ask Susan to confirm), and she loved spending time with her Grammy, Grandpa and Tia Megan too!  Tia Heather, Tio Jeremias, and Cousin Betinho even joined us for the fun.  Check out our big group (and this wasn't even everyone)!!!

The nice thing about camping near a lake is that you have a beach to hang out at.  We enjoyed relaxing in the sun together and hanging out in the water.  Corbett and Nadalie even brought their boat down, so Grant and I took a spin inner-tubing.  We felt like we were 12 years old again!

Ellie was spoiled with afternoon naps in Grandpa's arms, and she sure enjoyed all of the quality time with Grammy and Tia Megan too.

All in all, it was another wonderful summer weekend with family!  Thank you to Angie and Betsy for all of your work planning!

July 28, 2012: Ellie's First Feast of Lanterns!

Pacific Grove's Feast of Lanterns is one of the many community events that allows the City to live up to its motto as the "last home town in America."  Each year, the City comes to life with a week of activities that bring community members and visitors together.  I remember pulling my two rabbits Buster and Peter in my Grandma Mothershead's red wagon in the Feast of Lanterns Pet Parade, swimming for blue ribbons in the Feast of Lanterns Fun Swim Meet, country line-dancing at the Feast of Lanterns Street Dance on Friday night, and - year after year - setting up our blankets in the same spot at Lover's Point Beach for the Feast of Lanterns pageant and fireworks on Saturday night.  As I've gotten older, returning home to the Feast of Lanterns has been a great chance to reconnect with friends from high school, and spend time with family.  I was thrilled this year to be able to introduce Ellie to this amazing community tradition.  Although we were only able to attend the festivities on Saturday night this year, we had a wonderful time.  Here are some pictures of Ellie's first Feast!

 

 

July 20-22, 2012: A Family Stay-cation!

Grant and I have always talked about how amazing it would be to take time off work, and do a stay-cation.  This weekend, we finally did it!  We both took Friday off and had a wonderful three-day weekend staying local, enjoying the weather, and relaxing.

On Friday, July 20, Harry turned 7 years old!!!  We cannot believe that we've had this little (BIG) guy for 7 years already.  He is such a joy to have in our family.  We celebrated the day by having a picnic and taking a family hike at Foothills Park in Palo Alto.  We feel so lucky to have this great park so close to where we live.  Harry enjoyed time off-leash running up and down the trails, and Ellie enjoyed a terrific slumber riding on Daddy's back.

We came back to the house after our hike and, to our surprise, a birthday package had arrived for Harry (and Ginny) from Grandma!  The doggies went crazy opening up their package, and we let them enjoy their big bones right away.  Thank you, Grandma!!!

 We continued our fun on Saturday by taking Ellie to a great community pool at Rinconada Park.  This place was awesome!  There is a "beach" for infants to roll and crawl around in, there are stationary water bikes that spray water in the air when you pedal -- it's like Disneyland for kids!  Ellie had fun splashing around with Mommy and Daddy, and playing "Ring Around the Rosy" and "Motor Boat" in the pool.  She even went all the way under water 2-3 times without crying!  She's going to be a natural water-baby.

Sunday was the perfect end to our family weekend.  We watched the British Open golf tournament (well, Grant watched, while Ellie and I slept), we did some gardening, took a trip to Target, played with bubbles, and took a 6 mile family run.  We love summer!

Ellie Has A Tooth!

That's right!  On July 7, 2012, our little girl sprouted her first tooth -- the right, front bottom tooth to be exact.  It just broke through the skin and is quite small at this point.  Of course, Ellie won't let us get near it -- so no photos for now.  Ellie continues to be a big drool-bug, and she chews on just about everything.  Here she is biting the side of her pack-n-play.

July 8, 2012: Tia Megan's Visit

We were so lucky this week to have Megan spend five days with us.  In addition to being great company for Grant and me, Ellie is just in heaven with her Tia Megan!  And I think Megan is pretty much in heaven snuggling with the Bean too!

Aside from just hanging out, taking walks, and exploring the Bay Area, Tia Megan accompanied us to Ellie's fun Music with Carl class at Day One.  We hadn't been to music class since Ellie learned to crawl, so I was excited to see how she would do.  She started out serious and shy, sitting close by Megan and me.  However, that quickly changed.  Ellie spent most of the class crawling from baby to baby around the circle, and dancing on Teacher Carl's drum.  What a ham!  I'm so glad that Megan had her iPhone ready to capture it all.

Imagine my heart's delight when Megan suggested that we try making cake pops in order to practice for Ellie's 1st birthday party!  I've been wanting to make cake pops FOREVER!  We kept them simple, and just tried to get the hang of the steps, but they turned out cute (there is definitely room for improvement!) and - importantly - they passed Ellie's taste test!  Check out the smile on this girl's face!

Thank you for the visit, Tia Megan!  We look forward to spending much more time with you soon!