Order in the Court

Last weekend we had the opportunity to tour the United States Court of Apeals Building in San Francisco. The beautiful Beaux Artes style building is one of the few buildings to survive the fire after the 1906 earthquake. The building is of a grand style with marble, columns, mosaics and intricately carved wood, that is not often seen on the west coast. The kids had great fun running amok in the beautiful building, sitting at the bench and testing out the microphones.

A very special dress!

Over Christmas Lillian worked on designing and sewing a dress with her Grammy. Grandma Nora also go in on the action by helping to sew on the lace details. The dress is a masterpiece, and very special for the three generations of women who put it all together.

Little Cooks!

We've stated letting Lillian cook diner one night a week. She likes getting to decide what we eat, and we like that we don't have to decide or listening to complaining about the diner menu. Parental supervision is always required, but that's a small price to pay. Recently Nathaniel has taken an interest in cooking too and they both contributed to this lovely diner of pasta with peppers peas and sausage. Nathaniel helped crumble and cook the sausage, Lillian chopped and sauteed all the vegetables. They both helped clean up the dry spaghetti after it was doped all over the floor. They did wander off during the final steps of the process but happily gobbled it up once it was served up.

So much fun, so little time (to blog)

The last few months have been filled with so much fun that we never found a chance to download the pictures off the phones or write up any blog posts. So here it all is! The kids played train and tunnel on the slide with friends at our park, and enjoyed a sleepover with Ellie. Now that Nathaniel can cover some serious ground on his scooter we did a scoot/run/hike/boulder climbing outing. After much badgering by Lillian we visited the kids favorite destination Happy Hollow park and zoo. We also rode our bikes to Los Altos Hills to see water flowing in the creek for the first time in nearly two years. Lots of good times!

Happy Thanksgiving!

After doing so much traveling this past year were were happy to be spending a quiet Thanksgiving at our home. We invited some friends and their families over to eat Thanksgiving diner with us. One of our friends brought his awesome digital camera to take some nice family photos of us before diner. It's been a while since we've taken family photos so it was really nice to get some good shots of everyone. Although Nathaniel decided to be camera shy and run away anytime someone tried to take a picture of him, but we still managed to get a few cute shots in. I've included some of our favorites bellow, but you can see the full web album here.
 

Nathanie's Third Birthday

Nathaniel doesn't really play much basketball, but he really loves balls and the color orange, so we decided his birthday was going to be basketball themed!  We had dozens of basketball colored beach balls, a basketball pinata and even a basketball cake!  Nathaniel and Lillian learned that Reese's Pieces are pretty amazing as they helped decorate the cake.  Despite some recent cold and rain, California came through for us with a beautiful sunny day in the upper 70's for his party in the park.  It was so nice we even got some entertainment from some circus acrobats who had come to the park to practice!

Weekend at Golden Gate Park

This past weekend we made a trip to San Francisco to visit some old friends. We planed to meet near Golden Gate park because it's always a hit with the kids. Besides the obvious fun of the old fashioned merry-go-round, there is a gigantic playground with some unusual attractions.Each kid had their own preference. Lillian spent most of her time climbing the huge climbing net. Nathaniel spent his time riding the cement slide over and over again. Each of them had to work up some courage, but once they got going it was all good times.

Halloween!

It's that time of year again, when everyone needs to find a good costume!  A few months ago we went to our neighbors' birthday party which involved animal costumes.  Nathaniel saw his friend Annabelle dressed as a bumblebee and instantly decided that he had to be a bumblebee for Halloween.  Lillian has been watching tons of Jake and the Neverland Pirates and she already had the puffy shirt so naturally she was a lady pirate with a gold dress (because obviously pirates love gold).  We also attended an American History themed Halloween party in honor of an exchange student from Chile, so Eric shaved his chin and rigged up some wire spectacles to be Teddy Roosevelt.  Trick-or-treating was a big success, with everyone accumulating plenty of candy, which Lillian decided was best used to replenish our exhausted supplies to hand out to the mob of trick-or-treaters that came by our door.  This required no prompting, and we were really impressed when she dumped her candy stash into the bowl to hand out to others.  We must have done something right at some point...

Erin and Preston visit

Auntie Erin and Uncle Preston came to visit us this past weekend. The weekend was a whirlwind of activity. Nathaniel climbed his very first mountain at Villa Montalvo. It was a small one, but no small feat for his tiny big-boy legs. We also spent some time at the playground testing out Nathaniel's early birthday present of a big bucket of balls with a built-in tee. Nathaniel had great fun hitting ball after ball with his baseball bat.  The kids also got to go on a special outing to the playground with Erin and Preston.

Costume Parade!

To celebrate Halloween, Nathaniel's preschool had a costume parade. They made costumes out of paper bags for all the kids and marched around the neighborhood near the school. They made a pit stop at McDonald's for a ice cream. It was an incredibly cute site to witness!

Octoberfest

It's getting to be that time of year, the leaves are turning and, fall is in the air. Our German Friends Britta and Jorg hosted a fantastic Oktoberfest party to celebrate all things German. The party featured some awesome face painting and pumpkin decorating for the kids in addition to plenty of German beer and pretzels for the adults. Nathaniel's spider man face was pretty cute until he fell down and cried and smear red face paint all over his parents shirts. Thankfully it's all washable.

Walkathon

Lillian participated in her their school walkathon this past week. Every year they get a new colored T shirt second grade get's orange (Nathaniel's favorite color). Lillian walked 66 laps this year, just a few shy of what she walked last year. Nathaniel even joined her and walked a few laps himself.