Dec 2, 2015

Nico and Anya playing together in the hallway at our apartment.  Nico has been such a great big brother to Anya.  You can tell he and Anya love each other.  Yes, sometimes Nico gets jealous of a toy that Anya has and takes it away from her, and sometimes he gets jealous of Mommy and Anya time and wants more time with Mommy, but for the most part, he hasn't been very jealous and has taken well to his baby sister.  It also helps that Anya takes long naps, so when she is asleep and Nico is awake, I get to really focus on Nico and give him good Mommy-son time.

Below is Nico having a fun morning yesterday at Columbia Park in Torrance.  We go by Columbia Park on the way to Nico's preschool, and he's been asking us to take him to it.  It finally worked out to take a trip there, and he had a blast.  While we were there, a Vietnamese man brought us some toys he had in his car that he said his sons don't use anymore.  Shortly after that, several other kids came to play at the park (a mom with a Hispanic boy she was babysitting and an Asian lady with two 3-yr old twins), so all the kids played with the toys together, and then at the end we divided them up and each took some of them home.

I gave Anya water in a bottle for the first time yesterday after lunch.  She loved it and drank an ounce.

She's also starting to eat more finger foods and has eaten Cheerios, Mum Mums, and several different types of Gerber puffs.  She has a lot of trouble still with grasping banana chunks.  Here is her first time eating steamed carrots.  She ate most of them up!

December 1, 2015

 Nico enjoying a yummy turkey-decorated sugar cookie from Beckers Bakery in Manhattan Beach.  They make the best sugar cookies.

 

Homemade lumpia and cassava cake from Joy Bakery in Carson for cultural day at Nico's preschool.  This was my second time ever making lumpia.

Nico excited about the red fish magnet his girlfriend, Elizabeth, made him and sent him from North Carolina.

 

 On Thanksgiving Day, we drove up to Santa Maria to visit dear friends of ours, the Vandrey family, who used to live near us and attend our church.  Here we are making a pit stop for lunch at a bagel shop.

The drive up to Santa Maria was very pretty and relaxing.

Uncle John was able to drive from Phoenix and join us for Thanksgiving week and weekend.  Here are Uncle John and Nico playing with the toys that the Vandreys' son, Samuel, picked out for Nico.

Here is Auntie Lola, our very gracious host, who prepared a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner for us.  This is my favorite picture of Lola and Anya.

Anya on her first Thanksgiving Day

 Anya and Mommy on Thanksgiving

 Anya, Mommy, and Uncle John on Thanksgiving Day

Master Nico chilling at the Best Western hotel on Thanksgiving night

 The day after Thanksgiving, we had the blessing of visiting Solvang for the first time since the month before I got pregnant with Nico.  It was fun to take our kids there for the first time, and it was also a treat that our last time we had been in Solvang, we had spent with Steve and Patty, and now our first time back we also got to spend with Steve and Patty.  Nico and Auntie Patty really had fun hanging out together on this trip.  And, Anya was excited, too, that she got to see her Godmother Patty and Godfather Steve.

 The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we were blessed by an invitation to have dinner with the Krauses at their house.  Nico, Sean, and Luke had a blast together.

And, Anya got to spend time with her godmother.

November 19, 2015

It's hard to find time to blog on every single day that I take pictures, so here are some pictures from several different days.

 Ms. Anya loves to stand, and she can keep herself standing while holding on with only one hand.  She wants to move back and forth on the rails but needs to learn to use her legs.

 Evening story time with Daddy

Looking for bright red berries in pods that fell from the tree

We were able to take a short trip to Dominguez park in the afternoon.  This is the park where buddy Zak plays baseball sometimes, and it has a dog park adjacent to it.  We ran into a lady named Jodie, and her daughter, Kinney, who we had met several years ago when they visited our church one Sunday.

 Anya's first time eating Cheerios.  She got some of them in her mouth but most ended up on the floor.

 This morning, we were invited to his friend, Sophia's, pumpkin party at La Paz Parkette.

Nico's really into spelling his name lately.

November 15, 2015

 

It's finally cold enough to light the fireplace!

Nico and his buddy, Ryan, playing together at Wilson Park.  This is the only time Nico sat still long enough for a picture.

Meanwhile, while Nico and Mommy were having fun at Wilson park, Daddy was at home taking excellent care of Anya.

Some friends we got to know through seeing each other at the neighborhood parks just brought over this box they had made for their daughter but that she was done playing with.

November 8, 2015

It's been a while since I've updated the blog, so here are all the noteworthy pictures that we've taken since the last post.

 Nico excited to receive his fall fun package from Grandma Karen and Grandpa Hank!  Anya was excited for her gifts, too.

A fortress that Nico built

Nico at his preschool's harvest festival that they had at the end of his first week.

 There were games for the children to play.

 The teachers had an orange theme for the kids.

 Uncle John came to visit during Halloween weekend!  Here we see Uncle John and Nico enjoying olives for lunch.

Nico loved being a red crayon and having his uncle go trick or treating with him!

Anya had fun taking everything in going trick or treating as a sailor girl for her first Halloween.  We trick or treated down Marshallfield and then back up Pullman Lane, and then Nico and Daddy went by the Koses house afterwards.

A cute, silly pic that Daddy took of Anya

 Nico loves to build things.

 We had been planning to join Nico's friend, Ben, in Santa Monica on his walk to raise money for the immunodeficiency foundation, as his friend Ben has a genetic disease in which he does not have an immune system, but Tim, Nico, and Anya were all sick with colds, so we couldn't join them.  Therefore, we wore our Team Ben shirts and did the walk around our neighborhood.