Two Days of Thanksgiving

Normally on Thanksgiving, Jeff and I try to fit in multiple family visits into one day.  This year though, with Renee in tow, we decided to go a bit easier on ourselves.  Well, that was the plan anyway :D

To start our two day holiday celebration off we packed up the car and headed to Briones Regional Park in Pleasant Hill on Thursday morning for a hike.  The weather was beautiful and the dogs had a great time running around on the trail and chasing the ball.  Renee also enjoyed the hike, she just loves being outdoors for any reason, especially if she gets to watch the dogs run around.  I wore her in my front pack and zipped my fleece jacket up over her legs so she was nice and cozy warm.  

After the dogs were tired, we drove up to my parents house for my family's Thanksgiving dinner. There were a ton of people (19) and a ton of food (enough to feed a small army).

Renee is pretty comfortable at my parents house now, and even though she only sees them about once a month, I can tell she recognizes her Grandma and Grandpa.  But when everyone else arrived she was a little overwhelmed.  It took her a while, but she warmed up to the idea of getting to know all those relatives and ended up having a great time.

Playing with cousin Credence.

Hanging out with Uncle Dave.

Chatting with cousins Olivia and Loren.

The next morning we just relaxed and let Renee play and practice crawling.  She has been working on it for a while now and about two weeks ago she figured out how to push herself up from laying on her tummy to sitting up on her butt.  So we knew she was close.

Look at that concentration.  Tongue out, just like her Daddy!

She's also been practicing her standing lately, of course she always needs something (or someone) to hang on to for balance :D

Then for lunch on Friday we went to Jeff's parent's house in Dublin. 

Grandpa Earl and the kitty, Ted 2.

Grandma Karen was so happy to see her.

After spending the afternoon with Jeff's parents we went over to my step-mom's house in Pleasanton for dinner.

Grandma Lynne and Lacey dog.

Uncle Sam.

While we were there, we let Renee play a bit on the floor.  She REALLY wanted this metal pumpkin decoration that was on Lynne's coffee table, so we put it on the floor just out of her reach and....

SHE CRAWLED!!!!!!

It was really slow, and not very far, and she looked more like a lobster than a baby, but she crawled for the first time :D  It was very exciting!  Of course Renee was just happy she got to the pumpkin.  

We went back to my parents' house to spend one more night and then came home Saturday afternoon.  It was a tiring 2 1/2 days, but very fun and well worth all the driving to see our family for the holiday.

In other Renee news, she is also getting very good at waving and saying "hi", although it sounds more like "haaaaaaa".  But, she's working on it :)  Oh, and Jeff put up some more pictures and a movie on her gallery page, so go check them out.

If a baby pulls herself up and no one is around to see it, did she really stand on her own?

Yesterday, when I picked Renee up from daycare, all of the teachers were so excited because Renee had used a bench to pull herself up from sitting to standing for the first time.  The catch was that no one saw it.  They left her sitting on her own, they all got distracted with helping other babies, and when they looked over at Renee she was standing!

Initially I was excited too, but when I was driving home and thinking about this HUGE thing that my baby girl did, I started getting really sad.  I wasn't there to see her stand up on her own for the 1st time!  The fact that no one else saw it was only a little bit of a consolation, and a very selfish one at that!!

She's growing soooo fast, and of course I'm not going to be there to see every new thing she does, as much as I want to.  And I can only imagine how Jeff feels, he barely gets to see her at all during the week; maybe 15 or 20 minutes every morning, and then sometimes he gets home after she goes to bed at night.

Obviously we can't stop her from growing, so we just have to enjoy every second with her as much as we can before she moves on to the next big thing.  And of course take pictures, tons and tons of pictures :D

And more for my own memory keeping than anything else, here are some of Renee's most current milestones (besides the whole standing thing):

• She can say mama now, although it's more like, "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma" 
• She can also say dada and daaah (translation: dog, she LOVES the dogs) 
• Her 1st tooth is coming in!
• She can point and poke at things with her index finger (seems trivial, but it's an important one)
• She's beginning to depend less on putting everything in her mouth and starting to actually explore what else she can do with them (i.e. shaking rattles, banging things together, etc.)
• And finally, she's getting more and more adorable every single day :D

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.  ~Dr. Seuss

Her first Halloween!

I wasn't even going to get Renee a costume this year, she wouldn't know what was going on anyway.  But, my own guilt and a chat with a good friend pushed me over the edge.  So, on Wednesday, only 4 days before Halloween, I took Renee to one of those Spirit Superstores in Sacramento.  What a madhouse that place was!  They had no cute costumes left for babies, and the ones they did have were $30!!!  NO way was I going to spend that much on something she was only going to wear one time and that she wouldn't even remember.

So, then we went to Target, who was selling their very limited selection of costumes they had left at 30% off.  I ended up getting a flower costume for infants 0-6 months old.  Too small for Renee, of course, but that's all they had and I knew I could fix it.  $10.50 on the costume and about 30 minutes with my seam ripper and sewing machine later and my baby girl had her very first Halloween costume.  Not bad, if I do say so myself :D

She wore it to daycare on Thursday for their Fall Harvest Festival.  I knew they were having this festival, and they said costumes were optional, but EVERY single baby was dressed up!  

Renee with her teacher Erika and friends from daycare.

I was so glad I ended up getting a costume for Renee, she would have been the only one not dressed up if I hadn't.

Playing with a baby pumpkin at the Harvest Festival

On Friday, we were supposed to go to my parent's house for dinner, but I ended up getting a major headache (rare for me) and so we stayed home and relaxed instead.

On Saturday, we had dinner with some great friends.  She wore her Halloween shirt that said, "Daddy is under my Spell".  Which, he is!

Happy with Steve O., and that's Katie in the background.

Hanging out with Jane and Steve.

On Sunday, we had breakfast in Vacaville with Jeff's mom and some of her friends.  Then we went home to do some chores before my mom came over to spend the afternoon with us.  And Renee wore her "Baby's 1st Halloween" shirt.   We can thank the local children's consignment store for all her Halloween themed shirts :D

Watching the Giants game with Grandma Denise.

There were only a handful of Trick-or-Treaters, but Renee did enjoy seeing their interesting costumes.  And after such a long and event filled weekend, she was pooped!

All of that Halloween fun made for a very tired baby!!

Cousins, cousins, and coming soon, even more cousins!

Over the weekend Renee and I went to my cousin Rachel and her fiance Lindsey's baby shower.  They're going to have a baby boy, and his name is going to be Jaden!  There are actually three babies due on that side of my family (my cousin Jennifer is having a girl and my cousin Maryann is having a surprise), and they are all due within the next 3 months!!!

Renee and her great-grandma Ferguson.  And that's Rachel and Lindsey in the background :D

Renee and her cousin Ashley at Rachel and Lindsey's baby shower.

On top of that, Jeff's brother Eric and his girlfriend Veronica just had a baby boy, Baby Eric, a month ago.

Me holding baby Eric, and Veronica's cousin holding Renee.

All of these babies being born are in some form or another cousins to Renee.  So, I started thinking about how many cousins she actually has?  And the answer is A LOT!!!  I had to make an Excel spreadsheet to count them all and keep their exact cousin titles straight, and these are just the ones that we stay in contact with.

Here's the count:
1st Cousins: 1
1st Cousins, once removed:  25 
2nd Cousins: 4, soon to be 7
1st Cousins, twice removed: 2
2nd Cousins, once removed: 3
3rd Cousins: 2

Grand Total: 37, soon to be 40 cousins!!!  Eight of which will actually be around the right age for Renee to play with at family functions.  Pretty crazy!  And there are more out there, many more, we just don't keep in contact with them, so I'm not counting them.

Oh, and if you're not quite sure what all the cousin terminology (once removed, twice removed, etc.) means, check out this site:  Cousin Relationships (I'm always explaining it to people, but this site has a good visual lesson).

Toys, unfortunately, are a necessity.

Before becoming a parent, I always had this idea that I would not overwhelm my child with a million toys.  Our friends and family who had children before us seemed to lose their house to an avalanche of toys.  Everywhere you looked was another annoying blinking noisy plastic thing!  How?  Why?  No, that would not be us!!!! I will just let my child play with kitchen utensils and cardboard boxes.

Then came Renee.  Our beautiful, precious, darling angel.  Our princess.  Our love.  Our slap in the face reality check.  And finally, after years of wondering, I understood.  If you give the baby an annoying blinky noisy plastic thing then you can get the dishes washed, or you can take a shower, or maybe, just maybe you can write a blog post (something which seems to always be last on the "to-do" list)!!!  And then the toys are no longer annoying; they are magical, they are amazing, they are life savers.  Alright, maybe I'm being a little dramatic here, but I think you get my point :D

Don't get me wrong, kitchen utensils held their ground strong for a long time in this house.  Renee enjoyed many hours of sucking on, waving about and banging the array spoons, spatulas, whisks and measuring cups that call our kitchen drawer home.

But, those have become old news to her and so last weekend I went to a local children's consignment store and bought her some used (well, new to her - and that is all that's important) toys to play with.  And she loves them!!!  And I love them!!!  And Jeff, well, he's still concerned that our house is going to be overrun with toys.  And maybe it will, but we'll worry about that when we get there.

Responsible Parenting

Yesterday Renee and I went to my graduate group's annual Welcome Dinner to meet this year's incoming class and to re-connect with some of the other graduate students in our group.

While I was chatting with a new student, Renee was sitting on my lap wildly grabbing at her beer bottle.  It's always so cute watching her chubby little arms stretching out, and her long chubby little fingers wiggling away, desperately grasping at whatever object her mind is set on at the moment!  When the student (sorry, I don't remember her name, I'm horrible with names) was done with her beer I asked if Renee could have the bottle so she could slobber it up.

Another student saw Renee sucking on the beer bottle and "had to take a picture!" on his iPhone.  He sent it to me with the subject line: "Responsible Parenting"

The picture turned out really cute :D  I love how serious she is about it!

And with all the hype about BPAs and other chemicals in plastics, letting my daughter suck on a glass bottle is responsible parenting :D

Apple Hill

On Sunday we went to High Hill Ranch in Placerville with our friends Jason & Jodi and their kids Keira and Jackson.  The ranch is part of an area called Apple Hill, an association of local apple growers, vineyards and christmas tree growers.  It was our first time there, but apparently it's a popular destination if you live in Northern California because everyone I mentioned it too was like, "Ohh, I LOVE Apple Hill!!  They have the best pie, fudge, cider, donuts, etc..." or "That place is great, we go there every year!"

Anyway, we had a great time.  We brought stuff to have a picnic lunch on the lawn by a man-made duck pond - Renee's first picnic :D

Family portrait.

We were sitting on a slope and I was worried that if Renee fell forward (which she does on occasion, she's quite top heavy) that she'd just topple on down the hill into the pond.  So, I sat below her the whole time just in case.  She only fell once though, right into the cheese plate (we were done with the cheese, thankfully), it was pretty funny :D

Keira & Renee looking so cute together!

There were only two ducks in the pond, and they were the fattest ducks we've ever seen, so they really had no interest in any food we had to offer.  That didn't stop Keira and Jackson from trying and they still had fun throwing bread in the pond!

Jason, Jackson and Keira "feeding" the ducks.

The weather turned out to be perfect.  The forecast had said 60% showers, but it just sprinkled a bit on our drive, and it was beautiful for the rest of the day.

Me, Renee, Keira and Jodi

Keira got her face painted and got to go on a pony ride.

And there was a cute little playground for the kids.

Keira & Jackson playing in the sand box.

Renee really wished she was big enough to run around with Keira and Jackson, but she had to settle for watching from my lap.  Pretty soon baby girl!!

And, of course, we got some apple pie for dessert.  It was okay, not great, mine is better (and Jeff agrees - I didn't bully him into that opinion, honest!)  They did have good apple donuts though :D

At the end of the day we drove into downtown Placerville and checked out some of the cute little shops on Main St. before having some super yummy pot-pies at Z-Pie.

It was a great Sunday!