3.29.2007

Oh, Mexico


We are back from five days in Sayulita, Mexico, where we did almost nothing all day. Unless you count napping, Sudoku, and People magazine as doing something, in which case, we were incredibly busy. My arms are completely exhausted from dipping all those chips into guacamole.

Here are the pictures.

People seem to be pretty interested in where we stayed. This year, since it was just the three of us, we got a two bedroom condo in the center of town. It is one block from the beach and the front door sits under a tree full of 24" long iguanas. The place was called Casa Siestas y Olas and having a separate bedroom for Julian was fantastic. Last year, we stayed in a huge house called Casa Bouganvillea with Doug and Sharon. There was tons of space for hanging out, and a gorgeous view, but it only slept four adults. We put Julian's crib in the bathroom, and we all slept horribly. Lesson learned.

Ryan surfed for about an hour each day. We tried to teach Julian to enjoy the sand and water, but he had to adapt to the setting at his own pace. Mostly he was distracted by how dirty his hands were getting, until the last couple of days when he finally got into it and acted the way we think a two-year old should act at the beach: delighted.

We also gave Julian his first ice cream cone. The next day, when we walked by the bench where he had eaten the cone, he sat on it and said, "I have a snack now." I pulled some crackers out of my purse and offered them to him. "No," he shouted, "I have ice cream cone!" Okaay.

3.20.2007

Phonics lessons from Julian


Thanks to the brilliant LeapFrog-produced DVD The Letter Factory, Julian knows all the sounds that letters make. This doesn't mean he's ready for Kindergarten or anything, he just has a faint notion that "D is for Daddy" has something to do with saying "Duh-duh-daddy." When I get tired of talking about Thomas the Train, sometimes I tell him about the initial letters of his favorite words.

Recently, he's schooled me on a few letter sounds that I was confused about. Direct quotes from Julian:

  • "Emily" starts with "M"
  • "Our house" starts with "R"
  • "Theo" starts with "O"
In other news, we are headed to Mexico for vacation where we'll see who understands more Spanish: Julian with five months of bilingual daycare and a two-year old's grasp of English or Whitney with a minor in Spanish Language and Literature and advanced fluency in English? Or, perhaps it will be Ryan who doesn't get tripped up by vocabulary and just looks at facial expressions and hand gestures.

3.09.2007

Baby pants & hat made from t-shirt

I couldn't help myself. After I made pants and a hat for Heather's boys out of a no-longer-a -favorite Banana Republic sweater of Ryan's, I just had to make something for our household, too. Starting with... this salmon-colored J.Crew shirt.
I posted a tutorial for making the hat on RookieMoms.com, and the pants -- well, they're just the sleeves of the same shirt sewn together with a button added.

So here they are - Baby Girl M-C's first handmade clothes. 100% recycled, to boot. How Berkeley can you be?
Excuse the hat model. We don't have any life-sized babydolls.

3.07.2007

Back porch action

'Tabblo: