Re: Holiday cheer

This month has been predictably crazy, with holiday parties and events, plus still attempting to get ourselves settled.

Here are our two sweet boys one sunshiny morning.
Ranier seems to be enjoying solid foods more and more. And the messier the better...
Dahrius also enjoys breakfast. Juice is a special treat when sick.
Mina and Monty hosted a lovely holiday party with tasty tapas made by a friend, a Spanish chef. Here we are with our friend Eric, also with 2 kiddies (thankfully off having fun with the other kids).
Ahrash's old friend Nank, with baby Jake (just 2 months older than Ranier), plus neighbors Bonnie and Bill.
The ladies of the evening...plus baby Ranier!

Re: Santa fun and new house!

One of the greatest things about our new house is being so close to grandparents!! Last weekend was lovely weather and Mina (Maman) and Monty (Baba) took Dahrius for an adventure (AKA: walk) around the neighborhood.

Lovely fall colors and a little rest.
Dahrius is already learning to carry his own water here.
We all attended (except Ahrash) Monty's annual Christmas party at UCSF for the gastroenterology group. Despite some initial worry about driving to SF during rush hour around the kids' bedtimes, a good time was had by all. Both kids were quite well-behaved and charmed everyone with their cuteness, though Dahrius quickly ditched his nice shoes and untucked his shirt.

Here Ranier was demonstrating his reach by grabbing someone's nose (a favorite trick of his).

Maman and Dahrius goofing around.
A big highlight of the party was a visit by Santa! Dahrius was very excited at first (once he heard about Santa and the toys), but was then scared, and then once his name was called for a present of his very own...was over his fear enough to claim his present. It was his first time to see Santa Claus, that I recall. Santa was a grad student or postdoc who was not very experienced in costume. He was snickering (not ho-ho-hoing) and kept losing his hat and was actually one of the funniest Santa's I've encountered. He even got into a tugging match with one of the older children who sort of grabbed his present out-of-turn. It was hilarious. Luckily, most of the kids were <5 and didn't get it.
The boys clowning around in one of the best play spots in the house (Dahrius' room...where nearly all the toys are). Dahrius plays and Ranier is largely amused just watching.
I rolled (pretty fast) this tennis ball towards Ranier half a dozen times, and he caught it quite accurately every time. He is very coordinated!

Dahriusism of the day: Ranier was eating some avocado at dinner and we were talking about what he can and can't eat. We mentioned "persimmon"that Ranier DOES eat and Dahrius said, "well, he can't have "gerlimmon." When I asked him what a "gerlimmon" was, he confidently described it as a small thing that exists deep underground and is about the size of a marsupial. That's why so few people eat it, because it's very tiny and so hard to find. ...in case any of you were wondering what a "gerlimmon" was.

November news

Much has happened this month! You'll see some earlier photos from the trip to Tucson, plus some of the fall when we were at Mina and Monty's (Mamam and Baba). We also had a wonderful visit from the Uhls family and a great time was had by all. We celebrated Chloe's 8th birthday with the "American Girl" theme, Walker and Dahrius cemented their relationship as the fun boys, and the adults even had fun.

With Mina gone to Paris, Monty, Ahrash, Megan and the boys had a very low-key and wonderful thanksgiving at the Euclid house with a delicious heritage turkey, sweet potato gratin, green beans, good bread, and apple pie. After not overeating and enjoying our mellow day, we took a nice hike in Tilden Park.

After Thanksgiving we spent the night at our new house!!! It's been very slow going moving in, because we only have snippets of time and then the kids go to bed and we can't very well move heavy furniture and make lots of noise...so weeks later we are still largely living out of boxes. But little by little, we are becoming more settled. It's great!

Dahrius and the gorgeous fall Persimmon tree
the boys sharing a snooze...
Our trip to Tucson: Sara and Mikis--lovely in pink!
Nana and Mr. trike
Trike boy
A snack break on our hike in Tooky
Walker doesn't quite know what to make of this new cousin of his...
These two were like best of friends this trip. They were definitely on the same wavelength and were having a blast together!
The lovely birthday girl and her lovely mom. The big EIGHT!!
Cuties.
The four famous kids.
Chloe's new American girl doll, Felicity. What a birthday!!
Cake!!!!!!!
Maman and little Ranier.
Here are my teeth, and my winning smile. I always go shopping with my mom and dad and win over the salespeople so that mom and dad get good deals. Not for hire.

Re: trip to Tucson

We had a great time visiting Nana and Papi..and other family in Tucson. Here are the 2 wonderful grandchildren with their wonderful grandparents!

Nana had a full schedule for us with lots of kid-centered activities. On our first full day, we headed to the world-famous desert museum. Dahrius was entranced with the rattlers, and many of them were very active. We also saw a snoozing mountain lion, bighorn sheep, an ocelot, lots of great cacti, a kestral, and a Chihuahuan Raven.

Dahrius' little cousin Miki lent her tricycle, and Dahrius pedaled all over downtown, to parks, to the children's museum, and to the nearby bike shop for a tune up (below).

Ranier found toy-heaven when the flight attendant gave us a bag of pretzels or some other junky item. It is really card to replicate the sound of a crinkly plastic bag, and Ranier was finally allowed to put the coveted item in his mouth (too big to choke on)

A little floor play at the Hall house. All the boys seem to be content!

We went one day to Mary Clare and Andy's (and great-grandpa and Sara and Gabe and Mikis') place and they had a cool day-of-the-dead alter. Yummy chocolate and peanut butter skulls!

We also went on a lovely hike around the neighborhood. It was a hot NOv. day, but we all enjoyed ourselves. Mikis and Dahrius really hit it off!

Here's a group shot of the hikers. Dahrius had an extra-fun time with Uncle Aaron playing hide & seek and generally being silly. When D was a little tyke, he called him "Uncle Urnt"...which somehow evolved on this trip to "Uncle Certainly."
Grandma and baby.
Grandpa and baby.
Not so sure if Ranier likes peas...

We had a nice walk with old family friends, Christina's baby, Munai, is just weeks younger than Ranier.

The grandma's and their babies (Jenny and Anne-Marie)


Dahrius wall hiking at the nearby playground.

Halloween!!!

Halloween was finally here after watching and counting off days on the calendar. Dahrius was very excited to put on his lion costume and have an excuse to play dress-up. WE had big events planned for the day. First was the Halloween parade at school where all the children wore their costumes and then they sang songs with Madeline, their music teacher. And of course later there was trick-or-treating!

Here are the kids walking out of the classroom for the parade. You can spot the little lion!



Dahrius soon tired of wearing his hood, so he sat for songs without it. You can see he also smudged his lion nose and whiskers by now.

Here are some of his classmates and one of his teachers, Nancy behind him. She is dressed as autumn or a tree or something.


Here is Julian, Jessica's little 3-month old in his Pooh costume. I had planned to also dress up Ranier as a bear, but he was too tired and cranky when time came for trick-or-treating. INstead, I put him to bed and answered the door for kids while Maman took Dahrius out trick-or-treating.

Here he is all ready to go--next to our jack-o-lantern.

Maman with our little lion. Dahrius asked me if I was going to dress up for Halloween, and I said that adults don't typically dress up, though they can. I said that maybe next year I would dress up, and he replied, "Well, you better ask Nana to get you a costume." Nana seems to be the official supplier of Halloween costumes.

More photos of the AZ trip coming soon....