New Years Eve

We decided that New Years Eve should be more of a day-time holiday this year since it's not that feasible to keep Jack out until midnight or get a sitter until late so we could go to a party. We instead hit the coast and got lucky with the most sunny, least windy beach day I've ever seen in Northern California. We were actually too hot and wished we had shorts and t-shirts! Amazing. 

 Enjoying sandwiches and running wild

                                         A pout, and 36 weeks pregnant                                         

 Licking the sand-beard off and commentating his own climbing experience

 Found a river inlet into the ocean with no waves. Jackson played there for almost 40 minutes, despite the fridge water. Dan said he was getting a head ache from the water being so cold, but Jack didn't care at all.

 Falling in, throwing sticks and rocks.

 Getting cleaned up and dry in the car. Too bad Daddy had to drive home with wet jeans since he doesn't bring changes of clothes everywhere like Jack does.

Unsuspecting...

Union Square Christmas

A fun day in Union Square with my mom, sister, and Jackie. The parking and crowds were horrendous, but a warm SF day, beautiful decor, and a few stories to take with us.

Christmastime in Redwood City

We did a few festive things this weekend, which felt a little weird in the tee-shirt weather we're having, but nice nonetheless. Downtown Redwood City has an annual winter festival and it was pretty chaotic with parking and homeless-looking people roaming around with large donkeys, but we enjoyed wandering around for a little while, having corndogs, and Jackson liked watching the carnival rides that he had no interest in trying to go on himself. Here he is playing in the snow pile they brought in.

 The line for pics with Santa was predictably long and we skipped it. I'm not a huge Santa person because I wasn't raised believing in Santa so it all seems so odd to me, but Dan believed when he was little and enjoyed the thrill of it. We're trying to have a little Santa for Jackson, but we'll probably not try to convince him that he's real and just admit up front that he's a pretend friend. I'm terrible at deception anyway so he'd probably figure it out before 3 anyway.

We also took a stroll down our favorite San Carlos street that does over-the-top house decorations. So fun this year now that Jack loves the lights. We plan to go back several times this season.

 Here's a few of the same event last year with 6 month old Jack tucked into Daddy's coat.

  And the same spot this year with a growing family

Even better than pictures with a live Santa!

  One of his favorite sounds to make is the "choo-choo" of a train.

We also got our tree up, but no pictures of that yet. Jack's doing an ok job of not attacking it constantly and pulling off ornaments, but I can tell that he's battling the urge constantly.

Halloween Parade

These are 2 videos of Jackson in his first "parade." It's a Halloween parade around the student housing at Stanford where we trick-or-treated. It was silly and fun.

Baby Girl Update

I have been a little overwhelmed by the volume of photos I have and how tired I feel to keep very up-to-date on blogging the last few month. But I hope to rebound and continue to log the adventures of our family.

We are now past the 32 week mark in the pregnancy, meaning that if baby had to be born now the chances are very good that she would do just fine in the outside world, with medical assistance of course. These milestones are a relief as I occasionally worry that everything will be generally ok with the pregnancy and delivery.

Baby Girl is about 4 lbs (the size of a large jicama for those of us who measure babies in terms of vegetables) and the doctor just confirmed that she's now head down and will probably stay that way until the end, meaning that most kicking now takes place in my cramped rib-cage. I'm starting to get the aches and pains that come with getting huge at the end, but so far this second time around has felt better than the first. I attibute a lot of that to being on my feet, moving throughout the day instead of sitting at a desk 8+ hours a day getting back aches like I did last time. The doc joked that I could eat whatever I wanted at the holidays this year since I'm actually trying to pack the pounds on, and kidding or not, I plan on taking that green light seriously.

We have a repeat C-section scheduled in mid-Jan, but we're going to wait and see if I go into labor naturally before that date and determine whether I'm doing a "trial of labor" or not with this one. She's measuring pretty small, so I might have a chance, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Also, we finally picked a name for her! I'm still debating a little bit with the middle name and I might start asking for opinions on that since I've been unable to reach a decision.

Pumpkin Patch

We got to the pumpkin patch as soon as we could in October since Half Moon Bay gets swamped with visitors all month looking for harvest activities. I was really looking forward to it this year since Jackson can interact with the experience so much more now. But as usual, he was cautious, slow to warm up and smile, but overall had a pleasant experience. I have to keep remembering that I don't have a kid that transitions quickly or is jumping off the walls with excitement and giggles, and yet he has a very nice time in his way at his pace.

Jackson was obsessed with these huge metal statues all over the patch. He enjoyed them more than the pumpkins

 Searching for the perfect pumpkin

 Look, I got a smile

 Roaming the corn fields. Maybe in a few years he'll be ready for the corn maze.

 Climbing the bales of hay

 Eating his favorite snack as usual - cheddar bunnies

 So into the statues

 He didn't really want to share his seat with the pumpkin, but he tolerated it just this once.