Halloween Preview

We are completely pooped! This weekend we visited with friends and family in Oakland and Berkeley, on three different occasions. Claire officially went to a theme park for the first time, a place called Children's Fairyland in Oakland. She really seemed to like the kiddie carousel, and all the craziness of children screaming and running around. Claire donned her monkey costume, which we will break out again for Halloween this coming weekend. So don't worry, there'll be better quality monkey photos soon!

Claire has been fighting a cold this week, which includes a hefty cough for the first time. She's on the mend and will hopefully be feeling 100% for trick-or-treating.

Pumpkin at the Pumpkin Festival

For Halloween Claire is going to be a monkey. But what better way to dress up for the pumpkin festival in Half Moon Bay than to wear a big orange pumpkin suit. Claire picked it out, so don't blame the parents. So yeah, we dressed her as a pumpkin and put her in the BoB and then made her do a 10K with us. Sarah and I managed to navigate the full 6.2 miles without hitting any of the pumpkin-loving runners with the stroller, an amazing feat given the fact that both the 5K and 10K run along the same narrow path. Anyway, neither of us tried to set any records, we just wanted to see what it was like to run a race with the baby and I'll mark this off in the success category. Claire was cordial and didn't really complain during the race but I do think she growled at a few runners. This proved to be a good technique, because after hearing the growl and turning around to see the cute little pumpkin, most of the time the runners would step to the side and let us pass.

After the race, Claire continued to look cute and we headed over to the festival for our annual tradition of eating pumpkin pancakes. Of course the festival is more than just pancakes, but if you ask me once you've seen one 1500lb pumpkin you've seen them all. Farmer Mike and his title of "World Class Pumpkin Carver" continues to impress and the endless line of artsy booths is worth looking at (but as I like to say this is my least favorite part of the festival). In the following photo, you can tell that Claire was astounded by the delicious pumpkin pancakes, which she is wearing all over her lips.

A trip to the Half Moon Bay pumpkin fest is not complete without visiting a pumpkin patch and we picked out two great big pumpkins at the first patch we saw.
Sarah had fun too. She even got to reminisce about being pregnant:

We had dreamed all year long about how exciting Claire's first visit to a pumpkin patch would be. We imagined her being pulled in a wagon through endless rows of pumpkins, sitting on barrels of hay, poking all the scarecrows and lawn ornaments. However, all the prior excitement of the run and festival tired her out! Instead of enjoying the patch, she just slept the whole time and never even saw it.

It's Raining Teeth

Another day... Another Tooth. Two teeth in two days.

Bring on the Tooth Fairy

Breaking Headline News:

CLAIRE GOT HER FIRST TOOTH! 10/16/2009 IS A BIG DAY FOR CLAIRE
Its the front middle tooth on the bootom. Woo hoo!

Growing Pains

When Claire was 3 months old she and I went to a few "mommy and baby" yoga classes. After the classes all of the mommies and babies would sit in a circle and we'd share little anecdotes with the group. I remember one of the mothers crying in despair over the fact that her baby girl was growing up too fast and she wanted her daughter to stay just as she was at 9 months old. At the time I was thinking "geez somebody's feeling hormonal". But now I must admit that I completely understand! Everyday I find myself telling Claire how much I'm going to miss her at this age, and getting teary-eyed. It's got alot to do with how cute she looks standing in her crib lately, all proud and smiling. She definitely has a sense of accomplishment and we can't help but get excited too, even if she should be napping instead of pulling up to standing. I never want to forget this!

Wining not whining

We got up Saturday morning and thought "hey let's go to Napa just for the heck of it"! So off we went, strategically driving during Claire's morning nap-time. Our first stop was V. Sattui winery in Napa since we like their picnicking grounds and lunch options. We laid out a blanket and plopped Claire down on it, and within a minute she was already trying to eat dirt:



We explained to her that there are much better things to eat than dirt. So she moved on to the wine:

We explained to her that she is much too young to be trying wine. Instead, she practiced pulling herself up to standing, using Daddy's legs for leverage.

V. Sattui was the perfect place to relax and nap in the sunshine. Afterwards we went for a hike in Bothe Napa Valley State Park, where you can find redwoods even this far east. We didn't get any views of the valley however, so the next day we went to Sugarloaf Ridge State Park and hiked up to Bald Peak for views of both Sonoma and Napa, as well as San Francisco.

After the hike we stopped at Viansa Vineyards for a picnic lunch. It's perched up on a hill and has amazing views. Claire couldn't find any dirt to eat but she did go to town eating her teething biscuit, and using it as a medium for "painting" Daddy's jeans.

Thursdays are back!

I've decided to go back to working 3 days a week (instead of 4) at least until Claire is a year old at the end of January. For our blog readers, this will likely mean more posts for you to enjoy! For me it means more time with Claire and more time for exercising and cooking. (You don't even want to know how often we've eaten Taco Bell in the past couple of months) I feel VERY lucky to be able to do this and have my awesome husband to thank for this extra time! He really is amazing you know. I think he has a superman cape hidden underneath his work attire.

This week we have been working on getting Claire to return to her old sleeping routine. It took a few AWFUL nights of screaming before she started sleeping through the night again but I think we're back on track. (It is so hard to listen to her scream in the other room!) I'm not going to prematurely declare victory yet though...

Claire is relying on her teething rings alot lately, for pain relief and for entertainment. It goes like this: teether in the mouth, teether banged the floor, teether in the mouth, teether banged on Sasha's head, teether in the mouth, teether banged on the coffee table, etc. I am so impressed with Sasha's patience. She gets bopped on the head and she does nothing.

Now don't freak out, but here is a photo of something other than Claire! I'm experimenting with a succulent garden, since everything else that I have planted in this pot has expired. It looks cute and still green so far.

Manipulating the Parents

Our daughter is only 8 months old and unfortunately for us has figured out how to manipulate her parents. The best example is sleeping. Whenever we put her down she cries immediately. Pick her up and she stops crying immediately. Put her back down and she cries again. She's even started to raise her hands and sit up and look cute to show us that she's not ready for bed. The first question you might have is whether we're simply trying to put her to bed too early? Seems logical, but we've now conducted a scientific experiment to prove otherwise. For the last 7 consecutive nights we've tried to put her down at various times starting around 8pm and every 15 minutes after that until she falls asleep. Each time we put her down she cries and we stupidly believe she's just not ready for bed yet. I mean, an 8 month old doesn't have the capacity to manipulate us yet right? Wrong... she's figured us out. If she cries, we pick her back up and this means she gets to stay up as late ast 10pm. Last night she even tried to test us out at 2am. She started crying so we went in to check on her. She was okay, so we left her. Long story short, after an hour or so of crying we finally won out by shutting off the baby monitor so we couldn't hear her and she eventually fell asleep. We sure showed her. It truly is a great feeling when you make the concious decision to put your foot down and ignore your crying baby. We'll try it again tonight if she cries since she went to bed on her own at 7pm. Wait... 7pm? Yes 7pm and with no fuss at all. And yet another sign that she is manipulating us because she was home with a babysitter and I guess she just figured she's never cried and made the babysitter apperar so she might as well sleep. All of this makes me worry about what she will be like as a teenager...

Some other family news..
It appears that Sarah is actually an Angel. Here is proof from our hike today at Long Ridge along Skyline boulevard:

Brian is still weird and likes to pretend to eat random objects just to show off for the camera. And as you can see from the picture, Claire is just bored with his immaturity.

Claire has already gotten bored with crawling and has quickly moved on to the next step and is trying to pull her self up to standing on any object she can find:

And today's trivia question... Can you find Claire in the picture below? (Hint: She is wearing purple)

Another crawling video

Daddy's back from his business trip and Claire's ready to follow him anywhere. Especially if he entices her with his cell phone, which she loves! We're so glad she's beaten the stomach bug and is back to her old self.

Under the weather but still truckin'

Poor Claire has a stomach bug (we think -- no fever but some vomiting) so she and mommy are staying home today. We saw a very unhelpful pediatrician on Monday when Claire was uncharacteristically lethargic, who said that it could be a cold, the hot weather, stomach bug, teething, growth spurt, or any combination of the above. Way to narrow it down! Anyway, Claire has more energy lately so we've shot a couple of videos. She's also working very hard on pulling up to a kneeling position today. For a "sick" baby she's awfully active.

Sasha has been hitting up Claire for attention, and Claire is more than happy to oblige. She pets Sasha and as you can see, also grabs her tail on occasion. I don't think she is yanking very hard because Sasha seems oblivious.

Proud owners of a BOB

So what is a BOB, you say? Why, only the SUV of all strollers according to our friends who have them. We bought one on Saturday and we have been completely blown away by how much better it is than all of our other strollers. No, BOB does not stand for Baby On Board (my original theory). It stands for Beast Of Burden, and it really is a tough beast!

Aside from test driving the BOB, Brian got to spend some time working on the guest bathroom this weekend, and Claire practiced playing the piano.

You can hear Brian whistling while he works in the background, as Claire attempts to pound the piano keys with a vengeance.

Applely Delicious

It's beginning to feel like fall in San Jose. Mornings and evenings are crisp and cool, there are a few leaves falling and it even rained a bit today. The arrival of fall also means its time to harvest apples and that means making apple pie. Thanks to grandma and grandpa Sivitz making pies was quite easy this year and as you'll notice from the picture below the crust is nearly perfect. Claire didn't get to eat any of the Apple pie but we did get her started on eating RK (Rice Krispies for short), Cheerios, and bananas. She seems to like them but she also seems to forget to swallow them. Sometimes we'll find a soggy cheerio stuck in her mouth 30 minutes after she's done eating.

Claire Can Crawl!

Claire Can Crawl! Happy Birthday Mom!

Attack of the Killer PineCones

When you are walking down the street and see a pine cone lying on the ground you probably don't think too much about it. Sometimes you might kick it down the street, sometimes you might step on it just to hear that satisfying crunch, but you never really think how it got there or the damage it may have caused on its way to its resting place. Just so we all understand, a pine cone falling from a tree literally can kill a person. Luckily we didn't find this out firsthand, but we did have a nice run in with a pine cone this weekend while we were camping in Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northeastern California.
On Friday night Claire and her parents packed up and drove north and Claire got to experience both her first National Park and her first time camping. As most of you know she is already an experienced hiker so being in the woods was no big deal, but she's never been up to 8000 feet nor has she ever spent a night in a tent with the ambient temperature hovering around 40 degrees. Add in having to wear a snow suit that is about 2 sizes too big and you'd think that a 7 month would be throwing the fit of her life. But keep in mind we're talking about our Little Angel, our little lady Claire. Aside from your standard "I'm hungry" cry she was a bundle of joy and loved seeing the waterfalls, telling ghost stories around the campfire, watching mommy and daddy eating s'mores, and hiking to lakes, through boulder fields, and near steaming vents and boiling sulfur pools in and around an active but dormant volcano. Let's reflect upon that for a moment "active but dormant". Sounds scary because it is. The park, California's 4th National Park and the country's 17th, was formed in 1916 because of the national attention it drew when Mt. Lassen became the first volcano in the recorded history of the United States to blow its top. Somehow a man named "Loomis" happened to be in the right place at the right time and took a bunch of really cool photos of the mountain spewing hot ash into the air and he also happened to live to tell about it. His pictures made it quickly into all the newspapers and within a year the surrounding area was a National Park. Visitors flocked to the region and by 1924 an amazing 142 visitors entered the park that entire year. And with the park charging the steep (for the time) entrance fee of 10 cents the park was able to pull in a whopping $14.20 that year which they used to build a road. Well, there was some federal money involved but by the time 1925 rolled around there was a 33 mile scenic road winding through the beautiful terrain and nearly 2200 people were able to enjoy the park. To the best of my knowledge none of them were killed by pinecones and none of them died because of fiery ash raining from the sky which is why they say the volcano is "active but dormant". It currently does not kill innocent bystanders with its fury, but the many steam vents and bubbling pools are reminders that there is still ample fuel lying deep underground...
Anyway, back to our trip. After setting up our tent and cooking some food we headed out on a hike from our campsite to one of the many nearby lakes. There were many varied styles of pine trees and the scene was often so pretty it was surreal. We highly reccomend this park to all of our friends and family (and as an aside if you happen to be amongst the 62 or better crowd, for $10 you can buy a lifetime pass not only to Lassen but to all of America's picteresque parks). Rather than going into excruicating detail I'll summarize the rest of our trip. We hiked and we ate. Yep, that was pretty much it. 3 days of hiking and eating. Oh and then there was the killer pinecone. There we were parked by the camp store trying to prepare for showers when out of nowhere, BANG, a pinecone smashed down with tremendous force and hit our brand new car's windshield so hard that small pieces of glass could be found inside the car and the cracks extended and covered nearly 50% of the 6 week old windshield. So how did this happen? Well, luckily for us the park ranger had a good explanation. Most of the pinecones you see on the ground are little and brittle, that because those are the only ones that fall off naturally. The dense, wet, heavy ones tend to stay on the tree... that is unless a squirrel happens to be looking for a meal. If you've ever tried to feed birds and keep squirrels away, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say squirrels are smart creatures... To get their juicy pinecone meal they'll gnaw at the heavy cones stems until they break loose and then scurry down the tree to enjoy their meal. Unfortunately some of those cones may end up taking a less than straight path to the ground. Have you ever noticed that the trailworkers and firefighters wear helmets when they're out and about in the forest. They do this because pinecones can kill. They have before and they will again. The next time you see one on the ground you may want to give it an extra hard kick as it may have cost some poor smucks like us $230 or worse.

Monterey

We spent a relaxing afternoon in Monterey last weekend, to get away from the heat in San Jose. We ate clam chowder at the wharf then strolled along the coast and watched the gulls and sea otters:

As you can tell we mostly just goofed around with Claire, which is also fun! After our walk we napped on the beach, tossed around a frisbee, and dipped Claire's feet in the ocean. She did not like it at all! The water is way too cold.

Our friend Greg has been such good company! He is staying with us for two weeks while in the area for business. Unfortunately Claire is painfully teething and has been really grouchy at night for almost a week. We hope she goes back to her easy bedtime routine soon, otherwise Greg may be checking into a hotel!