Happy Father's Day, "da-da"

This year was the first real father & mother's day. To celebrate, Tally lit up the grill and we had hamburgers and then I made one of Tal's favorite Thai dishes for him. We should be on a diet for our upcoming cruise, but we're not...yet. Kelsey decided to make da-da a card. So thoughtful. She didn't like me tracing her hand on the card though! She just wanted to eat the stickers.



Tal, I love watching you with Kelsey. I makes my heart melt to see you two bond. You are such a wonderful dad and she adores you. I've had so many people from church tell me what a wonderful job you did taking her to church all by yourself.

Also, Happy Father's day to my dad, Steve & Tal's dad, Lee. We love you guys and would not be the people we are today without you. We wish we were there celebrating with you, but all in due time.

Music to my Ears

Tonight Kelsey finally said "mama!" She said it once in my German class LAST Monday, but I thought it was a fluke. After tonight, there was no mistaking. I tried to get it on camera, but of course, she wouldn't perform. She would only say "Baba, " which is also new as of tonight. Sometimes it even sounds like "Papa" or when she waves and says it, it sounds/looks like she's saying "bye bye." Here's a clip of one of the first times she said "Baba."



I'm determined to get one of her saying "mama" so stay tuned...

All In the GS Family

Tally's work had a Community Team Works day today. For this event, he gets to take the day off to do community service with his co-workers. We went to a handicapped children's school and put on a carnival for them. Tal & our friend Josh were in charge and I was surprised by how organized it was, considering the language barrier. Kelsey and I came along to help out. I don't know how much help we were, but the kids sure loved her! And I think she had fun with them too. It was hot outside, especially running around with the kids. We played catch, bubbles, bouncy castle, did face painting, coloring, gave out prizes, served lunch & dessert, hung out with the clown, and had a great time with the kids. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day. We couldn't resist turning one of her shirts into a Community Team Works 2008 shirt like ours.

Fast Friends

Buddies

Look at all these fun friends I can play with!

Tally playing sports with the boys

Now how can I hold all the pins at once?

They even hired a clown for the day. Normally I'm not too keen on clowns but she gave me a whole new perception of clowns. Not so scary once you get to know them!

All Tuckered Out

What a fun day!

It was a lot of fun, but by the end of the day we were exhausted. We took a train, a tram, a bus to get there and the same on the way back - and then our car to get home from the train station. Kelsey loves the outdoors and traveling (and long walks on the beach, right?) so I think she was thrilled with the day. I don't think she cried once!

Hopp Schwiiz!

We're in the midst of the Euro Cup 2008 which translates to Swiss flags EVERYWHERE! They're on peoples' cars, houses, gardens, boats, businesses, bodies - you name it. We couldn't help but catch the Euro Cup fever so we dressed Kelsey up in her Swiss onesie and watched the game at home (tickets are OUTRAGEOUS and crowds are HUGE in the city). We grilled up some cervelas Swiss style (cutting the ends so the middle doesn't split) and ate them with our Hopp Suisse ketchup (Suisse is the French way to say Switzerland, Schweiz is the German way). Kelsey enjoyed getting up close to the action. Unfortunately, they lost last night and tonight's game so it doesn't look good for them. But nonetheless, HOPP SCHWEIZ (go Switzerland)!

On The Move

A week ago today, Kelsey finally started scooting forward instead of backwards! It took a bit of coaxing and some tears, but she did it! She has done it a few times a day this week, but she doesn't like doing it.

Instead, she prefers to pull herself up on everything and walk around holding onto whatever she can, especially mommy.

I'm constantly amazed when I put her down in one place and turn around to find her - STANDING - in another. She also likes to stand and let go. Then she starts laughing and gets unstable so she sits down. It's so fun to see her personality with this newfound mobility. Today, Tally referred to her as a "toddler" and I had to remind him that she is still a baby. He said she was "toddling" around so he called her a toddler. It caught me unaware and although I know she's still a baby, it made me sad to think she's soon moving past that phase.

Last Night

I jump up out of bed after hearing what sounded like a bang followed by a shattering of glass. Of course my first thought is the new windows and it didn't sound too far off from the sound of the window guy throwing all the old windows into a dumpster a few days ago. However it's not a few days ago. It's 4am and I run to check on the baby first. No one has broken into her room, she's fast asleep.

BOOM!
Tally: What was that?
Me: No idea, what is going on?
Meanwhile we're both frantically looking out our bedroom windows, then all the windows in the house. I notice it's really windy outside and think that maybe a shutter is banging against the house. As I'm in another room, Tally says urgently,
Tally: Oh no, something is on fire downstairs, in our yard.
Me: I don't smell any smoke, are you sure?
Tally: I just saw sparks
He runs out of our bedroom to the door, and then back for some more appropriate pajamas. I throw mine on and say as he's leaving
Me: Yell up here if it's a fire and I'll grab the baby
He runs down the stairs. At this point I'm half wondering if it's a shutter loose, half wondering if our neighbor's girlfriend dumped him and he's on a rampage breaking things. What if he got so mad he killed Tally? I'd better lock the door. But what if it's a fire? I'd better not. This hot, windy summer night would not be good for a fire (I'm from So Cal, okay?). Anxiety.
Tally, bewildered: There's no fire??!!
Then you could see the lightbulb turn on.
Tally: I bet it was our neighbor throwing out his cigarette. He was closing the shutters when I went down there.
Me: Well at least it's not a fire. Did you see anything else?
Tally: No, let's go to sleep
So we laid in bed for who knows how much longer while the wind howled around us and something banged against the house.
That is until Kelsey woke up at 5am, hungry.
Needless to say, we are dragging a bit today.

Little Moogle

There's something different about you today

I took notice when you woke up from your nap

You went down with so many baby-like features

But left several behind in your crib

Never to be rediscovered

Did you also grow a centimeter or two?

Your belly peeks out between your pants and shirt

Pointing!

Have you always done that when you wanted something?

I could swear I've never seen that trick before

And when did you learn to stand up on your own

For so long, without holding onto mommy?

I usually look forward to your naps,

Rest and productivity

But at the rate you're going

GROWING

You'll be gone before I can blink

So stay up, come cuddle, close next to me

Let's waste the day spending moments together

While you're still my little baby

I just found this poem that I wrote on May 22, 2008 in a notebook. It probably needs some more work but if I don't post it now, it will be lost to history in a random notebook. It's funny to think that this feeling hasn't gone away - and maybe it never will.

New Windows

I need to vent for a moment and haven't been able to since I've been working on that gargantuan Italy post. Our landlord had new windows put in our apartment this week and notified us with a letter in German. Okay, no big deal, right? WRONG. At 7am, two mornings in a row, these guys came ringing. Considering our night owl daughter and my late night photo musings, this was way too early. The first day, they took out 3 of the windows in our house and the one right outside our hall door. It was a cool day and it made the entire house FREEZING. I had a sweatshirt and fuzzy socks on and I put slippers and a jacket on Kelsey. When nap time came, I couldn't put her in her crib because it was covered with paper and she had NO WINDOWS in her room. So, I laid down with her in my bed and ended up falling asleep...that is until my friend Dianne came over for lunch at 11. I hadn't meant to fall asleep and it was nice to have her over to distract me from the CAOS that was my house. Kelsey was still asleep until 11:30 when the window guys came in and told me they needed to start working in my bedroom. I told them my baby was asleep (and pointed out that they hadn't replaced any of the windows they took away in the rest of the house yet). I gave up the fight, woke Kelsey up and let them in. For the record, they didn't end up doing anything in that room that day. I walked into town with my friend to escape the CAOS and took the bus to pick up my car that was in the shop. The next day, they came at 7am. We let them in and went right back to sleep. I knew they wanted to do the windows in my room, but stayed asleep when they WALKED IN on me sleeping. We finally escaped to Jessi's at 8:30am and stayed there until 4pm (thanks Jess). I came home to a mess of dust and concrete particles all over my floor and any horizontal surface, a sawdust smell, and dirty everything. Oh, and they broke off or took off all our our window treatments. Anyone in the mood for spring cleaning? I'm not!


Thanks for letting me vent. If your landlord ever wants to replace the windows or you do on your own home, GO ON VACATION while it's done and hire a housekeeper to clean before you come home.

It's Saturday night and I've just now finished cleaning all but my room. Phew!

UPDATE: My husband just informed me that I spelled CHAOS, CAOS in this post. There is a valid reason for this (and any of you are welcome to tell me my spelling errors - I WANT to know b/c I will be printing out my blog someday and I don't want my kids to make fun of me). When I used to work for GS, I worked with a system called CAOS - Client Account Opening System. I guess it became my version of chaos, thus craziness in my mind is CAOS. Get all that?

Under the Tuscan Sun

FiRenZe
On Saturday, we left at 4am and headed down to Florence. I stayed up the whole night (as mothers do before a big trip) and slept in the car on the way down. Around noon, we pulled into the historical art city of Florence. We parked at the Piazzale Michelangelo which was the perfect place to enter the city. Not only was it free to park there for the day, but it gave us a panoramic viewpoint of the city. It was sunny day and we got a great taste of Summer.

Classic trademarks of Florence: awe-inspiring art, heavenly gelato, "romantic" Italians, and SWARMS of tourists.

Ponte Vecchio

This is the oldest bridge in Florence, the only one that didn't get bombed out in WWII. Today it is a charming but crowded bridge with great views lined with jewelry and tourist shops but the area used to be a meat district. However, back in the day the Arno river started smelling so bad lawmakers banned butchers from throwing their scraps into the river and cleaned up the place. It is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Florence.

THE DAVID

No, I'm not talking about the American Idol Davids (can you believe COOK won?). I'm talking about THE David, as in David & Goliath - the Michelangelo version. As everyone says, the Accademia isn't much but the David makes it worth it. I agree. It's one of those things that really takes your breath away. You see other works from artists you're not familiar with and you're anticipating seeing the David. You turn a corner and at the end of the hall, he stands perfectly displayed. It took everything in me not to snap a picture. I even got my camera out to sneak one in, but the guard must have a good read on people like me. He came up and started talking to me. I thought the detail in his hands and arm were so realistic and the proportions were remarkable. I'll stop there but it really is a sight to behold. Here's a picture of a replica in the square outside the Uffizi (where the real one once stood).

Uffizi

Here we are outside of it. Once again, no cameras (which I can't stand) so I don't have much to show from it. I loved Botticelli's The Birth of Venus & La Primivera (The Spring) as well as DaVinci's The Annunciation & The Adoration of the Magi. Here we are waiting to go in.

Duomo
This is the famous Firenze Duomo that gives Florence its trademark skyline. The facade is detailed with green, white and pink marble designs. The inside is similar to other churches but the dome, created by Filippo Brunelleschi, that was impressive. The artwork on the inside of the dome depicted heaven and hell with several kings at the highest point. Kelsey really enjoyed standing against the plastic barriers near the top of the cupola looking down into the church making noises that echoed through the church.

View from the top

Walking on the beautiful marble church floors and making noises

We hiked up the Duomo with Kelsey and everyone kept commenting "I can hardly do it myself let alone with a baby." Some places were a little steep but she's still small enough that we can manage it between the two of us. Tally always took her when the stairs were really narrow and short (see above). When we came out, this Italian guy came up to Kelsey and gave her a balloon. It was all dirty and gross but she loved it so much that we could not pry it from her fingers until she fell asleep.

Vinci

Since we were close, we decided to visit the home and museum of one of the masters: Leonardo Da Vinci. It is amazing to me how one man did so many masterpieces in various disciplines during his life. Not only was he an artist, but also an engineer with his mechanical designs. The museum contained models of his mechanical drawings.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

Little did we know it was the 2008 Pisa Marathon on the day we went and the finish line was of course, right by the tower! First of all, I think it would be amazing to run that and have a picture crossing the finish line with the tower in the background. However, it made it even more crowded than it usually would be. I thought it was really cool seeing one of the 7 wonders of the world (although I think it may have been voted off recently?). It's truly amazing that it hasn't fallen over yet. Since it was Mother's Day, I got to do a photoshoot of the baby and of our family. This proved to be much more difficult than I was expecting since there were people walking in my picture all the time. We got a few good ones but I will photoshop the people out when I go to print them. We decided we should start charging people to take pictures of or with our daughter. These were not the first or last of the Asian tourists to take a picture with her - just the most colorful. I played around a bit with the post-production of these Pisa shots too.

Lucca

This is a small, walled city with a circular courtyard in it. We stopped on our way out to Cinque Terre. The first two pictures are of the circular courtyard. The Guinigi tower with the tree on top is where I climbed up to take the 2nd picture. And of course, we had great gelato. We should have rented bikes and rode them around, but we didn't want to be there for too long.

Cinque Terre
It's great to site see and all, but it can be so exhausting. There's nothing like a vacation on the beach. It was great to end our trip walking along the coastline on the "Via Di Amores or Lover's Walk" between Rio Maggiore & Manarola. We skipped Corniglia and went to Vernazza. I think I liked Vernazza the best for pictures. It is exactly what I picture a beach front, Italian town to be like. We ate some pizza by the beach, did a little shopping, and then headed back to Monterosso. When the clouds started rolling in, we decided to call it a day and head home. It was sad to leave so soon, but Tally and I decided we wanted to go back for a weekend this summer - without the babe. Kelsey seems to enjoy the sand and water...maybe she'll be a beach babe like her mama. We had a great trip and hope to be back to Italy again soon.

Here's the hotel we stayed in near CT. It was a nice little B&B up on top of a hill overlooking the Italian hills.

Keeping Kelsey entertained in the car. She has the cutest laugh!

Kelsey is 8 months now!

Here's an update on our little princess (since you don't see enough pictures of her, haha):

We took the newborn headrest insert out of her car seat

Growls, hisses, and practices her Swiss German

Still NO teeth (okay with me)
Wears 6-12 month clothes

Pulls herself up more and more

Points and talks/sqwaks when she sees something she wants.

Tally was eating pickles one day and gave her a taste thinking she'd make a funny face to show her distaste. Instead, she just about grabbed the pickle jar out of his hands. She loved them.

Does anyone see my baby? I hear her crying but I can't find her...
...oh THERE she is! Under the couch, of course.
Sleeps in all sorts of positions. This is how I sleep so I wonder if she'll take after me on that.

Occasionally I walk in to check on her and she is sleeping with her lovie over her face.

Here are the beautiful dandelion weeds before they mowed them.

Her favorite toys (as of the end of April - now she loves the Pinoccio we got her

We just had a new sink put in because our old one cracked when my hairspray bottle fell out of the medicine cabinet (who knew it could crack a sink?). I discovered it

She tries to grab the water. It's funny to watch her do this. Her face is so perplexed as to why she cannot grab it.




Kels and I at Park Im Gruene. Kelsey loved the dog we saw at the park more than the train. She also likes to watch the other kids...and eat since we had a picnic.
Mom, here's Kelsey today in those Icky Baby pants you gave her. I have to give you credit for those. I thought they were ugly when you brought them but they're actually really cute on. Props.