Ho Ho Ho!

We've spent the last couple of weeks visiting friends and family in the midwest. More of those pictures to come. Here's one for Christmas. Have a safe and happy new year!!

Hey Bert!

Actually, it's the iBert. Peter recently bought a bike to ride to work and this weekend he fixed up my bike and then bought a seat for Claudia. As you can imagine, she loves it. We get a commentary of the ride - the dogs in the parks, the green lights, the water in the river. Believe it or not, it doesn't get in the way of Peter pedaling or steering.

Note the driveway - it's finally complete!

btw - clicking on most of these pictures opens a larger view of the picture...

Claudia's vocabulary is growing daily. I'm more amazed at the concepts she understands. The other day she wanted to do some painting and I asked her if she wanted me or daddy to supervise her. She said daddy, so then she went to Peter and asked "Daddy will you supervise me?"; Peter asked her what she meant by supervise and she said "Will you watch me paint?"
Her latest non-toy toy is a digital thermometer. She places it on different things (including us) and then looks at the numbers and says something like 45-6 or 55-8. It's funny!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We had a small gathering of just the three of us for Thanksgiving. We had the staples: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, cranberries and rolls. Oh, and wine. The weather was pretty nice for late November - in the low 60s. We went to the Japanese Friendship garden earlier in the afternoon to feed the koi fish and ducks. Then a nice walk around the neighborhood after dinner. Only a little bit of football. I think I'm saving my annual football viewing hours for Saturday's KU/MU game. I figure I ought to watch at least one KU football game during this odd so far undefeated season. That's assuming of course, that they show it on the west coast. Most people out here haven't heard of Kansas or Missouri.

Another nice visit from the Nelsons

The Nelsons came to visit for a couple weeks. Claudia had a great time with her Gralu and Grandpa (and likewise). They (w/ Peter) went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and to Santa Cruz to see the Monarch butterflies; and we all made a trip to the SF zoo.

Claudia really enjoyed helping Gralu make goopy rolls. The rest of us really enjoyed eating the goopy rolls.

Happy Halloween (finally!)

We only trick-or-treated up and down Cleaves but Claudia still managed to bring home lots of treats. Here she is trying out a reese's peanut butter cup. Later she ran around the house until she finally dropped.

She's a monkey...Peter pointed out later that the ears should have been more on the side of her head. She was often confused for a bear until people saw her tail. The banana she was carrying didn't last long.

Snakes and spiders and it's not even Halloween!

Earlier this month we made it up to Henry Coe for their annual tarantula festival. There were lots of spiders for us to see (most of them in cages) and crafty kid projects. One of the rangers brought his komodo dragon so we watched him crawl around.

The big draw for Claudia was the snake. She was less brave with the tarantula, but was intrigued enough to watch it crawl up my arm. She held it for about a second. The ranger acted quickly cuz it looked like Claudia was about to fling it!

There's a monkey on my back...

Here's the monkey backpack. It was pretty effective in the airport. Claudia didn't seem to mind. There was one point when I felt like I was walking a dog when she tried to go the opposite direction from where I wanted to go. But all in all, the monkey was a good purchase.

Look at the monkey swinging!

A typical Sunday includes a trip to Happy Hollow Park and Zoo. We were on the park side and Claudia discovered that she could swing at this slide.

While I was ironing this morning Claudia was flipping through an animal book and came across an elephant. She started talking about what the elephant does with his trunk; he picks up leaves, he drinks water, he drinks juice, he drinks Jamba Juice. Then she moved on to the octopus and told me "Elephants and octopuses drink Jamba Juice!"...When we're stopped at a red light she says "Gotta take turns" and then when it turns green she says "it's green. now we can go!"... We've been talking about our trip to Kansas a lot. We leave tomorrow. When I ask her who's going on the airplane to Kansas she says "Claudia and Mommy and the monkey". The monkey is a backpack/harness that she'll wear in the airport to keep my sanity... I'll try to remember to get a photo of that.

No picture, just words...

The camera battery is dead, so instead of waiting to upload the next batch of pix I thought I'd write a few of the funny/clever/ornery things Claudia is saying these days.

Tonight during dinner Claudia decided she wanted to go color, a few minutes later she said, "I'm drawing a cat, guys." That's the first time she ever referred to us as "guys". She's really good at making happy faces too ;-) ...She says that the zoo is "behind" the school, because the zoo is a couple exits passed her school...When she was jumping on the couch I told her she had to stop jumping or I was going to shut off Elmo and she said, "Mommy turn off Elmo." I asked why and she said, "because I'm jumping."...When she hears familiar words on the radio she will say, "The people said 'California' on the music." or "The people said 'preschool' on the car." Last night Peter told Claudia to go tell me that it was time for dinner. She shouted from where she was "Mommy, it's time for dinner!"...

Claudia and I are taking a trip to Kansas (Peter can't get away) in a couple weeks and tonight she said "fly on the air plane to see Poh Poh and Gong Gong in Kansas". I asked who else and she Auntie Gina. I told her Uncle John and she said "and Chandler and Erin". And when I said Uncle Darren, she said and the puppies. Darren doesn't have any dogs (that I know of) but Gina does. And she remembered one was named Bogey. She also asked if we will get to see Gralu and Grandpa. Hopefully they'll be making a stop on their way from the lake to Arkansas.

"It's a whale."

We recently acquired some new wall art, complements of Claudia. When I saw it I said "Who did that?" Claudia promplty responded "Claudia did it!" And as I walked out of the room she told me, "It's a whale!" She is quite proud.

Tonight, after Peter told Claudia it was time to brush her teeth she said "Claudia not listening to Daddy." Uh oh...

Happy 4th!

Our 4th of July was spent in town, and at a bbq next door. Here's Claudia and Blythe (neighbor across the street). We all comment (as do others) that they could be sisters.

Claudia's favorite question to ask is "Whatcha doin'?" And she'll continue to ask until she gets an answer she understands...Recently while up late one night, Claudia said "I want some cereal." And I said "How 'bout some fruit?" and she said "How 'bout a cookie?"... Her song repertoire is expanding. She likes to sing in the car and in the tub, especially. It's fun to try to figure out what she's singing since she learns different songs at school than what we sing...She's just started watching tv and has an Elmo DVD that she likes to watch. At different times in the video Elmo kisses a little baby. Soon after that happens she's telling us, "Elmo kiss a baby!"...We've been talking about getting her a fishy (Elmo has a fish "Dorothy" in his video). The other night when I asked her what she was going to name her fishy she said "Peter".

Where has the time gone?

It's already been a month since the last post. I guess someone has been keeping us busy!

Peter's parents came out to visit at the end of May. Claudia had a really good time with her Gralu and Grandpa! Here we are having a picnic lunch at the Rose Garden. We also took a trip to the zoo, Gralu and Grandpa got to watch Claudia in her swim class. We also did a lot of stuff around the house while we had more hands around. We recruited Mom & Dad to watch Claudia, as well as to help us with some work in the garage (tearing out old shelves, putting up new walls and painting them). When we're out in the garage, Claudia points to the wall and says "Gralu and Grandpa painted this wall."

May update

Whew. It's been a long time. Here's a picture of Claudia a few months ago at Henry Coe State Park. I've added it as the image in her blog title, and the full picture here. It's one of my recent favs. But this is really to give an update on her words.
Claudia will mimic anything (which I've learned I need to be careful what I say in the car. Speaking of which, when traffic is slow or we are stopped and there are cars in front of us, Claudia will now say "GO people!"). She's already really good at stringing words together. If she drops something on the floor she says "I get it." If she finds something that has been "missing" she'll show it to you and say "I find it over there". When I've got my purse and backpack, ready for work, she will say "Bye bye Mommy, See you later Mommy" and just yesterday she added "Have a good day Mommy".
Some of the really funny things she says... when she wants more of something whether it's more food or she wants you to continue doing something that she likes, she says "more more" so at dinner she might say "more more rice please". Or if you're tickling her and you stop, she'll say "more more tickle". ... When she sees 2 of something no matter what it is she will call it a mommy daddy whatever it is. Yesterday on the way to school she saw 2 school buses on the road "mommy daddy school bus". This even applies to a dollop of lotion in each hand "mommy daddy lotion"... She's stopped calling Peter Peda for the most part, but she does tell us that Mommy is Kelly and Daddy is Peter... And she differentiates our cars: Mommy's car - white one. Daddy's car - silver one... She's quite a singer and has her favorite songs that she belts out (her Grandpa (Peter's dad) must have taught her: if you can't sing well, sing loud.)...She does pretty well with her p's and q's and we can understand the majority of what she says though context always helps -one conversation while in her room looking at her peanuts figurines, she pointed up and said "chai bum, chai bum", I said "chai bum?", she said "no, Mommy, not chai bum. CHAI BUM". Then I said "Oh Charlie Brown", she said yes, "chai bum" and we both cracked up.
She knows her name is Claudia Nelson and that she lives in California. Kelly's Dad has got her saying "California girl".

Look who just turned 2!

Claudia's birthday was last week, the 19th. Here, she is patiently waiting for us to finish singing happy birthday so she can blow out the candles.

And then she blew them out and got in close to watch the smoke.
Saturday we went to the San Francisco zoo so that Claudia could see the big animals (our zoo only has small animals). She liked watching the giraffes, but most of the other animals were sleeping when we got to them. The hippos were somewhat active, but they stayed in the water. She kept saying "mommy daddy hippopotamus" - this is what she says when there are 2 of the same thing. Peter explains the taxonomic classification of the animals and why this monkey is an old world monkey and not a new world monkey (I'm learning stuff too!). When Claudia is done watching an animal, she says "All done monkey" and we move on.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk, Go KU!

Despite her fondness for the jayhawks she sees on tv or on our shirts/hat, Claudia was a little freaked out by the larger than life Baby Jay. Mom & Dad took Claudia downtown for a KU pep rally today. We're 10 minutes away from the Pavilion where they're playing, but a couple hundred smacks shy of getting in.

It was a close and nerve racking game tonight. Claudia got in on yelling at the tv. She was also very intrigued by the Goodyear blimp that we kept getting a glimpse of from the sunroom. Gong Gong (Kelly's Dad) and she were on the lookout for a few hours. There were a couple tv shots of our neighborhood. We're thinking about painting our roof red with blue KU letters for Saturday. Be on the lookout.

Read, Elmo, Read

Elmo was being read "The wheels on the bus". Later, Claudia started rotating Elmo's arms like the wheels. She must have picked this up from when I did the same thing with one of her dollies...

Suzy Chapstick

Claudia has fun digging thru my purse and has discovered the chapstick. And being the mockingbird that she is, she says "Suzy Chapstick".

A few funny notes... She has recently started calling Peter "Peeda"... Any basketball game she sees on tv (and let's face it there are a lot of basketball games on our tv) she says "Rock Chalk Jayhawk"... She can still spend a good long while (30 minutes or more) wrapping up her stuffed animals with a blanket and patting them to sleep (we call it the wrap and slap as she is a bit rough on the animals) face down to get their tummy time...

Splish Splash

We took a trip to Monterey Bay Aquarium and made a stop at the touch pools. Here, Claudia's going for the star fish. I'm sure if they would have let her pet a shark she would have.

Agua, please

Claudia's latest problem solving involves pushing one of the kitchen table chairs over to the fridge to pour herself a cold glass of water. She's so independent (ok sometimes she gets a little help)!

HOLY COW!

On another trip to Happy Hollow, we went to the petting zoo, but the goats had been overfed and were not interested in food. So we fed the animals across the way (the bigger ones behind bars - but you can feed them). I was a little freaked out by the size of the zebu, but Claudia didn't hesitate.

Taking a hike

Here's Claudia (Hollywood) cruising in the backpack on a recent weekend hike.

Finally a picture with Mommy!

Since I'm always behind the camera, it's tough to get a picture of me in the blog. Claudia likes to take piggyback rides and I often turn out to be the piggy!