Red, White and Blue Playdate

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Wednesday afternoon we went to Aliza's house for a Pre-4th of July playdate... they are all getting so big and learning to "share" toys or at least take them back and forth between each other. I didn't break out the camera until towards the end of the playdate but got some pictures of the over-stay-their-welcome playdate kids, the usual suspects! Thanks for hosting Sarah!

"Why don't we do this everyday mom?"

Looking out the front door with her friend Asher

"Fork over the Cheerios."

Synchronized Eating

Estelle. Not messing around.

Asher making noise

Another slightly dazed and confused look...

Paige without Wesley!
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Francie laughing at the silly moms

Cute Claire

Playing outside on the grass

"Here's a story, of a boy named Asher... who had a playdate with three very lovely girls."

At least Aliza thought I was funny

The hosts Sarah and Aliza

Icie and Estelle

The Doo-bug always looking for trouble!

Workin Away Tuesday

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Tuesday Heff, Francie and I all worked most of the day at the office. She helped out at Brilliant Babies keeping those kids in line and showing them the ropes (and the balls, trains and books). We had a family lunch date at Su Hongs and Francie loved the Pork Fried Rice (I apologize to the floor under her high chair). I worked on our summer programs and starting a new website, Dad was busy on the phone (at least everytime we went in his office to bug him) and Francie made the rounds between offices and hanging out in BB. The girls took some pictures of her in the new ball-pit...

"What's up?" (flashing the secret BB gang signs)

Eating Cheerios Chubby-Hand over Chubby-Fist

Getting smoothered by her mother

All in a hard day's work

In the morning, before Francie and I went in to my office (if you call 10-11:00am "morning"... I do) I was getting ready (err maybe blogging) and turned on the TV to catch the end of the Today show and the channel the TV was already on was Channel 9 KQED with Sesame Street! (How long do I have before she realizes there is stuff like this on ALL THE TIME and I can't watch the Bachelorette anymore!?) Some little muppets were singing a song on the piano and Francie started jiggling her little bum and cracking up... I had to leave it on for awhile to let her watch it.

Future couch potato in the making?

"Mom... Didn't you know I watch America's Next Top Model marathons with my Auntie Baby Ann ALL THE TIME."

Monday with the Johnets

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Ok. Baby Ann REALLY left this time! After her flight delay/issue last Thursday we were lucky to get an extra weekend and spent all day Monday hanging out, getting lunch and shopping with Baby Ann and Jannie. She took off at 4pm Monday (barely made the flight, opps we lost track of time shopping but got Tory Burch flip flops on sale!!) WE'LL MISS YOU AUNTIE BABY ANN!!

Monday night the Johnet's came over for dinner.

Reading with Grandpa... Francie is OBSESSED with this dog book (Thanks Margaret and Ronan!) It is a giant board book with all different kinds of dogs, you can pet their fur (like Pat the Bunny, her other fav) and flop their ears and make some tails wag or legs scratch. The end it has a Jack Russell named Ollie like ours! She "oo-oo"s for it when she sees it and tried to climb the bookcase to reach it with Jannie yesterday. Jannie said MY favorite book when I was a baby was an encyclopedia about dogs and I destroyed the poor book turning the pages over and over. Funny, you'd think I'd actually LIKE dogs now though huh? :)

"Don't you think this is the best book ever Grandpa?"

Tri-tip dinner outside with Jannie and Grandpa

Jannie taking over "watch her please!" duty

I forgot to blog about our new "free" dollhouses.... BOTH Jannie and I in the same week found FREE dollhouses out on the curb in front of neighbors houses... is that weird or what!? The one Jannie found kind of looks like their house and is "oversized" for fun play so she's already collecting oversized doll house furniture and is going to fix it up to look like their house. (I know, Francie is SO dirty in this picture... what can you do!? I think maybe I changed her PJ's before I put her in her crib for the night:)

The doll house we "found" is a neat one too, I just have to get some dolls for it! (nevermind the naked baby in the picture, it's behind her... no pun intended:)

Lazy Summer Sunday

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Sunday we had a rare nothing-to-do day at home so we hung around the house, played with the Doodle, and checked some things off the to-do list... or at least Heff did while I watched and tried to keep Francie from tearing apart the house and putting every little spec of dirt she could find in her mouth, pretty much my full time job lately. We let her play with the hose in the Playpit (which BTW we are still thinking is NOT the kind of grass they are warning might contain lead, of course that makes headlines right after we buy artificial turf for our 9 month old!) Our friend Chad (Isaac's Dad) stopped by to say hello and caught me watching "Jon & Kate Plus 8" on the couch (I might even have been napping ;) Later we grilled some tri-tip and made a salad almost entirely from our garden. Happy Summer... this is what it's all about!

Dog bowl Twister anyone?

I turned around for a second to feed the chickens and she somehow got herself INSIDE the bucket of water!

Once that diaper absorbs her weight in water and she can't stand up anymore... it's time to get naked :)

Hanging in her high chair while Dad grills outside...
"Mom this is MY apple. But I'm not sure I like it."

SOUR!

Looking for airplanes with Dad...

"Did you see that big 747 Dad!? Is that like the one that's going to take my ABA away?"

Almost time for bed... the little stinker gets into everything!!

"It wasn't me."

This picture seems to sum up this little girl we have on our hands.
She actually pulled out this princess tutu from Bethy and held it up like "Mom put this on please." How could I resist? She's wearing the tutu over her camo PJ"s and I didn't even realize it until I just looked at the picture but she is crawling around with her "Even Princesses Wear Hiking Boots" book WITH the duck call in her mouth. I think she's pretty much a camo-princess kind of girl.

"See ya later Mom"

"Oh DUCKIES!!!"

Francie Goes to Janelle and Brad's Wedding!

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Saturday afternoon we all went to Janelle and Brad's wedding in Campbell together. Janelle has worked for me for over 3 years and is one of my favorite people. She is from Hayes, Kansas and married her college sweetheart, Brad, who is from San Jose. The wedding was outside in the gardens at the Ainsley House in Campbell and then the reception was indoors nearby. Her colors were pink and orange and everything looked great! Janelle did so many of the details herself (while working AND in nursing school!) and it was all perfect. Francie was lucky to be included and Brad's mom and Janelle's mom both recognized her from her blog! (Hi Brad's mom and Janelle's mom:) It was a great party and we met so many nice people from their families. Congrats Brad and Best Wishes Janelle!

Janelle about to walk down the isle with her Dad

"Get a load of that dress mom!"

It was a beautiful spot to get married

Exchanging the rings

The "J" and the "B" in Gerber Daisies

Husband and Wife!

At the reception...

The guest book frame (with a picture from our house at their shower!)

Big girl with her Daddy

The Cupcake Cake

Francie making friends

Janelle did the flower arrangements herself (I was playing around with these photos, some cheesy effects but hey it was a wedding!)

Francie playing with Alicia at the table, she was cracking up!

The favors one of our Brilliant Babies moms helped make... she cut out ALL of the tags for Janelle!

Janelle and Brad's seats

M&M's with their names on them

First Dance



The Bridesmaids

and Groomsmen

Janelle's cute family

and adorable Janelle and Brad :)

Dinner is served

The Academic Trainers girls!

The cute boys we sat with at our table Jack and Ryan with their mom Janie (and their little suits were from Janie & Jack ;)

Dad walking her around on the patio... she was a little cranky, I think she has a top tooth coming in (still only two bottoms so far!) but we tanked her up with some Children's Tylenol (Thank God for the "dye-free" white kind that doesn't stain the dresses!!)

and she fell asleep after dinner in her stroller for the night (at least I brought a blanket that matched Janelle's colors so she "camo-ed" right in :)

Ready to dance without the baby! (Oh yeah Baby Ann was SUPPOSED to babysit but decided she wanted to go out in the city "after we got home"... we weren't ready to enter the world of "we have to get home for the sitter" so she came along and we stayed til the bitter end! (don't worry Francie WAS invited:)

Scott and Alicia

They did a really neat thing instead of throwing the bouquet/garter and had all married couples come out on the dance floor for a dance then asked them to step off the dance floor based on how long they had ben married until the couple that had been married the longest was the only couple left... Janelle and Brad gave them the bouquet. What a cute idea!

And another fun idea... the table numbers corresponded to photos of both Janelle and Brad at that age! Here they are at "4 years old"

Alicia and I (Baby Ann did redeem herself by finding my dress on Saturday while she was out "personal shopping" at Marshall's... based on the tags on the dress it was about 90% off retail. Good work Ann)

Ready for a toast Janelle! You better not drink both of those or all 95 pounds of you will fall over :)

Bottoms Up!

and time to dance the night away...

Still sleeping under that blanket, time to head home Francie!

We love you Janelle! Have fun on your honeymoon!!

Francie at Brilliant Babies

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Thursday Auntie Baby Ann was supposed to head back to Nashville for her grad school classes that start in July... but there was a major accident on 880 in the East Bay and you pretty much could not get to Oakland where she was supposed to fly out. So she changed her flight to Monday and now we get her all weekend!! YAY! We went to lunch with the Johnets and Heff then played at Brilliant Babies with Francie for awhile. She LOVES to play up there now and runs around like she owns the place. :) She can hold her own with the big kids moving around the train table, crawling through the tunnels, playing with the musical instruments and generally tearing the place apart. We had some fun with the dress up chests today...

Francie the Octopus!

"I hear you making fun of me mom."

We snuck into Dad's office and let her crawl in to surprise him in her costume!

Heff wanted to know if we had a more appropriate GOAT costume in the dress up room... that's waht he calls her in his office since she eats all of the paper "neatly" stacked all over his office.

Downtown Block Party

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Wednesday night was the "Go Green" Downtown Menlo Park Block Party for merchants to set up booths, restaurants to move their tables outside to serve on the street, games, activities and live music all along the street. Academic Trainers and Brilliant Babies sponsored a booth for kids to do "green" paintings with apple stamps and their hand prints and we had tables set up for kids to get REALLY messy (as if finger painting isn't messy enough?) and play with GAK, a mixture of corn starch and water that makes this weird super slime stuff. We had old AT t-shirts for kids to wear over their outfits and we had a great turnout of kids and families!

"Make a Tree" and the easels

Fun with Gak

Finger painters

We made a mess of the street!

Don't Leave ABA!

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Tuesday night was "Going Away Party Number 17" for Auntie Baby Ann before she heads back to Vandy. We rode bikes over to Menlo Oaks for drinks at Ann's party with the fam and her friends... then we went for round two at Mark and Sarah's across the street for dinner. They made us a "thanks for watching our chickens" dinner which was delicious and exotic as usual. Their chickens grew so much while they were gone in 8 days and are now awkward teenagers in their big chick outdoor cage until Mark builds them a permanent hutch. We wandered back over to the Johnet's for a short stint to see Ann's friends who had gathered for late night pizza action and then headed home.

The city crowd came down for dinner... we missed Allison but Francie was wearing a cute bubble suit outfit Allison gave her. Thanks Allison and Happy Birthday!

Uncle Jerry played catch with her toy and Francie couldn't figure out how she could not get it to hit the ground! Quick reflexes Jer :)

Sunday Night Dinner at the Skidmores

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Sunday night we biked over to the Skidmores for dinner to celebrate Ann and Clark both graduating from college and getting into the real world (well, almost the real world for Baby Ann). They recently finished remodeling their house and it looks great. We played some ladder golf and Heff beat us all... just making up for me "out-shooting" him at the range I guess. :)

Swimming with Grandpa

Baby Ann and Michelle

Reaching for trouble

Making faces at Randall

Heff and Clark hitting up the kegerator

Francie entertaining Ann and Jannie

The "O" Face

These three last seen in this backyard for their Kindergarten Teddy Bear picnic together :)

Kisses for mom

Ann is always such a great host!

Clark, Ann, James, Em and Heff

Jerry, Allison, Michelle and Matt

Jan, Francie, Ann, Earl, John and K-Bac

and rounding out the table... The Heffs

Auntie Baby Ann got Francie all comfy in her PJ's for some cuddling

Sleeping on dad before the ride home

Shopping with Auntie Baby Ann (aka ABA)

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Francie got to spend the afternoon Sunday with her ABA while Mom and Dad worked on projects around the house. ABA loaded up the diaper bag and Bugaboo for an adventure on her own (She is very good with Francie despite never having babysat her entire life!) They wore matching outfits too, vintage vans, cut off jean-shorts and t-shirts... Francie had to look as cool as ABA! They went to visit her friends and then did some shopping at Stanford SHopping Center. Baby Ann is only here four more days before she goes back to Nashville for her 1-year Masters Program... we're going to miss her!

"WHAT!? She can't leave... she hasn't changed my diaper yet."

"Showers by Em"

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Saturday afternoon was Marla's Baby Shower given by a very talented host, her big sister Em (James' girlfriend). Marla is due with a little boy August 1st and looks beautiful. Em is VERY excited to have a new little one to spoil and was squealing in delight as Marla opened all her presents for the baby. Congrats Marla (and you too Em;)

All the girls

Francie was delighted to be included :)

Everything looked beautiful

Em did a great job on all the little details

Red Velvet and Chocolate Cupcakes from LA Sprinkles! (delivered specially by Em's friends!)

Francie getting kisses from her A.B.A.

Flowers from their garden!

It was a HOT day (reminded everyone of our record breaking HOT wedding day!) Em and Ann got sprayed by the pool cleaner while they were cooling off...

Francie took a little nap in the shade while we ate lunch

Jannie and Em (everybody liked the Red Velvet cupckaes best!)

Opening presents (with a little help from Em)

Signature "JanKnits" for the baby boy!

"You mean she makes stuff for babies BESIDES ME?"

After the party we cooled off in the pool... Francie got to go swimming with her new friends (who admitted after we left how worn out they were playing with a baby!)

Nice hair Francie-pants

Joe and Marla (Em's parents) Thanks for having us!

Happy girl in her birthday suit

"Aw Em don't listen to Jannie... dunk me again!"

Silly girl

You don't even have to have clothes on to play "SO BIG!"

Me and my Francie-doodle

Back in the pool with the sisters Em and Marla (getting some practice holding a baby :)

Marla and her boyfriend David... they'll have their own soon enough!

Matching Moms

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Friday night Paige, Chris and Icie came over to BBQ some burgers with the babies and we were all (accidentally, I promise) wearing the exact same outfits... blue jeans, a white ribbed tank top and flip flops. Must be the new mom uniform huh? Baby Ann and her friend Nicole came for dinner too and Nicole was fascinated with how we all had babies and asked lots of questions about being pregnant we were happy to answer for the sole purpose of grossing out my sister as much as possible.

Heff loves sneaking the "getting ready" for a photo picture in :)

Chris getting the baby to sleep

Shoot Em Up

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Friday afternoon Francie went to play with Jannie so Heff and I could go to the Los Altos Rod & Gun Club for a shooting range double date. We met our friends Ross & Lara and a friend of theirs to shoot pistols on the short range and then Heff and I ventured to the long range ourselves to shoot rifles and his new big gun. The range masters were in awe of his new gun the "Warbird" and called their friends down to check out how much bigger the bullets are than a 30-06... you can shoot an elephant with this thing! We stayed until they closed the range and had fun together on our afternoon date.

Heff with a smokin gun

Learning to shoot a pistol

Double date with Ross and Lara on the range :)

The contest target (I beat Heff 18 to 17 with a shot in the bullseye... beginners luck :)

Lara with a 40

Heff sighting in his new Warbird rifle

Aunt Kat's handmade knit blanket came in handy over the sandbags for shooting the big gun :)

My rifle target with a three shot grouping at 100 yards! (Greg Weber are you proud of me?)

Faces of Francie Friday

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I haven't done a "Faces of Francie" post in awhile!... here she is:

I love these personalized onesies I got on Etsy that say Francie! They just came the other day... the lady who makes them custom screen prints each one and they come in a cute little wooden box with her name on it too.

Looking cute with her Lucky jeans Emmy ;)

Today we went to the park to play with some other babies and their moms in the morning after taking care of our chickens and the five NEW chicks we are chick-sitting for Uncle Mark! It's amazing how fast these chickens get big, awkward and ugly:) But all still alive Mark! Then we met Jannie and Auntie Baby Ann at University Circle (where Heff used to work) where Ann has a 2-week temp job scanning EIGHT file cabinets worth of documents (aren't you jealous?) Someone in my neighborhood sent the job out on our email list so passed it on to her and even though it sounded pretty rough (scanning 8 hours a day) she took the job to get my Dad off her back about her shopping habits. Of course she did have to do a little shopping to dress "business casual" for the job! She wanted to take Francie up to her office to meet everybody who knows her as "Ann the Scanner."

Dad took Francie on a run this afternoon. It was so HOT today, they were brave. Here is Dad amazed that for the last two months he didn't know her water bottle had to twist to get anything out of it... funny he never understood why she only dribbled when MOM gave her water!

Big mitts and big feet... sorry for those genes Doodle :)

She is much more used to her "Chariot" now. It has all kinds of pockets for toys and snacks and even a neat place to keep her bow while her helmet is on :)

A Day Full of Play

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Wednesday was a crazy day... Francie and I had a lunch date at a new place in San Carlos with Alexis and James, went to visit dad at the office, went by the 30% off sale at Le Cirque (my fav baby boutique... go shop if you live here!) and had an impromptu playdate in the store with the owners and friends who work there (one has a 6 month old baby boy Conor). Francie tore up the place emptying bins of toys, blocks and trucks and "oo-oo-ing" at the giant steiff giraffe. Then we met Kelli and Landry for ice cream and to check out their new house. We got home just in time to go to the neighborhood summer "series" of cocktails and kids parties down the street. It was CRAZY with kids and babies!

Somehow Dad was too busy talking and didn't notice Francie had other plans for that hummus besides actually eating it

Lots of love from Emma and Owen!

After the cocktail party we walked to the park and then to sushi for dinner

I took Francie down the big slide in the background on cardboard boxes so we'd go really fast (the bid kids showed us how to do it)

Hope you had a fun day on your nine month birthday Francie-pants:)