Happy Thanksgiving!!

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I'm thankful today for my family. And for summer PJ's that can still be worn on cold mornings with a little morphing. HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all of our friends who read this silly blog and to our family who are in far away places today (we looked for you on the Thanksgiving Day Parade route Ellie, Kate, Patrick, Aunt Kat & Donald!)- and to our family who we will be eating dinner together with very soon.

and a special "thankful for" you to my husband who watched the girls last night so I could go out to dinner with my sister and Christian for a little girls catching up on the only night of the year Palo Alto is kind of fun. Even if the living room might look like this when I get home... he does such a good job taking care of our girls and taking care of me. Thank you Heff :)

The Cook Cousins

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Sunday we had my cousin Leslie, her husband Sean and their adorable girls Katelyn and Emma over for a BBQ and to play. Leslie is my second cousin (our moms are first cousins) so I guess that makes the girls third cousins? I'm sure Jannie will correct me on however I am wrong on this one ;) The girls ran around together

We had four delicious ducks from Heff's last hunt... he BBQ'ed them after stuffing with onions and apples and made my Grampa Jim's famous duck sauce.

Leslie trying to run after three girls :)

and masterfully not spilling her wine

Late night playhouse action (ok, not exactly late night with the time change it gets dark so early!)

The ducks- look a little crisp but off the BBQ they were delicious that way

Katelyn and Emma loved Baby Maisie and Katelyn helped feed her dinner

and babysat while we finisihed dinner ;)

We read girls books- Leslie's mom is one of SIX girls (Jannie's cousins) and we've heard stories of lots of late night dinner party girly time over the years...

here is generation number three of the girls!

Making funny faces

and being silly

very silly

ring around the rosey.... good thing these cousins stay up as late as Francie does!

Cousins all around... thanks for coming over Cooks!

Emmy Loves Carrots

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Emmy babysat both girls Thursday night while we went to a wine tasting thing.

She was feeding Maisie her yummy yummy orange carrots for dinner before we left...

"ummmmmmmmmmmm"

Then Francie "pretended" to feed Emmy-wemmy

Only she went a little too far with the carrot GOOP on a spoon

Sicko!

Gross France!

"Did YOU do that to me on purpose Francie-pants?!"

Maisie doesn't like it when Francie beats up on her godmom... or when her sister screams in her ear while she's trying to eat her dinner

Recent Ramblings

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Nothing too exciting... just some randomness from our very exciting day to day life :)

We walked down to Willow Market for dinner supplies (we don't plan ahead so well- nightly runs to the market down the street happen almost every night we are home) Back to bundling the girls up with the cold weather here. The girls are skeptical about this bundle up thing...

We had family dinner at home- Heff cheffed up some venison pasta. Francie's favorite part is to remind us she is eating DEER meat.

Maisie snuggled up and appeased me by looking right at my camera for like 45 shots while I tried to play with the settings on my camera (I'm still clueless)

and speaking of my camera.... I got a new camera bag I'm only slightly obsessed with

Dad and the girls made funny faces

Francie started her own blog. (just kidding, maybe.)

at least her feet are sparkling clean

Maisie learned to draw (again)

Francie tried out the new "Create It" art studio at Town & Country with Rose

and the big news.... Violet and Wittle Violet have been collecting some new Blabla friends! The latest members of the family: "Olivia/Tessa" (she can't decide) who comes in her underthings and has CLOTHES to wear! and "Giselle" the little princess Lea red-head for Maisie Moo. Guess where we got them? And aren't they adorable!!

Maisie at 8 months!

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8 Months and 27 Months!

I hardly ever keep track of what the girls are doing when (other than by photos of course!) and I'm a little behind on the parallel pics

8 MONTHS - MAISIE

*She does "SO BIG!" for "How big is Maisie?" and lifts her arms above her head...
*Then she "Smashes um down" in her lap
*Waving to say hi (her wave is "I'm to cool" hand in the air at you with a little smirk) and expects you to clap when she waves
*Squinty Face with squinty eyes and laughs at herself in the mirror
*Crawls like a mad-baby
*Cruises on furniture or along the wall or with a push toy
*Stood unassisted a couple times (and was sooo proud of herself)

She seems taller than Francie was at this age but is more petite

Where We Work and Play

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I am a huge dork. And a huge home-body. Maybe that's why I love Menlo Park so much :) Luckily I when I met my husband he was living here too- I looked at him like "where have you been hiding that I don't know you already?" Having my offices and Heff's office in the same building downtown gives me a good home-base (or commune) to park myself and my strollers.

My friends own businesses downtown too which gives me some good destinations and we frequent most restaurants on "The Cruz." I feel really lucky to have work to keep my busy with new stuff but with great managers for the day-to-day I still get to feel like a stay-at-home-mom... and get to play downtown Menlo Park most days. Today I actually worked on an ad promoting a "shop local" target, you'll see if you keep reading my ramblings...

My favorite baby store downtown of course is "Le Cirque des Enfants" my friend Christian owns... it has the best baby stuff- like the new BlaBla dolls (like the Shigo girls gave us!) that they just got in with dress up clothes!! They are all ready for Christmas...

Maisie just chillin in her favorite fancy chair at Le Cirque

Francie trying things on

Maisie getting some love from Christian

and making funny faces

and there is hardly a day downtown without a stop at "The Sugar Shack!" (Sweet-tooth-Francie's-FAV and my most used bribery trick)

our friend Suzi! (who was there when Heff and I met- we hope we have her Karma, she has SEVEN kids and a candy store!)

And today I actually DID WORK for most of the afternoon and evening. Thanks Heff and Jannie for helping with the monsters....

I worked on Facebook "Ad campaigns"... it's such a cool way to promote your business! Thanks for becoming out fan if you have already and if not click here to FAN us!!

Then Christian and I decided at 3pm to "throw together" an ad for the inside back cover of the Junior League Holiday Homes Tour brochure... we got our friend Katie (who owns the boutique Pink Tangerine) on board to promote all three and "Shop Local!" The almost finished product...

You'd THINK creating a business where you could LEAVE your kids for a few hours while you ran errands would be great for when you actually have kids and need to leave them... but of course Francie flat out refuses to stay and play by herself. I don;t know what I am doing wrong. Thank goodness for Heff and Jannie!

at least it's an excuse to play with thousand piece toys I banned from my house :)

Hi Bethy

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The Carter's had us all over for dinner Friday night since Beth and her boyfriend Greg were home for a quick weekend. It was a treat to have cracked crab and a fun dinner with lots of good wine :) Georgia was so sweet to have toys out for the girls to play with- Francie was in heaven between playing with the toys and her friends "Georgia and Beffy"

Jannie and Georgia with Francie

Bethy hiding behind Maisie Moo

and throwing Francie around

We've been doing family dinners with the Carter's since sixth grade :) Georgia always sets a pretty table and takes good care of us

My Bestie Beffy

Johnets being funny

girls way up in the air like flight attendants! (jannie always plays this game- she was a flight attendant for six years before I was born :) but last week Heff took the girls for lunch at the airport and told me under his breath "we saw a pilot get into a plane with a girl who was obviously a h**ker" and Francie who we didn't think heard us goes "NO DAD! That was a FLIGHT ATTENDANT!!!"

just playing

late night, Mare and Heff

Beth and Greg - come back more often!!

Sunday @ Home

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Sunday morning we went to the 9:30am family mass (got ourselves motivated earlier than out usual put-off-til 5:00pm mass!). Turns out they have donut holes after family mass. Awesome.
I tried to get a picture of the girls. Didn't work so much. But look at our fierce beast...

Clara, Mark and Sarah walked over on Sunday afternoon for a visit. The girls weren't feeling 100% and had to cancel on some friends to BBQ so we were just hanging around the house while Francie took a marathon 3.5 hour nap. The little girls played in peace and loved the activity block thing Oma and Opa gave us for Francie last year