November 2014

November was a wonderful month spent at home, enjoying family and friends who visited from near and far.

Liam continues to grow bigger and bigger and continues to enjoy playing on the phone, which is anything he can hold up to his ear.

Like Elsa before him, Liam also liked playing phone in Daddy's office.

Elsa continues to just have fun with everything.  She loves climbing and jumping and imaginary play.  She and Liam had a lot of fun for several weeks in their amazing rocket ship.

She contends to love to dress up and just be silly.

Both kids love hearing stories.  Liam will get a book and then when you are done get another, and another and another.

They do so much together now, from mimicking each other eating,

 to super fun bath time.

 I love how much fun they have together.

 A happy Thanksgiving from all of us!

Halloween 2014

Elsa and Liam started out Halloween morning as a beautiful princess and a scary pirate!

Our pumpkin family just made it to Halloween.  Elsa called them Daddy pumpkin with two mommy pumpkins and a lot of baby pumpkins.  They were a good family.

 For trick or treating, Elsa dressed up as Belle and Liam addressed up as a puppy dog.

It was fun to take them out on the town.

We saw a giant pumpkin at the Halloween maze at one of the neighborhood properties.

Elsa really just liked going up to all the doors and getting candy. Liam wanted to open and eat the candy after every stop!  Finally, after many doorbells, Elsa told me her bag was too heavy and she needed me to carry it.  That is when I knew if was time to go home.

Once we were home, Elsa and I went through all the candy, splitting them into the Chocolate and the Non-Chocolate.  It was fun to organize the candy for the Switch Witch who is coming tonight to switch all the candy out for a present, while they sleep the night away!

Fallen Leaf Lake and October Fun

October was an amazing month.  One weekend we went to Princeton in the Sierra Camp, which was held at Stanford's Sierra Camp at Fallen Leaf Lake.  It was beautiful.  

 We enjoyed paddling around in the lake and taking boat rides.

 We had fun hikes, exploring camp and creeks. 

It was also an exciting month because it was my 40th birthday, or as I like to say I turned 28 in hexadecimal.

 Both Liam and Esa really enjoy cooking project and I really enjoy cooking with them.

One of Liam's favorite things to do is to take out bowl and have his own cooking projects.  They are usually messy.

Elsa continues to love to face paint.  Here she is a monster.

I continue to love to watch them sleep, particularly when they have maching outfits on.

 Liam often snuggles up to Elsa in bed, it is so sweet to see.

Liam's big joy is trying to drive the car, along with pushing every button he can.  It makes starting the car always a lot of fun.

Elsa is doing well in school and is now one of the big kids, leading games and activities.  The school went on a fun trip to Happy Hollow and played with goats.

We also went to the local park with Elsa's school and Liam had fun playing around like the big kids.

October was also fun, because I went to a confernece in New Orleans, speaking on Open Source Software licensing.  The real fun for me was walking to the Cafe du Monde and getting beniets every morning.

We had a wonderful October.

Sandboxes and Apples

September started out with the building of the sandbox in the back yard.  Arne and his dad spent Labor Day laboring in the yard to build a sturdy sandbox with a cover.

 Liam enjoyed helping out Grandpa and Dad and everyone enjoyed playing in it once the building was done.

Elsa took her swim test and graduated to Level 2. We are very proud of how great a swimmer she now is.

I stopped in Singapore to visit an old office mate on a work trip to India. 

 A highlight in India was drinking fresh sugar cane juice.

While Karna was in India, Arne had a number of adventures with the kids.  One day Liam left his bottle on the sofa and the cushions got wet. Arne pulled the cushions off the sofa to see if they would need to be washed. Elsa started bouncing on the sofa like it was a trampoline. Then she fell onto the pile of cushions on the floor. Liam copied her. Soon they were both squealing with laughter and the the spilled milk was forgotten. Later Elsa called it her rocket ship and called herself "Space Girl".

They had great bath time dress up time.

And they picked a lot of apples from Arne's childhood apple tree (he planted it from a seed in elementary school).

Once I was home, Elsa and I made several apple desserts - cupcakes, cake, pie, and crisp.  There are still more apples to cook.

We are looking forward to a great autumn!