Grass Installment

After months of mud, we finally got some grass in our courtyard. So:

Little and her friend Alejandro.

Little and her friend/neighbor Wilhelm.

Little, Alejandro, and Olivander.

Mmmmmmm new squishy grass...

Littler got in on the grass action too.

Olivander.

Mommies Know How to Have Fun Too

This year our ward's Christmas party theme was Christmas by the Bay. Somehow I ended up singing in a sextet of sopranos in front of the entire ward (I actually really enjoyed it!). We sang Tim Hockleberry's "Christmas by the Bay" and got to dress up all fancy and cute-like with jingle bell bracelets and big red ribbons around our waists. I haven't gotten to dress all fancy for a performance since high school band concerts (or the one college one, but it wasn't quite as fancy...).



Then, a few minutes later, I got to perform in a funny snowman skit that was a spoof on lots of commonly known songs with lyrics changed to talk about snowmen. Sounds weird, but it really ended up being lots of fun, and the audience loved it! So the next several pitures are of different parts of that skit. We all sang and danced to pretty much everything, but I was in small groups in a little rap and one with Spanish words to the melody of "La Cucaracha". I'm glad I went outside of my normal little boundaries and did these things. It was a lot of fun!

Nativity Pageant

Little and Littler were cast as an angel and a sheep for the little nativity pageant one of our neighbors and friends from the ward held on Sunday. I threw their costumes together a few minutes before we left, which is why Littler doesn't look anything like a sheep, but, what can ya do?

Here's Little before the pageant:

Here she is wondering what Mary and Joseph are up to:

Time for a break...Hey look! Some hay!

What's in here anyway?

Littler as a "sheep":

Little is CUTE

Thanks Given

In addition to our traditional Thanksgiving with friends, on Friday we got together again and had an entirely nontraditional hedonistic smorgasbord in the name of giving thanks for gluttony, in general, and good cheese in specific. We tend to vacillate wildly between asceticism and hedonism and last Friday was the epitome of the latter.

We had [everything but the meat and cheese homemade by us or our friends]: excellent French bread, A-Ron's own house-pet sourdough, casatiello with pepper salami and old gouda, artisan white bread, super-eggy crepes, perfect popovers, pepper salami, linguica, kielbasa, hot capicola, ham, drippy brie de meaux, sharp cheddar, stupendous taleggio, jarlsberg, old gouda, soft-boiled eggs [just for Daddy], hard-boiled eggs, deviled eggs, green olive oil and balsamic vinegar, crackers, pistachios, almonds, seared brussels sprouts, apples, asian pears, oranges, and butternut squash fries. We had a toaster at the table so our little cheese/meat/bread thingies could be toasted on the spot.

For dessert, a chocolate fondue with poundcake.

Super yummy, and pretty cheap too [the milkpail market is ridiculous... $6.99/lb. taleggio! and you don't need pounds of it!]. And the leftovers are sweet. Sure beats turkey n taters, in our opinion.

[Daddy's favorite was a slab of the sourdough dipped in oil and vinegar with capicola and gouda on top, toasted then dipped in warm gooey egg yolk. MMMMMMmmmm. Mommy's favorite was toasted salami and jarlsberg on her famous beautiful white bread. mmmmMMMMMM.]

[we took some pictures, maybe we'll get around to posting them]

[thanks a ton A-Ron, Boni, Cristobal, Brizatnizatny, and Charlissimo for making it rock!]

It's Nov. 15th, and the weather...

Here's what people in Palo Alto do in mid-November:

Happy Birthday!

To a wonderful aunt, sister, sister-in-law!  We love you!

(Sorry everyone else for not remembering yours--her birthday is particularly easy for me to remember...)

When the rain comes...

...they run outside.

One of the beauties of our mediterranean climate here is that we get basically no rain during the summer. This summer was dry. And by that, I mean that we had--barring a single sprinkle in October--exactly zero picoinches of rain from sometime in April until saturday. Then we got over 1,200,000,000,000 picoinches throughout the day. So:



It started with a walk around EV with the kids, Little on her very favorite bike:



Then we just basically had a hydrophilic free-for-all until lunch. Enjoy!

















Little and her best friend Olivander earnestly went to work digging a hole in the sand. Nobody quite knows why, but neither of them could be bothered for quite a while.



Littler discovers which direction rain comes from:











Of course, we are due for a dozen inches [that's 12,000,000,000,000 picoinches, if you're counting] or so over the next 6 months so maybe the novelty will wear off. But hopefully not!