November so Far

We went up to Scot and Kathleen's cabin (which is really a very nice house, but still - vacation home in the woods=cabin to me) to hang out with Uncle Ed last weekend. It was a long drive with plenty of traffic, but once we got there, it was nothing but relaxation.
Gwennie played with blocks.....

Scot and Uncle Ed played cribbage. I wanted in on that action, but the timing was never quite right. Which was fine. I'm over on the couch, hanging out with my belly-baby kicking the bejeebers out of me.
(Can I just say once more how much easier this pregnancy is than the last one? I was completely done traveling by this point with Gwen. Trips to the mall were too much for me to take. This time, I'm planning on Thanksgiving in Sacramento. And boy, I hope I haven't jinxed it.)
We didn't do anything huge or too exciting, but it was really great to see my uncle. I don't think I've gone this long without a trip to see the Rabago clan since I was travelling in 1990. I miss everyone. So just hanging out, checking out movie trailers on the Internet and playing cards was a real treat. One of my favorite things about the trip?

This. It isn't as if Gwen doesn't know Uncle Ed (he's been there from the day one, after all) but 11 months is a long time when you're not quite three. But she wasn't shy with him at all. He's "my uncle, and mama's uncle. He's my family!" and that's all she needed to know. She walked right up to him with her favorite Max and Ruby book (the beauty kit one, no less) and demanded he read it to her. Priceless look on his face for that!








She's a snugglebug, that girl.












Gwen loves to visit her Auntie Kathleen and Uncle Scot, because they're so silly.

The hardest part of the whole weekend for the girl was the trip home. There were lots of tears, and lots of requests to stop by the beach on the way. Clearly, we need some work in the geography department.







Luckily, the next day'snature class was at Natural Bridges. We took a hike, did our project, and visited the monarch butterflies. After the class, Gwen and I headed to the beach. The weather's been getting cooler, so I was careful to dress her warmly for the hike. Didn't do such a good job remembering clothes for the beach. And since she is newly enamored of the ocean itself, we stripped her down. We had a great time. It was sunny and beautiful, and somehow the ocean doesn't seem so chilly when the air's a bit cooler.

She's so pretty, my girl.















Other favorite Gwennie tricks, besides the "yes, she dooz!" phrase that pops up frequently:

-kissing, splodging and generally loving on her sister in my belly. She can't wait to meet her, and I can't wait to see the two of them together.

-Calling her Daddy her prince. Today, specifically, he is her Mermaid Prince, because she is Ariel. I am not allowed to call him anything else, and she corrects herself if she forgets.

-The Mermaid Prince just walked by, wondering which pajamas to put on her. She chased him down, yelling, I want to make my choice! Th'at's my opinionated little person.

-She's still shunning her bed in favor of a "nesty" on the floor - a king sized quilt that she wraps around herself.

-Baby Jaguar has become Baby Lion's big sister.


Ok, so go back and look at the pictures so far. Because the latest thing we did in November so far? Just this morning, in fact?



We got my baby her first real, more-than-bangs, haircut. Doesn't she look grown up? (And yes, I saved a ringlet.)

Birthdays and other happenings

Cupcakes are a big hit in Rutherford's house. One of us, who shall not be named, but shall be prominently featured in photographs, call them puckcakes. Which is less of a comment on my baking skills than on her speaking ones, but it did throw me there for a while. Particularly because she really likes pancakes, too, so I kept getting mixed up.

Today we made yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting for Jim, who turned ... well let's just say he's in the last year of his midforties - on Friday. Gwennie wore her little apron, and dumped ingredients into the bowl with great glee. She gets a little mad when I want to actually stir things myself. "My turn!" she yells, and then she flicks a great glob of the batter over the edge of the bowl. Still, she does pretty well for a two -year-old.

Here's Gwennie enjoying hers:

Oh, it was yummy. It took a long long bath to get all the chocolate off of her.

And this is the girl on her birthday, last December, when her mama specifically did not make chocolate frosting. Nana's banana cupcakes with whipped cream frosting for the totlets. Made for less dramatic pictures, but they were a big hit with her little friends and their mamas. (Jim's more of a classicist.) Plus she's got the way cute birthday girl t-shirt on, and the pigtails, and oh I could eat her own little whipped cream self up. Except it's almost 10 and she's not asleep, which is bringing out other less attractive tendencies in me. I passed the shirt on to one of her friends, and I'm hoping to get a whole chain of pictures of two-year-old Santa Cruz girlies in it.

She has had a couple of rough nights sleeping, which has left her father and I all zombied out. I'm just waiting for her to fall asleep now before I hit the rack, too. I may be waiting a long time.

She had her 2 year check up this week, and everything looks great. The only weird thing is, she's now really big for her age. She was born 5 weeks early at 7 lbs, 3 oz., but then she was in the 5th percentile at 6 months. I kind of got used to her being little. Somewhere in the last 6 months, that changed. I knew she'd been growing a lot, but seeing the numbers - and the little dot on the dr.'s chart - was a bit of a jolt.

But look at her - she's clearly a happy, healthy kid. This was her at the beach during our winter heat wave last week:

She likes the sand waaaay more than the ocean at this point.

Cutest thing right this moment: She's got a few new phrases that she's using. "Come along" as in "Come along, Daddy, play blocks" and "Come along, Mama, time to go!" My personal favorite is "There you go!" "There you go, Rufford! New diaper!" "There you go, blocks! No fall!" All siad in a little piping voice. "There you go!" Not-so-cute-thing: the word "mine!" is now a big part of the vocabulary.

Here's the blast from the past, since I did a lousy job of blogging the last few months. This is the

Girl with our gingerbread house from Christmas. Doesn't she look grown up? The raccoons loved the fact that we composted it right after the picture. They tore apart the composter in their food-coloring-and sugar frenzy. The lid was halfway down the hill, the top tier of the composter was askew, and there were nibbled remains of gingerbread scattered around. Oh well, at least it stayed out of the landfill. And out of Gwen, for that matter.

Jim's still looking for a job, I'm still subbing and not looking hard enough for more work, but for the most part, we're doing ok here on top of our little hill. I won't go as long between posts, I promise.