Happy 2nd Birthday Little Dove!

Elizabeth, Your second year on this earth has been a whirlwind. I know that it wasn’t as crazy as your first year, and I am thankful for the stability. This last year has been incredible. You have changed so much from a small, fragile little person into an opinionated, silly, happy little girl. You are a child now, no longer a baby and that just amazes me. When you were first born, I remember eagerly anticipating your first smile, then your first steps, and now I find myself curious as to what type of person you’re going to be.

You’re already an incredibly talented musician. You can keep beat whether you’re dancing or singing. You know all the words to the ABC song, baby bumble bee, and the walking walking up up up songs. You know how to count into the teens. You can identify any letter or number. I am just utterly in awe of how brilliant you are. Your dad and I try really hard to take you places to help you develop. I took you to the zoo last week and you got to pet your first sheep. It was like you met a celebrity. You were so excited, and so happy. I want to fill your life with experiences and firsts. You ate sushi the other day with chop sticks, I was impressed.

You’re the only kid at the park that can climb up all the structures with ease. You’re the only little one that can go down the big slide with no parental help. You’re so independent, and so amazing. I can’t believe you’re 2, you’re incredible. Right now you’re obsessed with hippos. There is a video of a hippo pooping and you crack up laughing. I think you had an anxiety dream about hippos because you were a little scared last week. We talked about hippos and how they don’t bite you. You like to grab your plastic hippo and you make it bite me or daddy and you say “watch out mommy, hippos bite!”

You have a tricycle and you rode your bike around the block with your dad. I was amazed. Nobody sees a child under 2 riding a bike out on the street. You look so cute with your little helmet.

I love you little girl. You’re worth everything to me. I can’t wait to see what you do in the next year. I am already so proud.

With love,
Your mama.

Apparently, a hippo pooping is the funniest thing ever

New Picture Post

We haven't posted in quite some time and Eliza has grown so much since the last post. We are all doing fine and work is going well for both of us. We're really looking forward to this summer so we can do some more outdoor things. Eliza really enjoys going for bike rides down to the marina where she runs around and plays on all the playground equipment. Halloween With Mom and Dad at the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day At Baker Beach in San Francisco Fun at the park They love each other Double Bah! Fun with a big leaf Singing and playing her guitar Enjoying an orange at costco Practicing her adjustment technique on her bear She's a natural Having fun! Eliza and her train in front of the tree Playing at the beach in Santa Cruz Bike ride! Using chopsticks for the first time Being a little rascal at Ace Hardware Being goofy with Mom Bike ride! First time bowling Such a ham! Rachel and I ran the Lake Merritt couples relay and did really well Playing ball in the backyard Riding the big horse Riding the little horse Trip to the wildlife museum

Camping!

Wow, we haven't updated in a while... Shows how busy our life has been! We've done a bit of camping over the past two weeks and I thought I'd share our pictures. Eliza had a blast and is a pretty great camping baby. We didn't bring any toys with us and she was content running around playing with pine cones, rocks, sticks and just about anything else she could find. Rachel and I had a great time too! Our first camping trip this year was three weeks ago and we went to a campground on the Mokelumne River for Joey's (Rachel's brother) 30th birthday. The campground is seriously in the middle of nowhere:
View Larger Map We had quite an adventure finding it, as did most of the other people we were camping with, but we ended up having a great time.

Our second trip, was to the Eastern side of the Mendocino National Forest. The East side isn't really the side that people go to because it's supposedly not as nice looking as the West side, but we found it to be very beautiful. We stayed at a campsite that was a short walk to the river. Eliza had so much fun throwing rocks into the water! She picked up a rock and said her usual, "Dat!", and I said, "that's a rock", so now she calls them "a rock". So cute. We went camping with our friends Lydia and Adam and we all had a lot of fun exploring the different areas. Slappy chasing the ducks Playing with sugar packets at the only place to get breakfast in town Eliza telling ghost stories

Trip to Denver

We got back from a weekend trip to Denver for Mark's management group seminar. We had a great time and a pretty easy flight there.



Once we were there, we met up with our friends Chris & Kylee and their kids. Eliza was very excited to see her birth friend Bob who was born the day after her.







Eliza made a best friend- Alex:

The weekend was fun. Good friends, good food, a nice hotel. The flight home was awful... seriously awful, but we learned some traveling with baby lessons. Don't travel with a baby-