the thanksgiving report

we went to seattle for thanksgiving, as we do every year, and momma kwong made dinner, as she does every year because she refuses to have any turkey but her family turkey. so here it is, in its fully roasted, stuffed glory:

and here's what we had, from left to right: chestnut stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, maple cranberry sauce, turkey (of course), sauteed green beans, sweet potatoes, mac and cheese, pumpkin and pecan pies (not pictured here):

here's amelia enjoying her dinner. strangely, she decided against mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and insisted that i remove everything on her plate that even touched the aforementioned offensive items.

hanging out with harabiji:

checking out the snowman next door:

it felt like we went away for a long time, maybe because, for once, we didn't have to travel across the country. it really is nice to be closer to family.

annual edition of the ones we didn't pick

it's holiday card season again, and before amelia left a trail of vomit through berkeley (more on that later), i took a gazillion pictures of her for our holiday card. here are a few of the rejects:

nice work with the hands in the pockets, but the background isn't very festive, and yes, she does have two feet:

three chins are unflattering, even for a two-year-old:

sweet, but kid's gotta be looking at the camera. and my hydrangeas are looking a little ill:

luckily we have about 15 other pictures to choose from. look out for our card in your mailbox!

oh, and on the trail of vomit-- we had lunch at otis's house on saturday. after a lovely lunch of homemade pizza, we took a walk for some ice cream. on our way home, amelia hurled about four times on the 5 blocks between the ice cream shop and otis's house. after the last, um, hurling plus a three hour long nap, she was just fine. we suspect that some lox schmear from noah's bagels was the culprit. pox on noah's!

art

after two months of school, amelia has finally stopped crying when we drop her off. now, we take off her shoes when we get there, and she just runs away. phew! we were starting to think that maybe school wasn't such a good idea after all, but with the ceasing of the crying, her use of the word "beaucoup" and these art projects, we're really glad we signed her up after all:

Q from Momma: Why does this spider only have one eye?

A from Mia: Because this guy doesn't have two eyes!

friends hanging out on a hippo

cute

rody the pony

reading to:

riding:


posing with:

day in sonoma

turns out sonoma is a mere 45 minutes away, and poppa wanted to do something different last weekend, so we spent the day in sonoma. first stop: sonoma train town, one of the cheesier children's activity we've done here. the main feature of the sonoma train town is this mini-train ride that takes about 20 minutes, and stops at a "town," which includes a school, jail, church, and petting zoo. amelia refused to have anything to do with the animals at the petting zoo, but poppa did feed a sheep or two.

here we are on the train:


at the train depot:

refusing to feed the animals:

then we stopped for a lovely, semi-civilized lunch at the el dorado hotel. mia is posing here with a random duck on the sidewalk.

playing in front of some historical building:

all in all, a successful trip.

pomegrandmas

are amelia's new favorite fruit:

running

our apartment has a courtyard in the middle, and it creates a natural circular traffic pattern that amelia has turned it into a running track morning, noon, and night. luckily, no one lives beneath us, otherwise, we'd be much reviled.

here she is running in the morning:

and here she is running at night:

(we have no idea what that little chant is about, but we think it's pretty hilarious.)

posing

halloween: the reluctant ladybug

halloween has never been amelia's favorite holiday. it might have something to do with the costume thing, and much less with the candy thing (now she knows about candy!). this halloween, much like the others, started out well enough.

here we are, carving pumpkins with ian and helen:

scooping seeds out:

with our completed pumpkin:


handing out candy before going out to get our own:


and the inevitable taking off of the costume well before the night was over:

notwithstanding the costume situation, she really enjoyed the trick or treating part and has been begging us for candy all day long.