weekend with alicia

cousin alicia and her parents came to visit us this weekend. we started off at the exploratorium, with a lovely picnic lunch to follow at the palace of fine arts:
headed up to sonoma for a little wine tasting and buying (for poppa) and lavender fields viewing, winter notwithstanding (for everyone else):
and finally, the girls picked leaves from the reddest tree this side of the mississippi:

field trip: leaf picking in the park!

letter to santa

Mia: I want to write a letter to Santa.

Momma: Ok, what do you want to write?

Mia: I am a good girl.

Momma: What else?

Mia: Slippers.

Momma: What about slippers?

Mia: I want slippers.

Momma: How do you ask nicely?

Mia: Please can I have slippers?

Momma: What do you say after?

Mia: Thank you.

bike riding!

what were we thinking?

yes, there are some deficiencies in our parenting, including what is depicted in this video. not sure when it happened, but we've been helping amelia perfect her "dirty look." i have no doubt we will come to regret this some day soon. she did tell me, "momma, i love you even when i give you a dirty look."

a tale of two tiggers

when amelia announced that she wanted to be tigger for halloween, poppa dutifully searched the internet for a tigger costume. all he could find was one that was size 2T. momma confidently announced, "oh, that will fit amelia, she's not that big!" turns out momma was wrong. despite amelia's claims that it fit perfectly (it really didn't, she looked ridiculous), momma searched the internet for a size 3T tigger costume, which she found at a children's resale shop in Oakland, and mimi yiyi kindly picked it up for us. helen's momma, being far more ingenious than momma or poppa kwong, sewed a nifty stretchy crotch for helen, and voila, helen was tigger too.