Scenes from the holidays

We spent Christmas at home this year. While we missed seeing all the family, it was fun to have the chance to put time into starting some of our own little holiday traditions with Cassidy.

We decorated our front window with paper cutouts (Cassidy suggested the cutout ideas, while I did the cutting). One of my sewing projects was to complete this advent calendar with each pocket containing an activity for the day and a wooden figure to use in constructing a nativity scene. 

We baked gingerbread...

And made a gratitude garland with paper and clothespins.

At the same time we didn't really do as much as maybe I thought we would. Maybe the lack of snow means that my instinct to really get to baking and holiday-ing never quite kicks into full gear. I don't know. But I do know that we also enjoyed the chance to be out and about and enjoyed a couple of Christmas eve walks in some of our local parks. (A good Christmas eve walk or two is a tradition I'm ready to embrace!)

We returned home from our afternoon walk to discover that the local church had a full live action nativity scene underway. A mix of young and old participated (there was also a little boy on the roof of the manger in an angel costume) along with the livestock. Cassidy loved it.

Christmas eve followed on with Cassidy's new table from Nai nai and Bop, and a reading of Maisy's Snowy Christmas Eve dressed in new pjs. We even had time to take some cookies over to our new neighbors.

A few scenes from the rest of Christmas day...Christmas trees, gifts, Nutella toast, a Christmas dress...

The post-holiday season has not been without it's challenges, but we are weathering them and looking for the ways we can enjoy the rest of winter.

Happy Birthday Cassidy!

A little photographic proof that Cassidy did indeed turn 2 last week, for those who were not able to join her for such an auspicious occasion. As I'm sure all parents say, "Where does the time go?" But it really does feel that way. 2 years! Wow! At the same time I can also say that so far, it is still just getting more fun by the day.


So we kicked off the birth-day with her new (to her) play kitchen awaiting her in the living room. When we brought her into the living room we said "Cassidy what's that?". To which she replied "Oh! A stove!" and got right to work:

We followed that up with a little excursion by bike (in her new birthday dress and toting the Maisy library book bag I made for her):

For some cupcakes! Mmmm...one pumpkin and one gingerbread (she promptly ate the little ginger-man off the top of the gingerbread one). We also picked up a lovely red birthday leaf along the way:

Next we hit the library to find, read, and check out every Maisy book we could locate. Turns out, there are quite a few:

The day ended off with a chat with Aunt Caitlin and the opening of a pint-sized Kohahna t-shirt, giving Cassidy the chance to transform herself into a little blue elf:

We followed up the day itself with some weekend birthday festivities -- a trip to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, more lovely gifts from her many admirers and cake with candles -- but these pictures are scattered hither and thither amongst many cameras and will have to be gathered together at a later date. In the meantime, I'm pretty sure this little girl knows how loved she is, and we look forward to seeing what the next year brings!

The little individual

As Cassidy gets older (almost 2!) we're starting to see more of this fun little individual appearing. It's fun to see her thought process at work. Here are a couple moments that made me smile recently.


On a beautiful morning, I suggested a trip to the park. Cassidy agreed and quickly gathered together these items, which she decided we simple must bring along.

Apparently, her stuffed snowman, a tiny plastic pumpkin, a wooden spoon and my old t-ball hat were all necessary park-going gear.

This girl has definite ideas about what should be worn and taken with on various outings. Here's how we ended up going to the grocery store recently:

Yep. That's right. The diaper is over the pants. You see, after she had used the potty I asked her if she wanted to put on underwear or a diaper. I felt a minor sense of accomplishment when she said underwear. What I didn't realize was that she wanted underwear, pants and a diaper. When I questioned this approach she lay down on the floor insistently trying to put the diaper on by herself. I thought I would humor her briefly, so we put on the diaper, took a picture and played around the house. I thought I would take it off before we headed out to the market, but one has a way of forgetting these things and  I didn't quite take note that she was still sporting her baby superhero look until she was charging ahead of me into the grocery store...ah well.

A a random aside, not captured on camera is the time at the park one afternoon when Cassidy gleefully patted the backside of a girl wearing low-rider jeans and exclaimed "bum!" Low-riders on an eight year old bothered me too, but only the innocence and curiosity of an almost two year old could offer such an original response.

It's these unique little moments that bring a smile to the daily routine!

Happy Hallowe'en!

A little taste of some Hallowe'en fun here. 1 little girl, 2 great costumes, 4 pumpkins and her first go at trick or treating!

Summer to fall and back again

Hopefully with the onset of fall, I will have returned from my summer of spotty blogging to a little more regular posting. Now that we've just returned from our annual pilgrimage to the midwest, I guess it's truly time to take down the mental "On vacation" sign and move into the focused and productive cooler months I also so love.


These pictures from the first weekend of September are indicative of what our end of summer/early fall has been like. A morning can start with a winter coat and hot chocolate, and end in a day warm enough for a swim in the river. One moment I'm ready to fire up the oven and bring out the soup pot, the next it's all I can do not to just spend the day in a vegetative state on the couch, hoping to escape the 100 degree temps if I just don't move at all. But I've enjoyed September, with all it's weather oddities, to just appreciate what there is to like about all conditions. We'll see what October brings!

Celebrating ordinariness

I know, I know, you mostly come here for the cute pictures of one little girl right? But I also like to share a little bit of the parenting journey too. As we were biking home from town the other day, an idea clicked in my mind that I'd like share here with you: celebrating ordinariness. My mind has been abuzz with ideas lately as I've been working through a number of books about parenting, family life, education. It's been one of those delightful reading journeys, where one book leads to the next to the next to the next...


Most recently I've been reading a book titled Simplicity Parenting. The author brings out a number of ways we can simplify family life to allow childhood to be just that...childhood. A slow and special time of learning, rather than a rushed crash course to adulthood. One idea that stood out to me was in the section on simplifying the daily schedule. Payne suggests dialing back on the number of scheduled activities, and to think more about just enjoying the everyday, rather than having to fill each day with some new and better form of entertainment or specialized educational experience. This built very nicely on a book I read a couple months ago, Teach Your Own, where the author emphasized how everyday activities could be a wonderful learning opportunity because of their immediate and tangible connection to real life. 


I have tried to take this to heart by thinking in terms of how we can slow down and enjoy the stuff of daily life, rather than just trying to get through the chores and errands in order to get on to something better. How can we enjoy what we are doing right now? On Friday we had a couple errands downtown and so got on the bike after naptime and set off. After one short stop in the fair trade store downtown, I thought, we have the time, why rush right on to our next errand? What to do? We walked right across the street to the park, checked out the fountain, Cassidy ran after some kids and then tried to play patty-cake with the big Lucy (of Peanuts fame) sculpture. I remembered it was "$2 Freddo Friday" (Freddo is an icy tea or coffee drink in various flavors) at Peet's, and not having had a Freddo previously, we walked down the street to give that a try.


Our next stop on the bike was the plant nursery near our house. I was in search of some fun plant for a house-warming gift, and Cassidy was in search of all the little goat/chicken/horse lawn ornaments they have hiding amongst the plants. Cassidy helped me pick out a lovely dark purple butterfly bush, and she "ooo'd" while the salesperson wrapped the pot in paper decorated with butterflies. She then got to hold the tube of wrapping paper and enjoy hearing how her "helloo" was amplified down the length of the tube. We put the plant in our bike pannier and continued home. 


There. Not the most exciting afternoon when it comes to describing it, but as we were on our way home, I realized that I felt totally relaxed. Instead of filling the afternoon with "we need to do this then that, then go here" plus worrying about whether Cassidy was having a good time or getting fussy, I just thought about how we could wrap the whole afternoon into a time of getting things done, but also little moments we could both enjoy. 


I know perhaps not every outing is going to look like this, but it opened my eyes to how good it can feel to slow down and enjoy the ordinary moments of each day. 

Here's a little ordinary moment at home, somewhat recently:

perfect weekend moment