The Full Catastrophe » laurel

30 minutes till Birthday Party

Anna — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:33:21 +0000

It is Laurel’s 2nd birthday today! Again, another bittersweet day in a parent’s life. I have so much fun with her and have so much pride in her and am so happy to have a little girl in my life. The kids’ birthdays force me to realize that childhood is just as fast as lightning.

Here’s a picture Brian snapped yesterday (“her last day as a one year old” I told everyone we encountered). Isn’t she lovely? Do you also hear the Stevie Wonder song in your mind right now?

Here she is on her 1st birthday:

And here she is when she was just born:

I baked a pink three-layer cake for Laurel’s birthday dinner. It is a tower of strawberry/cream cheese insanity. I’ll make sure to share some photos on here later!

Summer’s Kick-off

Anna — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:58:29 +0000

Three day weekends are great. Three day weekends that kick-off summer…well those are simply divine. This weekend we took the kids to visit Brian’s Aunt Kim for a morning of horseback riding.

Kim rides 3 days a week at this lovely north county farm. Oscar and Laurel were very comfortable on and around the horses. Lucky for them, Kim had arranged for rides on a sweet old pony named April. Kim kept offering rides anytime they want. Don’t be surprised if we put our house up for sale and move closer to April!

I am still working on my 7 minute mile. Just this morning I tried for an official record of my run, but for a second time made it in 7 minutes, 20 seconds. I can do the 7 minute mile on the treadmill, but on a track I am clearly struggling. I am determined to make it happen on a track and will be proud to share my news here as soon as I meet this goal.

What Happens When You Leave Laurel Alone Too Long

Anna — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:28:45 +0000

Springtime in SD

Anna — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:19:08 +0000

Grandma Toki is playing with the kids right now, so I thought I’d steal away to my computer to share some recent photos. We just got back from a nice stroll through the Japanese garden in Balboa Park. It was a first time for each of us to visit the garden and we picked a lovely spring day to do so. The weather is certainly spring-like with cool breezes, fluffy clouds, and a hint of warm sun.

Easter Sunday was pretty much the same weatherwise. I went to the effort this year of buying Easter clothes for the kids, something I have never done before. Having a daughter and the opportunity to buy pretty dresses is very satisfying. When Brian heard that I had Easter clothes in mind he started to worry that I was going to make him dress up, too. He was off the hook this year, but next year I’m thinking that matching bow-ties for the boys will be just the ticket!

Our Kids Are Cute

Anna — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:04:32 +0000

Clever title, eh? Well, Laurel and Oscar are cute. So there!

Oscar’s drawing skills are coming together all of a sudden. He is for the first time thinking about what he wants to create, vs just scribbling. Here’s something he created at school last week.

He had his teacher copy down the following description of his piece: “This is a sea animal that lives in the sea. If you touch the brown things you will get poisoned and sick. And if you touch the black or red ones they will make more of the sea creatures.”

Oscar also enjoys creating books. Leave a comment with this post and I’ll send a random commenter a copy of his latest book “Super Flower and Attack of the Talking Apples” on Friday, March 27th.

Laurel is loving her weekly music class. I cut together some fun moments to share with you here:

Fulfilling a Request

Anna — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:37:48 +0000

My mom asked for some video of Laurel’s new language skills. Grammy always gets what Grammy wants. Am I right, Dad?

I am working hard to meet my goal of running a seven minute mile. So far I am running my usual distance with a half-mile at a seven minute mile pace. My plan is to keep adding distance at the fast pace until I reach my goal. It is so hard. I feel like I would give up on this crazy idea if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve advertised it on the blog. Therefore, in order to save face, I am sticking with it.

One last random note is on a silly thing that Oscar says every once in a while. We have no idea where this came from.

Oscar says “Dad, do you know what I am going to give you for your next birthday?”

Brian says “What, kiddo?”

Oscar replies “A sad, backwards glance.”

Say what!? Is this from a movie or something? Crazy kid.

Bowling = 4 Thumbs Up

Anna — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:10:59 +0000

We were setting ‘em up and knocking them down last night during the kids’ first trip to the bowling alley. Oscar had the second highest score with the aid of gutter bumpers. Yeah, he beat me, but I shared my frames with Laurel. For those of you around San Diego, we recommend that you check out the SDSU bowling alley. It was especially fun for Brian, I think. He spent a lot of time when he was a kid skateboarding around the campus and hanging out with his friends (probably watching the coeds in their convertible Cabriolets!). Naturally, we brought the flip along and put this together:

On our way home, “Add It Up” by The Violent Femmes was on the radio and Brian commented that the song was a perfect soundtrack to his high school days and all of the time he spent at State. We stayed in the car till the song was done and decided that portions of that song were going to have to go into our kids bowling video. After many minutes of careful editing and loading onto You Tube, we found for the second time this week that the song and all of the audio is muted out by Warner Brothers (the kids love this cheesy Pink song, “Rock Star”, it is on par cheesy-wise with “Welcome to the Jungle”). I guess Warner thinks it is losing money somehow, but honestly it isn’t. No one makes money from their You Tube videos and if anything, Warner is getting free promotion of their products. We acquired the music legally and are bummed that we aren’t able to use it to its fullest potential. Apparently, we aren’t the only ones that are a bit p.o.’ed.

Stress Relief

Anna — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:35:45 +0000

Back in 1989 kids used to have to go down to Melones to do stuff like this. Since I’m letting them do it at home, I’m a lenient parent. I bet that all of the Calaveras County n’er-do-wells who used to tear it up now sit in cubes and think of this scene when they get stressed. Anyway, our latest video demonstrates the DeHamer monsters in action:

What We’re Talking About

Anna — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:54:33 +0000

I’ve been saying lots of spontaneous Yes We Can’s and Barack Obama’s as the inauguration gets closer. I’ll be watching all the action tomorrow and am very excited…but not as excited as Lydia must be. Check out her new blog from Washington:
http://www.threegoodnerves.blogspot.com/

Don’t ask Laurel about Yes We Can, though. She learned how to say no yesterday. It is horrible and adorable at the same time. I’ll try to get some video for you guys.

Oscar and Brian have been in creative modes. Brian has just completed a couple of photography classes and Oscar has written a poem. I’ll leave you with their work.

Silliness and happiness
Fun stuff to do
Underline two-hundred and two
Welcome to the zoo fair
So much to have fun

We Had a Mele Kalikimaka

Anna — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:23:08 +0000

Brian and I spent Christmas in Kauai with the kids, Brian’s mom, brother, & Turtle. Our water babies were able to splash and play in the ocean every day of our visit and that is really why people brave the 5 hour flight out there, right? They also chased chickens, built sand castles, ate shave ice, drank from a coconut, slid down the pool slide, and were spoiled rotten by their grandma, aunt, & uncle (Laurel learned how to say “Matt”).

Brian and I had a blast, too. The ultimate experience came on our last afternoon on the beach. We went out with Matt & Turtle for one last snorkel when we spotted a sea turtle. Brian saw it first and popped up to say “Turtle! Turtle!” and Turtle said, “What?! “What?!” and Brian was all “No a SEA TURTLE!” We followed the big guy around for a few minutes when the sky opened up in a downpour. We dashed back to the beach and collected the kids and all of our stuff completely exhilarated and satisfied.

Check out the Flickr slideshow here:

And here’s the video that Brian put together last night: