Photos from January and February 2008: Outings and Dress-Up
It's been a time of change for Serafina and especially Toby. Toby has been potty-trained since mid-January, and doing a great job of it. He only wears diapers when sleeping, and has very few accidents. Also since about that time, he's now able to climb in and out of his crib with ease. So bedtimes have gotten much more difficult, and we decided that while bedtime is changing, we want to do it right. For the past year or so we'd been putting to Serafina to bed in our bed, then moving her to her bed long after Toby was asleep. This was the easy way to get them to sleep, given that they share a room. But now we're putting them to bed at the same time in their proper beds. It's nice reading to them together and having this simplified process, but it's still a struggle to get them to sleep when it's time.And of course the biggest change is coming up, as we're moving forward with plans to spend a year in Barcelona, from July 2008 to July 2009. We fly to New York July 1, then on to Europe July 10 or so (probably Germany first, to see Bob, Lexi, Christopher and Daniel). We're getting very excited, and busy.
Anyway, on to the pictures... I usually stay home with the kids on Fridays, and take them on a special morning outing. On 1/18 I bicycled them out to Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park, where we rented a rowboat (a full-body workout for me!)
Then we went to the big playground, where both kids got their exercise climbing. The first two pictures are of Serafina, far away and close up:
Toby has fully joined into Serafina's frequent dress-up play and dance performances, as you can see here (1/26):
Our good friend Drew has now been our roommate longer than anyone else (since the arrival of our kids) - about 7 months. We're really enjoying living with him, and the kids love him too:
We had a fun visit to Children's Fairyland on 2/8 (another Friday "Papa Day", which Daddy joined for lunch):
On Saturday 2/9 we took the kids to their first drag show, as our friend Heklina of Trannyshack fame was hosting a daytime Hawaiian themed drag show at The Look Out, a neighborhood bar/restaurant. Since it was during the day in a place that's also a restaurant, we were able to bring the kids. They were very excited, and wore special outfits for the occasion. Here you can see Serafina watching, and then later taking the stage between numbers. She took the photo of me.
Then immediately after that she and I dashed off Acrosports circus school for a birthday party for her friend Isabella from school. Here they are together in a flying trapeze car:
Serafina also loved the zip line, flying down from the top of the bleachers to the padded floor one story below. You can see her waving and laughing:
She also loved swinging on the ropes:
On 2/17 she and I went for a hike with her friend Madoc, his baby brother Bryn, and their parents Alex and Isabel. It was a lot of fun, and the kids did great, walking the full 2 miles or so to the beach and back in the Tennessee Valley, Marin County:
On 2/21 Jonathon came upstairs for a little dress-up fun:
On 2/23 Geoff took Serafina to a salon to have her hair braided, and I got this cute shot of her and Toby (they're playing really well together these days):
Later that day our friends Chris and Michael from Amsterdam came over to play:
On 3/1 I took her on a hike with Noah and Andy. We ended up climbing down to a beach south of Half Moon Bay, where the trail down the bluff had a rope to help you get down the steepest part - Serafina did very well.
Serafina had fun checking out the fishing:
Next to the beach was an unusual conglomerate rock formation with lots of bumps and holes, and even a large chunk of a petrified log in it. It was just above the ocean level, and covered in moss and tide pools. I thought it was really cool, and you can see my finger pointing into a warm tide pool in the last photo below:
