Happy Thanksgiving!

We spent Thanksgiving this year with the Polhemus clan up in Auburn. Cassie really enjoyed playing with her four older cousins, but didn't enjoy the racket and chaos in the house as much during her daytime naps. John and Carrie enjoyed delicious food and mercifully light traffic.

Cool Girls

Not much to say here. Just two cool girls showing off their shades.

Happy Halloween!

Though this was not technically her first Halloween, this was really the first one where Cassie had any idea of what was going on. We took her around our new cul de sac to go trick-or-treating in her ladybug costume. She didn't really understand why we knocking on our neighbors doors at first, but then really got into the idea of people giving her fun crinkly things to hold. She much preferred trying to hold all of her candy in her two little hands, instead of carrying it in her pumpkin pail.

Fall and Apple Orchards

On one of their early trips together, John introduced Carrie to the Fall tradition in the midwest of going to an apple orchard to drink hot cider and eat delicious donuts. Though not entirely obvious, California apparently has apple orchards as well! We took Cassie to her first apple orchard this year up near Sacramento. They had cider and donuts, as well a petting farm, trail through the orchard, pony rides, and a little pumpkin patch you can see here where Cassie is playing.

Sippy Cups are for Babies

As you would expect, Cassie continues to learn at an exponential pace. As she approaches the magical 18 month mark, she is also starting to exhibit toddler opinions. One of the things that Cassie has developed a fondness for is drinking out of "real" cups, due in large part to that being encouraged at school. At meal time in her high chair, we will often let her drink out of a non-sippy cup despite the mess it sometimes makes. Cassie is pictured during a sick day here, drinking soup out her cup, with the chicken and noodles separated in her bowl.

Lenker Wedding

John got to be a groomsman in another wedding this fall when his friend Scott got married to Raquel. The wedding and reception were hosted at Cornerstone Gardens in Sonoma, a very artsy and photogenic location. The wedding party enjoyed themselves tremendously on the wine tour, the photo shoot, the awkward ice breaker game at the rehearsal dinner, and of course on the day itself.

Rice Krispy Xbox

For John's birthday this year, Carrie invited a few of our friends over for a smaller dinner and requested everybody bring a food that reminded them of John. Most everyone brought a pork product, some brought pork products wrapped in pork products. Ryan brought over custom made rice krispy treats shaped like Xbox controllers. The joysticks are made out of Hershey kisses, and the buttons are made out of M&Ms. They're even the right color!

Chloe and Cassie

There are several kids at Cassie's daycare, but she spends far away the most time with Chloe. They both started at similar times and have been there since the very beginning. Now that they're both running around and talking, they've become great friends and are always having new adventures that the teachers share with us each day. Here you can see them both peeking into the "teacher's area" one day at school.

Hockey Team Party

We're way behind on the blog, but we'll backtrack and fill in what's been happening with post-dated entries. The new house, pool, and Tiki bar have been a big hit with all of our friends. We had several parties over the summer including a fun 100+F day in the pool with the softball team, and a big party at night with the whole hockey team. You can see some of our friends that came over for the hockey team party. That was probably the most stocked the bar has ever been, with margaritas, beer, wine, and most every mixed drink imaginable. Good times!

Averill Wedding

Our friends Ryan and Sam got married in September and John had the honor as standing as one of Ryan's groomsmen. Their wedding and reception was held at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco, and was a swanky black-tie affair. The wedding was elegant, the reception was a lot of fun, the venue was beautiful, and the after parties went all night long!

2009 Daddy-Daughter Trip

Cassie's school had summer vacation last week, so it was the perfect opportunity for John and Cassie to take their Daddy-Daughter "trip" this year. Cassie is still a little young for us to feel comfortable traveling overnight with one of us on our own, so our "trip" didn't leave the greater Bay Area, but we had three days of fun adventures. We spent the first day at the San Jose Children's Discovery Museum where Cassie got to play in a cool loft and discover interesting toddler exhibits. The second day was spent at the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo where Cassie got to see lots of cool animals like leopard sharks, a peacock, a red tailed hawk and some bobcats! The highlight of the trip was an adventure to the Monterey Bay Aquarium where Cassie was fascinated by the big fishes in the kelp forest, the big school of circling sardines, and the awesomely fun water bouncey in the toddler zone. So much fun!

That's a big gun!

Last month, John organized a trip to Las Vegas for his friend Ryan's bachelor party. The highlight of the weekend was an excursion to a special gun range off the strip where you can shoot just about any gun you can dream of. This is one of the few places in the world where anybody can walk of the street and rent a fully automatic machine gun! John got to shoot the M249 belt-fed light machine gun (pictured here), the M4 assault rifle, and a 0.308 Police sniper rifle. Good times!

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!

To put it simply, Cassie LOVES shoes, our little girl has a shoe obsession (it may have a little to do with shoes typically meaning she gets to outside)

Her eye's light up whenever she hears the word and responds with"Sh, Sh, Sh" as she tries to sound out one over her favorite word. She's always trying to put on our shoes, loves her "Squeaky Shoes" that Nai Nai got her, and loves to stomp around in her two sizes too big "clown shoes"as we call them. She frequently disappears into our closet and we wait in suspense to see what pair of shoes she is going to bring out with her (she has yet to discover the Manolo Blahniks -- then we are REALLY in trouble!)

Cassie's first drawing

Cassie is learning a lot lately. I'd guess that she recognizes around 100 words at this point, and is able to say a few words as well, knowing what they mean. Some of the things she understands and responds to:

• Let's go to Cassie's room
• Let's change Cassie's diaper
• Can you lie down?
• Do you want to go in the pool?
• Are you all done?
• Do you want more?
• Do you want to eat?
• Where's the fire? (In reference to the fireplace in Goodnight Moon book)
• Where's the kitty cats/red balloon/dog/fan/butterfly/dragonfly?

She now says "daddy", "dogdog" and "hi" correctly. She also "roars" when she sees tigers or lions in her book or on TV. She tries to say "cheese" and makes attempts at other animal noises like "moo", "baa" or "purr." Carrie helped Cassie discover crayons the other day and Cassie drew her very first picture!

New Home Challenges

So we're pretty much settled into the new house at this point. The basics are done, Cassie's room was painted pink again, we unpacked everything including the garage, we've setup all our essentials like the bedrooms, office, dining room and living room. John fixed all the major maintenance items on his own including: installing three new sprinkler heads, three all new drip lines, a broken main irrigation line, broken drain line in tiki bar sink, replaced screws in kitchen and garage cabinets, replaced shower head, tightened loose sink, fixed broken drain mechanism, replaced missing drain filter, replaced two overhead lamp fixtures, re-wired broken 3-way light switch, changed all electrical outlets in kitchen, replaced half a dozen burnt out bulbs, programmed four garage door openers including installation of external keypad, built shelves for shed and cleaned up 8 months of neglected landscaping. The picture on the left shows the tools required and the rocks dug up to fix just one sprinkler head. We've started on the next stage of items that probably require a third party. We had a backed up sewage line that was covered by the home warranty. At the top of our priority list right now are adding a second HVAC zone, fixing a broken pool/spa heater, and installing a pool fence. Needless to say, we've been very, very, very busy.

Cornstarch and Water

Cassie gets to do all sorts of fun things at school: Sing-a- longs, books, playing outside in the yard, exploring the water faucet, giggling with her friends, climbing the loft, sharing meals with her friends around the table, dance parties....

As part of the babies sensory development (and just pure fun) they give them cornstarch and water on trays to play with and explore. Cool texture, interesting to mix around, safe to eat, and especially fun to dunk your face in and smear all over your body!

Moving Day!!

The truck is here and we're finally moving! Fingers crossed that all
goes according to plan...

Cassie takes a sick day

Cassie has caught a small case of pink eye the week we are moving, so
John gets to spend today at home with her. We're having fun reading
books this morning!

Weekend in Tahoe

We just got back from a wonderful weekend up at Lake Tahoe. Carrie's friend from college, Kristy, got married up at Incline Village on Friday and we got the opportunity to go up and help celebrate. The wedding was beautiful, and the reception was a blast, as they typically are. Carrie's godparents graciously offered to let us stay at their house, which was basically just indulgent on our part. :) Here's Cassie and John enjoying the gorgeous weather from their pier early on Saturday morning.

Cassie Playing Piano

Nana and Pops got Cassie a little piano for her birthday, one of her many favorite new toys. She's been enjoying the process of discovering music this past week.