Christmas 2011

It's about time I did a blog and Christmas weekend is the perfect way to kick this off again! We hosted our first Christmas and it was a great weekend filled with family, relaxing at home, and great food.

Elliana brought delight to the entire family this weekend. She loves to say "yeah" to questions asked of her and she gives an extra enthusiastic "yeah" when we said "Go niners" for the game on Saturday. She doesn't quite understand opening presents but would help tear the paper and would give an "woah" response some of the time. Of course, she loved playing with the ribbons, boxes, bags and any glass items given to an adult (like the four onion soup bowls Brandon got for one of our meals, see below).

Dressed for Christmas Eve Service

Christmas morning

Showing off a cute present from Aunt Connie




Elli trying out her big present under the tree - and she scores!

Food!
We are very proud of our Christmas weekend menu as well. We went to Farmers Market on Saturday morning and cooked our vegetable dishes around that. Lunch on Christmas Eve Day was Butternut Squash Risotto with Pecan crusted Pork Tenderloin. And after Christmas Eve Service, we had baked Onion Soup with so much Gruyere! I understand the appeal of onion soup when you throw that much cheese in the bowl with it!

Christmas Day was Prime Rib Roast, trio of roasted potatoes (sweet potatoes, red potatoes and yukon gold potatoes) and roasted root vegetables (carrots, parsnips, turnips and celery root). I do not plan to roast turnip in the future. The bitterness in that vegetable was not my favorite. I was pleasantly surprised at the celery root vegetable. It had a nice sweetness. Also, we realized once we sat down to eat that we should have roasted green beans or did something green for the plate. However a great meal overall. And we enjoyed it with a 1997 Kunde Cabernet Sauvignon, which showed beautifully. It was a wonderful first Christmas for us here in our own home!

Before

After

A picture can say a thousand words

Just posting one picture to capture the moment I caught on camera is another way I'm trying to post a few more blogs for all of you.

Look at that big smile! I wanted to capture what will probably be the last days of that toothless smile! We have been seeing the bottom two teeth just underneath the surface for awhile now, but the last few days have been filled with Elliana chewing on her fingers or toys constantly, some drool, congestion in the nose, and this morning - waking up earlier than usual but now asleep at an odd time!

I am betting the first tooth will break through in her tenth month but Brandon thinks it may hold out for her eleventh month. We'll let you know...

2011 so far

Please forgive my occasional posts. Will I ever completely learn the balance of being a working wife, mom, friend, daughter? It has been a busy 2011 for me with work. I'm spending a lot of time on the computer for work so I lack the motivation to get on the computer to blog. I promise there are Haunkkah and Christmas blogs in draft form so they will magically appear in the past posts at some point. There will also be a post on our first airplane vacation with Elliana to Southern California. Brandon said he would help me pick the photo's to post and then I can write the captions (he's the one who loves taking the pictures so he can complete the process by choosing which ones to post). If we can get a system going, I hope you will see posts more often. Below are photo's from 2011 so far.

Our first walk with Elliana in our Hanukkah gift around the neighborhood park.

Another hike. This time through Armstrong Woods. We were hoping she would enjoy looking up at the giant redwoods, but she was content looking at her eye level and having a picnic lunch with us.

We have been very proud of her progress using an infant toilet. I encourage all mom's to try this from as early as possible!

Elliana was using her play kitchen while I got our dinner ready. She's still not moving around on her own, but she can keep herself occupied with playing while I cook, etc.

She continues to love to eat whatever we give her. I have slowly introduced more 'adult' foods that are ground for her so her palate is expanding! This picture is my pesto pasta on the left and on the right, her ground beef and pasta that I will then grind for Elliana to eat.

January was also the milestone of Elliana picking up small foods like Cheerios, peas (pictured), bananas, and much more!

Girlfriends!

This past month we've had a number of opportunities to meet with family and friends who also have baby girls! Here are my favorite pictures of Elliana with her family and friends to show you how big she is now!

2nd counsin Layla (one year) and Elliana in Pollock Pines. It looks like Layla is telling Elli "Come on, let's play!"

Elliana and friend Abby (3 months old) in Davis

Friend Faye (8 days younger than Elli) and Elliana in Santa Rosa

2nd cousin Emily (one year) and Elliana in Sebastopol

Food!

I have been working on this food blog for the last month...That's the way life goes during harvest. It's a time to focus on the most important things and everything else gets put off for awhile. Thankfully, Elli and I easily filled our days while Brandon was hard at work with lots of play and outings, introducing foods, and watching her grow!

We introduced food right after labor day and today was the first day I gave her food twice in one day. We are very proud that she has caught on to the concept quickly and loves everything we have given her so far - cereal, bananas, squash, sweet potato, peas, carrots, apples and pears. Here is the adventure in pictues and videos.

First night of oat cereal - she sure does look satisfied!

Sweet Potato!

When Dad feeds Elli...

Food gets all over her!

Her first night trying banana, which was her second food. First funny reaction!

Last night, she had pears from our backyard and you can see her sounds & smiles for "more"

Final Days of Summer

As we approach the 2010 grape harvest this week - most likely starting this Saturday, September 11th for Brandon's winery, we take a few days to wind down from our busy August. Each year we easily fill up each weekend of August with fun ways to spend our final days of summer. This year, our activities even carried into labor day weekend since grapes are ripening a little late.


It's just not summer, if we don't make it to the ballpark! Elli was three and a half months old for her first baseball game. She wasn't at the stage where she was ready to sit on our laps for much of the game, so I walked her around the park in the carrier and she fell asleep on both dad and mom for a little bit.









We took our first vacation as a family of three to Mendocino. We stayed at Howard Creek Ranch Inn, north of Fort Bragg. You have to stay there to experience the feel of this unique B&B. They were nice enough to let us bring a four month old and she behaved beautifully. The Inn has access to a beautiful secluded beach, which we enjoyed by ourselves most of the time. Besides enjoy the ambiance of the Inn, we packed our three day vacation with fun things. We stopped at a few of our favorite wineries in Anderson Valley on the way there, had a great dinner out at the Westport Inn, walked the beach at low tide both evenings and both mornings, drove inland and hiked in to the Eel river, and stopped by our favorite coastal towns of Fort Bragg and Mendocino.

For labor day weekend, we went to see our alum, UC Davis play at Cal. The football game was only three weeks after the Giants game, but Elli being four months old was now happy to sit up on our laps and watch the activity more than the Giants game. Her favorite part was listening to the half-time marching bands. She loved the music!


So that ends our first summer with Elliana. We'll spend the next few months really treasuring the moments we get to spend as a family here at home. We will be visiting dad at the winery (and posting harvest updates) so we can still flash him that winning smile. We are sure that will pick up his harvest spirits!

While she sleeps, I look at her pictures!

It makes me laugh that when our baby goes down for the night or for a nap, I end up looking at the pictures we have taken of her. Here is some favorites from the last week.

Caught a big smile when I asked her to smile!

She grabbed the wine glass handle on her own! Truly a winemaker's daughter.

Happy birthday Grandpa!

Now that she has good head control, she can sit in her Bumbo seat. We got her a new rattle that has skinny handles so it is easier for her to grasp and practice those new found fingers.

Too cute!