Christmas Morning

Santa came and brought Rhys a violin (a teeny 1/8 size, so that mommy Brandi can teach him how to play!), a shape sorter (and he has already figured it out!), a set of alphabet blocks, a new backpack, some trucks and new books. All in all...not a bad haul! Rhys enjoyed unwrapping his presents for the first time, and particularly discovered that bubble wrap is the best present of them all!

Here, for the first time at Figster's Corner, please enjoy a video of Rhys opening his presents!




And here are the photos...

I, Wanna Rock and Roll All Night...

Hallie plays songs on her guitar for Rhys. The last time she took out the guitar, however, Rhys decided that the case was much more interesting. Check out how much he looks like a little boy in these pictures! Its astonishing that he is not even 2 yet!

Peekaboo!

The upstairs of the loft has a teeny little opening at the bottom, which looks out onto the kitchen. So naturally, if something is going on downstairs, Rhys just peeps through the opening to check it out!

Santa, Baby

So Rhys made his second annual visit to see Santa Claus...this time to the real one, at Macy's! (Those of you who know the movie will get it....those of you who haven't, go rent "All I Want for Christmas" immediately! :)

Rhys, um, well, was not so receptive of the big red guy. Not uncommon for toddlers, we know, but it made it very difficult to get our Christmas card picture (but, in the end we got it...although it involved BOTH of Rhys' mommies sitting on Santa's lap).

Here are our favorite captions for the pictures below:

"Stranger, Stranger!!!"

"NO I WONT TELL YOU WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS!"

"MOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!"

"I just want my yogurt!" (see below)

"Its 8 o'clock at night, we had to wait until my lawyer mommy (that's right Santa, she passed the bar!) got off work, I'm tired, and they put you on the sixth floor of Macy's right next to all the pretty glass ornaments that I can't touch!"

"YMCA!"

Got any others? Please post away in the comments!

Lake Tahoe

Last weekend, Hallie was really missing winter. I know - who misses winter?! What's wrong with 2 seasons? But, being the fabulous partner that I am (and possibly a self-congratulatory one too...) I booked a surprise weekend in Lake Tahoe, about 3 hours away from San Francisco. I have to say - it was beautiful (see photographic evidence below), but I sure don't miss shoveling the driveway!

We took Rhys out into the beautiful snow for a little snowshoeing adventure. We bought a little backpack for him to ride in, and it worked well on both the arid volcano landscape last summer and the frigid, I mean exhilirating cold this winter! :)

Irony

Extreme Trike

Next on the X-games....Rhys on his tricycle! Rhys has had this push trike for awhile now, but only in the last month has he gotten REALLY good at it. Like, so good that Hallie and I must wear shoes all the time....and so good that he ruined a pedicure within 30 minutes flat! He can go forwards, backwards, coast, and steers like pro.

When Rhys gets up in the morning, he comes to our room for some cuddles, and then we all go downstairs for breakfast. The MINUTE Rhys' foot hits the bottom stairs, he makes a beeline for the trike. Anytime we are in the house, he rides. Plus, since we live in a building with lovely long, smooth hallways....well, at least our neighbors think he is so cute they don't mind the little squirt crusing up and down our floor! When we really, really need to go somewhere, and Rhys just doesnt start moving towards the door, we'll hold it open, and let him ride the trike down the hall, into the elevator, through the lobby, and out to the garage!

So Monday, when we all came downstairs for breakfast, Rhys pulled a stunt - literally. He STOOD on TOP of his trike, with BOTH feet - like a little stunt devil! He now does this regularly, and Hallie and I are simply astonished. Where did he learn this?! Has he been taking field trips to the BMX games during day care?! One thing is for sure: he is the most coordinated individual in this house!

Yogurt-palooza

Rhys enjoys eating his favorite dish - yogurt. Seriously - no matter what time of day, rain or shine, messy or...not so messy, drinkable or spoonable, the kid will always eat yogurt. Well, hey, we have pergo floors for a reason, right?!

And a joke from Hallie regarding the topic: what's the difference between yogurt and Iowa? Yogurt has active culture! Too bad yogurt can't be the first to pick our next two presidential candidates in the primary!

Kucinich Rocks!

Rhys will be wearing his activist ACLU onesie to bed tonight, in celebration of the House voting to take up Kucinich's resolution to impeach Cheney. We are still a little worried about why the House Republicans voted in favor of taking it up, and would like to chastise the Democratic leadership for their utter lack of a backbone.

So, Dennis Kucinich is awesome. And here is a picture of Rhys to celebrate - this picture was chosen because his hairdo looks a little "rebel without a cause," which we felt was appropriate for such a joyous day!

Trick or Treat!

Rhys and his best friend Mira went trick or treating In Oakland, CA on Halloween. Below are some pictures of their adventures in candyland.

On a different note, this was our first Halloween being the parents who pilfer through the kids candy to see "if its safe." This job is AWESOME!! No wonder our parents were so freaking adament about it! We thoroughly enjoyed going through Rhys' pumpkin for candy, and yay for the people who gave him junior mints, snickers, and peanut m&ms. ;-)



On our way....



Knock knock...trick or treat!!



Heather, Mira, Hallie, Rhys and Brandi at the end of the night.

Happy Halloween!!

Rhys went as a Toucan this year - these are some pictures of his dress rehearsal in his costume. I hope everyone appreciates these pictures - I had to resort to blatant bribery with food to get them! Dodger went as a reindeer - no, it wasn't thematic, but do you know how hard it is to (a) find a costume for a 60 pound dog and (b) get him to wear it?!

Photos of Rhys' first trick-or-treating experience will be posted soon! Happy Halloween everyone!

Dodger Is Grounded

I have a free two minutes at work, so I thought I would share the tale of my *fun* morning. Why do I have a few minutes? Because I finished some discovery responses - my goal? To serve them at say, oh, 4:59 today in order to completely ruin opposing counsel's weekend, just like he screwed up my week (well, namely, the day I was supposed to spend at home having fun with Rhys today - grrr).

I woke this morning at 5:30. Why, you ask, would I wake up that early if I don't have to be at work until 9? Because Dodger, who I took out at midnight, barked to go out. And worse than that, he went INTO RHYS' ROOM and barked. The nerve that dog has is astounding. Noooo, it wasn't enough to bug me (and btw, I did get up the first time he barked. But I had to put in my contacts, which took a minute. Note to self: get Lasik asap). And in that minute, he woke up the baby. Cardinal sin.

I'm not sure how to ground the dog - I mean, I could not take him for a walk, but that seems cruel, and in the end would probably punish me because he'd be that much more hyper. I think I have decided that he will not receive ANY of the fun halloween dog treats I planned on making until tomorrow.

Luckily, Rhys went back to sleep, albeit in my bed, but hey, that was cute. He pulled the huge king comforter over himself (the kid loves blankets) and actually arranged the pillow behind him, which I found adorable. Then he had great fun touching my face, and exploring my chin and cheeks. Of course, that made me melt!

We got up a little later, made lunches, had breakfast, dressed, and were even out the door on time. I would have had a chance at redeeming the morning, until I took the wrong bus. I submit that this was not entirely my fault. I got to the Transbay Terminal right as the bus was letting people on. So I ran for it (carrying a computer bag, purse, Rhys' bag, and Rhys himself, in heels, thank you very much) and made it, and even had my $1.50 in my pocket ready to go. The bus, the number of which I did not look at (foreshadowing, anyone?) was parked in the spot the #38 ALWAYS leaves from. There is no other bus (until today) that leaves from that spot. I've been taking it since May - the #38 is the only one that is allowed in that spot. So I confidently ran up to it and got on. It made all the normal stops...until we were suddenly passing Old Navy on Market Street. I wondered: do we always pass Old Navy? Have I missed this in the past 6 months? How is it we continually pass one of my favorite stores and I never got off to shop?! This is when I started looking around the inside of the bus for soem sign of what effing bus I am actually on.

So we are continuing down Market, and I console myself with the fact that we are at least going the right direction, but a little out of our way. I figure out where to get off, and in the end, it was only about 3 blocks out of my way. No big deal...except for the aforementioned pile of crap I am carrying - in heels And, it was 3 blocks through the Tenderloin. So, three blocks of "hey baby" later (p.s. does that EVER work? No. And, since when is carrying a 17 month old sexy? Its not. So please stop being mysoginistic derogatory assholes in front of my kid, thanks), we finally make it to Rhys' day care. He cried when I left (which is like, awww, thanks for loving me so much you cry when I leave, but also, please don't cry because you are going to have a fun great day sweetie!).

Caught the correct bus to work - but then the coffee shop was out of my favorite blackberry raspberry scone. Grr. Had to get the cranberry blueberry one instead. Which was actually ok, but I adore blackberries. =) But, its halfway through the day, and then I get to take Rhys to the harvest festival tomorrow (this is like Christmas to me!) so I am way excited! Happy Friday everyone.

In Her Shoes

Rhys has a new fascination with...shoes! He has taken to going into our closet, taking out EVERY pair, and putting them on. Then, he clop clop clops around the house, while Hallie and I laugh uncontrollably. Its so cute! And, Rhys has determined that this is only an activity appropriate for IN the house. So, when we go out, he has taken to wearing his black dress shoes...with EVERYTHING! We *think* its because he mostly sees us wear dress shoes, and since he is in such a phase of imitating, those are the closest thing he has to the same thing.





Also, in the way of random updates that don't have a picture to go with them...

*Rhys now says "Dodger" and "hi" regularly (as in, when he wakes up in the morning, the first thing he does is look out of his crib and go "Dodger?", which comes out as "Dod-Ja?" Good to know where we rank in this household, right?!

*As I'm sure everyone is aware, Rhys LOVES cell phones. But now, when I am talking to Hallie, or she is talking to me, Rhys will take the phone, and say "hi mama" into it. Well, if that isn't the best thing in the world, I don't know what is!!

*Rhys loves pumpkin anything- a fact for which I am incredibly grateful. Since autumn has officially hit, I am most excited about all of the baking possibilities. Rhys has dutifully eaten everything with pumpkin in it - which, most recently was my pumpkin bread. He also ate pumpkin pasta (sooooo good) so I am happy that he is loving autumn as much as I am!

*Rhys thinks that jumping up and down is hysterical. Seriously...if he's crying about something, all it takes is one good jump, and he giggles like crazy. He can't do it yet, but sure thinks its funny when I do it. Of course, it could have less to do with the jumping and more to do with the fact that I look like a dork when I am doing it, but I like to think its because he likes jumping.

*Rhys has started doing baby yoga! Ok, this is kind of because his mommy is doing yoga, and on a recent trip to the bookstore saw a book about baby yoga and bought it. But before you laugh at me, hear this: it has a bunch of different poses aimed at one purpose, such as happy baby, good morning, playtime, and good night. So we did the good night poses and he slept for TWELVE hours. And, since we've been doing them, and doing them every night, he consistently sleeps from 8pm until 6 am. So, laugh all you want, but Hallie and I have now officially gotten rid of the bags under our eyes. :-) And, Rhys totally did downward dog the other day, and even though it was kinda by accident, it was still counted as him doing yoga on his own.

* Rhys is spending Thanksgiving in San Francisco, and will be participating in the Turkey Run at Ocean Beach on Thanksgiving Day! Anyone who reads this blog is of course welcome to visit, and cheer on our little guy. And, for anyone who would like to participate from afar, we have to choose a costume for him. So...pilgrim? Indian (yes, I know its not PC, but its how its listed on the website)? Turkey? Other festive costume? Suggestions are welcome!!

And finally...the blog may or may not get updated this weekend. Hallie is going to a conference at Lake Tahoe (rough life, huh?) and is leaving Rhys, Dodger and I alone for four days. So the odds of me having enough time to upload pics and blog are slim. Plus, if and when I have a free minute, I have to put laundry as a priority over the blog...or I could blog and just go buy new stuff that's clean. Hmmmmm. I'll have to think about this! Rhys will be participating in the zoo costume walk this weekend, and I'm taking him to the harvest festival, so there will be plenty of autumn (aka the best season) pictorials next week!!

Rhys Visits Nebraska

This past weekend Rhys was lucky enough to see tons of family! We traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska where his mommies watched the Cornhuskers go down in flames. We are pretty sure Rhys' first phrase will be "fire Coach Callahan!" Well, it will be if he's been listening to his mom Hallie for the past 3 weeks. Rhys was lucky enough to see Grammy Diane, Pap Gary, Grandpa Cliff, Grandma Marilyn, Aunt Natalie, Cousins Joelly and Camille, Nick, Jessica, Kelly and Ruthie! It was a great time, with fabulous food (thanks Diane and Cliff!!!) and lots of laughs. Rhys would also like to note that he now has an NFL team to cheer for: Go Steelers!



Rhys, Grammy Diane and Grandpa Cliff hang out



Rhys and Grammy Diane share some special time with the Phonics Leapfrog from Kelly



Rhys and Curious George - or, more accurately, Curious Rhys and Curious George!



Ok, I know I'm his mom and all, but seriously - could the kid BE any cuter?



The Foster/Anderson/Figari/Foster-Figari bunch. What - like your family tree is so easy to map out?!

P.S. Did everyone notice how I learned to do captions right under the picture they belong to? This is a big day indeed!