Oden Adventures

Oh goodness.  These months.  They just keep happening.

No sooner had I gotten her 18 month photos in the mail to Grandma G., the kid's already turned 19 months old! And a kid indeed, so much less a baby these days.  She runs around, saying things like, "Nope!" and "I'm otay!" and "I want snacks!" and "Dere's moon!" and "I do it!" and counting to three and calling herself "Ran" ~ and nineteen months into this great adventure, most days we're still not sure what hit us; all we know is it's excessively cute.

Her favorite things of late are "Pa Pi" (Peppa Pig, which has surpassed even VeggieTales in requests-to-watch), "Twink Twink Star", "trans" (coloring with crayons) which she is starting to eat/break less and use on the paper more, watching "Dance Bay" (accompanied by a side-to-side sway) = Dancing Baby, which is a video of herself as a 7 month old "dancing" via Daddy, which she asks for but really wants YouTube so that she can watch other things like Super Simple Songs and KidsTV123 videos, identifying sounds around the house like birds, trucks, and airplanes, and weekly bike rides with 'Pa (Grandpa) which includes walking "Chauce" (Uncle Jon's dog Chaucer).  She's also getting to be quite helpful: She loves to help unload the car after Costco runs and is pretty good at picking up toys (even if they get taken out again almost immediately if I don't intervene).

She is still amazing us with 10-12 hour nights and the last few weeks has (FINALLY) begun taking daily 1-2 hour afternoon naps IN HER CRIB (I know, the Babywise folks are gasping in horror - yes, it took 18 months to achieve this).  And I'm scrambling to know what to do with regularly scheduled "free time".  Oh, wait...the dishes.

A few snapshots from 19 month day, while we were out taking a stroll to the post office because California has ridiculously summery weather in November...

A new month : some new tricks!  The ladybug chair serves a dual purpose as an acrobatic implement for our daredevil daughter...

This brazen little bluejay spent several days harassing us!  Patrick said he was trying to let us know the birdbath was empty.  What are we running here?  A bird resort? 

Here, he landed about two feet from me & Vianne!

This is in V's play area, where he followed us, while we trying to do a fairy princess photo shoot, to lecture us on getting our priorities in order...(#1: FILL THE BIRDBATH!!!)

So, the photo shoot was a bit distracted...

...and concerned...

...but still cute.

It was Daddy's birthday so we were trying to get a good shot to post on facebook while he was off at work :-).

"Ummm...what's the magic spell to open the gate again?"

This is Vianne's first self portrait.  Oh dear.

San Dimas has a new Dairy Queen!  So we went to try it out.  Not a great food selection (hot dogs or chili dogs...where's those fabulous DQ hamburgers and chicken strips??) but the ice cream treats are just as good!

I love it when Vianne & Patrick snuggle in this chair, which they often do.  This used to be my Dad's recliner and when I see them in it together, it chokes me up and warms my heart with happy Dad memories at the same time.  Even if I can't have my Dad,  it's still beautiful that I can have these two.

18 month checkup: She's taking it all in stride.  (Note: this was before anyone tried to weigh or measure her or check her out.)  The doctor said all is well!

We're still spending Tuesdays with the twins!  This was a cute moment when Vianne & Jesse were being affectionate (instead of antagonistic) so I had to grab my camera.

For Halloween, Patrick & I dressed up like grown ups and went to a car dealership...and haggled our way into a new-to-us family car.  (Our salesman was great and was French, which I of course took as a sign.)  We are now the very humbled and thankful and happy owners of a 2007 Subaru Outback.  Although we weren't exactly shopping for one, we often looked to see what was out there, knowing we wanted one some day, and this one we found online a few weeks ago, and felt the Divine Go-Ahead to pursue it.  So, because Halloween afternoon was (relatively) free, we headed to Santa Ana to check it out and ended up driving it home with us!  We are really enjoying it and look forward to camping and road trips and all sorts of adventures for years to come.

We are not really big on Halloween, but since having Vianne, we feel that any holiday which serves to enhance her already phenomenal cuteness should be commemorated ;-D.  This year, it was a bit of a comedy of errors...but the phenomenal cuteness prevailed nonetheless.

A couple weekends before Halloween, the church next door to our house had a Fall Festival so we met Rachelle & The Boys over there.  We decided to go for a very simple fairy princess costume (thank you, cousin-hand-me-downs and Dollar Tree).  Vianne was a bit hesitant at first so the fairy wings came in handy as a shield...

Coaxed her out of the stroller, but still not sure...

...until she discovered an empty playground.  For about five whole minutes, she had it all to herself!

Then we met up with the twins and did some Trunk or Treating.  (Noah & his ark are what you're seeing behind Patrick & the princess.)

Pumpkin Joel & Pirate Jesse

What you don't see pictured is the fact that I was horribly ill and had taken three naps that day (and I never ever take naps) and barely made it over there and felt like I was going to pass out the whole time. 

The weekend before Halloween, we went to a roadside pumpkin stand of sorts because densely populated San Gabriel Valley gave up all its farms for housing developments so you have to drive 1 1/2 hours to find a real pumpkin patch.  Yes, this Oregonian is not impressed.  Added to the disappointment of the place was Mama's miscalculation that Vianne would be ok without a nap for this outing so we were largely only pretending that this was at all fun.

And yet, phenomenal cuteness as Vianne debuts her real costume for this year, a parrot.

She looks like she is being cooperative and charming. 
The camera lies.

In her frenzied state, we didn't dare subject the poor petting zoo creatures to her, but we let her enjoy them from outside the fence.

This actually was cute because she kept saying "Baa, baa!" when she saw the sheep and finally leaned up to its face and said "Baa, baa!" and then waited, and seemed rather disappointed to receive none in return.  Like, "Adults have been telling me for months that this is what you say.  What gives, sheep?"

We picked out and brought home the three most ridiculously expensive pumpkins (never again!) and a few days later saw similarly sized ones at Target for 1/3 of the price and cried our eyes out we set about carving them.

Vianne was so cute with her cleaned out pumpkin that the inevitable didn't occur to us as we cleaned out our own: Of course, this would lead to the pumpkin rolling off the table and splitting in four places, though fortunately not breaking all the way through.

So we improvised with the ol' Bandaged Head look.  Turned out awful cute, regardless.  Our pumpkins three.  From ideas off facebook, I used a drill on mine (right) and put some marbles in the holes. 

And finally on Halloween itself, I chased her around the yard trying to get a decent picture or two.

The parrot costume now explains itself...

And then the day became a whirlwind of car buying (more on this later) and a crazy Mama, who insisted Vianne have some Halloween fun even though Daddy now had to stay home and grade papers, who foolishly thought "We'll just drive down the street to Christ Church of the Valley and go to their party" which resulted in driving around and around the block because this is a huge event with shuttles from faraway parking lots and police cars blocking streets and hundreds of people nabbing any parking they can for miles (now I know).  Fortunately, about the third turn around the vicinity of the church, Rachelle called and we went over to meet The Boys for a little old fashioned trick-or-treating (never mind that it was now about an hour past V's bedtime).

A bit of a chaotic attempt to "celebrate", but even still, in the end, phenomenal cuteness prevails. See?