Late January Sunshine

For all of you reading this who reside on the West Coast, you too are pulling out the t-shirts and shorts and watching your daffodils poke out of the ground during this 70 degree break from winter we're having. For those of you on the East Coast, I am entertained by your Facebook posts which keep us informed on the growing number of feet (or yards) of snow in your driveways- yikes! I'm sure winter will return to us soon, just hopefully not in mid-March when I am making a mad dash down to my birthing center in Fresno!

I am 33 weeks along today, and feeling a bit on the large and uncomfortable side. The usual third trimester aches and pains have set in, along with my lovely sinus complications. I'm not sure whether it is humorous or sad when Lyell imitates me by reaching up on his tip toes to grab a kleenex and making horrific "nose blowing sounds" while holding the tissue to his face. He is not quite ready to understand the baby in the belly idea, although he has felt baby sister's kicking, which he thinks is quite funny. In fact, he thinks my belly is pretty funny in general- he likes to put his hand on my protruding belly button and squeal with laughter. Hopefully he'll feel the same about the little package inside.

These days Lyell seems to be very busy. No longer do we sit cuddle for a while in the morning as he wakes up. Now he gives me a quick squeeze and then he's off and running. He'll start off by gathering all of his board books and arranging them carefully on the couch. Then he'll climb up on the couch and look through each book, screaming wildly and making the sign if he sees an animal that he recognizes. Eventually, out of the corner of his eye, he'll spot his miniature animals on the shelf and the books are abandoned as he runs over to pull out all the animals and arrange them in a specific corner of the living room. When he is finished he runs screaming back to the shelves to take out all his cars, which of course need to be arranged on the floor and then driven over to either transport the animals or run them over, depending on his mood. As you can see, most of his projects involve transportation and arrangement of a group of objects (and screaming).

Pretty soon, he looks out the window and remembers the outside world, which triggers another burst of screaming and running around making the signs for socks and shoes. Once we are outside he continues a complicated project he began about a month ago, which involves rearranging all of the sand, dirt and acorns on our property. He has also become very interested in our car, which he has come to understand usually takes him to fun play dates, parks and even up to the snow. Today, when we came back from a playgroup at our neighborhood lake, we were eating lunch and I was reading through a cookbook when I looked up and Lyell was sound asleep in his high chair! So it's go, go, go and then crash for us right now as Lyell discovers the world.

Here are some pictures from the rest of our Hawaii trip and January fun in Mariposa County.

Sisters and cousins!

At the Honolulu Zoo with grandpa checking out the giraffes.

Lyell in his aloha gear

Pregnant mama at the beach in Waikiki. After a short hiatus (since the beach days of my youth) grandpa needs to brush up on his drip sandcastle skill as he used to be the CA state champion :)

Returning to CA for a Family Hike to Striped Rock on one of the only cold days in January

Lyell in his favorite window seat.

The boys: Lyell, Nariz and Matthew relaxing with a book.

Lyell definitely has his sad times. Here he is distraught over mommy's closed wallet. He doesn't understand why I don't open it for him so he can dump out and play with all the interesting things inside.

This face is in response to, "Lyell, show us your teeth."

And, "Now, show us your nose!"

Every time I am feeling a little overwhelmed and emotional (often these days) it takes about 5 minutes of surrendering completely to play and experiencing the world through the eyes of my son to make my preoccupations dissolve into love.

We are hoping that our next blog will include the fourth member of our family. Much love to all of you!

Lyell and Georgia cruising the Hawaii Kai Marina on Christmas Eve in their Radio Flyer.

This photo pretty much sums up Lyell's impression of Christmas.

Eating Christmas dinner on the water.

It's Boxing Day here in Honolulu and we have started the day with a good serving of pineapple. Lyell is now down for his first nap (at 8am) as yesterday was a big day for him celebrating his second Christmas. We have been meaning to send this blog out for a while, as it will serve as our "Christmas Card," and we want to share some pictures of the past few months as Lyell gets taller and mommy gets rounder (and daddy stays the same size he has been for 20 years :)

Life has been busy for us. Baby sister continues to grow and kick and fill us with anticipation for our newest family member. She is approaching 30 weeks and I cannot believe that I will be in my third trimester so soon. While I have gotten into a groove with my Kindergarten class, working with little ones has left my immune system ravaged. I have fallen victim to one of the little known pregnancy-related complications; the chronic sinus infection. Apparently sinuses are quite vulnerable during pregnancy and I have doused myself with every possible medical treatment (perscriptions, antibiotics, neti pots, accupuncture, steam treatments, herbal compresses) and most importantly my family support and tropical island breezes are leading me on the path to healing. In my ideal pregnancy world, I was doing Bikram yoga and taking Lyell on walks every day... now I am just focusing on breathing normally and spending a few quiet minutes telling baby sister how much I love her each day.

Matthew has put the garden "to sleep" for the cold season, which includes a sizable cover crop and lots of minor additions and repairs. He is eagerly anticipating our third farmer's market season and regularly falls asleep with seed catalogs draped over his face. He has found a little time to get out to the disc golf course, and hopefully will help to complete a course he started at Hensley Reservoir 3 years ago. Of course, most of his free time is spent being daddy, which he does with his usual endless supply of patience and energy.

And Lyell... he has been the busiest of all as he has just exploded into an awareness of the world and his place in it over the past few months. The pictures below tell his story (and there a two videos at the end):


Lyell has discovered trains and his favorite part is to watch the train go through the tunnel.


Lyell has learned so much from Grandpa, who comes to watch him every other week. They are learning sign language together, as well as taking long walks on our property to look for birds (Lyell's current favorite animal.)

Playing the Hat Game- one of his favorites.

We went out cross country skiing and Lyell got all bundled up in the snow. He hasn't quite figured out snow yet- he still doesn't quite know what to do with it except try to eat it, but he seems to love our excursions.

Especially the part where we stop and eat lunch.

One of Lyell's favorite indoor activities is to bring his word books over to the easy chair, crawl up and sit with Nariz to find pictures of all the animals he loves. He is really loving communicating with us in sign language about all of the animals; every bird, dog, horse, fish, cat or frog has been identified.
We spent Thanksgiving with friends and family in Palo Alto. Here is Lyell and great-grandpa having a chat.
Lyell's first sledding experience in our front yard after a huge early snow. He now searches out the sled in the garage and walks around the yard with it, even though all the snow has melted :)


A late fall hike in Yosemite. Lyell loved all of the brightly colored leaves and the rocks he has figured out he can climb up.

We have inherited these shelves from great-grandpa, who had kept them from his furniture business that he started over 60 years ago when he and great-grandma first moved to California.

Lyell meeting the baby goat at the pumpkin patch.

Lyell loves to be silly and make people laugh. We are hoping to expand his humor horizons away from the typical "fart and laugh" that seems to be instinctual in all humans.
Lyell still spends quite a bit of time with his best friend, Nariz, who continues to be the world's most tolerant kitty.

Double fisting the juice boxes at playgroup.

Lyell and the ladies playing in our sandbox on beautiful fall day in the Sierra Foothills.

This video shows Lyell's love of balls and slides. He actually continued to do this playground "circuit" for about 45 minutes.

This final video is our backyard sledding experience.

We wish you all the very best in life, love and whatever your next adventure may be. For us, we can't wait to adventure deeper into the world of parenthood, by far the most challenging and richest "epic" we have embarked upon in our lifetime.

10 Tiny Fingers, 10 Tinier Toes

Lyell at the Jerseydale pumpkin patch

October 23rd here in the foothills of the Sierra and we have yet to fire up our woodstove for the season. This all might change later today and tomorrow as we prepare for the first big storm of the season. A perfect time to cozy up in front of the computer for a little blog-family update.

I am now at Week 19 of pregnancy 2. The bumpy road through the first trimester was a bit longer than anticipated, but I finally started to feel like a human being around Week 16. Right around the same time four huge molars emerged in the back of Lyell's mouth, and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief that our long and fussy days and nights might be over. We went in for my second trimester ultrasound last week, and the doctor confirmed what my acupuncturist had told me definitively just by checking my pulse... its a girl!!! We have been getting girl vibes all along, just as we got very strong boy vibes for Lyell, but most of all we were happy to hear that all is progressing quite well inside my belly.

Lyell doesn't really comprehend the idea of, "new life gestating inside mom's uterus," and he continues to play horsey on my belly and generally use me as a climbing gym. Fortunately for me, he is rapidly discovering that the whole world is one giant climbing gym. His main goal for the day is to climb to the highest place possible and once he is there shout as loudly as possible that he has made it. He seems to constantly discover new ways and means to wrestle his body onto the top of the chairs, sofas, tables, fences, planter boxes, cars etc... When he is not climbing (or trundling, of course, which is a nice compliment to climbing) Lyell enjoys the fine art of pushing. He pushes anything with wheels as far as he can as fast as he can. All these hobbies leave him exhausted at the end of the day, which makes for a lovely and uninterrupted night of sleep (yipee!)

The boys enjoying some evening disc golf and refreshments while listening to the Giants and firing up the barbeque. Can we say man time?

Lyell and his ball (which he is about to hurl down the hill)

In between working, gestating, and parenting we have managed to take a few trips this fall. The first was a camping trip to Yosemite with my sister and our parents.

Playing in the Merced River

Bikes around Yosemite Valley

Grandpa on Duty

Lyell helping with the cooler management

We also spent some time in the bay area visiting with family and friends while my sister was on this side of the Pacific.

Visiting Grandpa Tincher with Uncle Rich and his family

Lyell and Georgia shared a few sweet moments before we had to say goodbye.

Last weekend we spent two glorious days in June Lake, where the orange and golden aspens took our breath away. I think we were the only people in the whole region who forgot to bring our camera- Whoops! So you will have to imagine us hiking and biking through spectacular east side scenery- truly a magical weekend and celebration of the change of season.

Today Matthew canned the last of the garden tomatoes in his delicious roasted tomato salsa, and is just finishing his final pickling project. Below is the prize watermelon of the season:

And here is Lyell devouring said watermelon which we brought to a community event at our local park.

All for now... we are off to cheer on the Giants as they start the big Game 6!

The Big Announcement!

Well, as many of you might have guessed, we are packing our bags and moving to a remote Andean cloudforest reserve to track the plight of the spectacled bear! Ha, ha... just thought I would spice it up before the REAL announcement that most of you have already deduced: Baby number two is on the way!!! It was a bit of a surprise but we are ecstatic and feeling so blessed by the miracle of life as we watch our first son grow and imagine our second child emerging in my belly. My due date is March 20th. That said, I have a large circle around the 15th of September, when I hit the 14 week mark and all of my exhaustion, nausea, mood swings and food aversions will magically go away and I will glow in the light of the second trimester.

The second, slightly smaller announcement is that I have gone back to work half time. Except, as all those of you with experience in the education world know, half time means more like 85% especially at the beginning of the year. So, needless to say, we have not been taking very many exciting pictures over the past few weeks. We decided to spare you the ones of me laying on the couch (which I do in every spare minute I can find) or Matthew unloading yet another load of dishes (which he seems to do all the time as I lay on the couch and moan.) Fortunately Grandpa has come up to help with child care which both boys are thoroughly enjoying.

And our precious Lyell is thriving! In the past month he has taken up many new hobbies. The most important is the quintessential man-skill of trundling. There must be some genetic code written into the y-chromosome that programs the male species to throw the largest available object over the highest available cliff. Lyell's trundling career began in his high chair with unappetizing bits of food, but has quickly progressed to large pieces of porch furniture over the flimsy baby-gate and down our hill. And let me tell you, the larger the object and the farther the roll the bigger Lyell's baby grin gets as he turns proudly for our parental acknowledgement of his accomplishment.

His second favorite hobby consists of the pursuit to make his clothes even more dirty with each new day. He keeps inventing new ways to rub in as much dirt as possible, such as dipping himself in the baby pool before rolling around with the cats, or picking up handfuls of soil to gleefully rub in his hair. We don't really mind this hobby as we love watching our son explore our land. The first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is point to the door to head outside.

And finally, of course, there are the cats. Here is a video which shows a pretty typical day for Lyell on the porch, making up games with the cats. I call this video, "Lyell, the Cat and the Apple." It starts out a little slow, but by the end I am having trouble holding the camera as I am laughing. Enjoy!