Happy Anniversary to Us!

5 years ago today, Ryan and I were married. To celebrate our anniversary, he bought me new barristers bookshelves, and a dozen red roses. I got him a UCLA T-shirt and sweatshirt. We ate dinner at Cucina Paradiso which was delicious. We had not been there before. I had the pumpkin ravioli and pannetone bread pudding for dessert. We brought Lauren with us because our sitter was busy, and she was pretty well behaved, until the very end when she tried some bread pudding, squealed with delight and then kept making happy screeches. So we put "the plug" in (pacifier) and all was well.

The Many Faces of Lauren

These pix are taken today, when Lauren found my wallet, then I took it away so she pouted, then she got it back and triumphed.

Whee!

Wow, such fun. I finally made a decision as to which bike seat I wanted, and bought and installed the ibert. I put it on Ryan's bike since he has a better shock seat and more stable mountain bike style tires than mine.

Today Lauren & I went for an hour-long bike ride on the bike path-an entrance to which is on my street, yay! And yet, I haven't been on the bike path in a few years. It runs along the Ballona Creek and it goes all the way from Culver City to the ocean. We didn't go all the way to the ocean today but we did go about 5 miles roundtrip. It felt great to get out in the fresh air and L. also loved it. She didn't like the helmet and kept trying to take it off but some adjustments later, she finally gave up. She loves to go fast and feel "whee". We passed by a playground, and she gestured and said "please, please" (which sounds like "pliss, pliss") so we stopped and she played for a little while. We'll probably go again tomorrow, or if not, then Friday for sure. Finally I found something fun to do that's free and close and good for me.

Grand Central

I've been using Grand Central & I really like it. It's kind of weird hearing my cell phone and house phone ring all at once (yes, you can change that setting.) If you want an invite, let me know, I've got a few left. Also let me know if you want my new #. It spells out a few words. Here's an interesting site that helps you spell words with your phone #. I checked out several #s before I found this one. What it spells is not significant to my life or anything, but all of the other available #s I tested didn't spell anything without using a # in the middle.

pedophile a little too close to home

This story makes me absolutely sick. He didn't "do" anything except take pictures but if he has any pictures of Lauren, which is entirely possible, I don't want him having fantasies about her. It makes me want to take down any photos of her on blogger or make people log in to a secure site to view them, or completely do a fictional blog in which I change her name to Alice and say that all the photos were taken in Santa Barbara, where we live, and that we never come near Los Angeles so no one can find her if they saw her picture.

Am I overreacting?

I have joined the world of skype

finally got the webcam going and joined skype. cannot believe there were something like 218 people already with my name! so i am just boring old first letter of my first name, first part of my last name. look me up if you want to chat. the relatives can't wait to get their lauren fix, but no, i wouldn't wake her up at 11:00 p.m. for "uh-uh" as she calls her uncle. (an improvement over "uncle poo-pete" which she used to call him.)

airplane

 

Relaxing at the Greystone Mansion pool house

 

First Ice Cream Cone a Resounding Success

 
 

Video from Greystone mansion yesterday

Video: Lauren at tonight's Dodger game

"PLEASE!": a 16 month Lauren update

This picture is from tonight, eating at the Stadium Club at Dodgers Stadium.

This past month has been a big milestone leap for Lauren. She is talking so much more now than ever before. Everything is "please", and she attempts to pronounce words if you ask her to. For example, tonight she called Steve "Sheve" and Helen was "Hawen". She still loves her "Courteous Kids" books and still says "please" in a really cute way when she means "yes, please". It's really funny when she says "peas, please" because she pronounces it "peas, PEAS!" . She also says "milk, please", which sounds like "muk, peas" and now pronounces "down" perfectly.

She loves this certain playground afew miles from our house with castle turrets and lots of older children. She goes right up to the other kids and says "hi" to them. A few days ago, we took her to the circus and her cousins (Ryan's cousin's kids) Josh & Megan were there. Josh is 7 and Lauren adores him. She gives him kiss after kiss, on the cheek. (She also did this when she saw him at the OC Fair.) When she was watching the circus, she pointed to the tigers and said excitedly "cat, cat!" and at the trapeeze artists, "Whee!". Her 2 favorite parts were the parade of clowns and the end, walking out of the stadium, when we let her go down the stairs "like a big girl" holding Megan's hand.

I bought her a "No Slippy Hair Clippy" and I must say, they do stay in a child's hair, unless that child wants to pull them out on her own. Ahem. $9 down the drain about one hour after I'd purchased it. This was a few weeks ago, and insanely, I bought a few more today. I've decided to only use them right before she'll be photographed. She's going to a wedding next weekend and this morning I tried on her party dress to make sure it fits. It did, and she did not want to take it off. She kept going to the closet and pointing to it and saying "this, please" so instead I picked out 3 other party dresses which were not dry-clean only and let her choose one of those to wear (she picked the "lalow"dress from Charles & Amy, see picture above). Tomorrow is Ryder's ("Ry-Ry"'s) birthday party and she can wear another party dress then if she decides to. Such a girly-girl!