Crossing the creek

Fingerpaints!

Thanks to a 50 cent picnic table, we've now got the perfect outside art station. How do you do fingerpaints? Roosevelt explains!

Yard sale find!

Walking up the hill from home

Through a big green window

Big boy swing

It's all uphill from here

On a hike

Giant pine cones!

In the back yard

All funned out

Driving an ambulance

A flower for grandma

Crazy water fun

Having a tea party

Pizza time

We're never leaving!

Giving a hi-five

Big ball!

Sand fun

At preschool

Donut stop!

Going out for stanford basketball

Kings of the mountain

On the carosel

Making hand prints

Napping on the bus

Here be pirates

At ghiradelli square

He won't leave!

Having a quick read before bed

Jelly fish

Inside the fish tunnel

Touching starfish

At the aquarium

It's ham time!

New friends

Story time

Cooking!

First day of school

Sea lions!

Yum!!!

Mini donut!

Saturday-afternoon naptime

An impromptu nap on the couch-bed

Dueling computers

One problem with having a house so small is there's no way to keep Roosevelt away from the computer. Problem solved: Retire the old keyboard, cut off its cable, and give it to Roosevelt! (photo sent from new cell phone, by the way)

A boy and his toaster

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So when we moved across the country, we decided that it would be cheaper to buy things out here than ship them from Chicago. While definitely true, it's meant that our lives have been a blur of Craigslist, Target, and Ikea for the last week and a half. Things are starting to settle down now, thankfully, and the best purchase we've made--at least if you were to ask Roosevelt--was our new toaster oven, which he'll spend many minutes a day standing on a step stool staring at. He asks all the time how it works, what you put in it, where the toast comes out, if he can open it (no, you cannot). He won't let us throw the box for it away, because he'll even sit down and look at that. It's his new best friend. We're wonderful parents.

oh, la mer!

Walking through the valley of the shadow of... something

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A little adventure today onto the Stanford campus to a grove populated with huge sculptures crafted by artists from Papua New Guinea. It was amazing and fun. And then Roosevelt started shoving leaves in a carved crocodile's eye, and that was our cue to leave.

Kitchen's open!

DSC04242.JPG, originally uploaded by dansinker.

So in preparing Roosevelt for the trip out to California, one thing we did repeatedly was tell him that our house had a porch and, early on in that, he asked if there could be a "small kitchen" on the porch. We said yes. and so every conversation that followed mostly revolved around the small kitchen on the front porch--would there be plates? Yes. Would there be food? Yes. Could he cook on it? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Of course, there was no small kitchen on the front porch and so, when we arrived and walked to the door, Roosevelt spun around, with an accusatory look on his face and asked "Where small kitchen!?" Yikes.

Thankfully, we rectified that today with a free kitchen scored off Craigslist, and ever since we set it up on the porch, he's been cooking non-stop. He needs to work on his customer-service though. That coffee I ordered still hasn't shown up.

Big Boy Bed

DSC04237.JPG, originally uploaded by dansinker.

Sure, sitting at home looking at this picture of Roosevelt and Lucy curled up next to each other may seem so cute and wonderful, but trust us: The introduction of the big boy bed is the worst thing on earth. Two hour long bedtimes, punctuated by volleys of him getting up and running into our room, growing continually more loopy with each and every visit, finally moving to tears and, eventually, sleep. Oh, to have a crib out here.

It's a long way across the country...

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... thankfully, we let Roosevelt drive most of the way. The miles just flew by.