Tag Archives: birthdays

Maggie’s 2nd Birthday

Maggie’s birthday, just a few days after Griffin’s rescheduled party, was a lower key affair, but fun for all of us. It began with some presents in the morning before Andrew went to school. Then a pancake breakfast with Caroline and Griffin. Then, by Maggie’s request, an expedition to Adventure Peak. After Andrew got home, we all headed over to the Highland Grill for dinner. Finally, a cake perfectly sized for a two-year-old.

Griffin’s 5th Birthday

It’s been a rather extended celebration this year. We began on Griffin’s actual birthday, April 8, with cinnamon rolls for breakfast and family presents at dinner. Then he was honored at both of his preschools.

Maggie with pinkeye
Maggie with pinkeye

Then Sarah baked a spectacular cake for his party on Saturday, but the kids both woke up with pink eye and we had to cancel the party! (Noooooo! But we ate the cake, which made it ok.) We rescheduled the party for the following weekend and this time everything worked out, including an even more magnificent cake. (Six layer rainbow cake with all natural ingredients? No problem.) And grandma and grandpa presented a new bike. Woohoo!

Click on the pics for larger versions.

What has Griffin learned? Birthdays last for three weeks and include numerous celebrations, multiple cakes, magic bunnies that hide eggs, lots of chocolate, and special trips to the ice cream shop (those last tidbits were for Easter and my birthday, but the distinctions may not mean much to him). We’re setting ourselves up for success here. 🙂

Happy 2nd Birthday, Griff!

Dear Griffin,

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I wrote you a letter, but I guess in all the busyness of this past year, I’ve let it slip through the cracks. We moved from California to Minnesota, Daddy has a new job, we bought a new house, and now you are two. I have been looking at pictures and videos of our last two years together and you’re already a world away from where you were as an infant…maybe even an entire solar system. I expected you to change, but I just didn’t know what it would look like. You surprise and delight me every day!

Speedy runner!

I thought you might like to know what you’ve been up to lately: You love to jump (with both feet! You just learned and are quite proud of yourself), run, and climb. Your main way of communicating is with words, saying things I sometimes understand, but more often have to decipher with context clues. One of your favorite activities is still sitting down with a book, which delights both your dad and me, and we’ve moved beyond board books to actual stories that you are often very engaged in. You want to do things by yourself, oftentimes pushing my helping hand away saying, “Griffin! Griffin!” which means “I can do it myself.” And you can. You can do an enormous amount of things yourself: drink from a cup, eat with a spoon, identify objects, shapes, and colors, entertain yourself with puzzles or trains, climb up into your booster chair, sing, climb up and down the stairs, build a tower with Legos, to name just a few. You wave at everyone and say, “Hi!” in the sweetest, friendliest voice, as if you’ve known complete strangers your whole life. You wave goodbye to everyone and everything: “Bye-bye Daddy! Bye-bye football! Bye-bye pants! Bye-bye phone!” You love taking baths. When I open up the medicine cabinet you point to the “tye-lo-lo-lo-lo-nol” (tylenol) or ask for a “car-bib” (car band aid) for your forehead. You love being tickled and chased. Our nightly bedtime routine involves you saying, “Mommy chase! Daddy chase!” and one of us will chase you up the stairs as you squeal with anticipation of being caught. Now that it’s warmer, you want to be outside ALL of the time to explore, throw rocks, dig in the sand, and look at the “tooo-lips”. You’ve even taken an interest in the “pee-pee potty” and wearing underwear, which you really like. What you like even more is taking off the underwear, running around giggling and yelling, “NAKED!!!”

You really are one happy kid. Don’t get me wrong: you have your tantrums and frustrations, but in general, you really seem to love life. Along with this passion for living comes an immensely cuddly and affectionate personality. You give kisses and hugs, many times without a request. I hope this lasts forever, but know there will probably be a time when it will be icky to get a kiss from your mom and embarrassing to be hugged by your dad. It’s hard to imagine you older, though, so I’m just enjoying where you’re at now and savoring as much as I can. We are in a good groove these days, you and I, and life is sweet.

I don’t know when you’re actually going to read this letter. Will it be when you’re 10? 13? 18? 21? This may be hard for you to believe, but you aren’t the only one who has been changing. My heart has grown by a whole solar system since you were born, too. I love you so deeply, it’s really difficult for me to even describe it. Do you know that now as you’re reading this as a “big kid?” It’s probably hard to imagine me as a person before I was your mom, but I was. I lived an entire 32 years before you were in my life and have had many people and experiences that have made my heart grow with love, including your dad, who made it (and continues to make it) grow immensely. But you have made it grow in a different way, and in a way I could not have expected. And I thank you for that.

So happy birthday, my two year old! I do not know what the future will bring, but I do know that I live each day being thankful for you and that I get to be your mom.

Love,

Mama

Happy Birthday Raven!

Raven’s real birthday (her fourth) was on Friday, but she celebrated it today with a fabulous party at Kids In Motion.  I had no idea that such a cool place was only a short walk from our house.  It’s like a huge padded gym for toddlers, featuring a massive trampoline, balls, balloons, rocking things, bouncing things, swinging things, sliding things… all the good stuff.  It was awesome.  I’ve posted a full set of photos in our gallery, with some highlights below.

Dangling Max
Dangling Max
Griffin had a blast.
Griffin had a blast!
Raven on the rope
Raven on the rope.
Zoe looking exceptionally cute.
Zoe looking exceptionally cute.
Raven helping Max down the scary slide.
Raven helping Max down the scary slide.
Cutest grin ever.
I don't know either of these two guys, but is that not the cutest look you've ever seen???
Besties
Besties!
Burrito Monster
Burrito Monster
Nancy with the cake.
Nancy with the cake.

The Incredible Birthday Gift

As you may know, my sister Alli designed and printed our wedding invitations a couple of years ago, and since then Andrew and I have been telling her that she’s going to be the next big thing.  While we may be slightly biased, I do think it’s undeniable that Alli has amazing talents that produce beautiful, visually yummy designs.

It turns out she’s been working on an alphabet book for Griffin for the past eight months, and it arrived in the mail two days ago.  If my socks could have been knocked off literally, they would have shot straight across the room.  She got it “published” through Shutterfly, so it’s a real, hardcover book, and it could not be more beautiful.  It’s so beautiful, in fact, that I’m not letting Griffin touch it.  He can only look at it from a distance until his proclivity for eating books subsides.  I wish I could post the whole book, but until it’s really published (and I seriously think it could be!) I’ll share a few of my favorite pages from The Incredible Edible Alphabet by Alli Stocco.

My Super Duper Birthday

Sarah is amazing.  She organized the most incredible birthday extravaganza that anyone could hope for.  And it was a complete and total surprise.

My birthday is the 21st and I had talked to Sarah months ago about not doing anything big — I couldn’t imagine organizing a big birthday party on top of everything else we’re doing this spring.  At some point she suggested we could do a barbecue some time in May, after my thesis is done and the house is on the market.  Sounded like a great plan, and I proceeded with life, forgetting about my birthday entirely.

Then on Monday I got an innocuous email from my brother, Anthony, who was in town for work (he comes for a week of meetings every few months):

Hey guys,

I'm in town this week until Sunday. I thought it would
be cool to meet up on Saturday if any of you are free.
Maybe lunch and a movie? Clash of the Titans might be
fun.... What do you think?

-Anthony

Now that I have reread it, it is a bit suspicious (especially if you know Anthony well).  But at the time, I just thought, “cool, glad Anthony’s in town for a few extra days, I’d love to go see a bad movie!”

The week was the usual maelstrom of school, thesis writing, house prepping, cover letter writing, and parenting, so it all went by in a blur.  But I wasn’t suspicious at all.

Saturday morning I meet up with Anthony, Tyler and Ed, and we start walking to the farmer’s market where we were going to have lunch and then catch the flick at the Grand Lake theater across the street.  As we near the farmer’s market, Anthony turns to me and says, “I’m sorry, Andrew, but we are not going to see Clash of the Titans.”  He hands me a blue card:

Â

Inside the card was a poetic introduction followed by the first clue:

Introduction to the challenge
Clue #1

The solution, of course, is Cancun in Berkeley, which not only has my favorite burrito but is also a place of Great Significance (to me, anyway).  Cassidy’s sister, Margot, recommended the place to me before I moved to Oakland.  When Kevin Muñoz and I arrived in 1996, we started meeting there for lunch every Wednesday, continuing the weekly lunch tradition we had had at the Oberlin computing center.  Over the years, it became a rendezvous for anyone who was available at lunch time on Wednesdays… sometimes just a few of us, sometimes a dozen or more.

In short, it was the perfect first stop on my birthday hunt.

I won’t post all the clues here, but let’s just say that Sarah did her research, including many places near and dear to my heart over the fourteen years I’ve lived here.  Highlights included the grimy piano bar where Sarah and I had our first date (the clue had blown off into a puddle of urine), and the spot in the Oakland Rose Garden where we became engaged (the clue was, fortunately, still tacked to the tree next to which I nervously issued my proposal).

My stunned arrival

But wait, as brilliant and surprising as this whole memory hunt was, it was only a distraction from the real surprise.  Unbeknownst to me, Sarah had been planning this whole thing for months and had invited people from all aspects of my life to a surprise party in the back yard of the house.  They had gathered there at 3:30, expecting my arrival around 4.  Guests included friends from high school, college, my teaching program, the middle school I work at, and Griffin’s birthing group!

While we were on our hunt, they gathered and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  In my ignorance, I was taking my sweet time working my way through the hunt.  (I thought this was pretty much the best birthday ever, so I wanted to savor it!)  In order to get some exercise, I even decided to walk between a number of the final clues!  Sarah and my guides engaged in some frantic behind-the-scenes text messaging to remove a stop or two from the hunt, so I eventually got the final clue that led us to the back yard.

As I came around the corner, expecting to see Sarah and Griffin and maybe Dave and Nancy (probably working hard on the garden in preparation for our upcoming open house), I was greeted by a rousing “SURPRISE!” from a crowd of guests, most of whom I haven’t seen in months!

Some of the wonderful (and patient!) guests
Straight from the Merritt Bakery (one of the stops on our hunt, no less), a fabulous cake... with two working light sabers!

It was a fantastic way to end a fantastic day.  I am in awe of Sarah… pulling this off in a year with nothing going on would have been a major feat.  But this spring has been INSANE.  It boggles my mind.  (I am not the only one who feels this way either… the most common things I heard from the guests, besides birthday greetings, were compliments for Sarah’s masterful planning.)

The day was also a reminder of what we are leaving behind with this upcoming move.  Seeing everybody at the party brought home to me the amazing community we have here.  It’s a hard thing, moving somewhere new.  I appreciate so much that Sarah recognizes the roots I’ve put down here, and honored that connection with this beautiful celebration.  It was, truly, a super duper birthday.

Happy Birthday Griffin!

We tried to get a cake from the bakery in Minneapolis that made Sarah's first birthday cake but it had closed long ago. However, this one was made in the same spirit, with clowns, balloons, and two coke bottles from the original cake!
Griffin doesn't quite know what it is, but he's pretty sure he wants to touch it.
Whoa, that's sweet! (Probably more sugar tonight than in his whole first year...)
I could get into this...
Sticky gooey fun!
In the end, not nearly as messy as we had expected. He didn't even put his hands in his hair. Older and wiser already!