bay area mother’s day

Posted on May 13, 2008 by cvc

family photo
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Well, up here in the Bay Area, we had a nice Mother’s Day celebration. We met up with my family for brunch at a place called The Ranch. True to its connotation, there was not much in the way of vegan food. Luckily, my family had a bad experience here last year, so not only did we all eat for free (and bad experience was not repeated), they actually accommodated mom’s request to have them bring out a vegan version of their pasta salad!

After taking some pictures, we headed back to Cindy’s house to relax.

Dylan, of course, had a blast. While Cindy and I worked on a project, he blew bubbles outside with Auntie Christina, played upstairs with Lola, Jason and Tyler, and he ate a LOT of food!

We hope Mother’s Day down south was equally nice!!

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"awethumb" and other new developments

Posted on May 8, 2008 by cvc
Day 69: Doctor Dylan treats "Melmo"
Day 69: Doctor Dylan treats "Melmo"
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Well, of course, we think cuteness abounds when it comes to Dylan. Today, he saw his Doctor’s coat hanging in the laundry room and he had to put it on. All morning, he was “doctor dy’n”, treating Hankie Mouse and “Melmo.” Also, he’s spouting all sorts of words these days — repeating much of what we say — and he’s improving his noun-verb sentence formation (“I fix it”, “I do it”, “I tired”, “I hungry”). It seems he is also really into participles (“I sittin'”, “I eatin'”, “I drummin'”, “NO CHEESIN'” aka “no more pictures!”, etc…)….And he sings! Oh, let the sunshine in…I’m a bell hear, me ring (a music together song), ashay, ashay (a mothersong tune), and so many other songs.

Of course, there are Dylan “downsides,” too. 1) when it’s time for a diaper change, he often responds with, “no. dryyyyy.”; 2) he’s been falling asleep at 10:30pm lately; 3) he doesn’t want to sit in his booster chair anymore and prefers to stand on the stepladder in the kitchen for his meals; 4) he’s going through an anti-brushing and anti-flossing phase; and 5) he often gets attached to the clothes he’s currently wearing which makes it difficult to change out of pajamas in the morning and change back into pajamas at night. All things considered, though, this ain’t too bad.


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Yosemite

Posted on May 8, 2008 by cvc

We just got back from a weekend in Yosemite with Ellie, Mark and Yu-chen. The kids had great fun playing together and we all had fun hiking!

Dylan was a stellar car passenger. We had to stop for a smidge to give him some out-of-car seat stretch time (and walk around time), but after that, he sacked out and left us in peace for a good 2 hours!

Once we arrived, he was really excited to see Ellie AND the lingering snow at the side of the road near the rental!

"cheese!"
"cheese!"
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We loaded Dylan up in the backpack carrier we borrowed from Heather and Assaf and did short hikes to Bridal Veil Falls and Lower Yosemite Falls (Friday) and Mirror Lake (Saturday), and the brink of Vernal Falls (Sunday).


one of my favorite shots of the kids!
the kids
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Dylan thoroughly enjoyed all of it! He loved picking up rocks, walking sticks, acorns, and pine cones, checking out Dylan-sized trees, driving through the tunnel from the rental to the Valley, watching the fire in the fireplace every evening, and seeing all of the waterfalls and squirrels and steller jays. He is still yammering on about the fireplace and the tunnel!


the kids are playin'
the kids are playin’
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Every evening, Ellie and Dylan played together…


chillin' in the cooler
chillin’ in the cooler
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

…and chilled together! They ate together, held hands and kissed boo boos and hugged.


It was such a fun weekend, I’m still relishing the time we all got to spend together.

And, Dylan liked the outdoors so much and got along so well with Ellie, we’re hoping we can all squeeze in a camping trip once it gets warmer!

More photo highlights on flickr.


Posted in hiking, vacation, yosemite | 2 Comments

"no hair!"

Posted on April 30, 2008 by cvc
DSC_4882
DSC_4882
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

On Saturday, we finally honored Dylan’s request for “no hair!” and took him in to get his hair trimmed! We think it looks pretty ok…! (Check out that pie-hole, too! The choppers are really filling in!)


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dylan’s first dinner at Millennium

Posted on April 30, 2008 by cvc
Yerba Buena Gardens, SF
Yerba Buena Gardens, SF
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Last week was a milestone week for all of us! I got to attend the 4-day Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, so I was separated from Dylan for 4 WHOLE days (instead of just our usual half-day Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday arrangement) and Tom had to take up the business of managing Dylan’s morning routine and taking him to daycare on Wednesday.

Luckily, we had incredible help: Heather took Dylan to Music Together and daycare on Tuesday (apparently, Dylan had a stellar day despite waking up with me at 5am and having great difficulty falling back asleep) and Lola watched him all day on Thursday (Tom had to spend the day in Southern California!)!


thoroughly enjoying Millennium dessert
thoroughly enjoying Millennium dessert
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Though I enjoyed the conference (and even got a chance to see Wednesday, my old college roommate!), I missed Dylan immensely…! Tom and Dylan obviously enjoyed some serious bonding time! Tom and Dylan drove up to SF on the last day of the conference and we celebrated the end of the week with a dinner at Millennium — the 4-course special meal with the wine pairings.

Amazingly, Dylan liked every, single course! Yummy flickr photos here….

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this year’s seder

Posted on April 30, 2008 by cvc
Day 51: seder plate - tofu stand-in for egg; parsley; radish (instead of horseradish); lettuce; coconut lemon almond haroset; vegan lamb shank
seder plate
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

At long last, here is a post about this year’s seder! This year, we rehashed some favorites from our first seder: turkish eggplant stew, rice pilaf, and sauteed carrots with almonds, and (!), we added in some Tofoo Com Chay-bought drumsticks (lambshank stand-ins).


vegan matzo ball soup
vegan matzo ball soup
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We also tried some new recipes, including a vegan matzo ball soup, an unusual coconut-lemon-almond haroset and an incredibly decadent and extremely simple chocolate matzo recipe (modified to use about 1/2 the “required” margarine — even then, we could sense our arteries clogging with every delicious bite).


seder leader
Tom leads the seder
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

As to the service itself, we once again used the Ina Gada Haggadah as our guide. Dylan had a fit at Word One of the intro, forcing Tom to basically just hit the high notes as we all strained to hear through the haze of Dylan’s screams!

Other than Dylan’s fit, a good time was had by all (Taliana, Assaf and Heather joined us). Taliana and Dylan even searched for the afikomen! The rest of the photo highlights are on flickr.


Posted in food, get_togethers, holidays, seder | 1 Comment

Day 47: rockin’ out

Posted on April 17, 2008 by cvc

Day 47: rockin’ out
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Today, I tried sticking to our vow of keeping up with running. Tom and Dylan went to the playground while I did my 4-mile maintenance run (you’d think 4 miles would be a piece o’ cake after 13.1 miles, but for some reason, it was a tough run!).

After I got back, Dylan wanted to wear some of my running accessories (hat and mp3 player)!

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race day

Posted on April 13, 2008 by cvc

Dr. Evil??
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Dylan woke up at 4AM(!!!!! egads egads) on race-day, gipping me and Tom of a couple of hours of sleep! Then, we thought he might sleep past the new babysitter’s shift and only awake after Heather arrived at 8:30am. No such luck!

He awoke at 6:45am…to a face he’d only seen once (the previous day)! His way of dealing? He made small talk. “Moon gone”, he said, and then they read Goodnight Moon together!


Day 43: walking the path behind the house

After Heather and Taliana arrived, they apparently did a lot of outdoor play and went for a walk on the path behind the house.

As for Tom and me. We finished the race in a little over 2 hours. We missed our target times (I was 7 minutes slower than last year and Tom was 5 minutes slower) so we were both a little disappointed! Tom is planning vengeance in the Jungle Run in mid-July and we’re planning to do 10-12 mile runs on the weekends to get used to the longer distances…!


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pre-race treat

Posted on April 12, 2008 by cvc

Splurging on a milkshake before the race is kind of like putting the cart before horse. But, we knew little Dylan would enjoy it, too. And, he’d be drinking some of our portion, right? So, the decision seemed sound.


little man in a large world

Here we are at the boardwalk, on our way to pick up our timing chips….Dylan enjoyed seeing the ocean and watching the volleyball players.


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"cancakes" for dinner

Posted on April 11, 2008 by cvc

making his dinner
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Dylan is (unfortunately) getting pickier about food. So, to encourage him to eat, we try to offer him a choice and involve him in the cooking process. This explains why we had pancakes for dinner the other night!

At least it was easy to make!!!

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