Fifteen years ago today......

......a pony-tailed, mutton chopped Americn boy married a kiwi girl in the pouring rain in New Zealand.

Precious Cargo

The Big Red Dude.

According to the big guy and his elf Sofia has been a very good girl this year.

I see trouble.....

.....in the very near future.

Tails are not toys!

Random happenings!

YIP!! That's my little Guatemalan angel eating Marmite on toast this morning. She loved it. She'll be a true Guatiwi by the time we are done with her and while it might be true that her little friends in America might avoid the Quick household at breakfast time she will be able to sit and enjoy a meal of "black butter" with her cousins in N.Z. NO WORRIES!!


Baby it's cold out there.


Sof and Mum ready for a night on the town.


Looky here who jumped up on the back of Sofia's chair while she was reading her book. Maybe Jeeves didn't realize just exactly what was on the other side of the chair or maybe the draw of the fuzzy Christmas blanket was too much for any kitty to resist and it was worth the risk of getting that close to the pint size person.

Oh yeah......the kid is crawling.

Poser

OMG!!!! What a poser. Daddy has done Sofia's hair the last two days. I love the jaunty angle he got on her volcano today....very 80's don't you think?

New tricks!

Lovin' my new teddy bear.......thanks Karen.


Trying out my legs with Daddy. This is cool!!!

TUCKERED OUT!!!!

Well, it is official.....life as we know it is OVER!!! No, she is not crawling, yet, but has figured out if she rolls and rolls and rolls she can move quite freely around the living room. She also discovered today how to sit up and she is pulling herself up to stand. All of this happened in the blink of an eye and tonight she has spent about 2 hours just honing her newly aquired skills and laughing all the while. I think she smells the fear in her parents. She finally rolled herself into her stack of toys and came to rest, pooped. She ought to sleep well tonight.

Bubbles and Parties

Looking pretty for Peter's birthday party. It didn't last long. Sof was dying to go outside and play with the boys. I have a feeling that these party dress days are going to be short-lived.


Sofia got bubbles at the party. She is still trying to figure out if she likes them or not but they were so pretty in the sunlight coming through the window. She just stared and watched them come down.

Getting ready for school

I couldn't resist posting this series of photos taken on the morning of the first full day of school for Sofia. She is such a goofball in the mornings. We gave her the best volcano hair-do ever and as usual Barclay was nearby to assist.

Sofia's Beauty Tip #1

I thought that the reason you have a dog when you have a kid is so that they will clean up all the dropped and thrown food so that I wouldn't have to mop daily. Turns out Barclay John is useless at this particular task. Jeeves however, has decided that it is worth sticking near the kid when she is eating and that he could quite happily live on pureed chicken and peas and Sofia, who loves Jeeves but never really gets very close is happy to oblige and send some goodies his way.


Sof's Beauty Tip #1: A good helping of chicken and peas smeared through your hair can work wonders. You will be amazed at how good your hair looks and smells.

Oesh's for Sof

A funny thing happened to me today. I was looking for a brown pair of shoes for Sofia to wear with one of her party dresses......after all the holidays are just around the corner and there will be many parties to attend, and shoes just started flying into my shopping cart. Five pairs to be exact (technically 4 pairs of shoes and 1 pair of slippers). Overkill I hear you say? How could it be. A girl has GOT to have shoes, right? And in every color for sure. She humoured her mother and tried on every pair without complaint. I see many shoe shopping expeditions in our future. Sorry Dada.

Friends in the City

This weekend we went to San Francisco to visit the city and catch up with a very dear friend of mine and her son from New Zealand. We had a wonderful time. The weather left a little to be desired on Saturday and we spent the whole day wandering around San Francisco in a constant drizzle. Sunday dawned drop dead gorgeous though and we enjoyed a scenic drive and a late lunch before dropping Ruth and Daniel off at the airport for their long trip home.

Sofia did well in the hotel. She also got to show off some of her new clothes and hair accessories.


The view doesn't get much more spectacular than this.


A family photo. Sofia loved the wind blowing down on the beach....you couldn't take the grin off her face.

Barclay "Houdini" John

I swear I am losing my mind. Tonight when I picked Sofia and Barclay up from Grandma and Grandpa's we went through our ususal routine......Barclay in the back behind his gate and Sofia in her carseat in the back seat. Sofia fell asleep before we even hit the freeway so we had a very quiet 1/2 hour trip home. I pulled into the driveway, walked around to the back of the car to get Barclay out and he was nowhere to be found. On the other side of the gate he sat, next to his girl looking at me. I have NO idea how he got through. There is a small gap about 6" wide on one side of the gate, but I would think that he would have made some noise getting through there and I am sure he would have had to suck his tummy in big time. I had to call Terri to make sure that I had actually put him in the back of the car. If only Sofia had been awake she could have told.

Duck Duck Goose

Check out Sof's new bike helmet. Hopefully she will be riding in the Burley before too long. If you look very closely in the second photo you can see her first two teeth poking through.

Hairy Maclary

Grandpa Robin and Didi came to visit Sofia this weekend. Sofia was given a Hairy Maclary book and got a very special reading of it from Didi.

5:40am

What's wrong Dad? Why do you look so tired? What? You didn't want me to wake up at 5:40am? Sorry.....my bad!

Are we friends yet?

LOVED IT!!!

Daddy gave Sofia her first taste of pumpkin pie on Halloween. LOVED IT!! She watched every fork full of pie go into her Dad's mouth.


Take the girl away from the pie and this is what we get.

Haven't we met before?