Fashion Friday #36: More Fun Pants

It's Monday, and I'm only now posting the Fashion Friday photos. Apologies for how late this is, but we have a pretty good excuse: Aviva's been sick for the last two days. Fever of 102 yesterday, and lots of upset tummy (and all the yucky symptoms that come with that.) She's much better now, however. She played a lot today, and her fever had already dropped by this morning.

Anyway, here are the photos from last week. In both photos she's wearing the baby Gap sweatshirt given to her by her cousin Catherine. First, she's wearing a light green 18M pair of pants from Carter's. You can't tell in the first photo, but around the bottoms of the pants, there are pairs of shoes, with the words "My Happy Shoes." Of course.


As you will recall, she loves her stuffed cow from her Uncle Henry. Good thing, because sometimes it attacks her. Well, when I make it attack her.





For her second photo, Aviva is wearing black and white striped 12M pants with no brand. I couldn't even get her to pose for photos without bribing her with an apple again.

Sorry about the delay for last week's photos, but enjoy!

Aviva pushes a toy truck

It's Saturday, and we only got around to taking our Fashion Friday photos this morning. For now, here are a couple short clips of Aviva pushing a toy truck around at our friend Mohammed's house last week. She isn't so great at turning around yet, but she loves it.

Rocking Elephant

When Roger and Barbara visited us last August, they bought us a beautiful wooden rocking elephant, made here in Swaziland. Soon after that, Aviva was born, and it seemed like it would be years until she could enjoy it. However, she already loves it now. Although she can't get on the elephant by herself, she has a big smile on her face when we put her on it.




Observant readers probably can tell that there's no way she can get off by herself, either. It's true. If you leave her on the elephant too long, she tries to dismount and falls off. Don't worry, we catch her before she falls.

Roger and Barbara, thank you again! We can already tell she will spend many happy times on the elephant.


Her adorable outfit is from our friends Dan and Oszel. Thanks also to them!

Phil and Libby's Wedding!

Our last weekend in California, we went to the wedding of our very good friends, Phil and Libby. (You may remember that Phil and Libby visited us in Swaziland last August. Click here and here to see photos of their visit.)

On Friday, we drove up to Guerneville, a touristy (but cute) little town in Sonoma County. At the rehearsal dinner, we saw lots of old friends.

Here are Adrian, one of Phil's oldest friends, and the handsome groom himself!
Adrian later made what was one of the longest and best toasts/roasts I've ever heard.

On Saturday morning, we drove a few minutes up the road to visit Callista's friend Dave, who has a cabin on the Russian River. There is no car access to their cabin, so we had to park on the opposite side of the river from the cabin, and Dave and his daughter had to row us across.

Here are Dave, his wife, Jen, and me, leaning out over the railing.

Back at Dawn Ranch Lodge, the morning fog had burned off, so my friend Ritu and I went canoeing.

The ceremony that afternoon was beautiful.

The bride and groom, Libby and Phil, right before they walked back up the aisle together.Peter helped to set the scene by blowing bubbles to welcome the newlyweds.

Here we are with Henry, before the ceremony.
Our friends, Ari and Rachel were visiting from Boston.

Brad and Kiesha had driven up from San Francisco.

Table 17 was the best! From left to right: Brad, Kiesha, Callista, Peter, Libby, Phil, Ritu, Colin, Rachel, and Ari. Phil's parents, Alain and Jeanine, made very funny and sweet toasts.

The wedding was beautiful. From the handmade pinwheels on the tables at the rehearsal dinner to the adorable signs on each of our rooms, all the little details really helped set a whimsical, fun, mood and make the weekend very special.
Congratulations again to Phil and Libby!

Sunday at the Chungs

Our last full day in California, we got to spend a fabulous afternoon with our cousin Cindy and her family.

Sarah and Cindy frosted some delicious cupcakes.

Christian played Apples to Apples with the kids. To his left are Matthew (Ryan's friend from school), Kendra, and Ryan. (Aviva's cheating by looking at his cards while Christian's looking at the camera.)
Aviva was very busy. First, she did some more dancing with her Auntie Sarah.



Then we enjoyed the beautiful pool.
Aviva got in a bit more snuggling with Agong...

...and with Ama.
Kendra showed off the great sign she made for Aviva.



And Aviva spent a bit more time with Auntie Sarah...mostly still trying to pull Sarah's earrings.


We're already looking forward to the next time we all get to hang out!

Happy Eleven Month Birthday!

Aviva turned eleven months old today! While I was writing this post, I realized that we never posted her ten month birthday photo. So here's the link to the post, backdated to July 20, 2011, and here's one of the photos again, just for reference.



And just because we can't help ourselves, here's a couple quick clips of Aviva doing her party tricks.




Happy birthday, Aviva!

Fashion Friday #35: Crazy yellow pants

Aviva's growing into more new clothes these days, including a whole new set of crazy pants.

On top, she's wearing a pink 3-6M jacket by Kids Play. The first pair of pants are of unknown brand, and they're a bit big (18M). It might be hard to tell from the photos, but they are baggy and have pink strawberries on them. The pants aren't that fascinating, but check out the series of faces she made while she was modeling them.

"Oh, it's you again...how interesting."

"Wah! I'm tired of your stupid photos!"
"Ok, I'll try to smile..."

"CHEESE!!!!"

Her second pair of pants today is pretty similar to the first. Yellow cotton, but this time with little mushrooms, flowers, and ladybugs on them. Of course. She was pretty grumpy by this time, so I had to bribe her with her new favorite treat: an apple! (For all of you worriers: don't worry! We know raw apple can be easy to choke on, so we watch her super carefully.)



Thanks to the Sevins for the crazy pants! Happy Friday!

The Cow

Aviva *loves* the stuffed cow that her Uncle Henry gave her. She just can't get enough of it. Check out the faces she's making in this video, especially at the beginning.



Yes, that's me laughing at her instead of helping her up at the end. Admit it: it's funny.

Thanks, Uncle Henry!

Peek-a-boo!

We've been playing peek-a-boo with Aviva for months, usually with us hiding behind our hands, or behind objects in the house. This past week she showed us that she can be the one peeking out, too.

Fun with Grandpa Richard and Great Grandma Miriam

We've found a couple more videos to share. Aviva was full of things to say during our recent trip home, especially this day when she was hanging out with her Great Grandma Miriam:




Later that week, we spent a lovely couple days in New Haven with Susan and Richard. Here's a short video of Aviva playing with Grandpa Richard. She is fairly aggressive (you'll see what I mean.)

Swimming in Connecticut

We're still going through photo and video files from our trip to the US, and we've found a couple good ones. Here's some video (three clips, actually) of Aviva and Seamus, having a grand time splashing with their Grandma Ellen. These were all taken on July 5, 2011.

Fashion Friday #34: An Assortment of Hats

Our internet connection was down Friday, so we couldn't post the results of Aviva's photo shoot. I was having trouble thinking of a theme, but Aviva's Uncle Henry came to the rescue by suggesting hats. And it's true, she does have many hats, so I picked a few of the funnier ones.

Aviva shows off how tech-savvy she is. Google knit cap by American Apparel.
...and how fashionable she is. The hat is 0-3M by DKNY baby.

This is a white 3-6M sunhat from Gymboree, with pink flamingos on it.


The next shot is very blurry, but you can still see the look of delight on Aviva's face: "I took it off!"I tried to get one more hat on her, but the exact same thing happened. Look how happy she is!

Enjoy.

Callista's B School Pals

Another great night of hanging out with old friends, this time, Callista's buddies from b school: Jeff and Eddie, and their families. We had dinner at Jeff and Carolyn's place. Eddie and Jackey (and kids) joined us. Carolyn's mom made an unbelievable Korean food feast:

Aviva got to snuggle with Carolyn...
...and Eddie...

...and play with Jeff.
The three girls enjoyed some cake at their own table.


Eddie's son was too busy to join them...
...but he did join Eddie, Jackey, and me for a photo a bit later.

The playroom (after.) Unfortunately I didn't get a before shot, but I think you get the picture anyway.
Yet another great night that reminded us how much we love our friends. We miss them already!

Messing around in Mountain View, Part 2

We had a terrific time in Mountain View.

Aviva got to play with Agong inside...


...and in the pool.

She danced a bit with Ama...


...and rolled off the couch into Agong's arms.



She had a nice time with Piglet (until the very end, when she grabs Piglet right where the poor dog just had hip surgery!)


Fortunately, Piglet is too well behaved to really even nip at Aviva. In the moment, it was a bit scary, but now it's sort of fun to see the look on Aviva's face:
"Piglet, come back! What did I do?"

Aviva got in some snuggling time with her Uncle Henry, and showed off her clapping skills.


Uncle Christian did a great job feeding her fruit (which she spit out, for no good reason.)


Aviva did eat a lot of fruit during this trip. Here she is trying to eat half of an apricot. (Hey! Who gave her that anyway?)
Sarah and I had a great time shopping for a cheese plate.

We got to spend time with my siblings and parents, which was great!
All that messing around just tired Aviva (and Peter) out.