Christmas 2006

Aunt Kimi visited us this year for Christmas and we had a very good time. She even assembled this ellaborate scooter for Cupcake. I have never seen such a complex thing for a toddler. It took all our skill to make it work. As for the scarf, I'm not sure how that came into play.

Erika enjoys sitting in this red box. She received lots of stuff for the holidays, so thanks to all of you out there for thinking of her. She has so many toys I have to clear a path through the living room with a snow shovel.

Erika expects her stuffed cat to ring in the new year by playing a tiny trumpet. She also expects me to make trumpet noises for extended periods of time. Sadly, this trumpet ornament will be lost.

Wind Storm

The good news, our roof and all of our Douglas Firs survived intact. The bad news is that our home and surrounding area was without power for 68 hours - which is a long time. In case y'all did not hear, western Washington endured a rather severe wind storm Thursday night. It seemed to damage the Bothell area the most. The power went out Thursday night as the storm started really blowing things around, by the morning it was all over with about a million people without electricity. My office was closed due to the widespread outage, and I figured that the power would stay out for a while.

So here's what we did: We loaded up the Volvo with the contents of our freezer (we had some lovely steaks) and drove to visit Grandma Gladys in Portland (204 miles).

After driving 70 miles from home, we had still not gotten out of the blackout area. Good thing we had plenty of gas, since you can't pump any without electricity!

We stayed two nights with Grandma Gladys and returned to a 45-degree warm house just this afternoon. Our gas fireplace had it's work cut out for it. Fortunately, the power was restored at about 5pm. Oh, sweet TV and dishwasher. Erika suggested we watch Blue's Clues or the Boobahs right away. (if you don't know what those are consider yourself lucky).

Moral of the story, we are not quite as prepared for a multi-day disaster as we had thought. I don't think anyone around here realized how hard it is to go without coffee. (What do you mean Starbucks is not on generators!!!!) You think I'm joking?

Erika turns two!

Erika is already two! I'm sorry that I did not get a lot of pictures, but we did video tape.
Anyway, we had a party on Saturday and a good time was had by all.

Erika's friend Takara came over and they seemed to enjoy each other's company.
All in all, the cake was good, and no one cried. You can't ask for more than that.


 

Erika meets snow

Quite the unusual weather this week. Unfortunately, it only snows for a couple days every few years, so when it does, we have no appropriate gear. Unable to drive up my own driveway, I vowed to get a snow shovel... someday.
Erika and Jackie build a snow cat. 

Erika not posing for holiday pictures.

Here we see Erika focused on and driven by forces unseen as usual.
Today, we went to Molbak's Nursery in hopes of taking some good holiday photos; but she would have none of it.

She did, however, find some stuffed animals which she enjoyed greatly. This is in contrast to Santa himself whom she was able to ignore with no effort. In fact, she's walking past him briskly in this shot.

Shortly after this photo, she abandoned the tiger. However, we did buy the cat in her left arm since she and it were inseparable. She better darn well enjoy it just as much at home. 

Applying make-up

See, I told you Erika likes applying makeup...

Visiting Portland, OR

We visited Grandma Gladys this weekend and spent some time at the Portland Children's Museum. Again, Erika is suspicious of hordes of unruly children with good reason. Some 3-year old refused to share with Cupcake and admonished her with a sudden"no!" Erika does not care for such rudeness.

Applying makeup, or anything related to face painting, is one of Erika's favorite things.

A somber moment in butterfly wings. She's fond of wrapping herself in blankets and processing. Pope Cupcake XVI perhaps?

Grandma had a few Christmas decorations out already. They all needed to be kissed. Especially this penguin's arm since it rings a little bell in time with music.
 

Halloween 2006

Erika would not wear her cat costume. At least she agreed to have whiskers painted on. Here she is getting the hang of sparkley things which are used in holiday art during toddler group.

She found the mock store at toddler group and was immediately drawn to the cash register. Continuing from the last blog post, she really enjoys manupulating money.

Halloween was a bit tiresome for little cupcake. Here she is mellowing out with mommy. They are watching The Aristocats which is Erika's favorite for the moment. Of course, she would not wear her Aristocats costume, but you already knew that.
 

Woodinville Halloween Fest 2006

Erika is slow to warm up to things which are supposed to be "fun". The local Halloween event had lots of carnival-type games which can take some time to get used to. Here, Jackie is trying to hurry the process.
Notice that Erika is not wearing the cat costume which Jackie bought for her. Erika would not put it on. Which type of stubborness is this? a) Hughes, b) Kruse, c) Wetzel, d) Harding, e) All of the above.

Erika, like her father, needs time to stop and reflect without the chaos of a crowd. Time to get comfortable. You can't just show up at some crazy chaotic thing and expect to enjoy yourself from the first moment!
Noticing this, one of the fair workers gave her a shiny golden plastic coin for just getting near a game, and Erika seemed to like that quite a lot. In fact, she would rather manipulate the play money than do almost anything else. This coin is what she's feeling behind her back in a side room all by herself away from the crowd. No doubt she is pondering an interest-bearing account while other children run around deluding themselves. At the conclusion of our outing, the coins she obtained were not traded in for mere plastic detritus, but rubbed together with great satisfaction and pocketed. I'm so proud! I can't wait until I teach her about mutual funds!

Before the pony rides, Erika warmed up with a faux horse. This was Jackie's idea and was a great success.

After coins were stored some fun was being had. This is her second pony ride. Indeed it takes time to warm up a Wetzel to this sort of thing, but we get there eventually. My appologies to Jackie's side for contributing my "annoyingly cautious" gene to our progeny.
Interesting how my red-eye removal software is defeated by this pony. 

Fabulous weekend weather

After a few drizzly days, here we are in the 70s with blue sky as Erika poses with her new pillow. We let her pick out any toy she wanted, and it didn't take her long to be drawn to a Hello Kitty pillow. She loves to beep it's nose and exclaim "Beeeeep!" As a side note, you can tell where I gave up staining my fence in the background! D'oh!

Once again at one of our favorite parks in Redmond.

Look at this! Someone bred the Lock Ness monster with a goat!
 

Meow-Meow gets a diaper change

Getting the diaper right is tricky. Sometimes it's best to give up and settle for wearing a hat.
 

Cupcake of LaMancha

I hope that drinking bath water is ok, because Erika likes to do that a lot.
Anyway, it makes a great Don Quixote type beard with the bubbles.
 

Pumkin Patch 2006

Perhaps it is quite obvious where we were today; outside cavorting in the October sunshine.

There are so many useless gourds. How to choose?

For the second year now, Erika remains thoroughly unimpressed with pumkin patches.
 

Sick this week

This week has been no fun. Erika started us out by having a cold and then she began to recover as Jackie and I got sick. I stayed home from work two days, but it was a challenge to keep Erika under control as Jackie and I were not up to her energy level at all. I think we've gotten through the worst of it. Nothing quite like a bored two-year-old to keep you from sanity.
 

Kathy & Keith's visit part II

We took 3 boat trips this week.
Here we are on Puget Sound.

Once we returned home, Erika and Grandma spent some quality time wrapping stuffed animals in the blanket called doh-doh. Erika has some very specific things in mind when wrapping stuffed animals. Don't expect to be able to predict these things.

Erika's cuteness: unstoppable

 

Grandma Kathy and Keith visit

Here we are on the ferry making our way across Puget Sound toward Aunt Jayne's house on Vashon Island.


Erika can't believe what fun it is to take a ferry boat ride!

I think those cooking mits are too small.

Here Grandma Kathy and Erika share some play time. I don't think Keith is still awake at this point.