t i n y e r a n c h

So Long, Clobazam!

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:56:26 +1300

I am super stoked to announce that Josephine took her last dose of Clobazam yesterday!! After 16 weeks of weaning her 1 mg per day with no negative side effects or break through seizures, she is now on two medications rather than three.

To celebrate, we took the girls down to Frank Kitts Park for a bungy jump and gelato! Josie loved going high and at the very end of her time, the attendant asked if she'd like to go "Really high?", she agreed without hesitation. As she soared 20 feet in the air, I broke into a cold sweat. All I could hear was her delighted laughter ringing through the park. The child has no fear.

Thanks to everyone for supporting us through this. We are so lucky to have good news to share and hope the trend continues.

Something Summery

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:44:29 +1300

Our page is looking a little wintery still, so I thought I'd share some pics of our trip to the beach during the Young family visit in November: hope you enjoy!

Happy Birthday Julia!!

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:59:39 +1300

Our wonderful niece (and super cool cousin) turns 9 today. 9 years ago, Jake and I were flying on a red eye out to Newark and Julia was being born. So happy to have you in our lives Julia!!

Hope you have a super happy birthday!

Where Have We Been??

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:46:24 +1300

...you might ask, somewhat crossly? All over the place, we are happy to answer!

At the end of November we left New Zealand for the first time since we arrived in April 2008 - almost 20 months later. We departed on the heels of our beloved reasons-for-being-together, the Youngs, and followed them up to Auckland before boarding our red-eye to San Francisco (more on their awesome visit later!)

Traveling this time around was much easier, both since the girls are older and we weren't having to fly too many consecutive flights. Our arrival to New Zealand involved 4 planes, 9 50lb. checked bags and 32 hours of travel, so we were very excited to be getting off the plane with only 2 bags in San Francisco. We also hadn't been back to the Bay Area since we moved in 2005, so it was a homecoming on many levels.

The first thing we noticed was how huge all the cars seemed. A Mitsubishi Pajero is one of the larger vehicles on the road here in Wellington, and Suburban-size trucks from what I can tell are just unheard of. SFO's Budget was out of mid-sized cars so we ended up in a very new, very huge Ford Explorer:

The second thing we noticed was fall, the perfect kind of fall Charlie Brown & his friends have. Leaves were blowing across the parking lot and the light had a beautiful, pale gold quality. We giddily made the drive up 19th Avenue to the Golden Gate, snapping pictures all along the way and rolling our windows down to breathe in the eucalyptus.

We arrived at our old neighbors' the Eversons' house in time for lunch (snacks from Trader Joe's, thanks Mark!), relaxed for a bit afterwards and then hit a nearby playground to let off some kid-energy. Of course Sophie's shoes were off before she stepped foot on the playground:

After some outdoor playtime we returned to the Eversons' and ordered our old stand-by from Amici's pizzeria in San Rafael - the Trentino. It was just as good as we remembered, and very fun to drive past both our old apartments on Mission and B Streets. I vaguely remember staying up too late catching up but then sleeping like a stone in Mark & Julie's very comfortable guest room.

Sophie's Kindergarten Graduation

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:51:01 +1300

Today Sophie celebrated her graduation from Kindergarten. She'll be leaving kindy a couple weeks early due to our travel plans then rolling into summer vacation. So no more school for Sophie until February 2010!

Her school has a wonderful graduation process and each child coordinates how they would like the events to unfold with their teachers. We love Brooklyn Kindergarten and all of the teachers there. We'll miss you over the break but Josie is looking forward to returning in January!

Here are some pics from the day. Enjoy!

Search fixed!

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:08:36 +1300

Finally had some time to find all the missing files to make our search feature works again.

Happy searching!

Birdseed Bars

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:04:10 +1300

A friend of mine passed this recipe on to me and it is soooo good and soooo easy. My girls had a blast measuring and mixing all the dry ingredients. The best part about this recipe is that you can substitute pretty much any variation of seeds, nuts and dried fruit.

Birdseed bars

Stir the following ingredients together
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup flax seeds
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup coconut
1 cup oats
1 cup cornflakes

Melt in a sauce pan until dissolved and toffee like in colour (approx 5 mins)
100g butter
1/4 cup honey
1/2 brown sugar

Mix through the dry ingredients - Spread on a baking tray lined with parchment and refrigerate. Once cool and firm, slice and store in an air tight container.

Josie Update: Seven Months Seizure Free

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:26:17 +1300

We are super happy to spread the good news that Josie is continuing with her seizure freedom!

She had an EEG to monitor her brain waves and the neurologist has decided she is ready to start weaning off one of her medications! Yay! It's a long process and will take at least 16 weeks to get her off of the medicine completely but we are just so happy that she is stable enough for this to even be a consideration.

She's doing great and developing normally. We love her heaps!

Happy Halloween!

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:45:48 +1300

Here are some pictures from our big day out - what a blast! Hope your Halloween is just as joyful as ours was.

A Star Wars Crush

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:16:05 +1300

I escaped last weekend with two wonderful friends to a spa in Martinborough, the wine region near Wellington. It was wonderful, relaxing, healing and full of laughter. All made even better by the fact that Jake had an entire weekend off (GASP!) and spent it with the girls so I could get away, anxiety free.

Everyone had a great time free of separation anxiety and full of Star Wars! I came back to a Star Wars focused family. Many discussions were being had about "RDD2", "the guy in the tree with the pointy ears", "the two guys fighting with flashlights", and "the walking guys getting closer and CLOSER AND CLOSER!".

Jake had apparently been searching around town to get the girls some action figures that would work for the girls. R2D2 was specifically being sought. Sadly, we couldn't find him anywhere. Josie picked out a Clone Wars cell phone which I think is totally lame. Not one authentic Star Wars sound effect included! Josie however, is in love with it! Sophie scored a C3PO figure and instantly made a bed for him in a paua shell, complete with tissue pillow and blanket. She took him to nap with her, happy as a clam, er, paua. ;) When she woke up, she staggered out, forgetting, I think, that she only had her pull up on. This is what was written on her leg.

In case you can't make it out it says "Sophie loves C3PO". I called Jake and we both had a good chuckle about it.

Crafting

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:58:27 +1300

We've been sick and stuck inside these school holidays so among other things, we've been crafting. Here's some of our handy work.

This owl was from Kids Craft Weekly. Sophie had a great time putting him all together.

The bags for our owls were a little too long so we hacked it off and decided to make a crown. Josie enjoyed gluing the jewels on.

I tried to tie a little letter lesson in to our crafts. I asked Sophie if she knew any other words that started with O. I love the two she came up with. One is our dear friend, the other a veggie she's never tasted.

And, um, that's my handwriting and art skills.

Here's the crown being modeled. PS. I got this smile by telling her NOT to smile.

We repeated the system again the next day with stellar results.

A little princess.

Again, my favorite part are the words Sophie came up with. Sadly, I had to coax her into the last "M" word.

SmugMug Slideshow Test

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:23:04 +1300

SmugMug Test

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:21:03 +1300

Testing out another photo site.

Flickr test 2

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:59:15 +1300

Slideshow feature test

Flickr test

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:46:42 +1300

IMG_4335, originally uploaded by doughmomma.

Trying out a possible alternative for our crufty DAlbum.. what do you think? Any Flickr fans out there care to offer us any advice? We're also considering smugmug and Picasa, if you have opinions on those too!