Browse Month: October 2012

Happy Giants Halloween!

It’s Halloween AND Giants Day today!  Wow.  That’s a lot of stuff going on in the city. Mirian even took Kumquat to the parade that went along Market Street this morning in hopes of catching a glimpse of the World Series Champions.

I wore my tiger costume to work today but we didn’t do anything special once I was home.  As usual, there was no trick-or-treating in our building so we still have a huge bag of candy here for us to enjoy.  Heh Heh.  Kumquat didn’t wear her elephant costume today but she gets to wear it tomorrow for a special storytime at the library.

It was a quiet Halloween night for us…just Kumquat and her two pumpkins…next year we’ll take her outside.  Promise.

Visiting Eleen and Zoe

Jimmy’s on an overseas business trip so we went down to Alameda to hang out with Eleen and Zoe on Tuesday evening.  We brought over some tasty Hawaiian food and just hung out.  Zoe has put on some cute little cheeks and a belly and it was so neat to see how much she’s changed since we first met her.  She’s SO adorable.

Jesse did his monkey dance for Zoe and it worked like a charm. She got to take a little catnap while Kumquat played with her toys.

Kumquat also showed off her new skills and chatted-it-up with Eleen and Zoe.

*sigh* What a fun evening!  Let’s do this again soon!!

Sunday BBQ

Jason and Jia wanted to break in their new grill and they just finished furnishing their new place so we went to their apartment for a BBQ on Sunday.

We also invited Jen and Kevin who live nearby.  We hadn’t met their little Keenan yet and Kumquat hadn’t met them yet either.

Keenan is such a cute little guy and he slept for most of the afternoon.

But when he was awake he sat and watched our chunky monkey playing with her toys.  It was great spending time with Jason and Jia and we got to catch up with the Lams since we hadn’t seen them since before Keenan was born.

They were also so sweet to give Kumquat a box full of cute clothes, some books, and a toy that she loves.  Thanks for the gifts, Lams!  And thanks for the tasty eats, DiDi and Jia!

Halloween Saturday

It’s not Halloween yet but a lot of the celebrating was happening on Saturday.  In the morning, we headed down to Band and Vyl’s house to go to the Halloween Party and Parade that was happening down the street.  I invited Ranee to come too and we were given quite a surprise when they showed up with Sophie dressed in the same elephant costume that we got for Kumquat.  Awesome!!!  They were so cute together.

I wore my tiger costume from a few years back and Ranee and Jamie dressed as peanuts.  Very clever.

Rowan dressed up as a doggie but he didn’t like wearing the hood.

There was trick-or-treating along the main street with all the stores.  We didn’t actually pick up any candy but we did go inside the Apple Store and Kumquat was given a magnet with the Apple logo on it.

For brunch, we went to Stacks and Kumquat got to sit in a highchair for the first time.  I think she liked watching Rowan and all his hijinks that morning.

Later in the evening, we drove over the bridge to Downtown Oakland to meet up with Mai and Ranee.  We tried going to Make Westing but their liquor license didn’t allow babies.  So we went across the street to Rudy’s Can’t Fail Cafe and sat out on the patio for drinks and food.  It also happened to be on the Hella-ween 5-mile race route.  So we watched the runners go by and our witches stopped to take a photo with us.  Once they finished, they joined us for some more drinks and food and lots of laughs.

Orange & Black

The World Series has returned to my backyard and it’s quite a party out there.  For the past two days, we’ve had lots of people dressed in orange and black.  Fortunately, the Giants have won both games so everyone is in a good mood in the ‘hood.  On Thursday, I took Kumquat and Koa for a walk around the stadium to check out all the activity.  It was a gorgeous evening and it was fun to watch the people partying in McCovey Cove and there was a blue grass band performing, which made it feel like we were in New Orleans or something.  The Giants are away for the next 3 games and they only need to win 2 more.  We’ll see how it goes!

Pear Puree

I’m making baby food again!  This time I used my stick blender!!  Yeeeaaahh, Baby!  I only bought one pear (organic, of course) at the supermarket this time so I could experiment but I think I should have bought more.  Here’s what I did:

1) I peeled the pear.

2) I cut the pear into chunks.

3) They all went into the measuring cup.

4) And then bzzzzzzz went the stick blender!

Here is the finished product.  I got a smooth puree in just seconds.  However, I didn’t buy enough pears so I ended up with a few lumps since the stick blender requires a little more volume to get it all pureed.

Regardless, Kumquat loved it and I was able to join her by eating the chunks for her.  Yum.