Winter wonderland

We've had a week of on and off snow here which means you never know from day to day whether daycare is open, meetings are still on, or anything else is open. One thing for sure, traffic is a disaster. Matt headed to a dentist appointment yesterday only to learn that the office wasn't open. "Well, we assumed people would call to verify that we were open and our voicemail stated we weren't." This follows MAYBE an inch of snow on the ground and a little bit of ice. We got no snow last night but it was supposed to snow tonight so daycare decided to close at 4pm even though there was no snow in sight -- and it still hasn't started snowing yet. It's not like we live in Atlanta or San Diego after all. Anyway, such is the way of things in Seattle. We are supposed to get more snow tonight so I cancelled all my meetings tomorrow in anticipation of daycare being closed. Right now, it looks like rain but who knows.

Kyra's first full day of daycare was today and she seemed to do okay. I had a late afternoon meeting so Matt picked them up and it sounded a bit chaotic with the early close. I'll talk with the teacher tomorrow and see how she did. She was happy enough this evening and had a normal evening and bedtime routine. We'll see how she sleeps and reacts to me taking her back there tomorrow!

She's letting go of furniture on her own and taking steps by herself. She's so proud of herself, it's adorable. She also says "ball" and tries to say other words too.

Daniel seems to be working on potty training. He now tells me when he goes #2 and then tries to remove his pants and diaper because he needs to sit on the potty. Ok, so the order of things is reversed but at least there's some discussion and understanding of the concepts. This morning his diaper was totally dry and he went #1 on the potty. Mommy was very proud!

Daniel is also obsessed with Christmas decorations. He stands in front of the tree and moves the ornaments all around. He's already broken a couple. I don't think we'll be able to put any presents under it until Christmas Eve because he'll certainly be into them. Kyra likes to remove the lights, shake them, and put them into her mouth. Her cheeks glow from the bulbs... not that we encourage that.

The restaurant is picking up pace and Matt is still super busy but seems to feel there might be light at the end of the tunnel. We're still working to get the exterior signs installed and various other important marketing elements introduced. We hope to see you all there!

Some thoughts

I thought I'd provide links to a couple of blogs that have picked up on the opening -- Culinary Fool and Cornichon. Enjoy! Do a search of 0/8 Seafood Grill or Twisted Cork Wine Bar and let me know if you find any more!

It's been a hectic week and I've been so fortunate to have my mom here. She leaves tomorrow which makes me sad and wonder how I'll survive the next few weeks without her. Matt has been frantically trying to put out fires -- some small and some big - that come with the launch of any business with 15 hour days.

The kids are doing well. Daniel is so excited about Christmas and decorations that he can hardly contain himself -- in most cases, he doesn't really try to. The other night he wanted to have a cookie from the batch we made and I told him he could after he and Kyra finished their baths and Kyra went to bed. Daniel raced upstairs and started the bath, took off his clothes and brought me his PJs. Next, we said we couldn't get the Christmas tree until we cleaned up the toys and moved the toy boxes into the corner of the room. I've never seen him clean up his toys like that. Two nights ago, he stayed in his room all night and came out saying, "I stayed in my rooms so I can have a cookie -- for breakfast." (Not exactly what I bargained for.) and this morning came out of his room and said "I stayed in my room so now we can decorate." We did go and get the tree today and got the lights on. Tomorrow we work on the ornaments while trying to keep the hooks, balls, and other decorating dangers out of Kyra's mouth. Should be fun!

Grand Opening

The Grand Opening of the 0/8 Seafood Grill and Twisted Cork Wine Bar was last night (Sunday) and a huge success. Everyone raved about the restaurant and the food. It was wonderful to celebrate this occasion with so many friends! Thank you all for your support. We look forward to you visiting and enjoying the wine, dining, and hospitality of the restaurant and wine bar. Hopefully photos will be available soon.

Gingerbread house

Safeway had a gingerbread decorating workshop today that allowed the kids to make a mess -- I mean decorate gingerbread houses - in the store. Daniel did a lovely job and is so proud of his. They even gave us some extra icing and decorations to take home and finish it up.

Kyra was sick yesterday and couldn't keep anything down. Amazing how she had visited daycare for approximately 2 hours and has already come down with something. Not promising... She's doing better today though.

28 hours until the Grand Opening!

Fun with Turkeys

I've been trying to get Daniel OFF the Halloween kick -- he enjoyed it so much -- especially the blow-up Frankenstein next door. Every night I have to tell him a Halloween story in bed before he goes to sleep -- it's really tough to come up with two Halloween stories each night that don't have anything to do with haunted houses, witches or other scary topics. Usually they're about costumes, trick or treating, or friendly bats, cats, spiders or other Halloween creatures. Of course, it would help if I were half-way creative! So we began to do some artwork around turkeys. The picture is the result.

Kyra is 10 months old today and is darling. She seems to be converting to one naps which has thrown her bedtime off and she now goes to bed at 7pm -- and sleeps 12 hours I must say. Also, she's finally willing to take milk from a sippy cup. Previously, she would only take water from a cup. Funny things... She has gone through a couple of nicknames in the past few weeks. Of course, she was an octopus because she was 'grabby'. Then I started calling her "Squirrel" becuase, as Daniel can tell you, "she hides food in her chair." Today, I realized that she must be part sheep because all she says is "Baaa". Oh and "Maaaa" but that's usually when she's upset.

Also, Kyra's beginning daycare the week after Thanksgiving. Our nanny had an opportunity to travel to Ireland and stay as long as she wants and decided to leave mid-December. It was easy enough to get Kyra in. My only disappointment was that I had hoped she could go straight into the toddler room rather than spend such a short time in the infant room (2 months) before she turns a year and switches up. But we can't plan everything perfectly. I'll begin to take her in to get used to the teachers and classroom this week for a couple hours at a time.

We're looking forward to the Grand Opening of the restaurant next week -- we wish you could all be here to share in the celebration!

Other changes

I keep forgetting to post important milestones for Kyra. She's able to stand by herself for up to 5 (maybe more) seconds. She has taken 2 steps a couple of times. She also tries to mimic words - she was trying to say "bear" last night. She did say "Burp" the other day after I told her she burped. She's got a cold with a terrible stuffy nose. Poor baby's eyes are all red and she keeps rubbing her nose and gets her runny-ness all over her face and then hates it to be wiped up. Lovely visual imagery, huh?

We got Daniel an alarm clock with a sun/light that comes up and birds chirping when the alarm goes off in the hopes we can convince him to wait until the sun comes up to get out of bed in the morning. It's sort of worked the past two nights... I'm guessing the novelty will wear off at some point.

I did post some Halloween pictures on Flickr. You can click the link at the bottom right of this page.