Shoes and Bags and Coats Oh My!

IMG_6376.JPG, originally uploaded by sassylou.

Leila has definitely started mimicking me. Imitation is the best form of flattery I guess, and it does make for some good photos.

Her latest obsession is shoes...everyone else's. Shoes + her new stroller + cell phone + handbag and she is good to go.

Now, I am not so sure our downstairs neighbors are loving it so much when she puts her heels on, but I sure do think it is funny.

She is actually pretty good in the heels too amazingly so. I am so proud...

click on the photo for more fashion victim shots...

Blog hiatus

IMG_6222, originally uploaded by sassylou.

Well folks...there was certainly a dip in blog writing over the past month or so...sorry for leaving you hanging since Halloween! It is hard to keep up with my prolific cousins : ) (and Leila for that matter which might be part of the problem!) For those of you that have been patiently waiting, there will be a myriad of updates all at once as I have a ton of pictures and updates. Nothing like a binge blogging to satiate your desires!

Here are just a few shots from our Thanksgiving trip to Atlanta. We had a great time and Leila also performed a little number to "Tequila". OK...I may be biased, but I do think the girl has some pretty good moves. The video is a little long I know, but wanted you to see the whole performance. Oh yeah, and her back up dancers Samy and Mike weren't too shabby either.

One last side note: keep studying the people at the airport Dan. We learned it is a true balance of art and science to travel with a toddler. 5 hours of fun on a flight to Atlanta with an 18 month old on your lap...good times. Bring enough distractions (e.g. food, DVD player, toys, books, bottles, cell phones, crayons, lint from your purse etc.) Just remember that each item only holds their interest for about 2 minutes. Yep, for a 5 hour flight, that equals 150 items...now you will see why the lint comes in handy.

Leila takes on Halloween!

IMG_6101.JPG, originally uploaded by sassylou.

This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home...no, actually this little piggy tore up the town at Halloween a couple nights ago! We did our homework and took Leila to a great street for Halloween. We have come to find out, there are lots of fabulous places to take children trick-or-treating in the city. The neighborhood we walked in was jam packed, full of little kids and parents, decorated houses and everone out on their stoops handing out candy. It was a blast...complete with "Happy Feet" performances in a house with huge windows which was very popular with everyone, young and old...took a little video, but doesn't do it justice!

It was so great to see Leila having so much fun. She went from "clueless" to "expert" in no time. Her first piece of candy was a lollipop which didn't leave her mouth all night (see pics, click for entire set). By the fourth house, she realized she needed to reach in for candy and would put it in her little pail. By the fifth house, she would try to reach in more than once. Smart girl. My only complaint is that she always took lollipops when mom's preference would have been chocolate...oh well, always next year...

Enjoy the pictures, and as you can see Leila finished off the night with a more healthy choice of cheese...mind you, she was definitely already on a pretty decent sugar high after the lollipop!

Also to note, Kyle came in town briefly for an interview and we had a really fun visit. He met Leila for the first time and we all tried to show him a good time and tooled around the city. We are all sending good vibes your way Kyle for a positive outcome!!

The Revenge of the Black Bean...

IMG_5954.JPG, originally uploaded by sassylou.

Leila is an active little toddler and is definitely keeping us on our toes. I love this first picture...it reminds me of the Wicked Witch with the striped socks under the house...but of course our little lady is more like Glinda! Click on the photo for more recent pictures marking:

1. Leila's 1st burritto. Fast forward to our babysitter calling me the next day at work exclaiming about how much Leila is pooping and how black it is. Thanks to cloth diapers, I could take a peek for myself in the old diapers when I picked her up. I would have called too. Had I not known about all the black beans she had eaten, I might have been worried. Lesson...too many black beans does not make for a pleasant diaper(s).

2. Leila's fun at bathtime. She is enjoying baths and has finally gotten over being scared at having her hair rinsed. We enjoy playing with all of her curls and giving her mohawks...doesn't every parent?

3. Leila's introduction to drawing. From the pics, you can see not too much extensive crayon work was going on. She seemed way more enamored with putting the crayons in her mouth and running around the house in circles. She would stop for a crayon switch out and repeat.

4. Leila went back to her park where she had her tree planted for her baby blessing. She had a blast swinging on the swing with our friend John and playing in the fountain. Leila loves this little park and it was a good chance to run off some energy...she had all of us exhausted by the end of the day! Her tree is growing nicely and it is so wonderful to have a lasting way to mark her life and growth.

L-Mobile

IMG_5808.JPG, originally uploaded by sassylou.

It's been a whirlwind few weeks for the Ghezali family. We have been on the go. We celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary and went down to Santa Cruz over the 10/5 weekend. It was a family affair and we rented a great little cottage right by the beach. Straight from there I went on a business trip for 9 days and just got back this last Monday. Now Leila and I are both sick...me from fatigue, Leila from me. Trying to rest up and recuperate, but work is non-stop right now. Leila is on the go...amazing how much she has changed just in the short time I was away. She is running around the house, talking on the phone(s) all day and cradles it in the crook of her neck. She has complete conversations, laughs into the phone (I guess the person she is talking with is entertaining?) and asks a lot of questions in a raised tone at the end of her sentences. Guess she will be racking up quite the phone bill when she grows up. If she isn't "on" the phone, she is pushing all of the buttons and playing with our answering machine ad nauseum. One of her favorites is to push the "page" button to make all the phones in the house beep. Amazing how they find out all the little tricks...

She is also saying some real words...although the pronunciation on some leaves a little to be desired. Some favorites: hi, bye, doggy (all animals), diggy (kitty for our cat Hobbes), shoes, ba (banana), eat, out, and of course momma and daddy. She definitely is mimicking us a lot...she is "coughing" just like mommy right now and is repeating a lot of the words or sounds we make. It was much too long to be away from my little girl and we have had a ton of fun catching up even if we both don't feel at the top of our game. Daddy was a great caretaker while I was away even if the house looked like a tornado had hit it when I got back. I think Leila had taken out every single toy in the house down to the very last block. Good times.

Click on the photo for all of the pictures from our Santa Cruz trip.

It's a Sign

Leila has kicked the sign language into high gear and we are enjoying teaching her new signs. It is amazing how quickly babies pick it up. She knows and uses the following signs:

1...Eat (she uses this one ALL the time)
2...Bath
3...Shoes
4...Dirty Diaper
5...Sleep
6...Light
7...More
8...Take me/give me

It is so much fun to communicate with her and even if she doesn't know the signs of other words yet, we are able to understand her quite well. She also makes this lovely grunting sound when she wants something and gets excited...she sounds just like a monkey! She actually says "doggie" (which is mainly for dogs, but is also used for every other animal as well) and "Hi". One of her favorite toys is the home phone and/or cell phone and she cradles it behind her ear and says "hi" A LOT...

She has a ton of teeth coming in right now so it is doube work to keep up with the drooling and from time to time she is quite irritable due to the pain. I still don't have an exact count of how many teeth are coming in...a bunch of molars on the top and bottom, but getting her to keep her mouth open for a review is quite a feat. However, not as hard as trying to administer eye drops I have found...that is definitely a two person job for sure.

Here are a few pictures from our latest beach day and her photo shoot in her rough and tough skull and crossbone look. This is her DJ'ing outfit with daddy. She looks the part for sure...

Dancing Queen

A video for your viewing pleasure. Please disregard my crackly voice on the video (sounding more like Kay Babe every day...) There was music in the background even though you can't really hear it. Leila was busting a move to the beats!

On a roll...

Alright, I am kicking the writing into high gear now. Just downloaded some pictures from the camera which I had been meaning to do for quite some time. You all get to enjoy the fruits of my 2 minutes of labor.

Well...Leila has mastered the beach now. I took her on a hike to Tennessee Valley and we impromptu went to the beach at the end of the trail. Turns out the trick was to have Leila walk on the sand first with her shoes, THEN take them off. She was a little unsure at first, but then enjoyed herself immensely. She was really enjoying the water, got totally wet by accident (mom didn't quite see how big the wave was at the end!) and was a sandy mess. We were with some friends and their little girl June who is 2 years. They had fun playing together and Leila didn't want to leave the water. I forgot my camera in the car, but will post some pics when I get them from my friend.

To tide you all over (no pun intended), here are a few pictures from the last couple of months. Not so sure I can keep up with Dan posting weekly picture updates, but we will see how well you do into month fourteen buddy!!!! : ) Hard to capture all of the things we enjoy so much about Leila in pictures. Probably the thing that cracks me up the most about Leila lately are her nightly "projects". She is constantly working on things around the house. Most of the time it involves taking something (blocks, magazines...she has a particular penchant for my "W" magazines, books, etc) and walking across the room and putting them on another surface. Over and over until she is done emptying it, then repeat in the other direction. Repeat again. Repeat again. Pretty good at entertaining her and the heavy breathing of concentration that accompanies this is the best part. I joke with Samy that she takes after me in this regard...I have always loved a good project. Now, if we see Leila making any lists, we know we are in trouble...

Beach Yogi

Well I have been remis in writing lately...today was a beautiful day and after work Samy, Leila and I went to the beach to enjoy the sunset. Turns out Leila does not really like sand (you may remember a previous post where I said we didn't think to take her off the blanket at the beach the last time because I hate sand). Well...like mother like daughter. Leila was terrified of the sand and wouldn't stand up at all. She was doing this funky yoga pose, crunching her legs and feet up in front (quite impressive abs Leila...) and no matter how close you would put her towards the sand, the legs and feet would curl upwards. That little pipsqueak would not be messed with! It was so humorous and caught the attention of all the beachgoers. Guess we'll have to try another time!

Leila is truly a dancing queen, and can't help grooving at any music beat. She is so entertaining and we can just watch her for hours working on her little "projects" around the house. I promise to add pictures and maybe a video soon. She is our precious little girl!!!

The Energizer Bunny

After a grueling 5 days apart from Leila (and Samy) I have just returned from a business trip in New York. It was so hard to be away from the family and was missing my girl big time. Leila is really into her play time now and really doesn't stop. She always wants to be walking around and has officially entered the toddler stage in my mind. She is all over the place, scatters her toys everywhere, is constantly exploring and getting into things. It is really entertaining to watch her and tiring at the same time to clean up after her! She can pretty much destroy the house in 15 minutes. But hey, she is having fun. It is so wonderful to be back and to see her in person and hold her...sure beats having Samy and our babysitter send me 10 second videos and pictures to my phone, but it did help me get through the week. aswzssecfrqvxrdsDXX (If you couldn't tell, that was Leila's contribution to the blog just now. Not quite sure what it means but I am sure she will tell me later). Home sweet home...time for the Ghezali Girls to do some bonding.

I'm walking...yes indeed I'm walking

June 27th marked the official day of Leila's first real steps on her own. She was dabbling a little bit before this, but wasn't confident to go full throttle. Well, in a day, she just simply took off. In just a few short weeks she is a walking pro. She chases our cat, Hobbes-they go around and around the house in a circle. It is so funny to watch...Hobbes humors her, lets her get close and then moves to the next position out in front. Over and over and over... Leila also loves walking around the house with her little bumble bee. She is quite adept at manoeuvering around the furniture and various obstacles which is quite a feat...city living calls for tight quarters!

Leila is also quite the little dancer. She has this great move where she quickly shakes her booty from side to side and shakes her whole body--gets a laugh out of us every time. She is especially motivated to do that dance move to the South Park theme song and when she is enjoying something she is eating. We have been trying to teach Leila sign language and she just recently started doing the sign for "milk" and "more". It is so cute to see her little hands make the signs and it is a good way to communicate. We are hoping to teach her more, but those were the first ones we started with. A few words too..."doggie" and "kitty" although at times they sound a bit alike and the occasional "daddy" although most times she says that to me, so go figure. She is just a bundle of love and is really starting to become a little person with such personality. It just gets better and better.

June Bug

June has come and gone, and I have been remiss in writing in the blog. It has been a busy month and our darling daughter turned 1 this month. June 8th, 2006...we were busy getting ready for the big celebration (read, Nicole making invites, obsessing over designing and making decorations, finding the perfect 1st birthday cake recipe etc which is my idea of fun). It was a ton of fun getting ready for the party (at least for me, you will have to ask Samy yourself) and then poor little Leila was sick the day of the party with 103 degree fever. We attributed it to her teeth coming in...what can you do? She was a little trooper though, although she was clearly not feeling very well. Nevertheless, we had a great party with tons of friends over and we managed to keep Leila fairly happy...she was burning up all day. Poor little lady! Here are a few pictures of the birthday party. You can definitely tell Leila was not in good form by the pictures...she eventually ate some of the cake, but wasn't a fan at first. She stopped crying when we all sang happy birthday and erupted again when we stopped. I threw in another picture that I couldn't resist sharing. How about that cute little butt!

Three's Company

Leila has been getting some teeth...three to be exact. They have been coming in for a while now, but haven't fully come up (I don't think so anyway...they could always be short teeth!) She hasn't had much fuss about them-I think she is a tough little lady with a decent threshold for pain. Anyways, for about 2 straight weeks she kept sticking her tongue out over her bottom 2 teeth feeling them with her tongue. It was hysterical-reminds me of what you do when you get a tooth pulled...your tongue automatically gravitates to feeling that open hole.

Still no official walking...I am looking forward to that moment. Then after that wears off, I am sure I will wish she was more stationary again. I have this strange feeling we don't know what we are in for when she is off and running...

Life's a Beach

We celebrated a lovely Mother's Day and birthday this Sunday. My very first "official" Mother's Day (I did still celebrate when she was in my belly last year-not such a stretch?) and it was my 35th birthday too. It felt very special being able to celebrate both on the same day. We went to Pt. Reyes and took Leila to the beach for the very first time. Leila is checking the sunscreen ingredients in the top picture to make sure it is ok for her skin. The girl is already tanner than I am at 11 months...sad. She has her daddy's skin that is for sure. She didn't leave the blanket (I hate sand so I didn't particularly want Leila to be all up in it either...I guess that is the point of going to the beach, but I didn't think about that until afterwards...). Samy did carry her over to the ocean though and dipped her feet in-not sure if she liked it. Might have something to do with the fact that the water was 50 degrees at best. When he brought her back her feet were icicles. Then again, Samy swims in that water sans wet suit...I hope Leila doesn't take after her father in that regard...she can always stay on the blanket with me...

I'm Still Standing

Leila is getting quite good at walking with less and less of our help. She definitely loves her new abilities and wants to be on the move more and more. One of her favorite things to do is stand up in the bed between us in the morning and bounce up and down, seeing how long she can stay standing. Walking is just around the corner for sure. She did take a few tiny steps at our baby sitter's house, but she is definitely still prefering to hold onto our fingers for balance. It is an exciting time.

Our next challenge is to try to fit the bigger car seat we just got into the MINI now that she is outgrowing her infant seat. Fingers crossed it will work...we are bound and determined to keep that car (although Samy is already talking about what kind of car we will get if we have another baby). Two babies in a MINI would be pushing it...

The many nicknames of Leila...

Here is the running list so far...given that she is only 10 1/2 months old, she is clearly in for a few more over the course of her lifetime. These are in chronological order (sort of...) and Samy is responsible for most of these of course...hence some of them don't make much sense!

1. L.J.
2. Baby Joi
3. Bundle
4. Bundleliscious
5. Soondella (don't ask...)
6. La Loucha
7. Toolessa (another obscure one...)
8. Baloutta

Bye Bye Birdie

Leila is a movin' and a groovin'. She has definitely taken off this month and is a bundle of energy. Crawling has ramped up...she is faster and has adapted her style to use her legs more. She now can sit up from her crawling position. However, little Leila has little patience for crawling and clearly wants to stand and walk. She constantly pulls up on furniture and people to go vertical and is now cruising around the furniture more confidently. She is just pleased as punch with her ability to stand. I can't count the times that I have put her down for a nap, go back in after hearing grunting noises of exertion to find her standing up in her crib, grinning ear to ear. She is quite proud of her accomplishment and also just loves it when she skirts the nap altogether. I think her napping time during the day will be decreasing soon (although Samy does his best to "bond" with Leila numerous times throughout the day (otherwise known as napping with Leila in his arms...he just loves having that excuse to nap!)
I call this installment "Bye Bye Birdie" because Leila has also just learned to wave bye bye. Oh it is so cute! Who would have thought a simple waving of the arm could give you so much pleasure! She doesn't do it consistently, but ALWAYS waves bye bye when we take her to and from Cristina's (her babysitter) house. We are starting to make some plans for Leila's first birthday...can't believe that one year has almost gone by. I am sure Leila is looking forward to her cake if she is anything like her mom!

April Fool

On April Fool's day we went to the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gater park to see an exhibit. Then headed to a friend's house to celebrate his birthday. These pictures are from the Conservatory. Leila looked so pretty in her Easter dress (couldn't help but have her wear it a little early). I think she looked like a little European girl...precious!

Little Miss Sunshine

Leila brightens up our day and is definitely communicating her desires, wants and needs. It is great to see her develop and interact with the world. She is so inquisitive and wants to see EVERYTHING. Any little noise makes her turn to see what is happening. She squirms around in your lap...ready to stand or move around to get into "stuff". Mommy gets more and more nervous when Leila will be fully mobile. Somehow Leila knows instinctively the things that you DON'T want her to get into, and those are just the things she is interested in. Can't Wait! That being said, she is pulling herself around--wouldn't quite call it crawling, but she is moving. After a while of arm pulling crawling dragging her legs behind her, she starts to cry, clearly not wanted to exert any more effort to move. She seems quite content to explore on her own terms when she feels like it. She also loves to grab onto the furniture and stands quite well. Me thinks she is going to be a walker before she really even masters crawling! This picture was taken at Leila's park--we visited her park when Grandma Bayne visited. Leila had a blast on the playground!

And she goes bang bang bang on the drum...

Leila is really developing her own little (big!) personality. We have established a nice routine as a family and Leila is such a good natured baby, which certainly makes it easy (so far...). She has learned to eat her Cheerio's by herself--current success rate is at about 20-25% and she just loves to stuff them in her mouth and drop them too! She is a vocal little girl and loves to hear herself scream now. It is quite easy to make her laugh...a good raspberry on the tummy will send her into a fit of giggles and chasing her up the stairs to our apartment also does the trick.

Mornings are a fun time...she comes into the bed with us at about 5:30-6pm for the morning feeding and we fall back asleep together until a more sane hour (7:30-8am, depending on how often I hit the snooze button). Then it's a mad dash to get ready for work, dress Leila and all head into the MINI for the morning drive. Leila tells us about her morning on the way into work and the day is underway.

Leila also has learned how to clap and loves to show off her new skill. This has been an exciting age...she loves to sit on the bed while I get ready for work and bounce up and down, all smiles and giggles. She brightens up our morning, day and night!