Hula Baby

I hula with my eyes and I hula with my lips. I hula with my arms and I wiggle my hips. I'm a hula hula baby...

My Year as a Published Author

After a long, hard road and after having my work ripped to shreds and painstakingly bandaging it back together, my efforts have paid off. Soon, my civil war romance will be on the shelves, courtesy of Avon Books.

I Am The Best, I Would Like The First

Not much was going on this weekend. Our glorious, sunny weather is now a distant memory. As I am an Arizona girl and Ernie hates the cold, we don't venture too far from our heaters on days like these. But we did take a nice drive up the coast. Just a nice, relaxing weekend with the family. As much as I love packing our weekends with fun and exciting outings for Lily, sometimes it is nice to slow the pace a bit.

I just wanted to share a rare family picture. With no extended family around, we rarely get the opportunity to have a picture of all of us together. I'm either manning the camera or Ernie is. I love that we got one with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

I took this picture of Alcatraz with my new lens. We were standing on the other side of the bay (approximately five miles away) on a very foggy day. I love my new lens.

Lily loves going to see the water. Isn't she such a sweetheart?

Is it any wonder that I love living here?

Not a whole lot else going on with the Hamiltons. Just some cute pictures to share with all of you. Have a fantastic week, and stay tuned for some big news happening in our lives in the next couple of weeks. I am beyond excited! But you have to wait for the big unveiling. I don't want anything to slip out prematurely...so be patient.

Sausalito's Bay Area Discovery Museum

After weeks of dreary, overcast skies, the sun broke out this past week and we found ourselves with a surprise reprieve from the bitter cold that has been plaguing the bay area for the past few weeks. So we took advantage of the beautiful weather and headed over to Marin County. One of my favorite spots in this entire area is the Marin Headlands. It is the most beautiful stretch of beach in the bay area. And you won't find better views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the San Francisco cityscape. And nestled in the Marin Headlands lies historic Fort Baker, a picturesque former Army post. Amidst gun emplacements, coast guard boats, lush forests and magnificent vistas is the Bay Area Discovery Museum. It is a hands-on museum for kids. It's somewhat similar to Habitot Children's museum, which we visited last weekend, but on a much more grandiose scale. We arrived just before noon and didn't leave until after four in the afternoon. And Lily was not happy once she realized we were leaving. But she didn't have the energy to protest too loudly. Almost before I even got her settled into her car seat, she was out cold.

If you can't tell what she's doing in this picture, she's trying to catch a ray of light she found while she was playing with the train.

This was an amazing wicker maze that had been grown and shaped into the maze. A "live" maze, so to speak.

I'm trying to let Lily do more and be more independent, even though my heart stops at some of her antics. So I let her climb up these "steps" that were quite high up. But I was still right behind her, just in case.

Lily kept coming back to the giant tree trunk. She was fascinated by it.

Ernie was dying the entire time we were in the outdoor play area to go visit the construction zone. Lily finally got so frustrated with him stealing her toys that she pushed him back, waggled her finger at him and said "No, no Daddy!" (check out the first picture above for an illustration) That's my girl!

The indoor exploratorium was a great. We could kick back and relax while Lily ran and played to her heart's content.

It was a wonderful day, and one we will repeat time and again until Lily is too "cool" to go.

Go Green

While I may not particularly green-minded in my daily life, I am so glad to have found this product. Lily loves nail polish and always wants me to paint her nails and tries to help me paint mine. Now I can let her without worrying about the harsh chemicals or the horrendous mess. And I can pat myself on the back for being environmentally aware.

And take a gander at this. Check out the dresses. Everything is 100% organic (though I'm not quite sure what it means to have organic clothing or why it would be preferable. But at least I can feel good about living more organically, right?). I am absolutely in love with this dress that I bought Lily.

The clothes are cute and comfy. So stylin, in fact, that I wish they made them in my size. And soon my dream will become reality! But I don't think I'm quite to a point where I would wear matching outfits with my baby. Hopefully I never get there, so I think I'll shop for myself elsewhere.

Lily Smiles

Have you ever had one of those life-examination moments? A time when you look back on your life and remember the dreams and aspirations you had as a kid only to realize that you haven't realized most of them? I had one of those the other day. Working (seemingly) non-stop for the past little while has turned me into a philosopher, it seems. I'm not on the fast-track to being a state senator or starring in a Puccini opera at the Met. Hurricanes and curve balls and wrong turns happen. Life happens. And somewhere along the way, we lose our starry-eyed innocence and stop thinking that anything is possible.

Few of us achieve the things we dream of as children. As we become adults, it feels like there is one falling anvil to dodge after another. Being constantly faced with realities of everyday living, it's hard to keep that feeling that anything is possible. That you can do anything you put your heart into.

But when I dance with my daughter in the den, or wake up to her sweet giggle in the morning, I reconnect with the idea that the world is at my fingertips, and there is nothing I can't do.

But I also realize in those moments that the greatest thing I can do with my life right now is let my daughter teach me how to "fly" on the kitchen floor. (If you can't tell, we are both saying "wooo!" Lily's favorite thing of late is pretending to be an airplane)

Tilden Park

In Berkeley there is the wonderful place called Tilden Regional Park. It is a huge outdoor area full of fun things to do. They have a steam train, a giant, outdoor merry-go-round, pony rides, and little farm. Now, when we went, everything was closed except for Little Farm, which was a little disappointing because Lily was so very excited to ride of the "choo, choo", as she was calling it all day. But once we made it to Little Farm, she forgot all about the train. At least until we left the farm. Then she again was asking about the "choo, choo." I felt awful. Next time I will have to be certain it is open.

Lily's favorite animals were the cows. She got particularly excited when she heard them "moooo". And, since her parents were wholly unprepared for the excursion and didn't bring anything to feed the animals, she quickly discovered that she could con other visitors out of their lettuce and celery to feed to the animals. And she was very good at it. Some of them even gave her their entire hoard. My little con artist. It's a good thing she's so cute so she can get other people to make up for her parents' lameness.

She loved the sheep too, and again conned some unsuspecting person out of a stalk of celery to feed them.

She was hilarious with the goats. I don't think she knew what goats were before our outing, not even from books. She bent way down to look between the slats of the fence. And when she couldn't see well enough that way, she lay prone on the ground to get a better look. With animal poop and all. Yummy.

She got a kick out of the chicken that had flown out of its pen. She terrorized it until I'm sure it will think twice before making another escape.

But she soon made her way back to the cows, completely fearless.

But when we tried to coax her into petting one, she shied away. They are rather big to a two-foot tall kid, so I can't blame her.

But she did manage to con one more person into giving her their food to feed the cows again. And she did it all by herself.

And that concludes our trip to Tilden Park. Definitely worth a repeat visit.

Habitot Children's Museum

In an effort to find fun things to do with Lily that are inexpensive and nearby, I discovered (through google...I love google) a place in Berkeley called Habitot Children's Museum. Now, the word "museum" in the name of the place is a bit misleading. It is more of an interactive play area. But it was still fun. I don't think it was worth the $22 we spent to get it (they made Ernie and I pay to enter, as well as pay for Lily, which I thought was a little ridiculous), but it was still fun. I wouldn't go back every week, but I would definitely go back.

There is a wiggle wall, a toy riding area, a play store/restaurant, an art room, a baby play area, a water sensory area, and a reading room. We stayed for about two hours and could easily have stayed another two hours. When we finally did leave, Lily was not happy about it.

Lily loved this little toy, ride-on train thing. Although, you wouldn't know it to look at the serious expression on her face, but she couldn't get enough of it.

I'm thinking of getting her something similar to play with at home. I think it would be a big hit. But considering we only just barely finished with Christmas, I'd better wait a while.

Her favorite area was most definitely the art room. And when we move into a bigger house, I definitely want one of these. It is a giant dry-erase board set up with water color paints. She can paint to her heart's desire, and when she is done you just spunge it down and start the whole process all over. So simple, yet so ingenious. And I want one sooo badly.

They also had these adorable smocks for the kids to wear...

Doesn't my little burgeoning artist look adorable in her smock?

This picture reminds me of Sweeny Todd, for some reason. But I still really like it. Is that strange? Hmmm...best not follow that thought too closely.

The water sensory area was, by my estimation, the most disturbing of the entire museum.

And here is why. See that table behind Lily? Well, it is full of naked baby dolls. And not just any naked baby dolls, anatomically correct baby dolls. I found it disturbing, but the kids all seemed to love it. And Lily didn't want to let her baby doll go. Even looking at the picture with all the limbs in the background gives me the willies.

So, while we had fun watching Lily run around, I think I would have felt better if we had just had to pay the $7 entry fee for Lily, and not the $8 entry fee for each of us. But it was definitely worth exploring and we will most likely come back. Even better than the museum, and somewhere we will definitely return to, was Tilden Park. But I will save that for my next post.

Role Reversals

So, there is no purpose for these pictures, other than they are adorable. But what picture of Lily isn't.

Life has been hectic lately. Work has been insanely busy. But so it always is at the first of the year. I need to keep reminding myself that being busy is a blessing. It means we will be able to pay bills and buy food and clothes. And beyond that, we can have extra to do the fun little things. There are so many people right now who can't do those things. So the fact that I've been working ten hour days, six days a week and running around like a crazy person is a good thing. The fact that I have only seen my daughter for about two or three hours a day for the past two weeks is a blessing. I keep having to remind myself of that fact, because it is really hard to remember. But soon I will be back to my normal schedule and all will be right with the world. Soon, Ernie will be back to working sixty hour weeks and I'll be working thirty hour weeks and I can once again enjoy bonding with my child. In the mean time, Lily is having a grand time hanging out with Ernie.

And I can't say enough about bath paints. Now Lily can't wait to get into the bath! What a relief it is not to have to chase her around and beg her to get in the tub!

Girls' Day Out

Some times, you just need a day out with the girls, you know what I mean? Especially during college football season. Sheesh! It is about all I can do to not scratch my eyes out! Lily and I took refuge at the park. It was a frigid day, but we still had fun.

Lily is fearless. I, however, am not. When am I going to stop fretting and imagining everything that could go wrong every time she tries something new? She was having a blast on the jungle gym while I was giving myself a heart attack imagining the many different ways she could fall and break her neck.

The coolest part of the entire playground, I would have to say, was the swings. And Lily is a wonderful swinging companion. She babbles non-stop and keeps me in stitches the entire time. And that child of mine has already figured out how to swing herself. You're probably wondering how I don't feel intimidated in the face of such genius, right? Well, it isn't easy, let me tell you.

She keeps my young. Never in my life have I met someone that I enjoy hanging out with as much as I enjoy hanging out with her. Well, except maybe for Ernie. With the two of them in my life, things certainly will never be boring.