1st Haircut and Juicy Lucys

Last Saturday I decided enough was enough with poor Olive's scraggly hair and I made an appointment to get her hair cut at he cute little salon where Nikos gets his done. Since it was a nice day out and I need to start my training walks we decided to walk to the salon - which is in Rockridge, about 5 miles from our house.

We started out at 12:30pm (appointment is at 3:30.) We first walked up to Two Thomas Park and let the kids hang out and play. We then continued through downtown Berkeley, through the Cal campus and over to Rockridge. Not a bad walk at all!

Olive did really well, no crying and she sat fairly still, captivated by the Baby Einstein movie playing in the dvd. Here are some photos and a video.

And her little certificate!

Here's a link to Nikos 1st professional haircut (at just over 1 year.)

After we finished up our long walk back to our house we decided to celebrate my making something we had seen on Man vs. Food. Juicy Lucys! Two 1/4lb burger patties with a mountain of cheese inside them.

Form two burgers, add cheese on top of one, place other patty on top and seal together and VOILA.


Oodles of cheesy goodness. Really glad I celebrated my 1000 calorie burning walk with a 2000 burger. Genius. Obviously the weight is just melting off me.

Channeling my Inner Katie

In an attempt to jumpstart our weight loss for our Biggest Loser contest at work, a few of us decided to do the stairs in our building after lunch.

Since we are on the 17th floor we started out by walking to the bottom of the building - to which I thought, easy peasy! I kept up a running dialogue for the 4 of us (shocking) and it only took us 4 minutes! The return trip on the other hand was a different story. Since the stairways are locked from the inside you can only get out on your company floors where your key pass works. So, our options were to get out on 16, 17, 18, 38 or 39. We decided we would walk up to the top (43) and then walk back down to 38 and take the elevator back to 17.

Let's just say I thought I was gonna die. There was not so much talking as heavy breathing on the way up - broken by whispered complaints about how my calves were on fire. I have to admit I did actually sprint up a floor but that was because I was the last one in our group and I heard someone below me enter the stairwell...FREAKY...so I followed the weakest-link logic and ran to the 2nd to last position. I knew the other girls would be too exhausted to chase my would-be kidnapper so I wasn't taking any chances. Not to mislead you, we were stair-stepping in a secured, badged building...but you know me. And don't think my coworkers didn't use this as an excuse to make fun of me for the next 14 floors (albeit in breathless gasps.) B*tches.

We made it to 38 (you couldn't have paid me to go to 43) and popped open the door to reveal...the giant glass fishbowl that is our Trading Floor (& thus home to a few of our cute boys.) By then I was a hot mess - and NOT the good kind. Let's just say walking down 21 flights of stairs to our floor suddenly became a lot more appealing.

Here's to keeping this up!


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15 Months

What, did you think Opa Taki Bear got kicked to the curb? Nope, I'm just a little late with the post!

Olive was not havin the cute little photo shoot sitting quietly next to the Bear. No way, no how.

Sporting a straight from daycare outfit (you know what I'm talking about - I mean, that isn't even her shirt!) and cute daycare piggies (no way she would sit still enough for me to get them that smooth!). I haven't measured her lately but she weighs in at about 19.5 lbs (still 2.5lbs too light to flip the carseat. Ack!)

Once I let her start playing with him she was fine.

Crawling all over the place, out-eating her brother, chattering non-stop. Current favorite phrases are "Kitty Cat" "thank you" and "Dog dog".

Gluttony

We've been indulging ourselves lately.

I "follow" the cremebruleecart on Twitter. He makes what always sound like delicious creme brulees and he is usually based in San Francisco but he does move around to different locations. He's been to Berkeley a few times but we've always been out of town, so when I saw that he was going to be in Oakland last Sunday I jumped on the opportunity. We packed everyone into the car and drove over to a neighborhood in North Oakland and picked up creme brulees for all of us! Vanilla for Taki (hello - can you say boring?!) and the kids, chocolate peppermint for Taki's mom and froot loop for me. Wow, they were all awesome. I am going to have to track him down again in the future!

My froot loop

Nikos had fallen asleep in the car so Olive got first dibs - she chose the chocolate peppermint.

On Wednesday it was still warm when we got home from work so we loaded the kids into the stroller and walked up to Shattuck to Cheeseboard Pizza. I think I've mentioned Cheeseboard on the blog before - they are an employee owned co-op. They make one kind of pizza every day and post the ingredients by the front door and then sell it until they run out. Our pizza had red bell pepper, onions, mozzarella and feta cheese, kalamata olives, garlic olive oil, Italian parsley. YuM!

What Happens When I Let Nikos Read Marco's Blog

Birthday Cake!

Confused? Please see offending blog.

Pooltime and Sliders

Last weekend the D'Angelos invited us over for some delicious sliders. Since it was still fairly warm when we showed up the kids enjoyed a little pool time.

4 observes from a safe distance.

Olive joins the fun.

I tried to invoke Jackie (our photographer) for these shots. Obviously I still have a lot to learn. :)

Our GLEC enjoys some watermelon.

Flash forward 13 years.

I wish I had a pictures of the sliders - they were awesome! Nikos had a few bites of his and Olive at one and a half! I am telling you, she is gearing up to be the female Marco! Great time with great friends!

Zoo Follies

On Friday we headed over to the zoo to enjoy the awesome weather and our renewed membership - and we even packed lunches! I know, I felt very Kienzle.

We experienced a first as well - about 2 exits from the zoo Nikos informs us that he has to go pee pee. We tell him to just hold on a little bit and I start negotiating with Taki about which entrance I should park by for easiest bathroom access. Taki says don't be ridiculous, he's a boy and can pee in a bush.

Enter our first "To Do" at the zoo.

To Do - pee in bushes.

Let me first explain that Nikos was fairly confused about what Taki was telling him to do. He ended up trying and basically came up with some stage fright. Of course, as we walk through the parking lot and are basically within steps of the entrance he screeches "I have to go pee in the bush right now." Great. I then had to explain that we only pee'd on bushes in emergencies. I think I had to explain this another 10 times just during our trip to the zoo.

"Cheese. Mom, can't we go on the rides first??" (No).

After a brief stop to look at the flamingos we head over to the favored giraffes.

After a visit to the lions (which may or may not be fake since they always seem to be in the same, barely-visible, far off position) we check out the elephants.

"Momma, remember the elephants that stayed back at the restaurant? They tried to eat Pop-Pop." Clearly Niko's memories of DisneyWorld last summer are a little bit different than mine.

Since little Miss Priss was making I'm HUNGRY squeals we headed over to the picnic area by the meercats to eat our packed lunches.

Olive eating her fancy "O" PB&J.

Nikos shoveling down his "N."

I did not make Taki a "T" - and my sandwich really wasn't pretty since I just ate the "N" & "O" scraps.

Olive and I at the new baboon habitat. Luckily no little bunnies were spotted in this enclosure (or any other primate ones - phew!)

And don't ask me why I look like a weird hunchback who just competed in some sort of event that erases all traces of makeup. This is just the way things work with my pictures sometimes.

On to the Children's Zoo to burn off some energy.

And we capped the visit off with a stop at the carousel. Good times!

Family Pics at the Fair

We met up with Jackie at the Contra Costa County Fair last week and she took our family pics. She always does such great work and I love the colors! Although I must admit, I can't wait to take them again next year when it can be more of just the kids (like Mel's!) and not so many of Heather-on-the-3rd-week-of-her-15-week-diet-contest. (And poor Taki - we took them 2 days before his eye surgery!) Check out the pics at www.ilovejep.com and then click on her website, client proofing and enter "romiosmini" for the pw.


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Aquatic Park and EBHH/Romios

Last Friday the kids and I met up with Katie and 4 to hang out. We walked down to Aquatic Park (with a stop at the new little Waterside Cafe for some iced chai/coffee and snacks.)

Nikos tempting fate by leaning over the tire swing (just after I told him not to because he could fall.)

Showing off his new catcher (or "Steve") shirt.

Artsy one of Olive and her little curls.

On the swing.

Can you tell from this picture that he was put on time out approximately 4 seconds later for throwing water in the big kid's face?

Ollie flirts with baby Jack.

With the beautiful weather our park day rolled into EBHH at our house. We celebrated the fact that the tea was finally ready - all 9% alcohol of it.

Taki's artsy shot of the keg of tea.

Some cute shots of the kids.

Love this one - nice capture Sarah!