Looks like Leo is taking after his mother and getting a green thumb of his own. What we were worried might be a Honeydew Melon did actually turn out to be a Watermelon. Yay, can't wait to eat that! If it makes it that long...

Rob and I were looking at pictures last night spanning the time from our November post (new job, staying at Dad & Gwen's, selling the house in Oakland, not walking but crawling, sort of eating solids, definitely wearing baby clothes and that precious, round baby face - well, he still has that!) to now and having that immediate, simultaneous realization that our baby is now, definitely, inarguably, a toddler.  Leo is walking.  He took his first steps in Houston, at Paula's house a couple of weeks ago.  We applauded for him when he did it and got in the habit of clapping (something else he does quite well, particularly to indicate that he wants something) when he took a few indpendant steps.  He now will make it from coffee table to fireplace and look back with a huge, very proud, grin as if to say, "Aren't you going to clap?  Where is my applause?"  He demands an adult finger to walk wherever he pleases but can make it quite far, if he chooses, without assitance.  He eats just about anything that we're eating and likes most everything.  We know he's done when he starts, very casually, dropping food on the ...

Leo spent his first birthday on the Valley Isle with Grandpa, Gi Gi and Granddaddy.  We learned that we do, in fact, have a beach baby on our hands.  It took a few minutes to decide that sand was ok to stand on.  After that, it was off to the races.  Leo played for hours, many of them with Gi Gi, in the sand - digging, building, knocking down.  A few days into it, Grandpa got to fulfill his Grandpa dreams and play with Leo in the kiddie pool that he passes every day on his beach path walk.  (It's not hard to tell which pics those are...  G'pa in his element and Leo in his.  As G'pa would say - It's a beautiful thing!)  Leo loved the water.  He went down the slides with Daddy & G'pa and delighted in just floating around in his floatie.  He loved eating fish and papaya was a fun new discovery.  He loved to watch the koi in the pond and take stroller walks on the beach path.  Granddaddy made a long, long trek over from Houston to spend his first grandson's first birthday with him in Maui.  We had a fun trip ...

So much has happened since our last post.  Not the least of which is a crawling, pulling to standing and sometimes cruising Leo!!  He's all over the place and we can now say that we are just beginning to understand what everyone meant when they kept saying "watch out!"  We say "watch out" a lot now - be it to Leo or to each other.  We've had a couple of (thankfully) minor bumps and bruises but appear to be very resilient. We have tons of pictures of Leo but more and more are coming out blurry because he just will not sit still!  He's also a very good eater.  Loves solids - is opting more for finger food; less for purees these days - and had his first taste of goat cheese tonight.  Not the least bit surprising that he liked it, after all he is his Granny's (Lauren's) grandson. Another major change outside of Leo's ongoing and amazing development is that the Sakowitz' are moving back to Sacramento.  Alisa is managing the Auburn office, quite happily and Rob continues to be focused on Leo.  Grandpa and GiGi were kind enough to open their doors (and temporarily ratchet down neatness and ...

Alisa truly surprised me for my birthday! People started coming out of the woodworks, or at least the wooden doorway at Missy's. Then when you least expect it a bunch of people standing in the dining room. It really was a great time. This is Leo and Grandpa the next morning...

Well, it's official...Leo is no longer an illegitimate nephew to his Uncle James. I couldn't resist. In all seriousness, the wedding was gorgeous. The Lake reflected the sparkle of the stars and my sister's smile as she married James Arthur Garvin, under the sugar pines at Heavenly. None of us could really get our bearings without the whitewashing but the lack of snow revealed a wonderful patio at Heavenly's mid-mountain lodge. The ceremony was warm and wonderful, conducted by our Uncle Danny Weiss. James even seemed to get a little choked up during the vows. In preparing to write this I tried to think of what % was joyous and what % was sad because we missed Mom. I couldn't pin point it. It was like a sliding scale all night. Missy's poignant remembrance - the empty chair with a bouquet of iris and - what else? - ranunculas -brought me to tears walking down the aisle. We each placed a flower - a ranunc - on the chair. I can't speak for Missy but it brought mom to me as much as anything could. All I ...

Congratulations to Missy & James! We are back home and between loads of laundry I am clearing out the cards of photos from this weekend. While I am getting those ready I will leave you with these... oh, before I forget. James has set up an album over here for everyone to upload to.

Alisa got carried away...

Looks like I was not the first one to think to put a video like this to Phish's "Bouncing Around the Room". Oh well. Enjoy it as you would anyways.

It was hot, but then it's always hot in Houston. It was so much fun to see DeDe's face when she first laid eyes on Leo. Not to mention the other girls. We pretty much had to pry Lexi's fingers off him. I don't blame her, he's pretty cute. [gallery=13]