Thanksgiving Evening (walk before dinner & candles)

We decided to get out of the house and take a walk before dinner.
U. lights up the house beautifully with candles on Thanksgiving (and Christmas).

Walking in Santa Monica

After breakfast we decided to go for a walk in Santa Monica, and head down to the boardwalk. Astrid was asking us all morning when we were going to the "beach". (Note: This was the second time today she went to the beach.) Walking out of the restaurant. Astrid always wants to push the stroller herself.She's pretty adamant about pushing it herself, so to guide the stroller we have to hold onto the front or side. For some reason she doesn't mind us doing that, but if we put our hands on the handle bars, where you normally push the stroller, she will get pretty upset and lets us know that she wants to do it herself.Sitting pretty on a short wall.Astrid & Papa.Having fun with Papa.It's hard for her to reach the handle bars to push, and awkward for us to navigate the stroller while she's pushing, so I try to get Astrid to hold onto the side while I push, or onto the front like she's doing here. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes I'm not.We hardly use the stroller anymore, but it does come in handy for longs walk and when we have our hands full (like at the airport).She's pretty good about holding our hand while crossing the street. It's not up for debate and she knows it. Here she's putting up a little bit of a fuss, but quickly takes her Papa's hand when we explain there are cars and it's dangerous.We laid down the law about that one pretty early on, and I'm glad to see that she takes my hand most of the time before even being asked to, when she sees a car or we are crossing the street.Astrid wanted us to strap her doll into her stroller - so here we are.When she's holding onto the front like this, we just have to make sure we don't run over her feet. I much prefer her to hold onto the side, but c'est la vie- this works too.Wearing her pink flowered sun hat, and her new ducky shirt.Who is that man standing in the background?

(If you haven't noticed yet, I'm not typing my husband's name anymore in my posts. It was brought to my attention that it's just too easy to find my blog using our names in a simple search. So now I'm refraining. It's public domain, but I'd still like to think that it's under the radar and you can access it only by invitation, referral, or if you accidentally stumble onto it - vs. we meet someone and then that person googles us to find out what we're doing as a way to keep tabs on us.)

There were lots of families at the beach today. Some with huge setups with canopies, umbrellas, and mosquito netting, and pack n' plays. Big productions.

We'll be back another day.

Astrid being her independent self

Here are some photos from our walk today. She's growing so tall.
Just chillin' on the steps.
Walking down the stairs all by herself.

Astrid's new thing now is saying, "Self Self" or "Myself" - which means "I want to do it by myself."
She didn't want to hold my hand because she wanted to walk down the stairs by herself.
"Okay, this is getting a bit scary - maybe I do need help."

She's an old pro at walking up and down stairs by herself at home. (We never put up baby gates or child proofed the stairs in our 2 story home. When Astrid was little she had to hold our hand going up and down, until we saw that she was ready to go up and down on her own. She skipped the going backwards on her belly stage. She's been walking up and down the stairs just like an adult does since she was a baby. I made sure she had grip on her socks.) But here the railing is high and it was hard for her to reach, and there are something like 6 flights of stairs.
"Hand!"

That one word signature shout is Astrid's way of asking me to hold her hand. "Hand please."

That's when teaching her to use the word "please" comes in handy.She's getting a new tooth that's coming in on top, the second one over from the incisor (on the right). So she's always got her fingers and hands in her mouth again since she's teething.

When her first 16 teeth came in (8 on the top and 8 on the bottom) she wasn't able to tell me what was going on. But now that she's a little older and can use her words - she tells me it hurts and will point to her mouth and show me. "Mouth hurt," she says. I first noticed it when I was trying to brush her teeth on that side and she kept pulling away. Now we have an electric toothbrush for her and that seems to help. I think she even likes the way it feels massaging her gums. She loves being able to brush her own teeth with it. Again the "Self Self" / "Myself" comes into play.Made it down to the next big landing successfully.Astrid reaching out and touching the weeds.

In the distance you can see the new park they recently built on San Fernando Road. Looking cute and determined.That's us!Both Astrid and I saying, "Cheese!"