Halloween 2007

Halloween 2007
Here are some photos from Halloween. Mali was a strawberry and Roan a firefighter. Roan was sick and although he eventually amused us by putting on his costume, we never actually made it trick-or-treating.

October 2007

October 2007
Here are some miscellaneous photos from October.

Atlanta Trip

Atlanta - October 2007
Mandy and the kids went to Atlanta this month to visit Uncle Ryan, Auntie Sheryl, Grandma, and Granddad. The highlight of the trip for Roan was undoubtedly riding in Uncle Ryan's "hot rod" and he also had a great time perusing his car magazines. We also took a trip to Stone Mountain, where we of course rode a train, and also went to the Georgia Aquarium.

Pastorino's Pumpkin Farm - October 2007

Pastorino's - October 2007
Here are some photos from our trip down to Half Moon Bay to a pumpkin farm. The main attraction was riding trains of course.

Amali Month Four

Month Four
Amali has been working on socializing this month. She absolutely adores her older brother and thinks everything he does and plays with is facinating and everything he says is just hilarious. Roan is still quite fond of her, but he does get a little annoyed when she tries to "play" trains with him by destroying his track. She also insists on touching him if he's nearby and that can get a little old from time-to-time for a two year old!

Perry Farms - October 2007

Pumpkin Farm October 2007
We went to Perry Farms to see the pumpkins and enjoy a hay ride with Roan's Tiny Treks program. Roan had a blast seeing the tractors and the train and even enjoyed the pumpkins a bit.

September 2007

September 2007
Here are some shots from the month of September. Some of Roan's favorite new phrases include "I missed you Daddy", "Come back, play choo-choo's mommy", "Daddy's at the oppice (office)", and "I going check baby" (indicating he's about to bolt into her room while she's sleeping to make sure she's okay).

Amali Month Three

Month Three
Amali is already using her hands quite well and can manipulate toys to keep herself entertained. She's particularly interested in our food and has become famous for throwing our dinner plates on the ground. She loves to talk and smile and she even rolled over from her belly to her back this month.

August 2007

August 2007
Roan's favorite song to sing this month has been "I've been working on the railroad" and he sings it all the time (he fills in his own words of course, but he has the tune down). He's started speaking mostly in sentences now and is quite the parrot. One of his favorite new phrases of the month was "Island of Sodor" (where Thomas lives of course). He's become a star at naming his colors and shapes as well.

Trip to San Francisco

Trip to San Francisco
Roan and Jan traveled to San Francisco via Caltrain and BART while Mandy and Mali came via car. After dining on crepes, we went choo-choo hunting and found the Muni bus that came to be known as the "choo-choo bus".

Month Twenty Seven

Month Twenty Seven
There are two albums this month. One featuring the highlight of the month for Roan--a trip down to ride Thomas the Train (click here to see the Day Out with Thomas album) and one with photos from the rest of the month.





Video Clips
Here's a video clip from the day before we went to ride Thomas...he's very excited!

Here's Roan talking about riding Thomas after the big event...

Day out with Thomas

Thomas Album

Roan got to meet the love of his life--Thomas. We spent a day with "Tomis" and rode on the special Thomas train.

Amali Month Two

Month Two
This month saw lots of smiles and even some giggles. The highlight of the month was a visit from Nana. Mali also kept busy trying to use her hands.

Month Twenty Six

Month Twenty Six
This month was a month of adjustment for Roan to having a new sister. Nana also came for a visit and Dada went to Sri Lanka for 13 days. So Roan got very familiar with airports! Roan worked on sentences this month. We rode the train at the zoo one day and he's been talking about it nearly every day since "Baba ride choo-choo with Nana at zoo".

Rest of Amali's Month One

Month One
Here are some photos from the rest of Mali's first month with us.

Amali's First Two Weeks

First Two Weeks
Here are some photos from my first two weeks. I slept through much of the first week, but became much more alert by the second week. Grandma and Granddad came for a visit, too.

Do they look alike??

Amali on left, Roan on the right.

Amali's Birth

Birth Photos

My name is Amali Jacklyn Arendtsz, and I was born on Saturday, June 09th, at 12:10pm PST.

I was a day overdue, and weighed 8 lbs 10 ounces, and measured 20 inches in length. I came out screaming at the world (unlike my big brother).

They put too much milk in the cappuccino again, so as you can see, I'm somewhat on the fairer side.

Month Twenty Five

Month Twenty Five
Of course the highlight of this month was the arrival of Roan's new baby sister. He wasn't too sure about this new little person at the beginning, but after everyone was home from the hospital he took to her immediately. He's very protective of her and very gentle. Roan had lots of new words this month, but some of his favorites were "Mama cars", "Dada cars", "Dada uumm uumm" (for Dad's motorcycle), "grass", "rocks", garbage truck, and clock.

Month Twenty Four

Month Twenty Four
Of course the highlight of the month was Roan's second birthday! He also took a trip to the beach with Dad. Some of his favorite words this month were "cars" (always plural), "bus", and "wheel". He also worked on putting together sentences such as "I stuck", "I house", "my milk".

Month Twenty Three

Month Twenty Three
Some of Roan's favorite new words this month were "house", "may-mee" (mail truck...we're working on that one), "yes", "no", "muck" (milk), "shocks" (socks), cars, truck, and his all-time favorite word of the month..."stuck" (e.g., when he's stuck in his high chair).

He worked on recognizing colors and shapes this month and tries to say yellow ("wew-wo"), red, and blue. He's become quite the backseat driver and loves to tell us to "go" when we stop. He attempted his first sentence, which of course was "....go....shacks" meaning he wanted to go to the train tracks.

He also stayed with one of his favorite sitters, Sherilyn ("Sher"), while we went away for a night.

Month Twenty Two

Month Twenty Two
Pretty exciting month for Roan. We took a day trip up to San Francisco (on the train!) and visited the aquarium. Uncle Ryan came into town for a weekend and we had a lot of fun. We went down to Santa Cruz for the day and enjoyed the beach a bit. Roan started using more phrases this month such as "all done", "oh no!", "ready, set, go!", "what's this?", "up and down". Roan is still quite opinionated about everything and has decided his favorite show is now "Make Way for Noddy" (he refuses to watch Thomas, his old favorite) and he only wants to ride in Dada's car. He still loves to play with trains and his favorite activity is going downtown to watch the "real" trains.

Also, we took a weekend trip to Bear Valley to go skiing with our friends Monica, Pete, Ella, and Alana Johnson. Roan had a blast though he was a little weary of the snow at times. Here's an album from that trip: Bear Valley Ski Trip

Month Twenty One

Month Twenty One
Baby Zara came to visit this month and was a huge hit - Roan is obsessed with babies now. We're hoping it sticks until June! He also discovered how much fun it is to "read" books all by himself. Our fearless wonder developed some intersting fears this month, like cracks in the sidewalk and the play structure at the park, but he overcame most of them. Language was the big focus of the month again. Some of his new words included sock, up, down, kakak (cracker), apple, and "meow".

Month Twenty

Rest of Month 20
Roan's been focused on vocabulary this month and is now very proud to say "mom-ma", "frog" (which sounds more like "shuck" half the time), "turt" (i.e., turtle), and "duck", and has added "neigh" and "quack-quack" to his animal noise repertoire. He's also learned how to sign "more". Though very sweet, he's also more independent and "naughty" and loves to run away from you when it's time to get changed or dressed. He's become very useful and loves to help unload the dishwasher and throw away garbage. We're convinced he's stored an electronic map of downtown San Mateo in his mind as he can find his way to the train tracks from anywhere in San Mateo (which has become quite the obstacle to dining out or running errands).

Christmas
Grandma and Granddad came to visit for Christmas. We went down to see the famous San Carlos Christmas lights on Christmas Eve and of course I had a blast on Christmas Day opening my gifts.

Month Nineteen

Month Nineteen
This month Roan and Mandy went to visit Grandma and Granddad in Houston. They also got to see Mandy's good friend Kinsey and Roan loved playing with her son Drew who is his age. He took his first carousel ride and was addicted - we had to go several days in a row. He also got to help pick out and decorate his first Christmas tree. Roan continued to build his vocabulary this month, mimicking much of what we say, and added a repertoire of animal noises (moo and baa).