Maddie & Pooh Bear

I am a Q T

So I am trying to take a picture of Maddie with Pooh Bear every week, to document how big she is getting throughout her first year. Here she is at about 3 weeks. What a sweetie!

Bella's 3rd birthday party

One of Sabrina's bestest friends is her friend Bella. Bella turned 3 and her mom, who is super creative put on a fabulous cooking themed birthday party. The kids got to decorate their own pizzas and cake, help Peng (Bella's dad) make a smoothie and as a takeaway gift Carrie actually made aprons for all the kids! I wish I could do stuff like that. It was all I could do to sign my name to the credit card receipt for Sabrina's birthday party at Pump it Up. :P

Sabrina had a great time and just loves playing with her friends. It makes me so happy that she is a happy little girl! Where was Maddie you might ask? Slept the whole time in her carseat of course! This won't last forever but I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

Hannukah Time

Sabrina shows off the hat she made for her Hannukah performance

Sabrina has been in preschool at Congregation Sinai since September. It has been a great experience for her. Currently she goes twice a week, in the morning. I wanted her to start in September so she wouldn't associate it with Maddie being born and now I also get some quality alone time with the baby. Sabrina has loved preschool from the start! I thought she might have a little separation anxiety, seeing as I've been with her all day from day 1. So on the first day of school I said to Sabrina "okay baby, I'm going to go now and I will pick you up when school is over." "Ok, bye". What?!?! No love for Mommy. :) But I'm proud of her independence. I have nothing but fond memories of my own preschool and I'm happy it has so far been the same for Sabrina.

For Hannukah the school put on a Hannukah party. It was so much fun! We ate latkes, lit the Hannukah candles and each class put on a little performance. Sabrina's class is called Kalaneet, which I think is a little flower that grows in Israel. Their performance was so super adorable. All the kids held hands and walked in a circle while the music teacher played "Oh Hannukah Oh Hannukah" and they spun like a dreidel and pretended to be a candle burning low. If you asked Sabrina what she did in her performance she would tell you "A candle and a dreidel". Sabrina just loves Hannukah. Even now she asks to sing various Hannukah songs. Not to mention all the presents, that's not so bad either :)

Thanksgiving at our house

I cannot describe how delicious this turkey is. 

I love Thanksgiving, it is one of my most favorite holidays.  Normally we alternate going to either NY or LA for Thanksgiving. However, with Maddie just being born, there was no way we could travel anywhere. So my parents and Jerry's parents came to us for Thanksgiving! My mom made her fabulous turkey and we hosted Thanksgiving for the first time at our house. I even broke out our wedding china. Uber fancy. Our friends Lara & Mark and their daughter Lia joined us as well. Sabrina loved having her friend over and it was a great evening. Maddie was very accommodating; she slept through dinner.

Our Thanksgiving family photo

Our new baby!!

Sabrina has big news for everyone - she is a big sister! We would like to announce the newest member of our family - Madalyn Taylor Kurtze. She was born on Monday November 15th at 12:16pm, weighing in at 7lbs 10oz and 18 1/2 inches long. We are so lucky to have her and love her already!!

Can you believe this is November???

I'm sorry, but does this look like November to you? No, well we had one last hot spell and we decided to take advantage of it but driving over to Santa Cruz and enjoying the beach one last time. Here is Sabrina horsing around with one of her best pals Lia. These two are some serious double trouble. :) I think it's the blond hair. After the beach we drove over to Pleasure Point Pizza and it was a perfect afternoon to spend with friends.

Enjoying the Halloween Season

Halloween is a busy time when you have a 2 year old! It starts weeks ahead of time, when you start going to pumpkin patches. We went I think about three or four times. They are loads of fun and there's lots to do. Pony rides, hay rides, corn mazes, jumping in the hay piles and oh yeah, looking at pumpkins. Sabrina for some reason was fascinated by the gourds, or "other vegetables" as she called them. Here we are at Usegii Farms. Miss Pumpkin Queen 2010 herself!

This year Sabrina went as a monkey.  I asked her what she wanted to be but didn't really have an opinion.  So I found her a monkey costume and she was tickled pink about it.  Now it's not just about dressing up on Halloween.  We went to a Halloween walk the Tuesday before Halloween at Santana Row, a Halloween party the day before Halloween AND then there's actual Halloween, which we spent at Sabrina's friend CJ's house.  We all had dinner beforehand and went out trick or treating.  Last year Sabrina totally got into trick or treating.  She didn't know what we were getting, she just liked walking up to people's doors and picking out something and putting it in her pumpkin.  The upside was that I got all her candy!  This year she knew EXACTLY what was inside those wrappers.  To get her to go trick or treating I had to give her a lollipop which she ate while we were walking around.  We walked for almost 90 minutes!!  By the end we were all pretty exhausted.  Jerry was a really good sport, he dressed up as Sabrina's banana.  I dressed up as a cranky pregnant mommy.  :)  

Actually on a not related to Sabrina  note Jerry and I went to an actual adults only Halloween party thrown by one of his co-workers.  I was an oven with a bun in it (get it???) and Jerry was a chef!  I thought it was a pretty cute idea.

And in the end, Sabrina forgot all about her candy!!!  Whew!  More for me :D