A Very Thankful Thanksgiving

We hope you all enjoyed a great Thanksgiving this year with all the turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and cranberries you could want!

I've been thinking about all I'm thankful for this year. That's an easy one! I will forever be thankful for my beautiful girl, Gabriela, I was blessed to give birth to and who I have the wonderful opportunity to raise into a beautiful girl and young woman. I am thankful for the smile she wears when she wakes up in the morning and the one she wears even as we put her to bed at night. I am thankful for her easy laugh and her developing sense of humor.

I am also thankful for a wonderful husband who has been more supportive than I could ever imagined as we navigate this adventure as parents together. I am undoubtedly the luckiest woman around!

And finally, I am thankful for my family and friends. My thoughts today are especially with my dear friend Wendy who welcomed her first child, a son, into the world the day after Thanksgiving. He was a little early (almost 8 weeks) but was born a strapping 6 lbs., 1 oz. He's really doing very well and we're so pleased! Gaby is looking forward to having a new friend to play with - as soon as he develops the appropriate neck control!!!

It was our first Thanksgiving together as a family!



The one and only time she can wear this bib - I snapped this shot just before the food began to fly!



This photo was taken earlier in the day before we set the table. Gaby is growing so tall - she barely clears the table top!

A parting shot - here is a photo of the very first turkey I have ever prepared. It was beautiful and juicy! Thanks to the turkey-day hotline (aka, my mother) for consultative services!

Oops...Long Time, No Blog...

It's hard to believe so much time has passed since we last blogged. Mea culpa - life has been very full and busy and I failed to keep up! Gaby continues to grow and thrive - it's fun to see how with each day she learns new things and amazes us with how active she is becoming. She's crawling like a fiend these days - at first it was tentative and she wouldn't crawl off her play mat. But within a week of starting to crawl, she realized there was a world beyond her play mat and the rest is history! She's all over the place now - she loves to crawl into our bedroom and has recently discovered that the doors both open AND close. We keep a very close eye on her so she doesn't hurt herself but we try to let her to go where she wants. Auntie Gayle keeps reminding us we should be discouraging mobility but I think it's a lost cause!

So lot's of fun things to report on since our last post - it's been almost two months! I (Lisa) interviewed for, was offered, accepted, and started a new job in that period of time. I'm now the Director of Policy for The SCAN Foundation (http://www.thescanfoundation.org/). It was a tough decision to leave RAND after nine years but the opportunity was incredible. The Foundation's mission is to elevate awareness around long-term services and supports for older adults in the policy community and overall support the goal of improving the health and social supports for older adults. So you can imagine that there's been some major transitions in the Tsimanis household. I now commute down to Long Beach, which for those of you who aren't locals, is about a 15 mile drive from my house. Interestingly, because mine is a reverse-commute on the freeway, it takes me about the same amount of time to get to the Foundation as it used to for me to drive to RAND in Santa Monica, just five miles away on city streets!

We also flew to Chicago in October for our cousin Jon's wedding. Last year at the same time we visited, almost two months before Gaby was born, and enjoyed beautiful, mild fall weather. This time was a little different - the wedding was outside in 40 degree weather! I managed OK but I felt for the bride and bridesmaids with their sleeveless dresses! We had a great time and Gaby enjoyed getting spoiled by Aunt Judy and Uncle Steve. Aunt Judy even parted with one of her prized "Tickle-Me" Elmo's - Gaby got to take it home with her and still gets a kick out of it when it starts singing "Bird is the Word"!

This Halloween was Gaby's first - we had a lot of fun dressing her up. She had two costumes to choose from - an angel and a ladybug. She looked adorable in both. We ended up with the ladybug costume for trick-or-treating, which we did with Jeff, Isabella, Michael, and Lucas around their neighborhood. She even got a chance to go up with the kids to some houses and actually get some treats - of course, all the treats ended up in mommy's and daddy's bellies!

Gabriela just turned 11 months old - it's amazing how time flies! The photo at the top of this blog was taken on her 11-month birthday. Just one more month and she'll be one year old! We're planning a big party for her on December 12th. It will have a ladybug theme - I was inspired by her Halloween costume. In fact, we used a picture from Halloween for the invitation. I'll be sure to post lots of pictures from the big day. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures below, which document some of the fun activities we've been up to in the last couple months...

Here we are visiting Palos Verdes - we had wanted to pick different parts of Southern California to visit each month and take some day trips. Other trips and general business has made it difficult to do on a monthly basis but this was one of those trips. The picture above was taken on a trail overlooking the ocean near the site of the old Marine World. There's a museum there now and these lovely trails.

Here's Gaby and Alex at the Wayfarers Chapel - it's a small chapel made of glass among the redwood trees designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

We visited the Trump Golf Course, which has some public access trails as well on our trip to Palos Verdes.

Here are Alex and Gaby getting ready for our trip to Chicago - again, Gaby showed that she is a great traveler!

Alex and I had a visit with a pirate at the Field Museum in Chicago.


Here's Gaby and Alex in front of "Sue", the world's largest and most complete T. Rex! Truly amazing...
Ahhh...a girl after her daddy's heart - reading the New York Times in our hotel in Chicago.

Here's Gaby with the kids at Jon and Nicki's wedding in Chicago. They all looked so cute!

Here's Gaby in her beautiful dress - the shoes were a bit big and we finally had to ditch them. Grammy Michele made her the beautiful headband!

Here's daddy and daughter - So Cute!!!

And a close up of our beautiful girl...

Here's Gaby hanging out with us at Aunt Judy's and Uncle Steve's house the day after the wedding - we watched as the Angels won their game, clinching their spot in the division finals.

Just hanging out at home with daddy!

Here's Gaby with Aunt Dee Dee and her Great-Babushka on Babushka Anya's 86th birthday!

Here's Gaby getting ready for her first Halloween - I couldn't resist this adorable pumpkin t-shirt!

Here's our little ladybug - so cute!

And finally, our little angel - such a happy little girl!

And here's the best shot - this was taken on our first time seeing Gaby pull herself up to a standing position without our help. I was really taken by how well she did it. I also giggled a bit because she chose her hi-chair as the place to pull herself up as that's where she could troll for scraps! As if this child doesn't get enough nutrition!!!

On that note...until the next time we blog...xoxoxo