Magnitude

Summer Fun

Despite San Francisco's reputation for cold and foggy summers, we've been happily enjoying the perks of Potrero living with lots of sun and temps averaging 75 degrees. This summer we've had lots of fun hanging with Kristin & Russ in Palo Alto, many trips to Santa Cruz, and a few mini-vacations to Lake Tahoe and Seattle. We'll keep you posted!  

Apologies for the delayed postings!

With the new year, we hope to keep our blog more current than we managed at the end of 2008. The closing of the year brought many changes, the most significant of which was the remodel of and move to our new house in Potrero Hill, San Francisco. We are proud to call ourselves "home owners" for the first time. The remodel was significant as it encompassed the removal of load bearing walls, a new kitchen and the full upgrade of our 1930s electric system. However we moved in over Thanksgiving weekend and have been enjoying the holidays in our new digs (pictures to prove it coming shortly). In other news, Leila and Kenan are doing great and growing like weeds. Leila is a very independent 3.25 year old and relishes in doing things for herself even if the task poses imminent danger. She is particularly keen on soccer right now as she received goalie gloves for Christmas. Kenan is now 9 months and is on the verge of crawling, has 8 teeth and loves to clap his hands and shake his head "no."  Both are going to daycare/ preschool and we expect them to make more friends and get more colds as the winter progresses.

Hope the new year finds everyone well. Love and kisses.

Exciting times

On March 27th we welcomed our son, Kenan David Magnuson, into the family. He was born at CPMC in San Francisco weighing 8 pounds, 15 ounces and reaching 20.5 inches. He is now 2 months old and doing great - keeping everyone very busy! Big sister Leila is enjoying her new role as care-taker and helper as well as instigator! She loves helping change his diaper, get his pacifier and then occassionally bops or pokes him. With the arrival of Kenan, we also began our summer travel. So far, the four of us have been to Las Vegas, Mexico and we have New York and Chicago coming up. We'll try and keep the blog up to date with our adventures.

Past due

At this point, we are past due on several accounts. Updating the website for sure, but more importantly, we continue to anxiously await the arrival our newest family member. Similar to Leila, Baby #2, decided to not arrive on its due date of 3/21 and so we wait. Of course, we will update the blog with any news, but for now we are all holding tight.

In the meantime, enjoy the Easter photos. It was a beautiful, sunny day in San Francisco shared with Grandma & Grandpa and of course the Easter bunny!

Continued camera issues

We have had a computer melt down which has been the newest source of delayed photo postings! Please enjoy part of the November pictures (more to come...). We hope to be back online before the holidays.

About time!

Well... after a few months of a broken computer and a tricky camera operation, we are finally back online with the promise to keep posting photos and updates on a more regular basis. As we enter into the summer, we have a lot exciting events ahead of us. We'll try and keep a more regular record going forward!

Happy New Year

With so many changes in 2006, we are looking forward to settling down in 2007. We finished last year with a wonderful trip to Naples, Florida, where we celebrated Christmas, the New Year and Kristin's 30th birthday. Much fun and excitement was had by all.

Settling in SF

We have been in San Francisco for a little over a month now and are finally starting to get settled in....not that we are fully unpacked or anything, but as the weeks go by we continue to make small amounts of progress. Our new apartment is in a neighborhood called the Lower Haight, which seems to meet all of our needs with good restaurants, nearby parks and easy access to transportation. Leila has been enjoying her new daycare and is becoming fast friends with her classmates. She was placed in a toddler class for ages 12-18 months and is quickly learning to emulate the bigger kids around her. In fact, we expect her to start walking any moment now as she is already standing up on her own. She is now also fairly fluent in about 10+ baby signs and has mastered a few new words like “bye bye” and a family favorite, “uh oh.” Outside of 'school,' Leila is becoming quite the jogger in her new jogging stroller and enjoys the free toys and “kids testing” that her mom forces her to participate in as part of her new job at Leapfrog.

The time has come to move back to California!

The summer of 2006 has proven to be full of exciting changes for the Magnuson family. The BIGGEST news is that we have decided to move back to San Francisco. After 5 years at Revlon, I will now join Leapfrog, the educational toy company, starting in August where I will be working on their infant toys for ages 0-36 months. I am very excited to bring work home and of course to use Leila as a test baby for my newest products! Mike will continue to work with Waller Sutton and intends to pursue something entrepreneurial in the coming year.

Today we returned from an extremely busy 10-day trip to the west coast where we looked for apartments and toured daycares, plus attended a beautiful wedding of our friends, Mieko & Geordie, at Oak’s Field – the very same spot where we were married. We found a beautiful Edwardian apartment in the Lower Haight and are looking forward to exploring our new neighborhood. While out in California, Leila learned to crawl (forward -- after weeks of crawling only backwards), started to pull herself up to standing using various pieces of furniture and started to get her first top tooth – a very big week indeed. In addition, Leila swam almost every day with Aunt Char and was babysat by Cousin Brian and Aunt Karen while her parents were busy in San Francisco.

We are thankful to have have had such a great 5 years here in New York.  Though we will dearly miss our family, friends, and colleagues here, we are looking forward to getting settled in California.

At 8.5 months, Leila continues to change on almost a weekly basis. She has 2 teeth that came in last week and has been enjoying eating more and more types of food, including Cheerios and other chewables. She has also mastered rolling over in both directions and can use her new mode of transportation to get toys and move around the room. Leila is still trying to figure out crawling. She hasn't managed to do it yet but when on her stomach, she scoots backwards freely. Unfortunately, her backwards scooting typically gets her stuck under furniture or wedged in a corner. Still, she is so much fun!