Conquering the mountain...

We live in a gorgeous area, with many, many things to keep us busy!  There's some great hiking in the area, and we try and get out regularly to enjoy the many hills and trails.  The toughest trail in the area is Garrapata State Park, which is a 5.5 mile hike with an 1800ft elevation gain.  Recently, we strapped Charlie on and conquered this mighty peak.  It's definitely a tough climb, but the views from the top were phenomenal!  We got some cute family shots too. :)

Crafting again

I do a lot of crafting but since there's just Charlie and Eva at home to admire it, and they can't comment on my work in anything other than barks and smiles, I like to post it here.  I've made a collective three baby quilts.  One was done using a tutorial I found online and the other two were done based off of pictures I saw on Pinterest and some helpful blog posts.  This is my most recent one, made for a dear friend who is having her second little boy.  It was my first time hand-sewing the binding and what I learned from that experience was "stick to machine sewing".  A hand-quilter I am not!  But I was still happy with the final project and I can't wait to see pictures of her little guy all wrapped up in it!

Ships and seals

Last week a girlfriend and I decided to take our little guys up to Moss Landing.  A tall ship Lady Washington had pulled into port there and they were giving tours.  The ship was a replica of a real one, built and sailed in the 1700's, and had been used in several different movies- including Pirates of the Caribbean as the Interceptor! "Oh the Dauntless is the power in these waters, true enough, but there's no ship as can match the Interceptor for speed".  It was pretty neat to see, though the kiddos seemed less than interested.  Granted, they are only 4 and 9 months old!  A few more years and they might be more impressed. :) On the way out we got some great photos of the Harbor Seals.  They were lining the docks, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine.

Autumn in Monterey

Fall has come to Monterey.  It is starting to get chillier, the air a little crisper.  It's not like a New England fall (nothing is quite like that) but it's still been very nice.  The fog is mostly gone and the days are clear and sunny.  We had some visitors in Oct. and we got to get out and enjoy some of the sights (and many of the restaurants!) in the area.  My grandma came for a week in the middle of Oct, and then my dad came for a few days at the end.  It was so nice to see them both and for Charlie to get to know his extended family a little bit more!

Charlie has started "roaring" lately, so we ask him all the time "what does a lion say?" and he roars back at us.  Because of this we decided he pretty much needed to be a lion for Halloween.  Hello Costco and their $13 costumes!  He was an adorable lion.  

I pulled out all my fall decor a few weeks ago and discovered I didn't have a fall wreath.  I went to the craft store, only to realize that pre-made wreaths are wicked expensive.  I decided buying all the piece and making my own would be a little more economical.  Turns out everything I bought was on super clearance, and my supplies cost less than $9!  Despite having no plan or design, I think it turned out pretty cute:

Another thing I made was a turkey hat for Charles.  We are running the "Turkey Trot 5K" at NPS this week, so a turkey hat was in order.  He actually keeps it on pretty well, and only yanks it off every 10 minutes or so.  I also made turkey hats for my niece and nephew, and am now working on one for Phil.  Hopefully it will be done in time for him to wear to the race tomorrow!  I haven't crocheted anything in a long time, but it's all coming back to me now, and the hats do work up really quickly.  I already found a snowman hat pattern for Christmas!

This month we celebrated out 5th anniversary!!  I can't believe it's been five years already.  It really has flown by.  We celebrated with a nice dinner out- our first time out without Charles!  Check out this photo of us.  Back from 2004, when we were "just friends"! ;) ;)  Glad the braces are gone, but so happy to still be snuggling up to that good-looking guy.

(Non-awkward) Family photos

Recently we've done quite a few family things together.  I might try and do separate blogs posts about some of them, but we'll see.  We know what a consistent, up-to-date a blogger I am... What I liked about all the different things going on is how many family pictures we've gotten.  I've realized lately that we have about 350 pictures of Charlie by himself for every one picture we have of Charlie with one of us.  We've been trying to remedy that!

Monterey Bay is always a great backdrop for photos!

Atop Garrapata... another beautiful view!

This one was a selfie.  We were trying to get a picture while Phil was in uniform. 

 Not really sure why we're all leaning left. 

On beautiful Bass Lake

Yosemite, at the Sequoia Grove.  We are standing in the trunk of a tree!

Reasons my 8 month old is crying...

I'm sure you've probably seen the site "Reasons my son is crying".  Children cry for all kinds of ridiculous (and hilarious!) reasons.  Charlie is usually a great little guy who isn't too fussy during the day, but this morning was really difficult and I sent Phil a very grumpy text after a few hours.  It went something like this...

Reasons Charlie has cried today:

He woke up

Daddy got him out of bed, not Mommy

I took him upstairs to nurse

I set him down after nursing

He fell over

I was in the kitchen making breakfast and wouldn't let him lick the kitchen floor

I didn't cut his pear fast enough

I put him back on the floor after breakfast

He was ready for a nap

I put him down for a nap

Eva barked

He woke up from his nap

I put him in his seat so I could shower

I burped him after nursing him

I set him on the floor again

I turned the hair dryer on

I turned the hair dryer off

I changed his diaper

I changed his clothes

The dog walked by him 

Blame it on teething, blame it on a tough night, blame it on something!  All I know is EVERYTHING that happened today made him cry.

Rock you, baby

Charlie is pretty good about going down for his naps.  He also goes down well for bedtime, although it took a little while to get there.  He's still not sleeping well at night, but I think I'm finally starting to adapt to being up every few hours.  Most days I take a morning nap right along with him! :)  The last few weeks when I've peeked in at nap time I've found him in some pretty amusing positions. 

Sock-less and on top of the blanket is a common position, but the feet on the wall angle is new!  He loves putting his feet up on things and throughout the day he finds spots all over the house to push up against...against the door, against the couch, against the baby-gates!  Falling asleep with them against the wall is a new one though.  

Even when he's not sleeping he's got some interesting crib moves!

A very good tale...

Things have been pretty quiet lately.  Charlie and I have been battling a head cold and been sticking close to home the past week or so.  Since we haven't been out and about too much, Phil and I have had some time in the evenings to watch a few tv shows.  One show we just finished was "Lark Rise to Candleford" and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a period piece.  We found it quite entertaining, with a unique cast of characters and some interesting twists and turns in the plot.  A few characters sort of... disappear off the show, and some things left us scratching our head, but all-in-all it was worth watching.  Postmistress Dorcas Lane is played by the same actress who played Lydia in the BBC "Pride and Prejudice" and we enjoyed seeing her in a much more mature and likable role.   If you're looking for something new it's definitely worth checking out!

Fluffy buns

When Charlie was about two months old, we transitioned him from disposable to cloth diapers.  It took a little getting use to, but I've become a fan of the "fluff".  I use all-in-ones, which are almost exactly like disposables except made out of cloth, and I also have pocket diapers, which are similar to the aios except that they have a pocket that gets stuffed (doh!) with layers of cloth.  It was a little expensive to start off with, but I've been able to build my stash up by buying a couple sets new (Grovia and Charlie Banana, in case anyone was wondering) and one set used (BumGenius).  I now have enough diapers that I only do diaper laundry twice a week, Sunday and Wednesday.  In the long run cloth diaper will save us quite a bit, especially when we have more kids, and it's also better for Charlie and the environment.  Oh, and he looks pretty cute wearing them. :)

Our one struggle has been at night time.  Charlie's a pretty heavy wetter and now that he rolls over to his stomach to sleep he's been waking up in the middle of the night completely soaked through.  I've tried adding extra layers to his diaper, but so far it hasn't helped too much.  I talked to my (fellow cloth diapering) sister-in-law and she mentioned wool pants as a solution.  Wool soaks up a lot more liquid than cotton jammies, and only gets more felted and waterproof with washing.  We talked about knitting some, and I found several cute knitting patterns, and then I stumbled upon this Pinterest tutorial for making them using the sleeves of a wool sweater.  I had been hanging on to a wool sweater of Phil's that I accidentally washed and dried, so I decided to give it a shot. I whipped these little guys up in a about 20 minutes:

We're going on our third night of using them and so far so good! They seem to be keeping him dry (and warm, which is nice in chilly PG!).  I still have the entire body of the sweater, so I think I'm going to use that to make some more pants.  It will be a little more work then just using the arms, but having a couple pairs of pants to cycle through will be great!! 

We layer him to keep him warm... he looks ridiculous and adorable all at once! :)

In which I show off my crafting...

While it sometimes seems like a spend all my time taking care of Charlie, and frantically trying to keep the house semi-clean in the few hours that he's napping, I actually do have time to do some creative, crafting things.  Charles is starting to take longer, more regular naps, and he's also very easy-going and happy when he's awake, so I do get a chance to make some interesting things. 

I wanted to make a mobile for Charlie's room so Phil and I made this one together.  The one flaw is that is doesn't move too much, unless the heat is on and blowing on it.  I've been trying to find a motor I could add, but so far haven't had much luck. 

Another thing for his room was this alphabet sign.  I saw a similar one on Etsy, and then made my own in about 5 minutes and using a $3 frame from Target.  

My first quilt!  I had this mostly done before Charlie arrived, with the exception of the binding.  A friend did the binding for me soon after his birth so I could use it while he was still little.  Now that he rolls all over it just looks pretty, but when he was little and I wanted him to have floor time it worked out perfectly for him to play on.

A friend saw a quilt on Pinterest and (jokingly) said her baby girl wanted me to make it for her. Since I wanted to try another quilt anyway I decided to give it a go.  Despite its flaws, I think it looks pretty cute, and it definitely was a good learning experience.

 Using scrap fabric, I made this table runner for my mom as a (very late) Mother's Day gift.  It was a great way to use up all the little fabric piles I have, and I think I'm going to make one for myself.

One of my knitting projects that I've actually finished recently.  This sweater is great for cool Monterey and I get a lot of use out of it.

Another sweater I knit, this time for the little Bear.  I still need to block it and add the buttons, but he looked pretty cute modelling it for me. 

My latest little craft (thanks to my friend Abbey) are these feltanimals.  Felt is only $0.29 at the craft store, so I got several different colors and picked out a couple different animal patterns to try.  Charlie is still a little unsure of them, but they're a great toy to bring to a quiet place, like Church, and he seems to enjoy throwing them around. :)