because everyone loves baby laughter

This is from lunch time today. I don't know why I decided to start making that awful noise but JC thought it was hil-ar-ious so I grabbed the flip cam. Enjoy.

Easter and General Happenings

Yay, time to get caught up! JC's napping so I have to hurry...

JC's first Easter was on Sunday (as was everyone's Easter, I'm sure) and we had a great low-key day. We woke up around 9 when JC woke up. We laid in bed for a bit and then we made our way to the living room to see what the Easter bunny had left for JC.

Yes, it was an Easter bag not an Easter basket but I the Easter bunny, put this together very last minute.

In his Easter basket bag, JC received a big Cars beach ball, an adorable stuffed bunny, some Plum Organics Super Puffs (I like to pronounce them as "poofs"), a shape sorting Fisher Price toy, Goodnight Moon, Thumper's Fluffy Tail a touch and feel book, a onesie and some pants from Babies 'R Us, a pair of sandals from Babies 'R Us, some travel face wipes (ooohh fun), and a temporal thermometer (that's the gift I'm really excited about). I think I may have left out an item or two, but I the Easter bunny went kinda crazy at Babies 'R Us. I will say, the clothes were buy one get one off the clearance rack, the Fisher Price toy I got for free because I purchased another toy for a friend's upcoming baby shower (they were buy one get one), and the thermometer was $24.99 at half price. Sooooo I was kinda proud of my mad deal hunting skillz. 

After that, we had breakfast and went for a little walk to a nearby by playground. 

 

Then we made our way to JC's Papa John's house for dinner. JC got to wear his fancy outfit that barely fits but he has no other occasion to wear it so there ya go.

JC opening an Easter present from his Aunt

I can't wait for next year because I'm sure he'll be into an Easter egg hunt. We could probably dye Easter eggs too. Yeeessssssss! That concludes our Easter recap, let's move on to general happenings around the house.

JC is super mobile now and it is both awesome and frustrating at the same time. All he wants to do is pull himself up to stand on any and everything and then fall down on his butt, just to do it all over again a hundred times. He does pretty well until he gets cocky and starts dancing or something, then that usually results in a not so graceful fall. But I've got to say, he is a tough little guy. Sometimes he'll cry but he gets over it pretty quickly and starts standing up again. He's managed to let go of the table or whatever he's holding onto for a second or two but I wouldn't call it standing on his own quite yet. He's definitely practicing though. 

Showoff.

The crawling started probably almost a month ago at this point and it has progressed so fast! He'd been able to roll and scoot around pretty well to get where he wanted but he was pretty much limited to our play area in the living room. Now, he is EVERYWHERE! It is really keeping me accountable for keeping the floors clean. It's awesome because I can bring him into the kitchen with me while I do the dishes or make lunch or dinner and he's cool just hanging out in there with me. It sucks because he tries to get into the dishwasher, the recycling, the dog bowls, pretty much everything I don't want him to get into. So we decided to give him his own little shelf in the kitchen at his level that holds fun stuff for him to play with while mommy is trying to clean up.

Hanging out next to his shelf that he usually just takes everything off of immediately. He's checking out his new Ronzoni Garden Delight pasta that has a fully serving of vegetables in each pasta serving and it's pretty good as well.

He likes his shelf so much he'll just make a beeline for it while we are in the living room and we gotta hang out in the kitchen just for kicks. I am both super excited and terrified for the point at which he starts walking. I can't believe it's happening so fast. This was the same little baby who couldn't do anything but lay there a few months ago. Now he's following me around the house. It's crazy.

Ok JC's still asleep so I'm gonna spend some time doing nothing. Yessssssss.

Bodega Bay

I've got a couple things to catch everyone up on but I don't feel like writing a super long post, and I'm sure no one wants to read one. I'll do Easter pictures here in the next few days, but here is our Bodega trip.

We went to Bodega a couple of weekends ago with "the Super Friends", as Charles likes to call them. We rented a house that was on a golf course on the beach. It was so cool, I thought there was a creeper hanging out in our window one night but it ended being a deer! So cool! The house itself was very nice and perfectly sized for all of us. It was great because we all got to stay in the same place and we all took turns making meals for each other. It was such a nice, relaxing mini-vacation that allowed us time to catch up with our friends that we see quite frequently but don't always have a lot of quality time together when we aren't all chasing after our kids. All of the babies came also but honestly, it's almost less stressful having other kids there. Vacationing with children is definitely different but at least we can all relate to each other and help each other out. Someone's kid is always upset but everyone's used to it and it's no big deal. I always feel guilty when we are around people that don't have babies because I feel like they are probably annoyed if JC is being fussy or difficult. But the super friends understand. Like clockwork every night at 9, each couple took their respective child and did bathtime/bedtime routines. Then it was grown up time and we stayed up WAY too late for people all with kids 2 years old and under. But it was worth it. We definitely need to do this every year!

JC and his daddy enjoying his first trip to the beach

JC almost didn't make it to the beach because he decided he needed a nap as soon as we got there.

Luckily, he woke up in time.

The beach was really pretty, despite it being kinda cold and overcast. But hey, that's the Northern California coast for you.

I had to get his feet in the sand at least, since the water was definitely out of the question.

Oh and yes I realize his outfit is a little fancy for the beach. We were trying to take pictures for his birthday invitations while we were there.

And finally, what's cuter than baby toes covered in sand? Nothing.

Cute new stuff for JC's room!

Just wanted to write a quick post about these HELLA cute prints I custom ordered from babybyrds on etsy.

I'm soooo excited about these you don't even understand. I'm going to frame them and hang them above JC's crib, I think. I feel so bad, his room is in desperate need of being cute. We have several things to hang on the walls including some really cute vintage BMW ads (of course) but we have just done typical Charles and Melissa status and procrastinated on getting frames and hanging stuff up. His sheet set is the only thing in his room that points out that he even has a "car" theme in there. Ok, that's not true. The only things hung on his wall are two small pictures of the red car from Cars and the tow truck from Cars. They are cute but not hung up where I'd ultimately like them to be. He also has a clock that looks like a tire, but it's not hung up or set to the correct time. And he has a few random toy cars thrown in the mix as well. I guess since JC was born about a month and half early, we ran out of time to finish his room. He came and all the busyness of having a new baby came also, leaving very little time for any decorating. Or anything else for that matter. Heck, the only reason his crib had sheets on it at all was because our super awesome friends came into our house after we rushed to the hospital in the biggest panic you've ever seen and washed the sheets and put them on there. Oh yeah and they cleaned up around our house. Who has better friends than that? Not most people, I'll tell you that. 

So anyway, I digress. I really want to get JC's room at least half way done before his birthday. The kid deserves a cute room. I think my next purchase will be this rug/play mat from ikea, our favorite store. Hopefully I can decorate his room so it stays that way for a little bit before he decides he hates it and wants to redecorate.

I meant for this post to be short, I promise I did. I talked myself into making JC an Easter basket. So about $100 later at Babies R Us, we got a few items. I'll post about that when I put it all together and give it to him on Sunday. Yes, I realize he doesn't understand what Easter is. Yes, he was there when I bought all of it. But it's still cute!! And some of it is actual functional items that we needed. And I'm sure he's forgotten about all of it by now anyway. 

Charles left our external hard drive at a friend's house last night sooooo I still don't have any Bodega Bay pictures. But as soon as I get them I will put them up, I just hope that is sooner rather than later. 

Birthday planning and doctor's appointment

Urrrr I really wanted to post about our Bodega Bay trip but Charles has the external hard drive that has all of our vacation pictures so I'll have to do that tomorrow if I have time. But we did a couple other things so far this week that are worth posting about so I'll catch everyone up on that stuff.

On the way home from Bodega Bay on Tuesday, we decided to stop by Land Park and take some pictures for JC's birthday invitations. Side note, I really can't believe that I am already planning this kid's first birthday party, it's insane. Anyway, I'm going to do a woodland theme for his party so I wanted a picture of him amongst some cool trees. I think we got our shot, but here are some pictures that didn't make the cut but are cute none the less.

 

This kid loves the camera so much it's ridiculous. He was having a mini fit in the car right before we got to the park and as soon as the camera came out, it was all smiles. Land Park is one of my favorite places in town and it was fun to hang out even if it was only for a little bit. It was a nice ending to our Bodega trip before Charles had to go back to work. 

On Wednesday, we took JC to a doctor's appointment to check his weight. When we went in for his nine month check up, the doctor expressed a mild concern in his weight. He's always been small, which is normal because he is a preemie but he followed the normal growth curve and is of average weight and height for his adjusted age. At his nine month appointment, he had dropped off this curve slightly so just to be sure his doctor wanted us to come back in six weeks to weigh him again. So in we went and luckily he is back on his normal curve. At nine months, he weighed in at 15 pounds 10 ounces and six weeks after that he weighs 17 pounds 3 ounces. So he gained more than a pound and a half in six weeks. I'm not surprised, knowing the amount of food that JC chows down. He's such a good eater and he will try anything. I made him an omelette for breakfast today (which is a HUGE feat for me considering the first time I scrambled eggs was last week) with two eggs, bell pepper, tomato, green onions and cheese. He ate about 3/4 of it and a piece of toast. I was so proud of myself for making him a good breakfast and I was so happy that he liked it. 

I'll try to post about Bodega Bay tomorrow I promise!

I'm doing it

After much debate, mostly (ok, only) with myself, I have decided to bite the bullet and create a blog. I've always enjoyed journaling, although I haven't done it for years. I want a way to document the things that happen everyday with JC and our little family. Yes I could do this in a baby book or a journal but a blog will also allow me to share these happenings with our family and friends, especially those who don't have the opportunity to see us (I'm including Charles and I in this but I know it's all about JC) as often as they'd like. This way I'm also not drowning facebook in posts about poop or other baby things that not everyone is interested in. I hope you like the title, I worked hard on it. Those who knit will understand it more than others, so among my close friends and family there's only a small handful of you. Basically, this blog will focus mainly on JC but I will throw in other family happenings, cool stuff I find on the interwebs, and the occasional crafty project that I can manage to squeeze out during nap times when I'm not also napping. I will try to update as often as possible and put up lots o' pictures. Speaking of which, for your visual pleasure, here are some amazingly cute pictures of JC from today. Enjoy.

JC cheezin it up for his daddy at lunchtime

Extra cute before bedtime in his sorta new (he got them for Chrismas

from his Grandma Janie but this is the first time he's worn them) pj's.