wordless(ish) wednesday: christmas at the capitol

after visiting the state capitol on sunday to take our engagement photos, we were inspired to go back with jc and take some family photos. we spent the day playing around the capitol building then we went out to dinner at pizza place we've been meaning to visit for forever. then we came back to the capitol to see the tree all lit up at night. jc loved it and passed out as soon as we put him into the car. we might even have a replacement photo for our holiday cards! i still need to go through the "fancy" photos we took today but here is our day via instagram.











{Linking up with The Paper Mama,a little king and i, and then, she snapped, Supermom, Live & Love Outloud, 5 Minutes for Mom, jenni from the blog and Baby Baby Lemon. Whew, that's a lot of linking up.}

week (or two) in iphone photos

this photo dump is pretty all inclusive of fall/winter festivities. i haven't posted my iphone photos in a couple weeks so we've got some thanksgiving pictures, meeting santa pictures and getting christmas tree pictures. sorry for the photo dump but there's a lot of goodies in the bunch.

so excited for the upcoming week. we finally went out and got our tree today but didn't have a chance to decorate so jc and i will be doing that tomorrow hopefully. we'll see how much tree babysitting i'm going to have to do. my parents have their tree up and jc spent a lot of time trying to pull down every ornament. hopefully he'll get it all out of his system and get over it. otherwise, we will have a half decorated tree.















{linking up with a good life and life rearranged}

happy thanksgiving!

It is Wednesday night, here in my neck o' the woods and we are smack dab in the middle of our Thanksgiving festivities. We already have one Thanksgiving dinner under our belt and two more tomorrow. Oh yes I plan on eating two Thanksgiving dinners tomorrow. Don't hate.

I just thought I'd pop in real quick and say happy Thanksgiving to everyone! My sister came into town last night and we got to hang out a little today. So of course we had a Glee marathon while JC took a nap. After he woke up, we continued with one more episode. Mostly because I knew this would happen.



That is what I am thankful for his Thanksgiving. Fun with family and friends and my baby's sweet dance moves.

wordless(ish) wednesday: baby meets candy apple

These are from our trip to Apple Hill that I wrote about last week.




"what is this?"



"ooo that looks good, bring it a little closer"



"this is going to be amazing. i wish i had more teeth."



"great success!"

{Linking up with The Paper Mama,a little king and i, and then, she snapped, Supermom, Live & Love Outloud, 5 Minutes for Mom, jenni from the blog and Baby Baby Lemon. Whew, that's a lot of linking up.}

apple hill

Wow I am so late with this post. I feel like I saw everyone else's pumpkin patch pictures three months ago and here I am, in November like "hey! we went to the pumpkin patch too!" But, in my defense, we did go on October 30th so it was kind of a last minute excursion.


Charles and JC

So a big group of us made our way up towards the foothills to visit the Central Valley tradition of going to Apple Hill for our taste of some autumn fun. There are a bunch of apple orchards, farms, vineyards, breweries, bake shops, pumpkin patches, Christmas tree farms all in one area. So much fun, most of it can be done for free or very little money. Beautiful scenery, all kinds of baked goods, crisp mountain air. What more can you ask for? I really want to try and go again before it gets too cold.


JC and his Grandma Stella


left to right: Charles, Brenda, me, JC, my mom, my brother, Jessica, Damian, and Garrett

The whole gang was myself, Charles, JC, my mom, my brother, our family friend Brenda, and our friends Garrett, Jessica and their son Damian. I was a little disappointed at the beginning because JC was kinda cranky, he was terrified of the cows in the petting zoo (they did smell pretty bad) and wanted us to hold him constantly, did not even want to walk at all. And of course, we forgot his stroller. He hates that thing anyway. After lunch (pulled pork sandwiches, hot chili, and cinnamon rolls) he was in a much better mood. We went to another farm, where there was a pumpkin patch and more room to run around. Then we couldn't keep him with us! All he wanted to do was run around, climb up dirt hills, try to eat apples off the ground, crawl under trees in the orchard. He was out of control. But it was a lot of fun chasing him around, I must say. I love my little toddler.







He LOVED the pumpkins. He had to go around and tap each and every one. He also had to carry a little bottle of lotion around with him constantly.


This "running-in-action" shot almost made me pee my pants







And of course, he had to try and get as dirty as possible in his little khaki cords. He's like "who wants to see those stinky cows? these leaves are awesome!"







I can't wait to go again next year and make this a family tradition. I'm a little surprised at how important the idea of traditions have become to me. My family never had a ton of traditions and Charles's family didn't either. But I feel like this is something really important to do for our family and our son. Plus it's super fun to go run around and eat cinnamon rolls that are the size of your head.

week in iphone pics, w.25

This week had so many festivities! We started the week out by going out to dinner at one of our favorite Fatty McFatterson spots (Texas Roadhouse). Then we went to Apple Hill and hit up some pumpkin patches and ate giant cinnamon rolls. Then of course there was Halloween. We also had one of the first cool days of fall; so cool, in fact, we had to fire up the fireplace for the first time this season. I love the smell of the fireplace going. JC seemed to enjoy the fireside snuggles too.

I'm looking forward to some grown up fun tomorrow night at our friend's housewarming party. Thank the high heavens for grandparents!

{linking up with a good life and life rearranged}

jc at seventeen months

Here we are again. Another month past. The fact that JC will be six months away from turning two next month is mind boggling. But I will try my hardest to live in the moment and focus on his seventeen month milestones! I took these pictures at our favorite nearby park. It's just a quick walk through the greenbelt behind our house and we are there. JC likes it because it has so many things to play on and I like it because it has shade and is not 99% sand.




Words cannot express how excited I am about how many changes JC has been going through. He really is the happiest little mini-person you'll ever meet.

Most of JC's days lately are spent literally running all over the house. I've saved myself a lot of sanity by just closing all the doors in the house except the door to his room. Since he is no longer happy just hanging out in the living room. He has to be EVERYWHERE. The whole house turns into his playroom. Speaking of which, the definition of "out-of-reach" has changed around these parts. Shelves that once were safe havens for anything you didn't want JC to get into are no longer safe. I found JC digging through his Halloween candy bucket yesterday that he had managed to pull off a shelf in the living room that I thought was out-of-reach. I guess not anymore.

JC also definitely starts to get a little stir crazy after being home all day. I try to make at least one "outing" everyday with him, even if it's just to Target or the grocery store. He loves to go out and about. By far, his favorite outing is going to visit Charles for lunch. We usually have to push nap time a little bit to do so but it's worth it.




Do you see how tall my little preemie baby is getting???? It's out of control.

While JC does love to get out of the house from time to time, he also LOVES nothing more than to bring me 100 books to read to him all day long. Usually I get a good variety but lately he's been obsessed with these Elmo's World books. I have seriously read "Food" and "Babies" at least 15 times each today. And the day is only half over. It makes me really happy to see how much he loves books. I feel bad because he'll bring me a book and pat my legs furiously while I am making dinner and I have to ignore him. He then likes to lay flat on his belly on the kitchen floor and suck his thumb in a "non-violent protest" kind of way.

He hasn't been too big on tantrums but he will get frustrated if I take away something he wants to play with that I don't deem a necessity (like my phone or the remote control) or if I take too long to make him food. God forbid he have to wait 70 seconds while I microwave his pancakes. I wrote a little bit about my foray into disciplining JC a couple months back and I have since decided to give the whole time out a try. I keep his pack-n-play set up in our room and place him in there for one minute. It isn't ideal (the pack-n-play takes up a lot of space, I don't want him to have negative associations with his pack-n-play, blah blah blah) but it seems to have worked a little bit. His biggest issue has still been hitting the dog or cat. So if I see him do it once or if he's about to do it, I tell him "If you hit the dog I will put you in time out" and that alone usually works. Now that he knows what time out is. I may do a more in depth post if this continues to be an issue. But for now, that is working in our house.



Please look at the shadow of the back of his head on the right hand side of this picture. His hair looks pretty neat and tidy in the front but is a crazy rat's nest in the back!

No new teeth this month, surprisingly. So we are still at seven teeth. I've been looking but still no molars. JC is wearing mostly 12-18 month clothing and size 4 or 5 shoes. He still has one random pair of jeans that are 6/9 months that still fit him. I really wish baby clothing sizes would be a little more uniform. Help us parents out. One nap a day, usually between 1:30 until 3:30 or so.

JC first fall as a toddler has been so much fun. We had a blast running around pumpkin patches and apple orchards the past weekend. Like I've said before, I am definitely more of a "toddler mom". I'm very much looking forward to Thanksgiving in just a couple weeks! Hopefully JC won't turn his nose up at the turkey!

wordless(ish) wednesday: happy halloween!

I've been itching to get these photos up. This is my first time opening my laptop in the last couple days. Had to take care of a couple orders of business first, speaking of which check out some of my new sponsors as well as some continued sponsors right over there -------->
I'm so happy to have them!

So, onto the Halloween festivities! This year was extra hard in the costume deciding department for some reason. We just could not decide what we wanted to be. The biggest problem I guess was that Charles was really adamant about all three of us matching. I actually can't wait until next year because I'm sure JC will be able to pick out his own costume and I won't have to worry about it anymore!

So after throwing around ideas for the past month, we finally decided that JC would be a baby monkey, Charles would be the daddy monkey (or, to be exact, a daddy gorilla), and I would be a zookeeper. I think it worked out pretty well.




This was JC's second Halloween but it was really his first time actually being able to trick-or-treat himself. Oh, we took him trick-or-treating last year and we shamelessly ate all his candy. But this year, he was actually able to walk up to the doors and hold his little bucket. It was adorable. He really started to understand how it worked at the last few houses we visited. Since Halloween, if you just say the word "Halloween" he runs over and points at his pumpkin bucket with candy in it. Speaking of which, I really should eat all his candy hide that sucker.




We only visited a few houses; I'd blame JC but I didn't think very much about walking around in boots with heels while trying to hold squirmy little monkey. My dogs were achin'. It was ok though because I really like to see all the other kids come up and hand out candy. We have this big inflatable cemetery scene that we have on our front yard so we get ALL the trick-or-treaters. We seriously went through about 9 bags of candy. We ran out and had to turn kids away while my mom ran out for an emergency candy run. Thanks mom! Next year, I definitely need to just get like 5 Costco sized bags and call it a day. Charles and I cannot just hand out one piece per kid, we like to give handfuls.

I'm super excited for next year's Halloween! JC was pretty scared of certain elements of Halloween this year (my brother wore a Bill Clinton mask and I think he may have scared him into being a Republican), but hopefully I'll be able to better communicate to him next year that it's all pretend and just for fun.

And just because I didn't have a blog this time last year, here's our costumes from last Halloween.




Where's Waldo family! Last year was so easy. My costume and Charles's costume were store bought. I knit JC's sweater and hat. Surprisingly, they don't sell fake baby glasses? So we bought some sunglasses and just popped the lenses out.

I love the look on his face, like "Sigh, these are my parents." Sorry JC, you never stood a chance.




This is how we rolled trick-or-treating. No shame in our game.




And one last one from this year. I cannot get enough of that sweet baby face.

{Linking up with The Paper Mama,a little king and i, and then, she snapped, Supermom, Live & Love Outloud, 5 Minutes for Mom, jenni from the blog and Baby Baby Lemon. Whew, that's a lot of linking up.}

{diy} halloween yarn wreath tutorial

Do you like to do-it-yourself? Sorry, I always think of 40 Year Old Virgin everytime I see "diy" or "do-it-yourself". Soooo I finished this wreath a couple weeks ago but all I needed was the final "done" photo which I didn't take until yesterday. So you are getting a Halloween decoration tutorial about six days before the holiday. BUT, it doesn't take very long (finished all but tied the ribbon on during one of JC's naps) and it really is just a yarn wreath tutorial that you could embellish or change the colors for whatev holiday your little heart desires. Yay!

First, a disclaimer. This is my first tutorial of any kind. I am not any sort of "crafting expert" or "wreath aficionado". This actually the first wreath I've ever made. I just like yarn and I have a lot laying around so I thought I'd use some up in a non-knitting project. So, don't make fun of me too bad. Thanks.





The finished product! Thought I'd lure you in with the beautiful project all sparkly and finished so you'll keep reading...





Supplies you'll need:

- 12 inch foam wreath form

- yarn (I used two colors for stripes, Caron Simply Soft)

- fun embellishments (got these sparkly spiders in pack at Jo-Ann's for like $1.29)

- adhesive (I have a glue gun pictured here but I didn't even use it. I used Aleene's Tacky Glue Pen and it worked just fine.)

Optional: Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte so you feel all cozy and fall-like.





To start the wreath, just tie a simple knot and leave a small (about 1" long) tail of yarn. You can hide the tail (seen in next picture) underneath the yarn you are wrapping the wreath with. Don't drive yourself crazy like me trying to make each yarn strand lie perfectly next to each other. I actually wish I would have overlapped the yarn because when you lie it perfectly, there will be "bald spots" where you can see the foam underneath.

I made stripes so I thought about three inches wide would mathematically make sense. Ehh, not so much. My last stripe ended up a little short but the ribbon hides that transition pretty well, giving the illusion that it all evens out. I think if you made your stripes about two inches wide, you would have better results. But remember, I have not completed college and have not taken a math course in seven years.





Attach the next stripe the same way you did the first, just by tying a knot. After that, you don't need to cut and re-tie the next color every time. Just carry the yarn on the underside of your wreath, wrapping it with the current color you are working with. Then you can just pick it up and switch when you are ready to change colors.





Here is the wreath all wrapped up, pre-embellishments. You can see at this angle, there are some bald spots. But when you look at it straight on, you won't see them. A yarn with a little bit of fuzzyness to it will help hide this also.





I used Photoshop to create my little pennant diamonds. You could easily use any other program that you are familiar with. All you need to do is create uniform diamond shapes about two inches long and one inch wide. I made my banner say "trick or treat".

Print it out (plain old paper will work just fine) and cut 'em out.





To attach your letters, fold your diamonds in half to create triangles. Place just a dab of glue toward the bottom of the triangle. Then fold over the yarn and press down. I didn't want my letters to be glued to the actual string because I wanted to be able to move the letters around so I could space them out the way I wanted them to be.

Then, tie the pennant banners to your wreath. I used the same yarn I used to wrap the wreath to make the pennant banners. I just tied it on either side and left a little bit of slack. I tried my hardest to position it so the knots were on the backside of the wreath.





Then, use more glue to attach your sparkly spiders, or what you have.

This glue worked really well. After you're done, turn it over and let set over night. This glue dries clear, so I also applied some glue onto the knots that were created when I tied the pennant banners. Just to help them keep their place.





Tie a ribbon at the top and there ya go, a finished Halloween wreath! Your siblings will even think that you bought it at Target (no joke. this was the biggest compliment i could have ever received).

Linking up with:

autumn has arrived

{ bittersweet wreath I pumpkin pie marshmallows I wall decal I angry birds costume }

I am SO ready for Fall! It is my favorite season and I always feel shortchanged living where we do because we always have such a short autumn season. Even though it's officially fall, it is 90 degrees today and the next couple days as well. We'll probably get two good weeks of cool weather before it starts raining everyday. That being said, I am going to try and take full advantage of this season before it slips away. Behold, my fall bucket list:

{1} Visit a pumpkin patch
{2} Take fall-themed family portraits
{3} Decorate for Halloween
{4} Decorate for fall
{5} Visit Apple Hill
{6} Visit the library regularly
{7} Bake a pie
{8} Stand outside in the rain with JC (just for a little bit)
{9} Buy tall brown boots
{10} Make homemade apple cider
{11} Bake cookies for Charles to bring into work
{12} Cook something for Thanksgiving
{13} Dust off the crock pot
{14} Knit matching beanies for Charles and JC
{15} Take Tsunami for more walks
{16} Enjoy some cool days at the park before it starts raining
(17} Do something crafty for Halloween
{18} Do something crafty for Thanksgiving
{19} Make hot apple cider from scratch
{20} Spend a rainy day snuggling with my main dudes

I'm so excited, especially for October. Not only is it the month of one my favorite holidays (ahem, Halloween!) but also my birthday and Charles and mine's anniversary (ELEVEN years dude). AND, I don't think I've mentioned it enough yet, but we are going to VEGAS! Holla! Happy beginning of fall everybody!