iphone photo dump

i apologize for the photo dump that is about to follow. i really need to start doing this every week becaaaaause, it's a lotta pictures.

i will tell you what, i feel like i gained ten pounds just organizing this pictures because my couch is pictured in about 90% of these photos. i have been LAZY! it didn't help that jc was sick for about a week and i was literally trapped under him on the couch for most of the time on those days. but even right now i'm feeling antsy like i need to get out from under this laptop and go do something. so here's our photos from the last couple weeks via my iphone.























i'll be linking up with a good life and life rearranged.

the writer's block, i haz it

so i figured instead of sitting around in my writer's block stupor, i would actually WRITE about it and see if that helps me get out of my funk.

my biggest issue is that it's not that i don't have anything to write about, i actually have a lot that i want to write about. i'm just not sure where to start or which topics to include. when i first started this blog almost a year ago, i really thought i wouldn't have many readers beside the family and friends who just want to see cute pictures of jc. but over time, i have actually accumulated a fair amount of active readers (hey guys!) that i don't know in real life. so now i feel all this pressure to actually write some worthwhile stuff! but it's good pressure! i want to write worthwhile posts!

so i've got some ideas rolling around in my head. this blog has primarily been an outlet for me to share pictures of jc and talk about milestones that he has come across. i'd like to continue doing this but also include some of the smaller details that happen everyday. some of the funny/interesting stories and encounters we deal with on a daily basis. sometimes i forget about them or just tweet about them and never mention them again but i'd like to share more of them with you.

i'd also like to start sharing more about me on this blog. i am, after all, the one who writes all this. now, don't get me wrong, there will still be plenty o' pictures and stories about the little dude but especially with our upcoming wedding and home purchase i'd like to share more about those things. i know a lot of you guys are in the same boat and it can help to hear what other people's experiences are like in similar situations. so i'm going to try and share more about that.

i've been thinking about sharing more crafty posts as well. i don't know how well it will be received but i've been toiling around with the idea of posting some how-to knit videos and tutorials. i know you can find them all over the interweb but i've got ideas about how to make them better. would anyone actually be interested in that? charles is way more excited than he should be to help me make videos so i might just do it so we can do them together!

i have also decided to start my own side hustle. i've been a mark cosmetics representative but have not really pursued anything with the company. in an effort to help out with some of the bills over here, i'm going to give it a real go ahead. don't worry, i am not going to be posting on here and bothering you guys with "hey buy this!" or "check this out!" but do check out the sidebar over there------> for a button soon directing you to my mark eboutique. i also may start a separate blog with videos and tutorials just about mark cosmetics. i dunno. we'll see. until then, you can check out my mark eboutique here and let me know if you have any questions about anything. you can order anything you need through the eboutique and it will be shipped directly to you. we don't have to live near each other for me to be your mark rep!

so, after that long post about nothing really, if you made it this far PLEASE let me know what you think! i hope you guys all have a great weekend!

resolutions!

so here we are. a new year! who doesn't love the chance to have a fresh start? i know that in these parts, january 1st, all the christmas decorations NEED to come down. as excited as i am to put them up (i still manage to wait until after thanksgiving!) i am equally if not more excited to take them down. it definitely isn't as fun to take down the decorations, but it's nice to have my house back. it's time to get down to business. we've had a couple months of fun, but now it's time to do work.

i shared the mid-year resolutions i made a few months ago and the progress i made on them in a post a couple days ago. so now i will share what i hope to accomplish now! again, i like to give myself a little break on everything because while it is time to get down the business, it's no fun to feel down on yourself all the time because you aren't living up to some expectations that YOU set for YOURSELF. give yourself a break sometimes. really, it's ok. anyway, here we go! (in no particular order)

1. exercise! eat better! drink more water!
this is the obligatory new years resolution but i really need to get on this because i have a wedding in five (EEEK!) months that i don't want to look completely disgusting for sooooo. i was doing really well a couple months back and totally fell off the wagon right around thanksgiving. but i am so ready to get going again. i started jillian michael's 30 day shred and am 2 days in so far. and i already feel a lot stronger and my endurance was better, just after the first workout. i haven't decided how involved i will get the blog on my weight loss progress. it is nice to feel like i have some accountability, but i also can get really down on myself when i don't have any progress to share. so, we'll see.

2. read more... books that is, not blogs
if you count blog posts, i read all the time! buuuuuut otherwise? notsomuch. i'd like to think that i can do the whole 52 book challenge but i know myself WAY too well and know that that is NOT going to happen. maybe 26 books? that would be 26 more than i read last year. i've started reading water for elephants on my ipad (which, bytheway, i am totally becoming an ipad/e-reader snob) and i am really enjoying it. and i have a handful of other books that i've been meaning to get around to but you know how that is.

3. knit more
i shared in this post about trying to get my knitting groove back after a few months of losing my mojo. i think i officially have it back after knitting two gifts for christmas. i fully intend to get 'er done in the knitting department.

4. organize and get rid of stuff
this is actually being kind of forced on me. with our impending move looming on the horizon, we need to go through all of our hoarder piles that we've accumulated over the last two years and purge! i told myself that i would try to go through one thing a day and get rid of what i don't use anymore. so today, i went through the two huge bins of baby clothes that i've had in my closet and re-organized it.




jc helped by looking really cute. now everything that i want to keep is labeled and i got a bunch of stuff to send off to a friend with a younger baby. but we definitely still have a long way to go.

5. learn to sew
this is on my list from last year. now that i have a new, not broken sewing machine, i am ready to actually do this! with the help of my fourth resolution, i will hopefully have a cleared off workspace here in the near future and we can get this started.

i think that pretty much sums it up. got any resolutions this year? i'd love to read them! it gets me all motivated and such.

getting my knitting groove back & the purl ridge scarf

Oh my poor dusty knitting needles. My yarn, banished to the back of my closet. Something happened along the way that made me lose my knitting mojo.

It actually happened awhile ago, I think right before I found out I was pregnant with JC. For some reason or another, I stopped knitting. I had a not-so-awesome pregnancy which I think put me in a bigger funk. I didn't really want to do anything, let alone knit. Even though you'd think knitting away on little baby clothes would be what I would be most interested in. Eh, not really. I managed to knit one sweater for JC while I was pregnant, but I didn't finish it until JC was two months old.

And then of course, I was a new mom. Between learning how to take care of a person, breastfeeding every two hours, changing diapers at least twelve times a day and getting sleep in two hour increments, I didn't have time for hobbies. I finally became inspired to knit JC's Halloween costume last year. I also knit these monsters for JC's first birthday present from me. But, besides that, the knitting was few and far between.

I actually started this blog in hopes of sharing my finished knit projects along the way. I just haven't because I haven't been knitting anything! The blog has taken over all my free time! Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?

So, long story short, the cooler weather has made me start to long for my knitting. I decided to start small. I wanted to make something that wouldn't take too long, I'd be able to use right away and used yarn that I already had. So along came the Purl Ridge Scarf.




First of all, I have to gush about this yarn. It has been one of my absolute favorites to work with, Madelinetosh Tosh Vintage. The colors that this yarn comes in are amazeballs, it's so soft and has beautiful drape. This is actually left over from the romper that JC is wearing in my old blog button. If you've seen that floating around.





Sorry for the not-so-great pictures, me and the mirror in my dining room had to be the photographer today. If you're interested, you can check out all the project specs for the scarf over here on my ravelry page. I'm also going to add a ravelry button over on the ol' sidebar if you ever want to see any of my current and/or past projects.

With that, I think I've gotten my knitting groove back. I have a couple works in progress that I haven't finished and I've always been kinda weird about NEEDING to finish any unfinished projects before I move on to new ones. But, I think that is also what makes me not want to knit so I'm going to give myself the freedom to start new projects if I want and not feel guilty about it.

So check back, because I WILL be knitting more and I WILL be blogging about it.

week in iphone pics, w.10

Whoo hoo! I did way better with pictures this week! We did a lot of running around this week. If you read my post about goals for the rest of the year, you'd know that one of my goals was to open an etsy shop. I've been doing so much prep for that this week and I'm so excited to finally open shop. My goal is to get everything open by the first of August. We'll see!!



Monday, Grandma Janie came over for a little bit in the morning. JC and Tsunami had to say bye. The afternoon was spent running all over the house and getting into new cabinets that he hadn't discovered yet. In the evening, we went to Papa John's house and got to sit in the big chair. JC also had his first experience with corn-on-the-cob. I'm not sure he got much corn off of it but he got a little butter. And I think that was alright by him. And one bathtime nudie pic. That belly gets me everytime.



Tuesday, was a little less crazy. We hung out in the Old Navy dressing room while I tried on some shorts (fail). Then we hit up the grocery store and JC couldn't wait to dig into his favorite pasta. And my Toddler 411 book finally came!! I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed with it so far. I was looking for more advice on discipline but it's kinda generalized. I guess every kid's different sooooo. If you have advice for disciplining an almost 14 month old, it would be much appreciated.



Wednesday, JC slept in until 10:20! It was crazy. Of course, as soon as I tried to do something he woke up. This was a new discovery this week; apparently, we have a busy little beaver on our hands. I guess I need to get one of those gummy crib protector thingys now. We got JC's new sandals!! These are his first pair of "legit" shoes. He's definitely not as good at walking in them as he is while barefoot but practice makes perfect, right? Right before nap time, we hit up Goodwill to get stuff for my etsy store. Found a couple cute items. Then, it was frappacino o'clock. This definitely doesn't fit with my plan of making healthier choices but I haven't had one in soooooooooooo long. I deserved it. And JC is super adorable when he brushes his teeth. I just wish he would let us brush his teeth also.



Thursday, we hit up Target to get stuff for the backpack we donated. School supply shopping! Then we came home and played a little before dinner. JC tried to share Curious George and he continued his "ball" obsession (I realize how that sounds...teehee) by pointing to his alphabet train to proclaim the he found the "BALL!" on it. This kid loves balls (teehee) so much, they are definitely his favorite toy right now. We had the most awesome pizza for dinner. It straight up had balsamic vinegar on it. SO GOOD! Healthy factor, notsomuch. LAY OFF ME I'M STARVING! Points if you get the reference. We finished out the night by playing with JC's second favorite "toy", the spatula. He carries this thing E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E. And he tries to beat the cat with it, but we try to discourage that. He also had been carrying around the pack of Uno cards this week so I finally gave him what he wanted.



Friday, JC played with another game cabinet discovery while I gave the dog a much needed bath. Hey, whatever works. During naptime, I worked on something for my etsy shop. And I die a little bit when I see this picture. This kid loves to play peek-a-boo and be chased. He goes around the corner and waits for you to come and then he crawls full speed to get away. All while giggling uncontrollably. He's awesome.

Well, that was our week! Just going over it again made me tired. Alright, now I've got to try to get some other stuff done before the boss wakes up.

Linking up with a good life and life rearranged.

mama monster & baby monster are finished!

Yay! I managed to finish my mama & baby monsters only a week after my intended due date. That's pretty good by my standards of finishing my knitted projects on time. JC seems like to like it regardless if I'm a little late in giving it to him. That's why he's awesome.







If you are interested, you can get all the deets on my project's ravelry page.

<3 Melissa

wedding planning frustrations

Ugh.

That's how I feel about planning a wedding. If I was ballin' out of control, it could be a different story. Because apparently, once you attach the word "wedding" to something that typically isn't "wedding" related, doors start closing. In your face. Hard. And if the word "wedding" is already attached to something, then it will cost about 2343234 times more than it should.

I haven't talked about it at all but the fiance and I are in the midst of planning our hopefully soon-to-be nuptials. We have a pretty clear idea of what we want our wedding to be like. Normally this would be a good thing. Unfortunately in our case, it is making it much more difficult.

We don't have a date set yet because we haven't found a venue. In our eyes, the venue and food are the most important aspects of our wedding. Both of which we want complete control over. We got the idea when we first got engaged (May 1, 2010) that we should have our wedding on the Mendocino coast. For our babymoon, we took a roadtrip from Northern California, up I-5 all the way to Vancouver, B.C. and drove all the way back down the coast. Charles proposed on the way up so by the time we were driving back all we could do was talk wedding plans. As we drove along the Mendocino coast I knew it was perfect. We had talked about having a beach wedding but I didn't want the stereotypical ON the beach, feet in the sand kind of wedding. Mendocino is pretty much all rocky cliffs with beautiful overlooks onto the ocean. Perfect.

We got the idea that we could rent a house that was on one of these cliffs and have the ceremony and reception there. It would perfect. We could make our own food and party as late as we wanted to. And then, everyone could just crash at the house when we were done! No one has to buy a room or pay for anything. A lot of these houses we've looked at have several bedrooms, some with multiple beds in each room so everyone would be able to crash somewhere.

Problem is, no one wants us to have a wedding at their house. I mean, if you are already renting your house out for vacations, how much more trouble would a little wedding be? We'd clean up. We are responsible people. We have a baby for Christ's sake. Half of our friends have babies. We aren't going turn your house into a nightclub. I feel like Adam Sandler and Chris Farley in the Herlihy Boy skit from SNL. LET THE BOY SLEEP IN YOUR HOUSE! FOR GOD SAKES! HE'S ALREADY WATERING YOUR PLANTS! Points if you get the reference.

With that, Charles and I have decided that unless some miracle happens, we are going to plan on the wedding taking place next year. Probably in late March or early April, as soon as it starts getting nice on the northern coast again. We are also opening it up for possibly taking place in Lake Tahoe if we still are having trouble finding a suitable venue. We are kind of on a time crunch because we really want to start trying to have a little brother or sister for JC. Since we didn't plan on having JC, I'm not sure how long it will take. I'd like to start trying sooner than that but I really want us to be married before we start trying. And I don't want to be pregnant at my wedding, I want to have fun and not be uncomfortable because my ankles are swollen and my back hurts.

As much as I joke about eloping or just going to the courthouse, I know I will regret not having the wedding that I want. Shoot, the wedding that we deserve after already being together for ten years, living together for six of those years, and having an almost one year old baby!! I'm tired of "playing house" and I'm ready to do this thang.

Thank you for listening to me rant. I will now go bury my sorrows in some yarn. Hmmmm warm fuzzy soft...

Is that... why yes it is a finished mama body, one finished arm and one arm in progress on JC's birthday present. The blue yarn is for a new project that I'm just starting. More deets on that later.

<3 Melissa

countdown to JC's birthday party: 18 days!

Ahhhh I can't believe how fast this party is coming up! I feel immediately organized and completely unprepared all at the same time. Basically, I have a lot of ideas but I'm unsure how it will all work out together.

First things first, JC's birthday present(s) from us. Keep in mind that we did not buy JC a Christmas present because the pressure to give him the best present ever was too much for us. I've started making him this ADORABLE mama monster and baby monster set. I promised I would share some knitting adventures so here ya go.

{linking up to 'I Spy-Handmade Edition' on Little Miss Momma}

Those would be a pair of mama monster feet. I'll give complete project deets once it's all finished but I'm using the leftover yarn from JC's Where's Waldo halloween costume. Sorry all the links are from ravelry, if you don't have an account. Even if you don't knit, if you like perusing some awesome stuff, make an account. I'm sorry ahead of time for the incredible waste of time you will encounter. Anyway, I'm actually a little bit farther along on this than I was when I took this picture a couple days ago. I've kind of lost my knitting mojo for the last month or so. I just haven't had any time but I'm trying to make some. Besides this, I'm still not sure what we will be getting him. Maybe something like this, or this? I know he would have the time of his life with a cardboard box but I really want to get him something special. 

I guess the other big part is kind of combined, at least in my mind, decorations and food. Charles is in charge (heh, Charles in charge) of the main food but I am in charge of what really matters, dessert. We are going to have his party under a big gazebo in a park right behind our house. The gazebo has four tables, all of which I plan on using. One table will be at least mostly dedicated to desserts. I plan on making some toadstool-esque cupcakes like the ones found here and my big undertaking will be creating S'more cake pops like the one's found here. These should both go well with the overall woodland theme of JC's party. I'm still looking for a creative way to display both of these items. I also found a few really cute figurines at the antique fair on Sunday to use to decorate the dessert table.

Sorry for the 2341243134 toys in the background. I only spent about $14 for all of these and I think they will add a unique touch to the decorations. I have already purchased this banner for general decorating purposes. It's unbearably cute. I will also attempt to create some tissue paper pom poms to hang up around the gazebo. 

I'm still hung up on what to have for favors for the kids that are coming. Surprisingly, there will be quite a few little ones but they are vary widely in age. A favor for a five month old will not do for a ten year old. I'm probably going to make a special onesie/shirt for JC. Basically do an applique like this one but make a big number "1" or something like that instead of a bunny. I want to haul JC's high chair out there too so he has some place to eat his cake (ooo that reminds me, I'm not sure if I'm going to make him a special cake or just give him one of the cupcakes...) so I'm debating about whether or not to decorate that too with a special banner or something. 

Sorry, this post kind of just turned into a stream of consciousness of my party planning brain. This is the first big party that I'm going all out on since I am able to devote a little more time to it. Luckily I'm doing a lot of it myself, so it shouldn't be too expensive. If you care, I will be keeping everyone updated on any new party planning activities/crafts and I will definitely do a comprehensive post after it's all said and done. If I make it that far and don't have a panic attack.