Baby wearing

Makes me feel like such an in tune mother.

Nothing makes me happier than spending the day in a sunshiney park with unschooling moms while cuddling my baby close in a sling.

Trip to Sequoia

The one good thing about Fresno is that it's an easy drive up to Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park and National Forest. Our friends loaded up their toddler, while we loaded up the baby, and we drove a beautiful hour to get there.

We checked out Grant's tree, we went to the Chicago Stump, and on our way back stopped at a beautiful meadow. My husband has a remote control drone that he attaches his Go Pro camera to, and so a lot of our stops are based off of where he thinks he can get the best video.

#200happydays Day 14

I can feed him anywhere!

entertaining babies

we found a field!

Grizzly Falls

Mini family vacation

#200happydays Day 13, in photographic form...

Visiting our friends who just moved to Fresno, we had all sorts of fun...

Torturing our son on our car trip to Fresno...

Little family portrait

Baby absolutely enthralled by the ceiling fans

Baby BFFs hanging out

Wyatt's dog, friend, and protector

Time to swim... and totally unsure about this wet stuff

Trying on hats!

Munchkin

One of my greatest pleasures in the whole world is playing tabletop games. I like party games (like taboo, scattegories), and classics (like scrabble or Risk), but my favorite type are tabletop games like Dominion, Seven Wonders, Castle Panic, and Ticket to Ride. It's always nice to find other people who like to play too, as few people outside of my family seem to have the desire to play quite as much as we do.

This weekend we visited friends who have Munchkin - an easy to learn tabletop game that pays tongue-in-cheek homage to D&D. Of course, I have the added dilemma of how to be a nursing mother while getting in my game fix. This weekend, I was very pleased to have a baby perfectly happy cuddling and sleeping in a wrap so I could be hands-free to play!

#200happydays Day 12

Baby as accessory

I knit. And crochet. And would like to go grocery shopping one day again.  People always say that baby wearing is the way to go, but I haven't found anything that worked...til now.

Sling made by my sister's soon-to-be mother in law. It's beautiful,  and clearly made of magic because this little man is sleeping,  despite the fact that it is the fourth of July and we are in a fireworks-are-legal city!

#200happydays day 4

Le Creuset!

I have a six week old baby. I spend a lot of time awake at three in the morning. The number of food network shows I watch since Wyatt's birth has increased dramatically.

My favorite show is Pioneer Woman. I've cooked from her blog before, but I have been recording and watching (and rewatching) (and rewatching) her shows now, and have been having kitchen envy like crazy. I've been paying close attention to the dishes and tools she uses, and am at a point in my life where I just want the good stuff.

That being said, I've been coveting her Le Creuset enameled cast iron cookware pretty freaking bad. Hours of breastfeeding has involved a lot of my researching brands, recipes, and uses on my phone.

Last week I scraped together enough target gift cards to buy a 7 quart Lodge dutch oven, but then I found out the Le Creuset outlet was having it's summer sale...

I told Frank, the gentleman who assisted my sleeping, strollered baby and I that I would give him a shout out in my blog. He has no idea how happy he made little wanna-be food network star me. I love this outlet, I love taking my baby on adventures (three freeways were closed, it was a gamble getting here), and I can't wait to use my saute pan/skillet combo!!!

Baby faces

It's astounding to me how quickly the days since Wyatt was born are passing. He is six weeks old today! Not only are whole days going by fast, but each individual day just seems to blink by. I spend so much of my day looking at this little face. I get so absorbed in all of his minute details. Sometimes it feels like I don't even look up until suddenly it is dark and I only notice because I can't see his eyelashes clearly anymore.

So here is to my darling little baby face. To every new noise and gurgle and monkey-sounds. To having the pure and wonderful luxury of so many days and hours and minutes to spend getting to know every little thing about my baby boy.

Enchiladas

I am lucky to have an incredible husband. The few weeks right after Wyatt was born, our house was at its cleanest, thanks to him. We ate great homemade meals, again, thanks to him. 6 weeks later and it's about time for me to start figuring out how to balance the things that need to happen in the house, with baby timing.

I'm excited tonight because I made a good looking dinner while baby hung out with me in the kitchen. We sang along to my Leeann Womack pandora station and he hummed happily while I chopped, prepped, cooked and washed dishes. He started fussing right when I put the last dish away. Such a thoughtful baby!

The enchiladas were great. I mixed some ricotta cheese with enchilada sauce, and put a spoonful of that mixture along with a thick slice of mozzarella on each corn tortilla. I lightly fried each tortilla first, and dragged through the sauce. Topped with sauce, cheese, onion, cilantro and black olives. Sourcream and avocado got added after. Canned beans and corn for sides... thank you easy food!

Photos. .. baby chipmunk cheeks, the view of the kitchen from baby perspective, and the finished delicious product.

Delightful summer day

Right now I couldn't be happier. I have a burbling little 6-week-old-tomorrow baby asleep next to me, a husband playing a computer game behind me, a brand new computer-set-up, and I just spent a few hours in the park with husband and friend watching them play with a new toy (drone for go pro camera, very cool) - while I walked and walked with the stroller.

I also just bought a Lodge enamel covered cast iron dutch oven online, and I can't wait for it to get here.

I am not the world's best housekeeper, but I like the idea of it. I really love to cook, when I love it. I realized at some point that the secret is to surround myself with things I like -- hate washing dishes? Buy dishes you love. Dislike cooking? Use utensils and ingredients that speak to you. I love feeding people, and there is something about making food beautiful that matters. I have the ingredients for a baked ziti dish that I am waiting to use until my Caribbean blue dutch oven gets here, because I can't wait to stir the beautiful red sauce in that color pot. Its the little things, you know?

I have a lot of hand-me-down dishes, broken things, and mass-produced stuff in my kitchen. My goal is to replace them all with higher-quality beautiful items that I love, one piece at a time. 

Painting the baby's room

100 days of happy, you are easy today :) having the best sunshiney sunday... husband and I painted the baby's room. Once it has time to settle I will be putting up some tree decals. I love how it turned out.

The whole time I was painting it smelled like redwoods and summer,  from the trees in the backyard.  Someone nearby was barbecuing,  too.

Good day, and it's not even four pm yet.

Baby blanket

I have posted pictures of my king-sized "selfish blanket." I am about 50/80 done with that one. Along the way I decided to start making squares about a quarter of the size, and make a baby blanket.

My first son is due May 17th. We already had a ton of handmedowns and baby things I had made for Daisy, but I wanted to spend some time on something specifically for him.

It's made with sock yarn on size 3 dpn's. It's 6 x 6 squares. I crocheted 6 rows of hdc for the edging. I love the finished product and can't wait for my baby boy to use it.

Felted animals in my little house

The past few days have been unusually rainy, here at the Little House in the Big Park, the streets that are usually lined with cars are empty, and there is a new river where the street to get to my driveway used to be.

Today I plan on getting bundled up and going out into it - but yesterday was a day for cooking pea soup and staying warm and dry inside.

being 29 weeks (and 1 day) pregnant, I've been doing a lot of what they call "nesting." I sort of hate that term. Maybe because I'm predisposed to it anyway, it doesn't seem to be only pregnancy-related for me, and it's sort of annoying to post "hey I made this thing" on facebook and have twelve people say, "ahhh, nesting" in a knowing way. In any case - there's no denying that yesterday being cozy with a craft was the best thing ever. 

Baby's room is going to be wood/forest themed. I had been looking online for things to add to the room, when I saw a few felt mobiles on etsy. They were beautifully done, super cute - and beyond my price range. So I figured I'd try my hand at them. The  project evolved - and I don't think it's going to be a mobile anymore, but here are the results:

One tree, 1 rabbit, 1 bear, 1 deer, 1 owl, and 8 birds. All made with felt I bought at Michaels, embroidery floss, batting, and hand-stitched by me.

 I have enough of the birds that I might turn them into a mobile after all. I haven't decided yet.

I particularly love the pattern on the owl wings. I am also proud of myself for stopping and not doing the whole thing - I like the look of it this way better, but it's hard for me to not fill in all the space I have.

He's so sad. I didn't mean to make him sad. And then once I did, it didn't feel right to change him.

This deer was the first one I made, otherwise I might have given her a little more personality in the eyes.

It's hard to tell in photos, but I thought a lot about the embroidered details of each - for example, this trunk was embroidered using all 6 strands of embroidery floss held together, so make it have more texture. I think all the rest of the embroidery was done with 2 or 3 strands.