Family Cabin Trip

My parents came in to town the week after Jack's birthday and we decided to head up to Max's grandparent's cabin. We have been trying to get my parents up there for years now and I'm so glad we could finally do it. We spent our days lounging by the fire and enjoying uninterrupted Jack time 😊. It was pretty cold while we were up there which was way better than being over 100 like it is in the summer, but we are still desert people so the 60's was pretty cold for us. We had a nice fire all day long and it made for great snuggles!!

Because pictures say a thousand words and pictures of Jack say even more ;). I'll let them do the talking. Enjoy!

Don't forget to check out Max's blog and read all about his hike HERE

Jack's 12 Month Update

Weight: 18.9 lbs (4%) - he's always been my little peanut. But he's happy and healthy and that's all that matters.

Length: 29" (23%)

Loves: He loves to push around anything he can get his hands on. Max and I always joke that if you push hard enough anything can be a walker ;). You go to the bathroom for 5 seconds and you come out to dinning room chairs in the kitchen, a push walker over the dog bowls, and a baby play table acting as a door stop. He also loves to turn the TV on and off. Our direct tv box is touch screen so he stands up against the tv stand and pushes his little finger against the blue lights and turns it off and on. He also accidentally records shows. There's nothing better than sitting down and looking through your DVR list to find that Doc McStuffins, PJ Masks, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse have been recorded. You start to wonder if it's by accident or if he's smarter than you think :)

Hates: He has started to throw teeny tiny tantrums. When I pull him away from playing with the robot vacuum he arches his back and screams and whines for a few seconds and then moves on. It's a small glimpse into my future and it doesn't look bright ;). He also hates when we take him out of his swing in the back yard. He loves to swing, which isn't surprising seeing as we had him in his baby swing all the time. But as soon as you stop it and start to unbuckle him he starts crying until you cuddle him, which I guess isn't so bad.

Milestones: Not too much has changed. He isn't walking by himself yet but he could if he wanted to. He needs some baby confidence to let go. He has taken 1-3 steps from me to Max but that's really it. When we stand him up to practice he either immediately sits down and crawls, or just falls forward in hopes of someone catching him. It's like watching a tiny terrifying trust exercise. And of course he thinks falling and us catching him is funny now so he does it over and over. I'm hoping we can keep building his confidence so he can start walking on his own. He pushes his toys around and walks while only holding onto one hand so he could totally do it if he wanted to which is so frustrating, but we're getting there!

I've officially bought him shoes so now when we go places he can "walk" around. I make him walk into the store and down a few isles and stand against the car while I load everything up. That way he learns that this is just a natural part of things, instead of having mommy carry him around everywhere. Right now he doesn't go too far mostly because it's slow going but I want to make it as much a part of our routine as possible so it becomes no big thing and hopefully he'll learn to do it himself soon.

His speech changes daily so it's hard to keep up on. He was saying "UH-OH" really well last month but this month he's moved into grunts. I know that sounds backwards but it really isn't. Instead of saying "uh-oh" he says "uh-go" in a low full body grunt, cave man style. And he really listens and tries to repeat what you say. He loves to point so when he points at something I say whatever it is he's pointing at so he can learn. Usually it's the dogs so I say "dog" and I emphasize each letter sound. He responds either with "dada" or "doo?" or "guh?" Everything always sounds like a question and it's adorable. He does ask for food but not so much "Hi mom, can I have a snack" but more like "nom-nom-nom". He sounds like a little cookie-monster and it's the best!

He's still pretty good with his high-fives, but now since he loves to point at everything sometimes it's a one finger high-five :). He's also finally picked up on clapping! He claps all the time, I feel like I have my very own personal cheerleader. He also hasn't quite picked up on sayine "bye-bye" or "hi" he only smiles and giggles when we say it to him. He knows what you're saying and what you want him to do but it must be more fun to see our reaction after he refuses to do it.

Sleep: He's still amazing in this department. We had a few weeks where he would wake up at night but that seems to have passed for the most part now.

Eating: We have officially made the switch to whole milk. No more bottles! That's when it really hit me that he's not a baby anymore. He now has breakfast, a snack around 10:30-11:00, then warm milk before nap, then lunch when he wakes up, then dinner, and more warm milk before bed. He gets cold milk with each meal and cold water that he carry's around throughout the day. I'm also finally out of the baby food factory! I haven't made a puree in about a month and it's been amazing! We started weaning him off around 10 months and we are finally completely done. I loved making our own food for him but it took it's toll on me and I'm glad to be over it. Until the next one ;)

Teething: He finally has a pretty good mouth of teeth! He has his two top, two bottom and one on the top left.

Jack's Barnyard Bash!

A few weeks ago our little nugget turned one! I can't believe I am a mother to a toddler now instead of a baby. Every once in a while I miss my cuddly newborn but I'm also so in love with watching him learn new things and show off all his skills. The way he looks up at me after doing something to check in and see if it was good or not is truly magical.

I couldn't be more in love with my little man. And his birthday was a huge success!

As you know from Jack's Month Haves he loves his bath time chickens. So I decided to make his birthday a barnyard bash! I went all out on a farm theme and it was so much fun! I ordered all the decorations from either amazon or The Oriental Trading Company.

My sister and brother-in-law flew in for the special occasion and helped me get it all set up. I wanted it to be obvious what the theme was but I also didn't want to spend a ton of money, he's only one after all. I looked around our house and picked obvious spaces where people would be mingling and decorated only those spaces and made sure the decorations were big and obvious so I didn't spend money on a bunch of tiny decorations trying to get the point across.

In the family room I decorated the coffee table with a red checkered pattern table cloth and a few farm toys for the little ones that were coming over. Jack had it all moved and messed up pretty quick but it worked out perfectly none-the-less. We obviously had a lot of other toys around just in case and the kids didn't really care if they were farmed theme or not :).

I had farm animal balloons scattered around to bring the different spaces together. They were a lot of fun too! They were just plain white and pink balloons that came with chicken, cow, and pig stickers so you could create your own. My sister and brother-in-law helped me stick all the stickers on and we left a few blank for the kiddos to do as a take home goodie.

The kitchen took the most decorations which wasn't a big surprise. I put down the same red checkered table cloth and decided to get tin containers for all the food. I was worried that they would be really expensive since cheap tin platters, buckets, and bowls aren't something you usually see. But Target had all kids of options in their dollar section! I stocked up on everything for only a few bucks! I bought little chalkboard signs from Party City and used farm names for each dish; rice krispie treats were hay bales, and chex-mix was chicken feed, etc. My sister made a great "Pig Out Here" sign for our bar and we even had cow paper cups! Outside on our patio I hung some farm themed paper lanterns and used the same table cloths. The part was so much fun!

His party was so much fun and I was so glad that pretty much all our family and friends could make it, even some of my California family who flew in to make it extra special.

I know he won't remember it but we will and I'm sure he'll enjoy the pictures in the future.

Happy Birthday my little Jackamundi. Our sweetest little boy who made us parents only one year ago, we love you with all our hearts!

Our 4 Year Anniversary

Sorry this is so late now! Work and mothering has taken up so much of my time recently. But I have many posts waiting for you so be ready! :)

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Let me start this off by saying that this was not my best anniversary gift. And Max has been very supportive in my failings. I had a super cute idea but my execution was...lacking. One day I will learn that my mother is always right.

So what happened you ask...

Well as you well know this year was flowers and fruit. I wanted to come up with something creative and cute outside of a simple bouquet or edible arrangement. I came up with a super cute idea. I was going to fill a vase with skittles and put a single flower for each flavor/color and attach a little love note to each one. For instance the yellow sunflower would say "Lemons may be sour but you're oh so sweet!". Cute right? Everyone at worked loved it, I was going to win.

I love giving presents and I'm usually pretty good at it.

Year 1: paper flowers with love notes, hand crafted.

Win.

Year 2: Custom cotton t-shirt that he still wears without being asked to.

Win.

Year 3: Custom leather luggage tags that are currently attached to this bags and he uses whenever he travels.

Win.

I was so excited for my plan. But where do you get single flowers in every color of all different varieties. Your standard grocery store only sells bouquets, hardware stores like Lowes or Home Depot only sell planting flowers, and general stores like Target and Walmart are a crap shoot. This meant I needed a florist. Well a local florist isn't something that most people use anymore so where could I find one.

Google.

I was on my lunch break and thought I could at least find a florist and get an idea on pricing and what they had before Friday when I really needed them. I thought I would start with the closest one and move my way out. Now for those that don't know, I work in Scottsdale. Whether you are from AZ or not you will know Scottsdale for it's richness. Rich people, sports people, famous people, did I already say rich people, all live there. This means there are small cute boutiques, hi-end stores, and custom shops. A pencil probably costs $100. I was expecting to find a florist that only did weddings, or would only sell exotic flowers from far away lands. But what I found was amazing. It was still small, a boutique, a custom shop but it was fantastic and perfect.

I found P.V. Florist

The greatest florist there ever was. The store is very small and tucked away beside other larger ones. As far as I could tell there was no sign until you got right up to it and the front door is a solid wood door that made you feel as if you were walking into someone's home. Which is exactly what you were doing.

Immediately when I walked in I thought I was in the wrong place. It was a small store which in my naive head meant that they only did events and didn't sell individual arrangements. But right when I was about to turn around and walk out the bells on the door clanged and Suki Jandu, Proprietor and Designer, came running out of the back. I hesitated and thought "CRAP!" Now I have to tell her my whole stupid idea and why I'm there and she'll have to explain that she can't help me and fight back laughter as I walk away." But I was wrong.

I told her I was looking for individual stems in every color. She immediately started pulling out the roses. I sighed and told her I didn't want all roses if it was at all possible. She did a double take at her fridge and then turned to me and asked what I wanted them for. I decided I would tell her the whole idea and she could tell me if I was insane or not. And maybe just maybe she could have some great ideas.

She told me it was the cutest thing she had ever heard. She started pulling daises, thistles, roses, some giant green puff thing, and sun flowers. The last color on our list was orange. I didn't see anything in the case and was prepared to surrender and buy pink or something. She then pulled out a GIGANTIC orange rose (pretty sure it's a rose, I'm really losing my girl cred here). PERFECT! She sorta stared at it a moment and inspected it. She then put it on the counter and said it was on her because it was already open and wilting ever so slightly. I was amazed!

She rang me up and the price came in WAY under what I was expecting like way way under. And there are only 6 colors in the rainbow and 6 flowers looks kinda sad. So I told her I would gladly double it and take two of each color. She grabbed all the extras for me and added two extra orange roses those ones also for free! I told her I worked right around the corner and that this cute little shop was such a surprise and that I was so glad she would treat me so kindly when I was probably her smallest customer ever.

When she heard that my anniversary wasn't until the next day and that I worked right around the corner she offered to keep the flowers in her fridge until I could pick them up Friday again at no extra charge. She's amazing.

When I went to the pick them up Friday, the day I had to work all night, she asked me how my day was going. I told her about the late late night that was headed my way and that I probably wouldn't be home until 10ish. She asked me what I was going to do with the flowers. I told her there was a fridge at work and if they didn't fit I would just keep them at my desk and they would be fine enough until I got home. She looked the orange ones over again and told me to keep the vase she stored them in to make sure they stayed fresh for my husband. This too was at no extra charge.

She took better care of me then I do. I can't recommend this place enough.

Earlier that day I had bought the skittles and was ready to put the two together. My mother had come up with a variety of ideas of how to use the skittles without putting the flowers in them. She thought maybe I could put the skittles in baggies then put them in the vase so the flowers could still have water. Or put them in a bowl around a vase in the middle. All with the goal that the flowers would never leave water. But I told her it would be fine and that they would only be out of water and in the skittles for a few hours.

I was wrong.

Once I got home Friday night around 10 I showed Max what I had made and we immediately went to bed. I was exhausted, he was tired from watching Jack and we crashed. The flowers had no water expect skittle wetness for 6ish hours. Whoops. They were droopy and wilty when we woke up and I felt terrible! All that hard work, all that effort and such cute varieties that I hoped max would get to enjoy. It's not every day you get a bouquet with thistle in it. They weren't dead but they weren't as vibrant.

My mother is always right. O well, Max still liked them for awhile.

Max got me a beautiful bouquet of calla lilies and roses and they are so gorgeous! Calla lilies are my favorite and what we used for our wedding; he's so thoughtful :).

The rest of our anniversary was pretty low key. We dropped Jack of at the grandparents before dinner and headed out. We decided to go to dinner and a movie since it's pretty cheap but not only did we do that we killed two birds with one stone and went to the AMC Dinner Theater.

This is every parent's dream. You can sit at the bar and order drinks before your movie. Then take your drinks into the theater and order and eat dinner while you sit in enormous comfy chairs. They also have a call button for your server and you can still put the arm up if you want to cuddle. But let's be honest no parent is giving up precious "me" space ;-).

We ended up seeing Zootopia because my husband knows me too well. He saw right through my "I don't care; we can see whatever you want" ploy. I'm a child at heart, I won't deny it. It was a super cute movie and I highly recommend it to anyone with or without kids.

After the movie we headed back to get Jack and then home to crash. We really are an old married couple now. But it was exactly what we were hoping for. It was a perfect anniversary.

I can't wait to spend another year growing old together.

4 Year Wedding Anniversary - Fruit/Flowers

Happy St. Patty's Day but maybe more importantly it's my Anniversary Eve! ;)

Yup it's that time of year again! I can't believe I will have been married for 4 years tomorrow! If you missed reading about the first three years you can read about some gift ideas here and about what we got each other here.

So as you know Max and I follow the traditional gifts for each year and try to do something cheap and fun. This year is fruit/flowers which is either really super easy or really hard. You can always go with a bouquet of flowers or edible arrangements but those have been done before so I am trying really hard to come up with something a little more creative.

Note : Max - That being said if your plan is to send 100 roses to my office a la How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days style I wouldn't be mad :)

So here are a few of the ideas I've come up with so far :

1) Fruit with little loves notes attached. This is healthy, cute, and super easy!

2) Fruit paired with different flowers. Make a bowl of strawberries surrounded by roses, Blueberries surrounded by blue Peonies, Kiwi surrounded by succulents (not technically a flower but what the hell else goes with kiwi's :) )

3) Fruit scented perfume

4) Rose colored Jewelry. Origami Owl has some great lockets that are changeable! Put some fun flowery, fruity, and love related charms in a rose colored locket and chain and you can't lose!

4) Bouquet of fruit flavored candy

5) Fruit of the month club

6) Buy only exotic fruit you have never tried and go on a world wide tour of fruit right in your own home!

7) Spend the day together making your own caramel apples or fruity desserts.

8) Spend the night together making fruity cocktails and eating chocolate covered fruit.

9) Sprinkle rose petals the floor in front of the tv, grab some blankets, fruity candy and enjoy a great movie!

10) Have a fondue night with chocolate and fruit and use different flowers to decorate the table. Maybe even include some fake ones for keepsakes.


There are a ton of options! I can't wait to celebrate another year with the man of my dreams :)

Jack's 11 Month Update

Weight: ~19 lbs

Length: ~29"

Loves: His loves are still pretty much the same. He loves to stand and walk. He pulls up on the coffee table then walks to the other side and sits down. Then he gets back up and does it all over again. He's constantly standing and sitting. He also now stands up with his push toy and takes off around the house. He still can't turn though :)

Hates: He doesn't hate much these days except when we stop him from doing whatever he shouldn't be doing at that moment: playing in the dog bowl, throwing food off of his highchair, hitting our faces, etc.

Milestones: He pulls up on everything! He's also become a pro at sitting back down without startling himself. He loves to sit and stand back up. But he hasn't quite figured out how to stand up without pulling up on something yet.

He can stand without holding on though but I'm not sure he knows it ;). He consistently pulls up on the coffee table and then lets go to grab and play with a toy, leaving him standing unassisted. But if I put him in the middle of the room and let go he freaks out and sits down. We just need to do some baby confidence boosting!

He still favors saying Dada but he'll throw other noises/words in there too. He'll say mama if he's feeling especially nice, but his most favorite is screaming "DOOOOOOO". It's amazingly adorable. He'll also try to repeat your words. He'll get the sound right but use the wrong letters. "Jack can you say Dog"..."touggg". Eh close enough. Or even better he'll just think about it for a second and then look at you and say dada. Well he tries :).

His newest trick is giving people high-fives. He doesn't put any "umph" behind it but he does put his hand to yours which counts in our book :). We're still working on waving and clapping. When we ask him to clap he immediately grabs our hands and slaps them together. Technically he isn't wrong. We didn't specify whose hands to clap ;)

Sleep: He's still amazing in this department. He sleeps from 8 to 6:30ish. He would sleep longer but he's on work schedule so weekends I still have to get up like I would for work but those mornings are filled with cuddles instead of insane traffic.

Eating: He still has 4 bottles a day 6 oz each. Then three solids, breakfast, lunch and dinner. We are starting to wean him off of the purees. He's been eating finger food for months now but we used to only offer them after he ate his puree. Now we only give him puree's if he's just not having the finger food we give him. I also still provide it to our day care lady so she has backup food just in case he rejects something she gives him. So I'm not completely out of the baby food factory but oh so close. I am so ready to be done making baby food all the time!

Teething: When it rains it pours! He has his top left tooth. His bottom left tooth has finally poked through and then the tooth to the left of this top tooth is just starting to poke through. I can see the teeny tiniest bit of white. So it looks like he'll be pretty lop sided to his left side for a while :). But all the other front teeth are swollen and hard so we're expecting them any day now.

Jack Hears a Who - Hiking at Horton Creek

Last weekend Max rolled over in bed and said "Do you want to go on the hike or are you too tired?", I responded how everyone responds "I don't care, whatever you want to do love." He said that it was fine and that we would go next weekend. I laid in bed starring at the ceiling trying to decide what to say. Do I say "No, let's go. You won't be so tired once we get moving" and seal my fate to a long day of hiking and fun in the sun with my family or do I just lay here and blame him for being too tired when he complains about being lazy later and enjoy a slow Sunday?

I went with the blame him option.

"I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephants faithful 100%"




But my fate was sealed anyway. We woke up a few hours later and decided it was still early enough to go so we grabbed Jack, the dogs, and our already packed packs (thank you eagle scout constantly ready husband) and headed out.

Max had landed on the Horton Creek Trail because it met all my super easy requirements; flat, not too short or too long, easy-ish, pretty, and not too far away. God, I'm so agreeable :).

Now because it was Horton Creek there were several Horton Hears a Who references, Max was ready for them and even fired a few back, and that's why he's my husband.

The trail was exactly what I was looking for, pretty, easy, and so much fun. It started off so easy that I started planning Horton Hears a Who reference pictures for Jack to be in for this blog. But I somewhat quickly changed my tune. No it didn't start to get hard, no I wasn't worried about Max carrying our 10 month old alone with no help, no the dogs weren't pulling on me because they were off leash, My I-haven't-gone-on-a-hike-in-2-years-because-I-had-a-baby tiredness set in. And when I get tired and frustrated I get mad. This did not make Max happy.

"This entire Jungle is a house of death!"

For the most part stopping to catch my breath and a drink of water helped so we did that frequently. Max was very supportive and would drink and say he needed the break too.

Liar.

But I got some great pictures and even got some of my movie reference ones :).

I even took one of a butterfly, which is incredibly difficult which is why it's terrible. But instantly after I took the terrible photo the butterfly started flying at my face. I was waving my arms wildly and snapping the camera because I thought "I might die from a butterfly attack but maybe I'll get a great picture!" I found it funny. But once we got home and I showed Max the pictures he laughed at me not like "oh how adorable" but more like "OMG your insane and I have to tell everyone how your afraid of butterflies" so the pictures got deleted. So I'm sorry your only left with a terrible on-purpose photo of a butterfly.

"...They all eat rainbows and poop butterflies"

Well my tiredness continued and I couldn't quite make it to the end of the hike. Max kept lying to me and telling me it was just "a little farther" but since it was always "a little farther" I got a little more frustrated. And he called it quits before I completely broke down and starting singing "liar liar pants on fire..."

We decided to walk down to the creek and enjoy a nice relaxed lunch together. We got Jack out of his king's seat so he could stretch and enjoy a bottle of his own.

It was truly adorable. Our little family enjoying some time relaxing by the water and eating some delicious snacks. Jack had his puffs, we had some sandwiches and the dogs finally stopped long enough to take a drink from the creek. Jack walked around a bit (with some help of course) and there were many giggles.

"A person's a person no matter how small"

The hike out was about the same as the hike in and I tried to keep my frustration to myself even though my pinky toe decided to burrow a hole through the toe next to it. I some how survived and I'm already excited for the next adventure.

As you may know Max runs his own humble, ok let's be honest better, blog : Lesser Places. Where he writes about his out door adventures. If you want to read about our hike from a not-so-tired mama point of view, with less Horton Hears a Who references, or want to see more adorable pictures of Jack on our trip make sure to CHECK IT OUT NOW!