Baskets and silliness

I made this Easter Basket for James... I had seen them in Pottery Barn Kids for $45 and said to myself, "Self, you can make that for a lot less!" Cost of my finished product? $8. So here it is!




And some pics of James being silly for fun!

Standing up!

Well, not on his own. But if I give him something to hold on to, James can support his own weight. Observe...





James is also working on feeding himself with a spoon, which isn't going too well yet, but these things do take time!

5th Wedding Anniversary

Eliot and I celebrated five years of marriage on March 25, 2011. We went to Newport beach, where we had part of our honeymoon, with James... and my mom came for one night in her own room to take care of James so we could have the first night alone together that we've had since James was born (thanks mom!!) but still be close enough if James needed us (and he did need me to eat at 5am, as usual).

Just a note, I will be posting some pics throughout this post, but there are many more from the trip in the Tenth Month album in case you want to see more! :-)




We had a truly wonderful time on our trip. Eliot and I went out for dinner, went for a swim in the saltwater pool, played some games (Uno and bananagrams)

and took a nighttime walk on the beach. It was so great to spend time together not having to think about taking care of James (though we did talk about him a lot!). We reminisced about all the things we've done in the past five years...living in Ireland, traveling around Europe, buying our home, Eliot getting a masters and PhD, my quitting work outside the home (and how positive that has been for our marriage), Disney vacations, and all the little things we do everyday that make our relationship special. It was wonderful to get to talk with my husband without computers, cell phones, TVs, or monitors interrupting.

The next morning, while my mom watched James, we went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, another place we had visited on our honeymoon. I learned that penguin-like birds north of the equator are called Auks,

while penguins south of the equator are actual penguins. We also saw their new exhibit, Swampland

with a 16ft Anaconda. It was crazy big!! Eliot's favorite exhibit was the giant Japanese crabs, and I liked the sea otters best (naturally... they are so cute!).
Sea otter taking a nap while James does the same!





We then went back and got James up from his nap, said good-bye to my mom, and took James to the aquarium with us.


He loved the "passages of the deep" exhibit, where you actually walk through acrylic tubes and the fish swim around you!



We also showed him the jellyfish,

the seals (he loved those too!),


and the otters.

They had these displays up all over the aquarium of artwork made form trash that collected on the Oregon coast... some of them were pretty well done, and sad at the same time that so much plastic waste is in the ocean (though I didn't enjoy the in-you-face IT'S YOUR FAULT display at the end, I think that was unnecessary).




After all that, and after checking our wingspans, we went back to the hotel to let James have an afternoon nap.




That evening we thought we'd go fly a kite on the beach, but when we got down the giant staircase to the beach,

it was so cold and windy we didn't last long! We spent maybe 10 minutes there before deciding it was much too cold for James. Oh well...







All in all, we had a great time, both as a couple and as a family. :-)

Here are a few more pics from our trip that I couldn't work into the story!
James playing


Tufted Puffin


James enjoying the view from our balcony while in his high chair

Our second night we had to spend in our room with our sleeping child, so we had Chinese and tried to be as silent as possible (while watching Netflix on Eliot's laptop with headphones).

James asleeping!

James ALMOST crawling today after we got home... he's reaching forward and pushing himself towards objects, and sometimes he'll get up on his knees or feet.

And, of course, James helping with the post-trip laundry!

I think I'll go for a walk outside...

It's springtime! The tree is blooming in our front yard and all the flowers are coming up. It was so warm and sunny today that we all went as a family to Hendrick's park to see what's in bloom.



Oregon grape in bloom




I also wanted to post my latest project... an Easter vest and bow tie I made for James out of a pair of my dad's old dress pants! I haven't really made too many clothes, so it was a learning experience (I made it too small and had to add in a panel in the back) but I am happy with the way it turned out!


Here are a few pics I love of James from the past few days:






These were a few more from his 9th month celebration that I didn't post yet:
Dinner at Red Robin


Having cantaloupe for the first time from dad's entree!


At home...


He rolled all the way out to the entry way by himself!



As always, there are a few more pics in the "James's Tenth Month" album, which you can find via the link on the right side of the blog. :-)