Gardens and Crawling

Colten with two of his little girl friends, Isla and Nala, at our garden exchange

Ahhh. It's Sunday afternoon, and I just finished cleaning up from our latest garden exchange today. If you don't already know it, I started a garden exchange here in Carpinteria...it's really nothing very orginal; I copied the format of the exchanges happening in Santa Barbara. Basically, people come to our house, bring stuff from their gardens, and take stuff that other people have brought. It's been really fun meeting people in our community and getting inspired to grow things. I just made a sparkling mint lemonade from the lemons in our backyard and some mint that someone brought. Yum.

Colten is sitting on the floor here in the dining room as I type. He's playing with a green sharpie pen that he's banging on the floor and hitting against the legs of the dining room chairs. He is FINALLY crawling. And pulling himself up to stand! I'm really liking the crawling...today he followed me all over the house while I was vaccuming - no more crying when I walk out of the room. He does, however, cry EVERY single time I attempt to change his diaper. Like he's being tortured. I don't know what's up with that, but everyone comes out ok in the end. He's really into food right now. He'll eat anything, and he actually begs if someone is eating near him. Then when he gets a bite, he makes a loud "Mmmmm." He's got all four of his upper teeth in now, along with his bottom two. We went through a rough patch there while those top ones were coming through; Colten and I took some midnight strolls through the neighborhood to get through some of the tougher nights. But all's well now. Colten is now standing next to me happily chewing on some string cheese.

Colten started saying "papa" just a week or two ago - and it made Tim tear up. Now that he's more mobile, I've noticed that he's not so into the words. He sort of says "bird" (more like "brrr") and "cat" ("a-ta") and "dog" ("da"). He's been saying "mama" for a while now. Every day is so fun with him. He's super goofy, and it's so fun to see his little personality developing.

In a couple of weeks we're taking our first big road trip all together -- going to visit our friend Becky and her husband Chris in Wyoming. Yay! We can't wait. Tim's been working on our little camper, making sure the door locks and fixing the big hole in the side (yeah, it's super old). I don't know what got into Tim this weekend, but he's suddenly turned into mister handy man. He even got up early yesterday and cleaned the living room. What?! I'll take it!

Hmmm...I think I smell poo. More soon.

Easter pics and some 10th month thoughts

This is from Easter - we visited Tim's family in Delano

The four new cousins: DJ-2mths, Colten-9mths, Isa-11mths, and Roman-4mths.

With the Grandmas (all sisters).

The boys share a great grandmother (we couldn't get her to take a photo).

When Colten was first born, every hour was so momentous that we counted his age in days and weeks. Now he'll be ten months old tomorrow, and I seriously can't figure out where the last eight weeks went. In just two months, we'll be celebrating his first birthday! Crazy. In fact, Colten will actually be attending his first baby birthday party this Sunday at the zoo. I'm not able to go, but Tim's really excited (he loves the zoo). Most of the babies in our Mamatoto group are right around Colten's age, so we're coming up on party season here...Colten is going to have quite a full schedule this summer.

The three questions that I get the most these days are: Is he walking yet? What's he eating? And is he sleeping through the night? So let me tell you. No, Colten's not walking; not even a little bit. He's really not even crawling, if you want to get technical about it. I think he has the ability, just not the drive. I will say, though, that he's doing some other pretty spectacular stuff, like clapping, waving goodbye, mimicing our facial expressions, and beginning to say words like "mama" and "bird." One developmental thing at a time, please.

Now on to the eating. This kid eats like nothing I've ever seen before. He'll eat anything. Today he ate oatmeal with cinnamon and yogurt, a strawberry, some rice cereal and a few Cheerios, part of a croissant I was eating, some chicken out of my sandwich, at least an entire avocado, part of a banana, some watermelon, and a few forkfulls of rice and beans from my Mexican dinner. He's also still nursing two to three times a day and at night. He must be headed for a growth spurt or something.

Sleeping through the night? I don't know - do you sleep through the night? For some reason this is such a difficult question to answer. He usually falls asleep around 9pm and wakes up in the morning at 7:30am. He stirs and nurses throughout the night, but nothing that actually gets Tim or I out of bed. So, sure, he sleeps through the night. We're pretty stoked on the whole situation.

So, in general, things are good. Tim and I just freakin' adore this little guy. It's the best!

8 Months!

About two minutes after this picture was taken,

he fell asleep.

And about two minutes after this picture was taken,
he lost his red cap, never to be seen again.

At the zoo


swinging!

Ah, back to the blog. It's been awhile...Colten is 8 months old now and becoming more mobile every day. He's not exactly crawling yet - just wiggling and squirming and climbing and rolling a whole lot. He's incredibly grabby right now and we're constantly being pinched, bitten, head butted, and getting our hair pulled. He also has a tendency to knock over glasses full of liquid, fling bowls full of food, and pull over any potted plant that he can get his little mitts on. We're expecting horns to sprout out of his head any day now. He can be very sweet though...especially when he's asleep. And we're lucky he's a good sleeper.

We just had a pretty fun little family weekend together. We've been noticing that Colten loves to watch other kids, so on Saturday we took him to the park for the first time. Mainly he just checked out all the big kids running around and playing, but he also got to try the swing and go down the slide. It was pretty cute. Then we took him to the zoo and let him look at animals. It's hard to tell what he thought of everything. He fell asleep pretty quickly. On Sunday we went for a hike and Tim wore him in our big Kelty pack (a hand-me-down from our friend June!) for the first time. And then in the afternoon we took him to the beach and let him play in the sand. I love that he gets to grow up here, where being outside is just part of how we live.

Tim and Colten and I took a walk when Tim came home for lunch yesterday, and we were talking about how we couldn't imagine anything else we'd rather be doing at that moment than just walking on a sunny day in Carp, pushing the baby in the stroller. And how, just maybe, that's the real meaning of success.

A whole lot of nothing

This is this evening's sunset - that's me on the right, walking with Keri and Chemise (I'm wearing the baby)

Cute, yes?

His poor little bum looks sunburned or something in this picture...but, trust me, it's not really

Colten's asleep on my shoulder as I type this, so please forgive me if there are more typographical errors than usual. I don't have a whole lot to say...I just have a moment in front of the computer; so here I go.

For all my friends and family in the cold states, I hate to tell you this, but we have been experiencing the absolute most beautifully warm weather the past few days. My body actually hurts from all the walks our roommate keeps making me take with her each evening. The sunsets have been amazing, as you can see.

Other than to brag about the weather, all I have to say is that Colten is the cutest darn kid ever. EVER. I understand that now...how parents all think their kid is the cutest...but mine really is. Tim and I literally just sit around and say things like, "wow, that kid is cute," and "seriously, have you ever since such a cute kid?" So next time you see me, you can humor me and say, yes Jessica, your kid is very cute; even if you don't really think so (but seriously, how could you not?!). But I'll stop with the cute talk...I realize that this is an annoying train of thought.

So anyways, it's January, it's beautiful, Colten is 6 and a half months old, Tim's busy at work, I'm busy everywhere, and that's all I've got for today.

A short tail

I just feel the need to share this. The other morning I woke up groggy after a not-so-good night's sleep, and I went into the kitchen to make myself some tea. I turned on the burner to heat the water, then Tobey the Cat started meowing at me like crazy to feed him. So I put some cat food in a bowl and set it on the butcher block next to the stove for him to eat. Yeah, not such a good idea. In case you don't know it, cats + stoves = bad news. Yep, I set the cat's tail on fire.

2008, how I loved you so.

At a restaurant in Solvang New Year's Eve Day

Colten James, Mountain Man.

On Papa's back

Christmas Dinner

Christmas Morn

Okay, okay. I'm finally blogging. I haven't written anything since Thanksgiving, and it's been much too long of a break. I'm not sure where to begin, so I'll just start with Colten. He is now six months old! (Christmas is his half birthday, incidentally). He weighs well over 20 pounds now, has two bottom teeth poking up out of his gums, and can finally roll over by himself (sometimes). His first Christmas was great -- he got tons of clothes and a few good toys from Grandma and Grandpa and Great Grandma Hutchins. He especially likes things that make noise when you hit them on other things. I think he's going to be stoked on my piano when I finally get it to our new place (it's been at Tim's sister's for forever). Oh, and this is interesting: Tim and I think he may be left handed. He uses his left hand for reaching and grabbing and even sucking his thumb. So we'll see about that one. We're also just barely beginning to give him solid food here and there. I don't believe he actually needs it yet for nutrients - it's more just about getting him used to new tastes. He is just so much fun right now. He laughs hysterically at the strangest things (like when people sneeze), he flirts with strange women in retaurants, and he still prefers being held by me more than anything else. Today, New Years Eve, Tim and the baby and me took a drive out to the Santa Ynez Valley and walked around Solvang all afternoon. We decided it would be easier to wear Colten in his carrier rather than use the stroller, and he was stoked! Tim wore him for the first time on his back and Colten loved it. Tonight we're just hanging out around the house...we've attempted a fire in the fireplace but can't seem to keep it lit. It's nearly 9pm and people are already texting me Happy New Years messages like crazy. The baby's passed out on the couch, and I think Tim and I may play an exciting game of Scrabble here soon. I've got a number of good resolutions written out for 2009...they include things like maybe trying to plant a garden, going surfing sometimes, and spending more time in the backyard doing nothing. I've already got myself wildly over-committed for this next year. No need to make myself crazy trying to lose thirty pounds or anything as equally rash. Wow, I'm suddenly realizing how quickly 2008 went. I didn't do a whole lot...besides have a baby. And move. And I got to see some friends get married. And I guess we also did that whole aerospace certification thing for work. I also started tutoring again. And we went camping a few times. And I gained and then lost something like, I don't know, 70 pounds. So now that I think about it, maybe I did do a lot. And now that I'm really thinking about it, I'm sad to see 2008 go. What am I saying? 2008 has been the greatest year of my life. 2008 was the year that Colten came.

Big Sur, Pre-Thanksgiving, and the Firewood Fairy

Lots to write about!


First of all, we spent last weekend camping up in Big Sur in celebration of the birthdays of two of our friends. We have a "new" cabover camper that we picked up a few weeks back, and we got to use it for the very first time. We had SUCH a good time. Colten is a great little camper. He's pretty much always stoked to be outdoors. Being in the carseat for hours on end, however, is another story. We sort of try to plan our biggest driving stretches for when we know he'll be ready to nap. I ended up spending much of the car ride in the backseat attempting to entertain a four month old. On another note, it was the first time that we've experienced clear weather in Big Sur - and the coastline up there is absolutely breathtaking. We were also just super stoked on all the friends and friends of friends that we camped with. I'm continually impressed with how open and down-to-earth this group is.


Our other big news is that we hosted our third annual Pre-Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday night (we actually skipped last year's, so can we still say third annual?). We literally had something like 40 people over for dinner. And I absolutely cannot believe how wonderfully it turned out! I'm so very happy to have such a diverse, amazing group (maybe I should say groups) of friends. There were three other new babies, so the front room turned into baby-landia. Then in the backyard we had four six-foot tables laid out end to end to make one long dining area, and chairs encircling the fireplace in the grass. Everyone brought food, which we squeezed onto the dining room and kitchen tables. I think I had to wait in line something like twenty minutes before I got to serve myself. When I finally got my food and walked outside, there were nearly thirty people all seated, eating at candlelit tables under the white twinkly lights in the avocado tree above. I really enjoy hosting parties, even though it means that I don't get to sit much and rarely end up talking to anyone for very long. It just cool to bring everyone together and to see how people I never would have imagined having anything in common turn out to have grown up in the same neighborhood or end up having mutal interests or even friends. After all that, I'm now feeling fully prepared to host "real" Thanksgiving dinner with family on Thursday. Compared to 40, 18 for dinner seems like nothing.


Just one more thing before I go. This morning I was thinking about how we really need firewood for our outdoor fireplace and how I should have thought to have people bring extra wood, and how I should ask family to bring wood on Thanksgiving because I hate spending money to buy crappy wood at the grocery store. So our gardener, Temo, shows up this morning, and I'm outside chatting it up and showing off the baby when he suddenly looks up and says, "hey, do you want some firewood?". It turns out he has a tree cutting business (as well as a yardcare business) and has lots of extra wood. So he's bringing me a cord of firewood this week. I love it when that happens. So anyways, I could really use some extra money...