fall is in the air

Fall is most definitely in the air. Which has led me craving autumn crafting and cooking projects. And so to indulge myself in this fall mood I decided on taking Owen for a nature walk to get started on our fall nature table. On our walk we collected pinecones, leaves and a few rocks. Once back home I showed him how to make leaf tracings with wax crayons and he added a few of his own artistic touches. I then got started on some felt leaf cutouts which I have yet to finish as I had to get working on dinner. Again inspired by fall I decide to make some carrot-tomato soup, which surprisingly enough I put together on my own, only loosely combining two recipes I knew of. I may just finally be coming into my own with cooking. I usually have to follow recipes to a T and can never begin to let myself make anything (even if I had made it 100 times before) without reading the entire recipe carefully. So this was a big step for me. Anyway I decided I would rather serve the soup with fresh basil and heavy cream, which I had none of in the house at the moment, so decided I'd save it for another day this week. So I then got started on some black bean burritos and to my surprise Owen ate them up like no other!! He had two serving and even ate all the veggies!!! I was literally staring, jaw dropped, then started cheering him on for being such a good eater, lol. Lets hope that he will have the same reaction to the soup! I had so many projects going on today that I didn't get much of chance to take photos so here are only a couple shots of the art project we did once back from our nature walk. I will be sure however to post later on this week on our progress with our fall nature table and the recipe for the carrot-tomato soup.

a house of his own

Sal and his Dad have decided to build Owen a play house. Our backyard isn't exactly big enough for it but hopefully one day soon we will be living in a home with much more land! Oh dreams:) Never the less Owen is still going to have great fun in this new house of his, having meals with friends, playing house, enjoying some quite time with books...the list goes on!

I wasn't sure he would take interest in the house right away and I hadn't even considered him being interested in it before it was done but as soon as Sal and his Dad began putting the walls up he was over there investigating what it was all about. He had a great time watching them nailing in the boards and cutting the wood to size. He was running in and out of there all day long even stopping a few times inside the house to do a lil happy dance (displaying his excitement!) or to take a glance out the windows. He really is going to create some great memories in this house, and the memories will be all the better knowing that his house was built by hand with love.

Sal and his Dad hard at work.

Taking it all in.

Lovin' his new play space!

Once the house is completed I will be sure to post again with some more pictures and updates on our lil guys excitement.

san francisco zoo

Sunday we decided to take Owen to the San Francisco Zoo for his first time. Sal had only been there once as a kid and I had never gone so this was an exciting experience for all of us. Here are some of our favorite photos of the day.

Looking at some lemurs

This giraffe was interested in the plants above this cave

I just love how chill this goat was!

Yee-Haw!

Papa and lil Kai looking at peacocks

toddler art experiences

Recently we have been so busy. With play dates, visitors, errands, camping, you name it! So come this morning I was really craving some simple one on one time with my little man. I decided that today we would stay in just the two of us and spend some quality time together. I thought this was the perfect opportunity to try some art activities. So I whipped up some edible finger paint which I made by mixing 1/2 cup of cornstarch, 1/4 cup of sugar, 2 cups of cold water and then adding some food coloring. You heat the cornstarch and sugar mixture in a saucepan for about five minutes, until the consistency is gel-like. I then separated the mixture into four different containers and added the color I wanted to each. Very simple! Then we were ready to make some art!

Wondering what this new strange substance could be.

Owen was very intrigued by this new substance and loved squishing it in between his fingers and across the blank pages.

Washing hands after being all done with the finger paints.

The final master pieces; my lil' Kai's first finger paintings.

It was so much fun sharing in this art activity, I can't wait to do even more with him!

ten things

Come five o'clock today I was starting to feel the stress of the day weigh down on me, I was feeling tired, down and frustrated, I was in need for some inspiration to live in the now, for the pure simple joys of life. Inspired by Amanda's blog I decided to reflect upon the things that bring me joy right now.

Here are ten simple things bringing me great joy right now:

Watching my baby grow

Watching birds with my boy

Baking cookies

Sharing potty time with my baby

Cooking delicious meals

Nap time

Baby feet

Nursing my baby boy

Spending time being close with my baby on a beautiful summers day

Cherishing family memories

What wonderful things in your life are bringing you joy in this moment?

15 months checkup; a day spent at home

This morning Owen had his 15 month check up. His doctor had no concerns with his development and his measurements were as follows:

Head circumference: 49 cm (91th percentile)

Height: 23.75 in (89th percentile)

Weight: 24 lbs (40th percentile)

So we've got quite the big boy on our hands!

Following all the measuring and chit chat with his doctor were his shots. Sal and I have chosen to only give certain shots and to space them apart a bit more than usual. However I still have a very hard time watching my little one go through this procedure and I find it is only getting harder as he is getting older. To make things worse today he received three shots. We had only been allowing him to receive two shots at a time but the nurse today gave me the choice of either getting them all done today or returning for the single other shot another time. I chose to get them done all today as I thought in the end it would be less traumatic for Owen. However today was the first time I have actually seen him have a reaction to getting shots. He was extremely fussy, clingy and nursed more times than I can count on my two hands. I wasn't bothered by any of this as I understood why he was acting this way. What I did feel was guilt and uncertainty about making the right choice. I have days where I completely regret giving him any shots at all. But in the end I was too scared to not give him any of the shots. I just know I couldn't ever live with myself if he were to get ill or worse from an illness that could have been prevented. But neither could I live with myself if he were ever to get seriously ill form a reaction to a shot. It's such a hard decision, and I will never know if I made the right decision, all I can do is keep positive in knowing that I made an educated decision and that I did the best that I knew how.

So today my baby and I spent the day at home, snuggled together on the couch reading books with his favorite stuffed toys and his favorite doggie Bella. We baked chocolate chip cookies together and (gasp!) I even let him taste a bit of one fresh out of the oven. (That's just how awful I felt about the whole situation!) We napped together in bed and boy oh boy did he drink a lot of mama milk, hehe. All in all I think he will be just fine. Its been a hard long day on me and I'm sure on him as well. Mentally I am drained, I hope I have made the right choice and I'm not too sure if I will vaccinate the next child but then I feel that is not fair to Owen. So much to think about.

But to leave on a brighter note here's a cutie picture of my lil man eating at his little table for snack time today.

Camping in Big Sur

Friday we headed south to the coast of Big Sur to join some friends in a little camping adventure. Papa wasn't able to join us however because of work but we surely will be back many more times in the future as it was simply beautiful. Here are some pictures from our weekend getaway:

The view on our way down to Sand Dollar Beach.

Owen giving Luna some love.

Havin' an early morning snack on the beach.

Paxton and Wyatt at the beach.

Jack and Owen sharing in some water play.

hand made montessori

For a while now I've felt that Owen was ready to get his own little table and chairs where he could have a snack or work on some fun projects, but when looking around for toddler friendly table sets I was baffled by the prices. Finally, I stumbled upon a blog called glue sky where they demonstrated how to convert an IKEA table to the same dimension of a montessori table made by Michael Olaf ($386). So we were off to IKEA where we bought a kids table and two chairs for $40.00. Sure enough the table and chairs we bought from IKEA were much too big for Owen and so the conversion began!

First we put together the table and chairs. Owen was very excited to help Papa in this process.

The measurements from the Michael Olaf table was 14" high, and the chairs 7" to the seat. However we added a half inch because the chairs have low down bars.

Then Papa got to sawing and we headed inside to start dinner. For sawing we used a hand saw. This doesn't give you the cleanest cut but with a little sand paper they turned out okay. And that's it, pretty simple eh!

Before:

After: