Visiting GreatGrandpas

this weekend we strapped Leila in the car for a road trip to Oregon! she was quite the trooper for seven hours in the car on Thursday and Friday and a long 14 hours on Sunday. Three days of driving for one day of visiting isn't the best ratio but between Wes' work and our big kitchen project, that's the best we could manage this year.

Friday morning we had breakfast with Wes' Grandpa Jim and his wife, Mary Lyn before heading to Redwood Country and back to the 101 for the final push into Brookings, OR.

Grandpa has a large piece of property in back of his house with tons of animals that roam in the hills. He puts out deer feed every morning and it was enchanting to watch them emerge out of the trees to eat breakfast.

Since it was raining pretty hard on Saturday, after feeding the animals we just hung out inside most of the day. Leila enjoyed exploring a new house and even pulled herself up to standing for the first time! She didn't get totally upright, but this is the first time she's gotten her legs under her on her own, so that was exciting for all of us to see.

Later she celebrated her accomplishments by blowing raspberries with Uncle Luke.

Sunday morning we got up early and said goodbye.

Four generations!

Leila in the car - five hours down, just nine to go. She did great until Santa Barbara. By then it was way past her bedtime and even though we put her in pajamas and she nodded off, the headlights of cars behind us kept waking her up and mostly she was just so sick of the car! Thankfully from SB it's less than an hour to home. She is so happy to be in her own house (even though it's noisy and confusing with all the workers here today) that all morning she has been crawling back and forth looking at her toys and books and jabbering to herself cheerfully.

the big day!

here is our IKEA kitchen flatpacked in the garage! after today all of this will be ... 

here ... 

here ... 

and here! 

It's so exciting and a little hectic around here. I'll be back later with pictures from our road trip to Oregon :)

like a whole new house

the new floor is so close to being done I can taste it!

here is the kitchen which they finished yesterday. (see the blue walls! the white patches are where the new cabinets will go next week.)

this was taken standing in the kitchen looking out into the great room. (the blue tape is holding down the planks they laid today until the glue dries.)

now Wes and Wayne are definitely in the homestretch! just these awkward angles around the front door and bathroom door and it's all done! next we'll have to put in new baseboards, but I think that should be much easier and faster than the whole floor installation. I am beyond thrilled right now and so incredibly thankful for Wes' willingness to do this for me and for Wayne's willingness to help!

new floor!!

last night Wayne came over again to help pull up all the old carpet. 

We're going to be replacing all the flooring in the downstairs of our house with the exception of the bathroom and extra bedroom. 

This morning work started bright and early. First they had to scrape up all the linoleum that was under the carpet (original to the house!) and clean up the debris. It was pretty noisy so Leila is glad they didn't try to do it last night after she went to bed.

Now they're actually staring to lay the planks and it's so exciting! I keep sneaking downstairs and just staring. Pictures of the good stuff to come soon!

drywall

My brother-in-law, Wayne, came over this afternoon to help Wes patch all the holes left behind from the demo. I can't wait until it's dry so I can start painting!! Installation of the new floor is scheduled to begin Tuesday so time is getting tight. plus, I just really love painting. is that weird?

our cowgirl

back in August Wes played in a golf tournament sponsored by the FBI. At the after-golf BBQ, he bought some raffle tickets and scored this awesome rocking horse built by inmates in the LASD correction center. We've been setting Leila on it ever since Wes brought it home (when she was just five weeks old!) but only recently is she able to sit on it without support and hold on while I rock it for her! She just loves it and I love having such a fine handcrafted toy for her room that even adds to the cowgirl theme.

aftermath

Good-bye kitchen!

Bright and early tomorrow guys are coming to demo our kitchen!

Can't wait!

We'll be putting in new floors ...

... and new lights too!

Thursday picnic

Leila and I are in Huntington Beach for a few days visiting my parents and yesterday we met up with my friend Leanna and her husband and parents for a picnic at Lake Park. Leila loved crawling around outside and discovering the eucalyptus leaves scattered across the grass just beyond the boundaries of our picnic blanket. She also tasted some new foods courtesy of my adventurous and cultured friends. 

after lunch we played on the swings, which is pretty much Leila's most favorite thing in life besides her Daddy!

Also, I should point out that Leila's outfit was handmade by Leanna's cousin. I am not sure if she sells them on etsy or anything ... I'll have to ask!

Great Race of Agoura 10k

My #1 fan after the Old Agoura 10k! It felt so great to race again ... my last "race" was the 2009 Surf City Half in which I was 14 weeks pregnant so didn't really give it my all. I've been running a lot and was hoping to come somewhere close to my pre-baby PR which I had in my head as 50 minutes. Then I looked it up and realized it was way faster than that ... but I stuck with my 50 minute goal for the 6.2 mile, incredibly hilly and challenging course.

I started out too fast and sort of fizzled in the fifth mile but still finished strong with a time of 52:32 and eighth in my age group out of 170 women! I loved seeing Leila and Wes cheering for me at the finish line. Such a great push for the last 100 yards. Now I'm on the lookout for a FLAT 10k to do soon and try to get under 50 minutes!

My sister-in-law, Whitney, completed her first half marathon today too! way to go, Whit!!

training for the Great Race

I'm so excited for my first post-baby 10k next week! The Great Race of Agoura is a super hilly course so this weekend while visiting Mom & Dad I took the opportunity to run some hill repeats at Central Park where our conference championship races were held in high school. It's always fun to run on familiar paths. Dad pushed Leila in the stroller while I was running and took these pictures from the top of the hill.

baby sling

after lunch and crawling around on the grass yesterday, Maddie wanted to feed the ducks so we walked the kids over to the pond. I didn't get Leila's stroller out when we first arrived and after carrying her around the pond for a while I was again reminded of how big she is getting! I am also reminded when I am shopping places that don't have carts and are too small for my big stroller. A few weeks ago I came across this tutorial and today I decided was the time to use it! 

I didn't take pictures of the process (the linked tutorial has great photos of each step), but here is the finished sling with Leila riding high in it!

(she looks grumpy because right after her nap I just stuck her in the sling to see how it fit and I haven't fed her yet ... the bunny ears are to show "look ma, no hands!")

It's a little challenging to get her into the sling, but once she's in it's very comfortable and she seems to like it, despite the look on her face here. I guess the real test will be an afternoon of errands!

baby park date

today it was such a beautiful day!! Leila and I met my friend Melissa and her kids, Maddie and Hudson, for a picnic in the park. Hudson is Leila's "boyfriend" and they had a wonderful time playing together outside.

She Likes It!

Leila's cutest ugly friend

my favorite jeans got a huge hole in the knee as a result of wearing them as often as possible for the past four years and now crawling around on the floor after Leila. Since my foot gets stuck in the hole every time I try to get into these jeans now, I decided to turn them into cutoffs and hope summer comes early this year, then make a stuffed toy for Leila out of the bottoms!

Step One: Cut off your jeans!

Step Two: cut out the body and appendages from the fabric (two matching pieces of each! I made mine so that the legs are included with the body, so I only had to cut out arm pieces separately.)

Step Three: Decorate! Sadly, I ran out of daylight to take pictures during this step ... but I used felt and buttons to make eyes, ears, a big button tail and also a nosegay for one hand. Before I stuffed and sewed the body together, I reinforced the backs of all the button stitching with craft glue to prevent Leila from pulling the buttons off and sticking them in her mouth. A smarter idea for a seven-month-old would, of course, be to not use buttons.

I don't have pictures of the next steps, but I'll try to explain as best I can.

Step Four: After all the decorating is finished, sew and stuff any appendages (but NOT the body) and sandwich the pieces together in this order: 

back of ugly face up (decoration facing you).

appendages (arms, legs, ears, tentacles, etc.). make sure they are pointing in, for example, if you have arm pieces, lay them so that it looks like your ugly is hugging itself. 

front of ugly face down.

Step Five: Pin around all the edges, especially where there are extra layers of appendages.

Step Six: Stitch around the edge of your ugly leaving a quarter-inch edge and a four-inch hole for turning.

Step Seven: Turn ugly right-side out through the four-inch hole you left. If you pinned the appendages right, they should all stand out in the correct places!

Step Eight: Stuff the ugly and sew up the opening using a slip stitch. I used standard polyfil for the stuffing, but a greener option would be to use clean plastic shopping bags. This would also create the "crinkle" effect that babies are so fascinated with!

Here is my finished ugly toy for Leila. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be - the ears are sort of bearish but it stands up on only two legs, so your guess is as good as mine. She is sleeping now, so we'll have to wait for tomorrow to see if she likes it.

1.5 years later

a year-and-a-half ago I started knitting a tank for Taylor. between other projects, my pregnancy-induced knitting hiatus and moving to a new house it never got finished but while packing for Leila's first road trip to Arizona this week I made sure to bring along the UFO and all necessary elements to turn it into an FO! I must have had the gauge way off when I cast on for this because though I intended this tank for two-and-a-half year old Taylor, it is even too big for almost-four year old Taylor! 

The stripes under the bust are made using leftover yarn from the jumper I made when she was just a little thing.

Our trip was my birthday present from Wes and it was wonderful. I always love visiting our Arizona family and it was so so fun introducing everyone to Leila! 

She read books with Diana, cuddled with Renee and laughed when Kristina tickled her. Saturday night Kristina planned a special birthday dinner of chicken fajitas (BBQed by Andy) and dessert out of my new favorite cookbook! The best part was Friday night when Kristina watched Leila so Wes and I could have a date night! Going out to dinner with no bibs or watching the clock to hurry home for bedtime and avoid a meltdown was such a treat!

no photos for now

FYI - my camera is out for repair so can't post pictures of the cute Christmas ornaments I made for the family or my journal :(