fall's here.

i had this perfect little moment this evening as i was cooking dinner.  i had a freshly baked loaf of bread on the counter, dinner in the dutch oven for the first time this year, and these two people to keep me company in the kitchen.  as much as avery fights sleep for me she'll fall asleep in her daddy's lap every time.  and he doesn't even have to do anything.  if it wasn't so sweet i'd be jealous.

 today was our first real fall day.  it was in the 50s and rainy.  rain hasn't happened around here since april.  i remember because we had just closed on our house.  anyway the first fallish day of the season always makes me want to cook something warm, so i broke out the dutch oven for the first time this year and made some bread and chili.  it was perfect for a cold, rainy day.

this bread was the famous dutch oven bread that circulated pinterest and actually the first bread i've ever made.  it was so worth it.  4 ingredients and impossible to mess up.

and then avery woke up and we played a bit after dinner. it's crazy how fast she's learning things these days.  yesterday she learned how to go from laying down to sitting and today she learned how to give kisses.  i've got to start getting this stuff on video before she moves on to walking and talking.

diy picture ledges.

on thursday i talked about how i had contemplated scrapping the board and batten idea in our family room for a wall of picture ledges.  and then i talked myself down from that because i thought picture ledges with small children would be a disaster.  but on friday i started thinking more about it and on saturday charlie went to the gym and came back to this:

they're crooked and i didn't even attempt to center them but at this point i was convinced that building some ledges would be a lot easier than board and batten and still satisfy my need for something substantial on that wall.  i should mention that charlie was never on board with the board and batten (ha!) idea, so he was pretty open to any alternative.  at first he wasn't thrilled about building these.  we're really not diy people, but when i told him we could buy something similar at ikea he said 'no, that would make us really lazy'.  so apparently in an effort not to be lazy we decided to build these.  

i looked at a few tutorials and sort of followed a mixture of the ones i read.  we used (2) 1x4 boards and (1) 1x2.  the bottom shelf is 8 feet long and the top shelf is 6 feet long.  we used wood glue to glue the 1x4s together and then drilled holes a foot apart along the board, and then drilled the screws in.  we then used the wood glue for the 1x2 (the lip) and used finishing nails to secure that to rest of the boards.  i put three coats of white, semi-gloss on the shelves.  i didn't prime (i know, i know) but the paint i used was paint and primer in one so i figure that sort of counts.  when we mounted them in the wall we just made sure we drilled directly into the studs so we could avoid drywall anchors.  i hate drywall anchors.  

here's a close-up of the shelves.  i'd be lying if i said i wasn't impressed that we successfully built something.  i just threw some pictures up there and i'm sure they'll change as we figure out what we really want on them.  i'd actually really like to use them for family pictures.

and here's what is looks like from a distance.  if we stay in this house long enough i can see a desk under those shelves for a computer.  one day i'll actually get a picture of the whole room, but until i switch the lens out on the camera that won't happen.  avery actually really likes them and it's nice to have pictures on the wall where i can point people out to her.  

and now, i'm ready for fall.  we still have a lot to do but for some reason those shelves make this room feel so much more like 'home'.  probably because we've lived here for 4 months and had yet to hang anything on them.  i also like that nothing's actually permanent so i can move things around as much as i want.  

cloth diapering v.2

i figured i should do another post about cloth diapering since we started avery on solid foods and things have changed ever so slightly.  first i should say that i still love, love, love cloth diapering.  despite our late start and small stash i still think that for us this has been a great solution and i will definitely continue with our setup until it doesn't work for us for one reason on the other.



so a little bit of background.  we started avery on solids around 6 months.  before that she was exclusively breastfed, which meant that cloth diapering was super easy as i could just throw all the diapers in the wetbag and wash when it was full.  when we started solids, it took a few weeks for things to change but when they did i had no choice but to dunk the diapers in the toilet to wash off the poop before throwing them in the wetbag.  this was the time when i started looking at both liners and sprayers as an option to toilet dunking.  i had always thought that we would go the liner route and i did purchase some g diaper liners from babies r us.  but when i got them home i didn't even end up using them because i found them to be really rough (like a public restroom paper towel) and i couldn't imagine that would be comfortable for avery.  so i continued to dunk while i looked at diaper sprayers.  i looked all over amazon and other diaper websites looking for something that wasn't $60 because it just didn't seem like it would be worth the money.  and then i realized that i was actually fine with just dunking the diapers.  most of the time it's not that dirty and honestly i've dealt with much grosser things AND it's free.  i think cloth diapers are amazing, and the fact that there are so many options these days makes it even better.  they're cute, they work better than disposables, but they can be pretty expensive.  and i think if you're in it to save money you have to be pretty careful with the options that you choose.  so far i'm still really happy with our two dozen prefolds and they keep getting softer and more absorbent each time i wash them.  since avery's pretty small we're still on the middle rise for the flip covers and using small prefolds.  when she eventually moves up (probably soon) to the highest rise we may end up investing in some medium size ones.



i should also mention that we're still using a disposable at night and if we're going to be out of the house for a long period of time.  we had friends in town the other weekend and because we were running all over the place, hiking, etc. i just used disposables the entire weekend.  i'm not about to carry a bunch of cloth diapers up a mountain, as carrying a crying baby is heavy enough.  so, while i can't claim to be a hardcore cloth diaperer, i still love it.  especially the pink ones.    

it's the little things ...

...  the way avery reads books now.  like really reads them.

...  watching the two people i love snuggling on the couch watching baseball.  this is otherwise known as the 30 seconds that avery sat still for once in her life.

...  a baby in cute baby pajamas.  

...  avery's messy hair in the morning.  

...  watching the kid walk/stomp her way around the house while gripping tightly to someone's hands.

...  a cold dog nose shoved in my face in the morning.  i love you too, henry.

...  taking a shower without avery in the bathroom.  

...  starbucks in the morning.  this happens so infrequently but is so good.

... that first day with fall-like temperatures in september.

...  september.  one of my favorite months.  

...  clean sheets and a really old but really soft quilt.

...  a baby who may crawl one day.  the jury's still out on this one.

...  a clean house on a friday night.  so we may not be exciting but we do have a clean house for the weekend.

...  watching avery try new foods.  

...  watching an entire movie without falling asleep.

...  visiting friends.

... a happy hour drink and a long walk through boulder.

...  having charlie as my co-worker.

...  a nap with the baby.

... going grocery shopping after those last few days of 'we really have no food in this house, not even an egg to boil'.

...  chocolate covered pretzels.

...  a freezer full of baby food.

...  tickets booked for our trip to md.

...  when all the diapers in our house are clean.

...  when charlie cooks breakfast.  

fall's coming and our house isn't quite ready.

even though the temperature's still in the 90s lately i can feel that fall is coming.  it's getting cooler at night, darker earlier, and well, it's september.  after moving into this house charlie and i knew that there were a few things we wanted to get done to the house before winter came.  we wanted to get the deck professionally sanded and painted this year, since it was a mess, we wanted to replace the concrete patio in the back (yes, we have a patio and a deck, which personally i think is a waste) since it was cracked and sloping towards the house, and we wanted to get the driveway mud jacked.  so far we haven't done anything although the deck is getting done tomorrow and we've been getting estimates for the concrete and mud jacking.  why didn't anyone tell me that owning a house isn't fun?  oh wait, they did but i didn't believe them.  one thing that i really, really want to do is finish our family room before fall really happens.  i know that we'll be spending a lot of time in here come cooler weather and the room still feels so empty since we have nothing on the walls.  i really want board and batten in that room, with a pretty thick shelf on top to prop pictures and other things but i haven't had the motivation to start measuring and figuring out how much wood we need, in what quantities, and what measurements.  math and being precise have never been my strength.  i'm more of a 'round to the nearest number that's easy to remember', which is why i've been trying to convince charlie to take over the board and batten with little success.  i was tempted to scratch the board and batten idea for a wall of picture shelves but this seems like it might be a small disaster with small children in the house.

this is our family room that has nothing on the walls.  the wall on the right and the one you can't see are the two walls that i was thinking of doing the board and batten, although i'm sure it would look better if i actually did the whole room.

i also want to finish our living room, which at this point just means getting some pictures on the walls and some curtains.  the curtains need to happen asap because our neighbor kids love to peer through the window on our front porch into the house while they ring the doorbell repeatedly.  i'm sure you can imagine how awesome this is when you have a baby who boycotts naps.  let's just say that i'm not the most friendly neighbor right now.  

this is our living room.  i've moved a few things around so that plant and and the air purifier aren't in the corner.  curtains are a must and once we get those the bench will make it's way into the basement.  eventually we'll get a rug in here but i'm fine without one for right now especially because it's easier to keep clean and avery loves to scoot around on the hardwood floors.  also, i love these floors.  i could stare at them all day long.  we read a lot of books in this room and that love seat is surprisingly comfortable.  gotta love ikea. 

labor day weekend and hiking with a baby.

i love labor day weekend, well really any weekend that has three days is okay in my book, which these days is every weekend since i don't work mondays.  but it's always nice when the people i love are off with me as well.  this labor day weekend we were extra lucky to have visitors spend some time with us and it was also my birthday, which makes me even happier.  we had plans to hike royal arch on saturday but we got caught in a rainstorm and spent most of the afternoon in a shelter waiting for it to stop raining.

after the storm passed we decided to head back down to town.  i didn't have enough clothes for this lady if we kept hiking and the rain came back.  so we left the car at chatauqua and walked to downtown since we were covered in mud and didn't want a muddy henry in the back of the jeep.  we ended up eating at centro, a place we've been meaning to try for years but it's across the street from pasta jays where we always seem to end up.  the most memorable part of the day was that charlie had the first (and second) margarita of his love.  

at the beginning, when the backpack was acceptable.

we went back to chatauqua on sunday to hike again, and unfortunately this time we forgot the ergo.  biggest mistake ever.  we bought a backpack for avery before we went to telluride and found out there that she didn't like it at all.  since she's happy in the ergo for hours i like to just use that but charlie likes to bring both so that she gets used to the backpack and then we can switch her to the ergo when she's had enough.  we hiked for a bit and then stopped for lunch when avery started to get fussy.

that girl loves her some food. 

after avery ate we attempted to put her back in the backpack and she was all 'haha suckers that's not happening'.  in her book it was naptime and since she can't nap in the backpack she was over it.  she wanted to be carried by me and only me.  considering the fact that i'm still not in the best shape after having a baby it was quite a fun hike with her in my arms.  when we were almost at the top i remembered the aden & anais blanket that i had brought with us and fashioned a makeshift sling which helped a lot.

we finally made it to the top after stopping again to feed avery and started down.  as soon as we started down she feel asleep.  how she can sleep while i'm walking down a mountain but still manages to wake up twice a night is a mystery to me.  anyway, the moral of the story is don't go anywhere without the ergo.  i would only consider that a semi-successful hike.  the crying baby and worrying about making it safely down the mountain weren't the most relaxing things to deal with.  next time we're leaving the backpack at home and just bringing the ergo.  i have  feeling the backpack will be much more popular when she gets a bit older.

i can't forget this guy who we also brought with us.  we had to leave dunkin at home because we weren't sure that the hike would be the best thing for his hips, but he did get a bunch of ball playing in this weekend.  henry was his usual crazy, animal chasing self and almost launched himself off some rocks at the top.  he also is apparently a very successful beggar, acting as if we don't feed him at home.  in the middle of the hike we passed some people having a picnic on the side of the trail.  henry ran up to a woman who was eating, sat down directly in front of her and whined.  he was appropriately rewarded with a piece of cheese.  apparently i'm not the only one who can't resist those puppy dog eyes.  i think he enjoyed his hike a lot although he's been spending the past few days trying to recover, even declining going on a walk because apparently he was too tired.  silly dog.

* a big thanks to alex for all the non-iphone pics. 

baby things.

the thing that is so awesome about babies is that everyone loves them.  not that everyone loves your child, but that everyone loves the idea of babies.  this was something i really never got until after avery was born.  frankly i thought it was weird when people wanted to talk to me about her, probably partially because i'm from d.c. and we don't make small talk or like strangers.  i was also a little freaked out because we had a baby born in the middle of the winter, in a state where a lot of people don't vaccinate their children, and every night there was something on the news about a pertussis outbreak.  but eventually i got it, people like babies for two reasons: 1. it reminds them of the days when they themselves had a newborn and never slept more than 3 hours at a time and 2. even if they've never had babies themselves they get that this is probably one of the sweetest times in someone's life.  anyway, as a result of all of this people are really nice and make things for your unborn baby.  we have piles and piles of baby blankets that were knit/crocheted for us.  i'm not kidding.  i have a drawer and an entire shelf full of handmade baby blankets.  

however, i don't have any quilts if anyone is reading and feels inspired to make avery a quilt please be my guest.  she likes pink and aqua.

one of my favorite handmade gifts that i got for avery was a hat.  my parents each made avery a hat which i blogged about here.  and she lived in the hat that my dad made her all winter long.  seriously, that hat was awesome and we got so many compliments on it.  guys especially, which is funny to me, would go out of their way to say how cool it was and ask where we got it.  that hat is now, sadly, too small for her.  the hat she's trying so hard to take off in these pictures was from a co-worker.

dad, you should know that avery's still waiting for her hat for this winter.  no pressure or anything.

anyway, i think the whole point of this is that babies are pretty cool in the way that they seem to bring out the nice in people.  it's taken me a while to figure that out, when avery cries in a restaurant or screeches at the top of her lungs for no reason i always look around ready to make a mad dash out of there or at least offer an apology but people don't seem to mind and usually use it as an opening to talk about her or their own babies or grandbabies.  i have a feeling that we're closely nearing the end of the time when being loud in public is still cute and not considered a lapse in parenting on our parts so i should probably enjoy it while it still lasts.  but it's been nice and it's definitely made me more empathetic to other parents.