house progress...dinning room & bathroom

as promised here are some of the completed rooms in the house!  it is taking longer than i had hoped, but we are making a little progress everyday.  all of our stuff is unpacked, but not everything is organized the way i would like it to be, and decorating is a lot harder than i thought.  but we have a couple of rooms completed, the dinning room and the downstairs bathroom!

those of you who know me well, know that i love a spanish style home.  that is extremely rare to find in the pacific north west, so i have tried to carry my style in some of my decorating.  here is our downstairs bathroom.

the other room that i am very proud of is the dinning room.  it was the room that i was most excited for.  we are not formal dinning room people, but i was excited to get a great deal on a hutch that i turned into a bar and the beautiful table that jarad built!  i have been collecting different style chairs to complete the rustic farmhouse look (i need 3 more to seat 8 comfortably).  i hung our map of all the places we have traveled and i still may have some more art to hang in there later on, but for now i am very happy with the way it turned out.  we will eventually get a new chandelier, and the ceramic bowl on the table was my grandmothers.  she passed away last year, i love having it out, it is like she is with us at all our meals!

almost a year later...

and saying "see you next time" doesn't get any easier.  thank goodness we will see them in 3 weeks for christmas!

thanksgiving!

i have so much to be thankful for today and everyday!  especially my family!  it is exciting to celebrate bowie's first thanksgiving in our new home, but extra special to have my parents here!!!  but a part of me is sad that some special faces are not at the table with us, whether they be celebrating else where or not with us anymore.  but i know we are all together in spirit.

thanksgiving tradition

thanks to grandma and grandpa for watching the bow so this mom and dad could keep holiday traditions alive with a pre-thanksgiving hike!

8 months old!!!

i say this every month, but how quickly the time flies!  this month marked some big developmental milestones for bowie!  she is growing into such a smart, sweet, funny and clever little lady!  you can't help but smile and laugh around her, she reminds me that everyday is a gift!

bowie milestones...

~we officially have a crawler.  after months of practicing she finally got it about a week shy of her 8 month birthday!
~she can say "dada"
~she can sign "all done," "more," and "daddy"
~she still only has 2 teeth
~in size 9 month clothes (a few weeks out from 12 month size)
~in size 3 diapers and size 4 overnight diapers
~she is eating a lot lately, in fact one meal has replaced a large bottle for her, and she is eating approximately 28 ounces of formula/frozen breast milk a day
~she is eating lots of fruits and veggies (carrots, apple, kale, butternut squash, sweet potato, peas, green beans and celery). she likes her teething biscuits and frozen greek yogurt drops and is also loving small bites of chicken!
~loves bath time and playing with her space toys
~her favorite toys are a small space bear and a truck that was left here by one of our friends
~loves being outside and staring at leaves and trees
~loves interacting with other kids and babies
~is now in a convertible car seat and out of her infant car seat
~gave mommy her first scare with a case of roseola
~she is starting to interact more on video chat
~she can hold onto your hands and pull herself up from a sitting to standing position
~she thinks wilfred is funny
~her sleep is great!  she goes down to bed between 7:30-8pm and wakes up between 6:30-8am!  she usually only wakes up once for a bottle and she is going stretches of 7-8 hours at a time.  and she has slept the whole night through a few times!!!
~she loves to talk to herself
~can stand up in her crib
~loves to wave "hi" and "bye"
~weighs 21 pounds

mommy milestones...

~working on house projects and falling in love with our new home more and more each day
~have made some new friends, i have had lots of mommy lunch dates lately
~trying hard to remember to take care of myself, which includes working out and eating well.  often times i come last and i have to take some time for myself as well.
~loving making baby food and experimenting with new flavor combinations

crawling!!!

bow has been working on this for months now!  she finally put it all together and started moving!  she is on the go and by the end of the night she gained a lot of confidence and was crawling quickly from one side of the room to the other!  time to baby proof the house!!!  and then there is wilfred and his new obsession with jarad's legs!

dinner time...

bow eats dinner with us every night and it is so fun to watch her enthusiasm with food.  she loves her fruits and veggies, teething biscuits, yogurt drops and even chicken!  she is eating enough these days to replace a large bottle of formula (6-8 ounces) with a meal. 

so this just happened...

feeling festive this year!  looking forward to decorating the new house for the holidays!!!

new obsession!

i posted about baby food last week, but as my breast milk stash slowly depletes i am rebuilding with a new obsession...home made baby food pouches!

kids seem to love these snack pouches and i am making my own.  i am using the "kiinde foodii snack and squeeze" system and i am very pleased with how easy it is to use.  these snack pouches are disposable, but you can find reusable ones if you prefer.  i have heard from other moms that the reusable ones are hard to clean and it is worth the little extra money to go disposable, but of course it is a personal preference. 

you make your puree and put it into a squeeze cup and squeeze it into the snack pouches.  i write the date and the food combination on the pouch and will freeze until bowie is ready to eat them.

i also made some frozen greek yogurt drops.  i put some plain greek yogurt in a ziplock bag and cut the tip off.  then on a piece of wax paper squeeze drops of the yogurt and freeze.  scrape them off with a spatula and store in a ziplock bag in the freezer.  bowie seems to like them and they melt instantly.  also good for teething babies?!?!?

this is my opportunity to mold and create a healthy relationship with food for bowie.  i am fortunate to have the time and ability to make her food, so why wouldn't i chose to feed her whole nutritious options?  and the cook in me just can't resist!  similar to breastfeeding i am finding that people have very strong beliefs about how to feed a child.  purees vs. baby led weaing?  again, i think it is a very personal choice and one that i don't understand why people get so heated over.  bowie wasn't ready for food when the doctor told us we could start (at 4 months old) and she didn't really start eating until very recently.  i also opted not to do rice or oatmeal cereal with her.  why?  well there is no nutritional value in it.  these cereals are fortified with iron for babies that may have low iron (usually exclusively breastfed) and since bowie is primarily on formula, her formula already has iron in it.  i am also not comfortable with the baby led weaning style of eating.  at least not yet, but i also don't see it so black and white.  as she gets more comfortable with food and eating it will be a combination of both.  either way the say "food before one is just for fun" so this is a learning process for all of us, and i am enjoying this journey with her!

sunday blues...

the weekends go by so fast!  and we never get all that we wanted to do done.  but this was a great weekend.  friday night was dinner with friends at one of our favorite restaurants and bowie sat in a high chair and had celery for the first time and tried to drink from a straw.  then saturday we went to a birthday party at "my gym".  it was for a 3 year old boy, and his dad works with jarad.  they also have a daughter that is about a month younger than bowie.  the girls had fun playing and watching the big kids and also eating some pizza crust.

then we made some major progress on the table!  jarad finished sanding and i stained it!  now we just have to wait for it to dry and then a coat of polyurethane and then we can move it into the dinning room and complete that room!

i unpacked a few miscellaneous boxes and am finally getting to the fun part of decorating and hanging art work up!  as pacific north west newbies we made the rookie mistake of buying fire wood from an unknown source and it ended up being wet and unseasoned.  our real estate agent took pitty on us and had wood delivered over the weekend.  we are back in business and enjoying our  fireplace!

sharing is caring...

wilfred has been waiting for this moment since the day we brought bowie home...the day she would start eating food and sneak him a little!

flash back friday!

i took this picture when we were in the city with my in laws last week.  it is special to me because we ate brunch at ettas with our good friends the day i went into labor.  little did i know that those would be some of the last moments as a married couple before our lives changed forever in the most beautiful way!  now look at us 7.5 months later!

home made baby food!

bowie is starting to develop a real interest in food these days.  she eats dinner with us every night and i am loving making her baby food.  she has had apples, bananas, carrots, sweet potato, butternut squash, green beans and avocado.  my mom got me a soup puree wand years ago and i have never used it until recently.  it is perfect for making baby food!!!  i use organic fruits and veggies, peel them and put them in a pot with a little water and cook until tender.  then just take your wand to it and you have baby food!  this combination is apple, banana and peas!  yum!!!

FREE!!!

got this chair for free on varage sale!  it will look great with my collection of chairs for our dinning room table!

farmhouse table...

jarad and his dad spent last weekend working on our farmhouse table for the dinning room!  this was jarad's first real project doing wood working and although it is not finished yet it is looking AMAZING!!!  we have some sanding and staining to do before we have our completed product!  we will definitely hit our deadline of thanksgiving!

november visitors!!!

sorry for the lack of updates, but we had a busy last week with mimi and papa.  my in laws were here from texas for the week.  we had a great time with them doing projects around the house, a early thanksgiving dinner, a trip into the city and just hanging out with our beautiful baby girl.  they were so amazed to see how she has grown into such a sweet, smart, silly and happy girl.

"dada"???

bowie is working hard on her first word and it is going to be "dada."  she loves listening to herself talk and sometimes she says it very clearly.  watch her in action...

my little washington apple...

can't get enough of her...obsessed!