hello warm

Got back home this afternoon to some surprising warm weather. It's always fun to leave the snow and get back home to the warm in a matter of a few hours. California is pretty neat like that. Busy day tomorrow with a list a mile long so we'll see how much I can get done. Hoping Olive is loving being back in her crib and will sleep all night!!

Also my bff Kat is having/had her baby. I got a call from her boyfriend a few hours ago saying he was going to be a dad anytime now. Her due date wasn't till the end of April but apparently she went in for an appt today and they noticed her water had slowly been leaking so they had to do an emergency C-section. I'm freaking out not knowing what is going on but I'm hoping all is well and they are busy loving up their little girl right now.



Crazy eyes.
Our night out.
SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!
This is why Olive always does that open mouth smile, apparently I do it all the time too. Ya we wear helmets cause we're fucking gnar. (aka we're too poor to fix any injuries that may occur)
My momma and Olive.
First time sitting in a high chair in a restaurant. I'll be honest I was a little grossed out. I'm a germ freak but luckily my mom is too and she wiped it down clean. Yep I'm nuts.

One of my favorite onesies she has. Thanks Ashley!





Trying so hard to crawl but mostly doing a lot of faceplants and killer dance moves on all fours.

less talk more photos

I'm in a shitty mood and I'll spare everyone my bitching and moaning for tonight so here are some photos from today that make me happy.

Mammoth Weekend

I'm still up in Mammoth. Blake had to head home today but I decided to stay up here with Olive and my Mom. We've had a fun few days and I'm sad Blake had to leave. Boooooo. My mom has been a superhero helping out with Olive who has decided that sleeping is lame. I think the altitude was messing with her for the first few days so my mom slept with her after hours of Blake and I trying to get her back to sleep. Seriously how lucky am I? I have the best mom EVER! She is so helpful and makes life so much easier and of course fun. Yay for moms! Besides sleep being crappy we've had a lot of fun during the day. Olive is loving having Stella to grab at. We've been eating lots of yummy foods! She is also saying dada. She said it on the drive up to Mammoth while I was changing her diaper. My mom is determined to have her say Grandma by the time we leave. She is pulling herself up on everything and rolls everywhere now. She has always been rolling but now its like super duper speedy. She is getting on all 4's and doing a little dance but just keeps falling flat. So lots of floor playtime. I love being up here even if we just sit on the blanket in the most beautiful light all day.
Blake and I did manage to get up on the mountain today to snowboard and it was really fun till the wind kicked up and we turned into giant pussies and came back in. We also went out last night to see some bands play. It was a lot of fun to get out and listen to some music. So for the next few days we'll hang out and hopefully wander into town if it stays nice. Hoping to catch up on a little work and get all my gallery crap decided on.

****Does anyone have any fun recipes or know of good websites for baby food? I'm having so much fun making food for her. We've tried bananas, turnips, sweet potatoes, carrots, and tomorrow zucchini. I want to get more creative and mix and match but I want her to get the hang of it first before we go wild. ****


Here are a few photos from my phone. I took a ton of photos with my good camera but those will have to wait since I left my card reader at home.

I've been giving her a cup the last few days and she is getting the hang of it. She loves to thrash it against the sink but it totally keeps her occupied so that we can eat a meal.
The drive to Mammoth, the chi found her sunspot.
Sierra trying to play with Olive.
Twins

Out.
Can you see the teeth? They are soooooo sharp. My nipples are scared.

fuck ya mom

Just got back from Olive's 6 month check up. She was a total champ the whole time. She didn't even cry when they gave her a shot. She made a pissed off noise with the cold spray but after the shot I scooped her up and got her to laugh. She is one tough cookie. So far I love the new dr, I mean this is the third one and she is only 6 months old. Makes me feel like a crazy person cause I'm so not that type of person to be this picky but I think we found a keeper. She is young, sweet, has kids, and was totally on board with my ideas for vaccination. I told her what shots I wanted to do today and she said it was perfectly fine since I'm pretty much on track. For the most part I'm following dr.sears schedule. Just makes sense to me and really only burdens me since I will be going in monthly instead of every few months. Dr's here are pretty hip to it considering Dr.Sears practices a few miles away. I can't imagine the wait to get in to see him. Yikes.

So Olive weighed in at 16.5 and is 26 inches long. She is falling into the 75th% now so she has slowed down a bit since she was up in the 90th% before. Everything else looks perfect and as I suspected she has eczema on her tummy, back, and diaper area. I kinda assumed that was what the rash was after nothing took it away and when I put something with more of a greasy base it seemed to help which makes sense. That would be from Blake! But at least there are tons of things to help manage it and it doesn't seem to bother her at all.

We're heading up to Mammoth tomorrow so I'm trying to get everything together today. My mom is up there to watch Olive so we can snowboard! Doing laundry and making piles of stuff to bring up. We already travel pretty heavy with all our camera crap but add a baby to that and its insane. I'm hoping to relax a little bit up there. I've had a terrible time sleeping the last two days. That on top of Olive waking up a few times and taking forever to go back to sleep. I'm usually able to turn everything off when I get into bed but for some reason the last few days my mind is just buzzing. I'm going to be in a gallery show next month and I'm stressing on what to print for it and mostly how I'm going to afford the print and then hope to god is sells so I can cover my expenses. What I want to show and what I can show are kinda conflicting cause of money. It just makes me feel shitty that I can't pull it together. I guess I always thought when I was in my 30's I would have it all figured out and be financially comfortable. What a fucking joke.

On a kinda funny I'm a mom fuck ya note I was able to shower, dry and straighten my hair, put makeup on and get dressed in 20 min today while singing wheels on the bus and old McDonald to Olive who was not happy I was trying to get ready. I was pretty proud. Normally I take my shower and stuff when Olive takes her first nap but today with the dr appt that didn't work like that but good to know it can be done.

A few photos from our adventure out the other day.

6 months

Today Olive is 6 months old. To celebrate we had sweet potatoes and put on a fashion show! Her teeth made their grand entrance today too. What a way to celebrate 6 months. I have to say this is my favorite age yet. People have told me I will say that about every age but this is pretty fun. I love that she is so curious about everything and anything around her. I love how she interacts with people, always flashing smiles and being super goofy. The talking has really started and she just blabs and blabs. She will go on and on without stopping for a few min. The only real word we can hear is mama and she uses that word ALL the time. Instead of crying when she wakes up from her nap I hear "mama mama" over and over till I come. She has learned that saying it gets my response but I don't know if she knows I'm mama. We're trying for Dada and I'm sure its just a matter of days away. I think crawling will be around the corner too. She can scoot backwards but can't quite get the forward motion although everyday is so much closer and when she is sitting up and goes to her hands and knees I'm always thinking she is going to do it. Her favorite thing is bouncing on the ground, on your lap, anywhere anytime. She loves to sit on the floor and shove all her toys in her mouth. I am just in love with her personality and how silly she is and of course the energy. Oh man the energy. She is going to be a wild child but I wouldn't want it any other way. Changing diapers and trying to get a photo without her moving is nearly impossible these days (unless the dog is in sight and she gets fixated) She just wants to go go go. I love her laugh and how easy she will just flash a smile. I feel so lucky to be her mama!

Vloggin’ Vednesday_Guilty Pleasures

As always I'm slightly embarrassed but what the hell.....

More Photos

Today Olive had her first real try at sweet potatoes. I tried one spoonful yesterday but I didn't thin them out with breastmilk so she gagged and screamed. Oops. So today I tried again and she ate like a champ. She made a few faces at first but then was pretty happy to suck them down. Blake and I don't have food allergies with the exception that too much fruit makes me break out in itches sometimes but I've noticed Olive can be sensitive to what I eat and gets rashy so I want to be careful. I made a batch of sweet potatoes and then a batch of sweet potatoes with carrots. They both taste so yummy. While I was feeding her I saw that her teeth are finally poking through. They are sooooo little and cute. I can't imagine how that feels. Might explain the sleepless night we had two nights ago. I thought I ate too many onions and it hurt her stomach but I think it was teeth. I have no idea how long it will take to see the whole tooth but I'm glad its finally poking through and not just a swollen mess.

march photos

I'm finally getting around to editing some photos I shot of Olive. I only had the energy to work on a few tonight but I think they are pretty cute. Hopefully I'll be able to finish the rest up this week.
We had a pretty good day. Thought we could beat the rain but we got stuck in the worst downpour while going to the market. It was pretty insane but I managed to get us both in the car groceries and all without getting soaked. I had to get all my fruit and veggies for the week since I think the weather will be too nasty for my thursday farmers market run. I bought some fruits and veggies that I'm going to cook up for Olive. I'm really excited for her to taste some food besides rice cereal. I really think she is going to love eating. She is already sucking down the rice cereal and its not even that exciting. I have no intentions on stopping or slowing down breastfeeding but I want to slowly start introducing food. I can't believe she will be 6 months on Wednesday. Today she was a talking machine, just blabbing away. The best is sometimes she will move her mouth like she is talking and nothing comes out. Most of the times she just talks and talks and throws out the occasional mama. Her talking usually turns into spitting and then making noises with her hand. She cracks me up all day. She did some more crawling backwards which is super funny to watch. She got up on her hands and knees once today and I was sure it was going to be the day she crawled but she just scooted backwards. Soon, soon....
She took a two hour nap today which allowed me to make some vegan cookies and send some work emails out. I'm totally ok with long naps, I can't believe how much I got done. Best part is she was nice and rested!

On cue she just woke up (10:30pm) but I put Blake on this one since I will mostly likely be up in a few hours to feed her. Need to figure out how we can skip this 10:30 wake up time. I know she isn't hungry as I just fed her at 8. Babies are tricky.

crib

Last night was the first time Olive slept in her crib (at night) It went pretty well and I don't think she was too freaked out. I was sad not to look over and see her but she is outgrowing her co-sleeper and her crib looks really comfy. I remember when she was first born and I set her down in her crib to do something and she just looked so small. At that point I couldn't imagine her sleeping in the crib but now when I put her in she fills it nicely.
We put her down around 8 and around 10 she started crying but I was able to run in immediately and pat her back and she went right back. I've read two conflicting things about rushing in on babies. First they say they need to be able to put themselves back to sleep so you aren't supposed to rush in at every noise but then I read that when they wake you should get to them before they are fully awake and get them back to sleep immediately so they don't get in a habit of waking up at that time. I know I know stop reading shit!! For Olive this is consistent. Around 10 she will start to stir and eventually get herself crying. So last night I was able to get to her fast enough and it took 2 seconds to get her back so I think that works for her. She was up again at 2 but she was acting hungry so I fed her and she went back to sleep. She was up again at 4:30 which is always a really bad time for her. I don't know why she gets up around then but its always hard to get her back down. It took Blake 30 min to get her back down and then she was up again at 5:30 which I fed her again and she went back to sleep till 7:45. Sleeping is this ongoing mystery because once you think things are going well for a few days then its off again and you have no idea what the hell happened or why she woke up. I'm really doing my best not to stress on it and deal with each night as it comes but its easy to say that when its light out and I've had a huge cup of coffee and I'm not half asleep and impatient. I'm just happy the first night of being in a crib was a success. Selfishly I think that I slept better too cause I am the worlds lightest sleeper so every little sound she made would wake me up so this way I'm actually getting a deeper sleep. We had some crazy weather last night like world ending storm of the year kinda weather. It was hailing and crazy thunder and lightning. I've never heard a storm so loud. Poor Sierra was sitting on Blake's pillow shaking. Crazy weather!

This is her new trick.










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super sunrise

I did not see the super moon, but I did see the super sunrise. It was another rough night but we'll get it eventually! Nothing a little coffee can't help right???

It's a lazy rainy sunday and we're hanging in our pj's. Olive is napping and Blake is being domestic and fixing shit around the house. I wish it was sunny cause I really want to garden but I think I can manage to be lazy in my pjs all day. Thinking about baking something sweet today but we'll see what I can come up with.

Yesterday we had a fun packed day knowing it was going to be crappy out today. We started the day with Dim Sum. We decided its the perfect place to bring a baby cause its super loud so if by chance she cries no one really cares. The best part is you are fed instantly, no waiting for food. Plus have you seen the ceilings at Chinese restaurants? Chandeliers and colors everywhere. Olive was a champ and we were in and out in no time. As soon as we got in the car she was out for a nap which actually lasted almost 2 hours. We drove around house hunting. We're trying to decide if we want to stay where we are for awhile or find something at the beach. I love having a big space and a backyard but we're just not into the area at all. Problem is if we moved down to the beach we'd be giving up a ton of space and paying more. I guess I feel like I gave up Brooklyn (small space good location) for a big house in California and if I wanted to downsize for location I would sure as hell be back in Brooklyn (but that isn't going to happen) What to do what to do........
After our house search we drove to Laguna to get me a bathing suit and wander around a bit. We got some vegan food at Taco Loco and walked around. I always think I'm going to like it there but I always feel so strange when I'm there. Either way it was fun to hang with Blake and Olive and the weather was really nice. We headed home and attempted a quick game of tennis. We got super into tennis when we lived in NY but the last time I played I was just pregnant. We're both pretty awful but its so much damn fun. Olive wasn't too into us playing so we only played for a few min then headed home. She was such a champ all day so I don't blame her. She just wanted to sit on her blanket and chew on her toys.

Photos from the weekend....