Happy Halloween!

Lana dressed up as a tomato to celebrate her very first Halloween! Cutest bitty baby costume ever? I think so!

I had sent a photo of an adorable tomato hat to my pro-knitter friend, Sherga, months ago. I thought it was cute and would make her smile. But what does she do? She goes and makes one for Lana! Isn't it amazing?! And she thought it was beyond her skill level. HA! I must say, the color looks a little familiar...I wonder if she used the yarn I passed on to her, since I had no plans of ever finishing a knitting project (despite her best efforts to teach me how!)?

Abby delivered the hat when she came to visit a couple weeks ago. I've been saving it for Halloween, knowing I wouldn't be come up with a costume any cuter than a tomato! To complete the look, I used some Rit dye to turn one of her little white onesies red. It was a pretty simple process, but the color turns out quite a bit lighter when the process is finished than it looks when sitting in the dye bath. 

One of our neighbors thought Lana was a pumpkin. That's cool too. If I add a little antique effect, she definitely looks like one! 

Kicking it with the neighbors pumpkins...

Are we done yet? I'm bored. 

Seriously, parents! Are we done yet?!

Nevermind, I'm over it. 

Thank you, Sherga, for the awesomest handmade gift ever! Lana loves it, and so do we!

Really?

I'm thoroughly enjoying this new Windows Phone ad. I give Raf the "Really?" face at least a few times a week!

The 365 Project: Day 301 (Oct 29)

Awesome new lounging positions. 

And more new friends! Andy and Shannon came out to meet Lana tonight. It's so weird to see her in other people's arms. She still feels small to us, in general, but when I see other people hold her she looks huge!!

The 365 Project: Day 300 (Oct 28)

We had one of those embarrassing new parent days today. It was a nice morning, so we decided to venture out to Fremont, our old stomping grounds, to walk the lake and hit up a couple stores. After our walk, we sat down to have some lunch in the park, and I called Jenn. Jenn is marrying my old co-worker, Daniel, next weekend and I'm helping out on the morning of their big day, so she met up with us for a few minutes to talk about the day. 

Before she arrived, we were eating our sandwiches and Lana, sitting in her carseat on the table, was blowing earth shaking bubbles out her backside. It was quite entertaining, until Raf took her out to change her diaper. She had the gnarliest blowout I've ever seen! There was a ring of poo circling her onesie...on the front side!! Woah. 

So, of course, we freak out, wanting to change her quickly. But she's already crying because she's hungry. And her hungry cry is INTENSE and un-calmable. And, at this moment, Mother Nature decides that she's done with the nice sunny day, the wind picks up like crazy, and the clouds roll in. So we've got her stripped down on top of a picnic table, in the middle of a park, in chilly, windy weather, and she's screaming like an abused child (which is maybe valid at this point)...and this is the moment that Jenn walks up. So much for maintaining the facade that we have life under control, eh! Kiss that goodbye, Brooke, it's not part of parenthood. 

Fortunately, Jenn opted not to turn us in to CPS. And luckily, Lana is forgiving. We got lots of these adorable smiles later that evening.  

The 365 Project: Day 299 (Oct 27)

Lana met her new best buddy today! So exciting! Our friends, Jamie and Michael, had their daughter, Eden, just 2 weeks after Lana was born. These girls have years of great East Bay hikes to look forward to together. 

It's so funny to be around another newborn. You would think they'd all be pretty similar...not hardly! Eden is itty bitty and super mellow. Her cry sounds muffled, and she appears to spend most of her time quietly hanging out and eating...very slowly! I was shocked to find Eden nursing for 45 minutes (or more) at a time. I know it's normal, but I'm used to Lana's crazy 5-10 minute sessions (which we're trying to work on, btw). Everything about Lana seems intense compared to Eden. I realize the difference of 2 weeks is significant at this stage of life, so we'll see how many of the differences stick, but we found it pretty entertaining at this point. 

The 365 Project: Day 298 (Oct 26)

Lana decided to make some quality faces for picture time with mom today...

The 365 Project: Day 297 (Oct 25)

Lana spends a lot of her (calm) alert time looking past us. She'll play with us for a little while, then when it's all too much, she'll look away for a good long while, until she's ready to get mad. She LOVES looking at the rafters in our main living room. Or maybe it's the pendant lights? Or the skylights? Who knows, but man she can stare at them for days.

She's also quite the stretching pro. Whenever she's ready to take a break from nursing, or when she gets released from her swaddle, we get this big, immediate, arms overhead stretch. It's pretty freaking adorable. 

Another incredibly becoming trait--she's quite the gassy bugger. She could put my little brother, Cory, to shame (which is impressive, trust me). You can sometimes hear her handiwork across the house. Seriously. This would be her lighting it up at the dinner table while hanging out with her dad...

In other news, she had her first major blowout today. This is the special gift we found upon removing her from her carrier after a walk. Nice work, Little Bit. 

Isn't she just the most talented thing you've ever seen?? ;)

The 365 Project: Day 296 (Oct 24)

Talk about a show stopper...this is what happens whenever Lana enters a room!

We spent Sunday with Raf's family so they could get their Lana fix, and she could get her first Polish lessons. And Raf carved a pretty mean pumpkin while I caught up on an Etsy order and some sleep!

1 Month

It's strange the kind of crazy time warp you go into with a newborn. Yesterday, our Little Bit turned 1 month old. In some ways, the days just seems to drag, which is no surprise when most of them revolve around the couch. But on the other hand, I absolutely can't believe that a month has already passed. You spend so much time trying to figure things out-- and by the time you do, everything is already changing.

That's probably the craziest observation I have about parenthood so far--things change so fast. Every day something is different. Which is awesome. And fun. And scary. I try to remind myself to enjoy each moment--to Be Here Now. Which is sometimes difficult to do when I'm exhausted, or she's screaming. Again. 

I catch myself thinking that I can't wait until she's a couple months older, and a couple notches mellower. But I know I'm going to miss this. How tiny she is. Her adorable little chirps and grunts and sighs and faces. The way she melts our hearts when she looks at us. And the way she makes us so crazy one minute, and so giddy and mushy the next. 

There have definitely been moments in the past month when I wondered what the heck we were thinking when we made the decision to start down this path. But this isn't one of them. At this moment, I know exactly what we were thinking about: LOVE. And that's precisely what she's brought us--perfectly imperfect, boundless love. 

The 365 Project: Day 295

She has quite the little snarl, doesn't she? Wonder where she gets that...

Testing out the Babysitter in the sleep position...not too shabby!

The 365 Project: Day 294

My sister came down to visit the babe before she moves to Utah. But snuggling with Auntie JoJo (Jordan loves this new name, btw) only happens while simultaneously WoWing. 

In other news, the hubba bought some sausage and made the most delish breakfast sandwiches. Yum. 

The 365 Project: Day 293

Guess who started enjoying bath time today?! Yay! Can you believe she's already 4 weeks old?! It's a trip. 

Other highlights of the day:

• We made our first attempt at "tummy time". It took a minute for her to relax, but once she did, it wasn't half bad!
• We got to visit for Kelli for a bit when she brought out some yummy grub for dinner. But I realized tonight that this was the last date taken on our Meal Baby Registry...EEK! What to do now?? You can't think we're ready to start cooking for ourselves! 
• Raf finally mailed the photo books and thank yous (from our WEDDING!!!) to his extended family on the east coast and in Poland...a year late. We're hoping that by throwing in some photos of Lana it will seem slightly less obnoxious.
• We picked up a new pacifier for Lana to test out. The ones we got from the hospital aren't really effective. I think they're too heavy for her to keep in her mouth without serious effort. Or maybe the shape makes them super easy to slip out? I dunno. What I do know is that it's super annoying that it slips out the minute she starts to doze at night or in the car...waking her up and pissing her off. Great news--so far the new shape seems to be working! She's been napping with Dad for a couple hours now (on her side even) and it only just slipped out. Woot! Yes, people, it's the small victories these days.
• Oh yeah, and coolest news of the day: my wedding ring fits again! Yay! Well, technically it's my engagement ring that fits...the wedding ring is still a little too snug. But hey, I'll take one piece of bling back any day!

The 365 Project: Day 292 (Oct 20)

Mama's pretty girl. She's getting to be so much more alert the past few days. We get a few short, unfussy, awake breaks everyday now. It's pretty awesome. 

Her Aunt Pat came over for a visit today. I love having visitors from my mom's generation. They don't tense up when she gets fussy. They're not in a hurry to get anywhere or do anything. They're perfectly content to just sit and hold the babe for hours. Which means I get to catch up on some sewing! Slowly but surely we're building our village...

The 365 Project: Day 291 (Oct 19)

More books! We got this basket of readable goodness from one of our neighbors. Have I mentioned how much I love living here?

The 365 Project: Day 290 (Oct 18)

Yet another fabulous borrowed item from Karaliese--the Beco baby carrier. I LOVE this carrier. I have multiple options at home, but was finding the wraps too difficult to get tight enough to hold her itty bitty-ness close to me, she was too floppy in the Bjorn, and they all left my lower back hurting after any significant amount of time. But the Beco has an infant insert that keeps her high and close, and a waist belt to help distribute the weight--so everybody is comfortable and happy! 

The great thing about carrying a baby is that typically after a few minutes of fussing (if any), they knock right out! Or at least stay mellow. For hours! Hands free baby cuddling for hours?! Count me in! The only bummer is if I try to sit, Lana lets me know she's having none of it. It's the movement that keeps her happy, and there's none of that when I'm sitting. Dang!

Today's Challenge: learning to spit over the baby and her carrier! Good news--I was successful.

Evidence of the awesome knock-out capabilities of the carrier! Another nice thing with the Beco--you can remove the carrier without having to totally man-handle the baby--which means you might actually get a few extra minutes of quiet time while she sleeps! 

The 365 Project: Day 289 (Oct 17)

Um, I don't know about this thing, Mom...

Testing out the new (used Craigslist find) Bjorn Babysitter. I think she's a little too small to make it work in the active mode--her kicking is more frantic "get me the heck outta this thing" than "ooohh, this is fun" at this point, but I have high hopes for the coming months!

And the highlight of the day: visit with Kaylie!! Yay!

The 365 Project: Day 288 (Oct 16)

The 365 Project: Day 287 (Oct 15)

Look...a sink! Not THE sink, but A sink. We're hoping to find or build a more custom fit vanity eventually, but the size of this space is funky, so it's not as easy as you might think. In the meantime, this Craigslist find will do the trick. Especially since it means we now have 2, count them: TWO! fully functioning bathrooms! (FYI, "fully functioning" means water is flowing through a tub, toilet, and sink. No frills, like towel hangers or mirrors, included.)

And check out our cool little paneled accent wall. Fun, right?! Not orange (it was coming out too pumpkin-y), but still fun!

The 365 Project: Day 286 (Oct 14)