Weekend at home

As I've mentioned again and again and again, I love autumn. We've had crisp and cool mornings with blue skies turing into dazzling afternoons.

Every moment we are outside. Our weekend was low key, a lot of breakfast cooking (E and James made breakfast both Saturday and Sunday), a lot of walks to the playground and a lot of parks.

We even joined E's family for dinner downtown to celebrate two birthdays. Which reminds me, ONE month from today James turns two. (I'll update with Wolfy photos tomorrow or Wednesday, I promise.) One month? Holy moly, kid, slow down!

My favorite moments over the weekend happened downtown at Citycreek Canyon. The light was magnificent. The leaves were on fire. The temperature couldn't have been better: warm in the sun and cool in the shade. I didn't bring my camera and it was wonderful. No pressure to take the perfect shot. Just us, E, James and I enjoying a beautiful Saturday afternoon in October.

I did get a few photos from the weekend however. Low key, close to home, nothing spectacular. Perfect.

Blue skies and autumn leaves, my favorite combo.
James is loving the slide these days.

I think we're getting our two-year molars so James is in an extra snuggly mood. He just discovered the simple joy of a back scratch, and asks for them multiple times a day.
Rocking my 24 week belly.
We took a walk around Granite Park and the trails were really sandy and soft. James thought they were an enormous sand box and came home covered in dirt. Hair down to his shoes.
Trail jogging. Both E and I had a tough time keeping up with him. Views = spectacular.
And gone are the days E can cook without a little helper. James is into everything and wants to be up and able to see all. Here is a video I took on Saturday morning. Love all his talking.

Pregnancy quiz: 24 weeks {re-visiting 24 weeks...}

How far along: 24 weeks. Yes, last week I was also 24 weeks. This week too. Why? I got another ultrasound this week and baby showed she is still measuring 8 days slow. First ultrasound gave me an estimated due date of February 10th, instead of February 2nd. This ultrasound showed the same thing. Which means... my due date is now 8 days later than I thought. I better get used to this idea. Adding eight days to your due date is not a huge deal, because everything else with Baby Girl is perfect! The doc was also worried about my cervical length (something that really worried me), but they measured three times during the appt and all looks very good and back to normal. Phew.

Size of Baby: At the ultrasound they told me she weighed 1 lbs. 7 oz. Cute!

Sleep: Mine is ok. Pretty good actually. Still getting up a lot to pee, but fall asleep again easily. And James's one hour naps? Well I got sick of them. After they lasted a month, one day once he'd woken up I went in and told him nap time was not over and he needed more sleep. Amazing part? He fell back asleep. I know. I felt like a goddess with super-awesome-nap-power at my fingertips. Wish I'd tried this much earlier in the month.

Weight Gain: They weighed me at the docs this week and total weight gain at this point is 13 lbs.

Pregnancy Clothes: Oh yea. All day every day.

Movement: I love feeling her little kicks and jabs throughout the day. Later in pregnancy this gets really uncomfortable, but now it is a sweet reminder I've got a human in there.

Pregnancy Symptoms: Pelvic pressure and heart burn have been this week's constant companions.

Food Cravings: Indian food, which is weird because I was totally turned off by Indian food during my first pregnancy. After I got good news at my ultrasound appointment, E and I decided to order Indian take-out. Best idea ever.

What I miss: Normal clothes. It is crazy how not-fun getting dressed is. I look like a cow in everything and wear yoga pants all the time. (Yea for looking like I just rolled out of bed!)

What I am looking forward to: Halloween. This year we are going to take James trick-or-treating for the first time. I am so so so excited.

Weekly Wisdom: October rocks.

Best moment this week: Neff's Canyon with the boy. Also, we went to the zoo last weekend and the tigers were out of this world. One hopped into the water (something I've always been longing to see) and then two of the big males stood up on their hind legs and batted at each other and roared. It was so awesome.

Milestones: Perfect ultrasound. Passed the glucose test. Both are celebration worthy! Oh and re-visiting week 24. :)

Two cell photo photos to add to this post:

James had his first bowl of cereal with milk today before nap time. He loved it. He thinks cereal is called "please" because that's what I told him he needed to say to his friend yesterday when James was trying to devour all of their Cheerios.
And about three weeks ago another of James's friends had a birthday party and gave out pirate gold as a favor. James? In love. He thinks that Mabel is the one that should be wearing the "fancy" and follows her around all day trying to place it on her. Mabel is an awesome sport and is oftentimes found all decorated by James.

October light is gold

Did you ever notice that this time of year, only for about two weeks, as the northern hemisphere shifts closer and closer to winter, that the light turns from bright and beautiful to liquid gold? It does. And it is happening. And it is magic.

This means that James and I are outside every spare moment of every day. And more often than not I have my camera. The sky is blue, the mountains are a watercolor of green, yellow, red and orange, and the light that spills down is made of golden happiness.

It sounds sappy, so I'll let the photos do the talking.

James and I took a little Mama/big boy hike the other day. No Dada, no playdate, just the two of us. We had such a good time and laughed the entire way.

I taught him to say "cheese" when I point the camera at him. This was a first, and brand new. This is his "cheese" face.
More "cheese!"
The yellow cottonwoods are splendid.
Yea... I know. It made my jaw drop when I was there in person too.
James is all about finding sticks these days. He loves a good stick. What boy doesn't?


Lots and lots of color.




I'd ask James what colors he'd see. Every time he'd say either "purple" (?) or "buuuu". The sky was quite blue.
There was this little puddle in this rock that James was fascinated with. He'd dip leaves in and out and make sure the muddy water was spread everywhere.
But when the light is gold even muddy puddles are magic.

Hike with our little hiker {sorry, our HUGE hiker!}

James is quite the hiker. Sometimes E and I talk about that fateful first hike where he screamed the entire time. How we joked that there was no way he was part of our family, our family loved to hike.

Now James will hike along beside you. He's not yet 2, and has decided the baby backpack is for babies, and he's HUGE (ask him and he'll tell you). So instead of doing any hike with real mileage (which is out anyway since I'm pregnant), we choose short easy hikes and James is beyond thrilled. So thrilled he'll talk about it for days afterwards.
He really is a goof. Runs up the entire trail and barrels down at full steam. E and I almost have about a million heart attacks because of the sheer amount of close-calls he has.
I love this one. E and James hike together most the time while I take up the rear. I love how he's looking up at his Dada.
Watching the river at the point we told him it was time to turn around. We gave him plenty of warning, so we didn't get an epic "why-do-we-have-to-turn-around?" fit like we did in Oregon.
James was so fast on his feet, that any time it looked tricky this is the look you'd get. It means "please take my hand, I need some help". It melts me. Such a good boy.
The snow and frost turned some of the aspens black. Always a sure sign winter's on its way.
Right at the end of the day the light turned to gold. James had found a rock he wanted to sit and climb on and I was beyond thrilled that he'd look at me and smile. Yes, I had to work for it, but Mama's "pterodactyl call" still will elicit a grin.

Last shot of the day, before the sun dipped below the peaks already brushed with snow.

Black and White Wednesday {Wheeler Farm}

Remember last week when I posted this photo, and said there were more Wheeler Farm photos to come? Yea, it's taken a week to get them posted...
Last week a couple of friends and I met up at Wheeler Farm to enjoy the AMAZING Indian Summer. The morning was cool and brisk, but soon warmed up enough for all of us to unzip our jackets and smile a little brighter. This weather has my heart. I love it.

All the corn was available for toddlers to explore. All the little ones took quite awhile in the corn rows before moving on.
Liz, my friend who has this adorable guy, is really dang good about setting up playdates and then inviting new Mamas along. I've met so many really neat ladies this way. Last year James and I went to Wheeler Farm alone, almost always. I always envied the groups of ladies I saw, each chasing their own toddler when they wander too far. This year I'm part of that group. Thank you Liz.

Oh and James? Always this serious when tractor driving. He makes a B-line right to the tractor as soon as we get there and it's like pulling teeth to get him off. He likes his big trucks.
Aren't the kiddos cute? The little guy on the left is a month older than James and the little girl on the right is a month younger. So great to compare toddler stories with other Mamas that have been there, done that.
Near the end of the day we stopped at James's favorite tree. This thing is massive and at least 200 years old. I'll have to get better photos of it when I have enough confidence in my boy to step back a few yards. Right now I'm worried he's going to topple right off. He does love tree climbing though.

Pumpkin picking

I'm a little backlogged on blog posts. I want to post more photos from our hike and more photos from Wheeler Farm. But for now, now I'm going to post something I've been looking forward to doing since May.

In March or so I mentioned to my Grandma Barbara that I wanted to grow pumpkins in our backyard for James. She, sweet as she is, made sure to add "giant pumpkin seeds" to her next grocery list.

In May I planted the little hard teardrops. In June James and I watched them sprout and grown. July I watered them each day, and come August we tenderly cared for our four pumpkins.

And today, after waiting two months from them to turn from a dark deep yellow to a brilliant intense orange, we picked them. James was more thrilled about the wheelbarrow rides back into the backyard for another load than anything else.

That's ok though, I think we'll grow pumpkins every year. One day soon (next October?) picking and carving them will be the highlight of the Halloween season (and trick-or-treating of course!).

Above, pumpkin sitting. And they are really bright orange. A totally different color than grocery store pumpkins.
Fall colors.

Two harvested, ready for the front porch.
Two more.
Best part is the wheelbarrow rides back into the backyard!
Four huge pumpkins. We'll carve a little closer to the holiday.

And a special pumpkin we won't carve. I used a nail and scared the flesh of this pumpkin when it was still quite young. As it grew, the little name James wrapped around its now big flesh.