sack-o-spuds

 

 

Happy Halloween!

 

This was Cora's first halloween, so... of course she had to be a homegrown sack-o-spuds. You might have seen it on pinterest (I pinned it back when I was pregnant). It was a must do for our little idaho spud.

 

Pretty simple costume...

• Make a few spuds- This is how you make a panty-hose spud...with eyes! So fun.

• The body is just natural canvas that I had lying around from our wedding tablecloths.

• Draw some brown lettering on the sack with brown sharpie (hers said- homegrown spud pacotti farms idaho est. 2012)
• Then a brown outfit underneath

• An adult brown headband, sewed down to size with a spud sewn to it.

Ta-da! Homegrown Spud!

She is no sack of potatoes though, I assure you. She is more like a wiggle worm- but that costume would have taken me a bit longer to make.

 

 

We thought her outfit was hilarious.... she tolerated it surprisingly well too! I guess bring on the headbands with big flowers. Little spud is down. I also had a blast making it... no wonder so many moms make halloween costumes. Totally fun first halloween!

ooo....banana chocolate chip muffins.

[Ok, I may be cooking today which is a huge feat...but I didn't quite manage to put on make-up....or clean the house. But I did shower- that counts for something, right?!]

 

I mentioned a little bit ago that we moved. We now live in a subdivision....which means...while all of our neighbors have the exact clone of our house....we also all have a dishwasher, a microwave, a decent sized kitchen, carpets....the list goes on. It's phenomenal. I never thought I would love living in a subdivision so much...I now know why people do. Houses are new and nice. It's wonderful. It makes life easy. Anyways. I have been cooking, seeing how I have a semi-sleeping baby and a dishwasher...and I am not hooked at the boob to my little sweetie 24-7. I am sooo excited to share with you this awesome recipe.

And, I was wondering how to make good muffins. Mine are always flat and ugly. So I stumbled upon this post- so helpful! "the muffin method" talks about how to combine ingredients, letting muffins rise, good stuff.

[banana chocolate chip muffins]

Amaaazing. (modified from allrecipes)

 

Ingredients (for 24 muffins)- 3 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 6 large bananas, mashed 1.5 cups white sugar 2 eggs 2/3 cup butter, melted 1/2 bag of mini chocolate chips Sprinkle of white sugar Directions- -Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (read muffin method talked about above for reasoning). Coat muffin pans with non-stick spray, then use paper liners- so that if the muffins overflow they pop out of the pan easily. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt; set aside. -Combine bananas, egg, and melted butter in a large bowl. Fold in flour mixture, and mix until smooth. Add chocolate chips. Scoop into muffin pans. I sprinkled on a little white sugar on the tops to get a crispy top. -Bake in preheated oven. Bake muffins for 20ish minutes. Muffins will spring back when lightly tapped.

 

six months

Oooo.... 6 months. We made it! Sure, cora is growing fantastically well. But this was a benchmark for us that I was holding onto in the early days. If we could just make it to six months. Why? I don't know. But we did it, and this time is grand just as I expected.

What you have been up to this past month...

• sitting un assisted. This was almost spontaneous. One day- totally supported, the next BAM! sitting like a big girl, reaching toys and balancing.
• working on crawling each day...little legs pulled up under your body, rocking back and forth ready to lounge into a crawl.
• sleeping 11-13 hours a night. We moved your bedtime to 6:30pm... you sleep until 7:30am sometimes. Dad and I have time together, alone, in the evenings- it's great for all of us.
• started on vegetables... sweet poatoes and carrots- a new favorite.
• you like to drink from mom's glass. You stick your little head out and drink/ blow bubbles. Its fantastically cute.
• you babble and talk to us and the dogs...and your toys. "bbb" seems to be the sound when you are trying to tell us something really important. We hope you're not trying to say poop. We should really stop talking about your poopies so much.
• you love to walk places- whether its holding our hands...or in your walker.
• You also love to do a full-body pull, an army crawl. You are rather efficient between that and rolling over and over to get where you want to go. With more independence your frsutrated fussies have diminished, just as we hoped. You're an active baby, that's for sure. Baby-proofing is coming up in the next month to prepare for your explorations.

first rain...fall is here.

 

Oh boy, there is snow in the mountains... we have beautiful fall leaves everywhere. I love this season. I wish for endless rainy days and snowy days...so dreamy. So perfect.

Cora experienced her first real rain last week. I thought about it, as I saw a dad clenching his babe and running indoors... I want cora to love the rain, take it in. I don't want to completely protect her from these beautiful natural elements... I want her to embrace them. Love the rain drops. Love her cold nose and the shock of frozen air in her lungs when we go outside to feed the dogs early in the morning. I want her to love seeing lightening and hearing the thunder. It's powerful and amazing. I want her to be fearless. Is that trainable? I don't know.

These mom thoughts... they engulf every "free" second of my day. At the pediatrician 6 month check they asked if Cora could pull herself to sit up on her own. I almost crapped my pants- shit, we forgot to work on something! Sitting up all by herself?! Sure she sits now unassisted, but to go from laying down to sitting- no way. Turns out there was a miscommunication and they meant pull up on our hands to get to sitting. Phew. See?! Mom thoughts. What we need to be working on next to help our little to grow and become independent... how she rocks our very new world...how to focus on being ever so present and in the moment. I love these mom thoughts.

Matt said the other night as much as he jokes around about the life we used to have... he wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world....not even watching football with a few pints like the old just-grown-up days. Cora is awesome, our little family is sensational. Sitting on the ground, watching cora almost crawl, having ambition of her own to do a rapid full body-drag to get to her books, full of laughs and smiles. Its awesome. I think this is my favorite stage so far. Parenthood is grand.

Oh, 6 months old...

 

Oh sweet cora. She turned 6 months.... a half of a year... this week!! This is what we have been doing all day... um...every day. Trying to find new things that give us that sweet laugh.

And she currently does a plank-style push up. Or a rocking motion on all fours. I think she is on the verge of crawling. We can't wait.

 

Monthly picture coming soon.

DIY jogger drink holder!

I am on a crafty roll. Nap time today I made a DIY jogger drink holder! It's awesome. It's not perfect. But I love it so much I am going to try it out when little miss wakes up. I try to go for a walk with cora in our lovely Bob stroller once a day. It doesn't always happen, but I try to. I usually bring my coffee (or water if I am feeling uber healthy). I always want to place it in a cup holder for when we go up and down curbs. Ta da! DIY stroller drink holder.

I had a blast making this. I have never done the snap-thing. It was really fun, and looks great. This now opens up a whole new world of crafty things to make.

[sew can do's DIY cup holder...so cute!]

I used this tutorial from sew can do. Super easy. She made it out of laminated cotton- great idea, but I didn't have any today.

[yup, water bottle fits!]

I traced the top of my travel coffee mug that I often walk with... make two circles. Then cut out two 12"x7" rectangles. And one 10"x7" rectangle for the handle piece. Do some fancy circle-side-sewing...and place some snaps.... sew on the handle piece- done! You'll have to read her tutorial. I can't do this project justice, and she had a beautiful way of explaining it with pictures.

I made mine out of cotton... but next time I will reinforce the handle piece with an additional layer sandwiched in between. One of the snaps wants to pull out of the fabric when I go to open the snap- sucky. So I will probably have to remake it sometime.

Cora is our homegrown spud?!

[our sweet cora laughing at dad...4.5 months old]
 

Sometimes we get caught up in... holy cow- Cora was that little "spud" we were watching grow inside my belly?! We called her spud for 9 months- but in actuality the second she was born, she just didn't look like a spud to us. She was cora, our little human we made.

When we watched her on the ultrasound- she had a ton of hiccups all through pregnancy and still does to this day. She was always moving her little bottom around flopping from side to side in utero...and even now she is constantly eyes wide open...observant, trying to crawl, walk... anything active. We saw her little feet, with her big toe sprawled at the 20 week ultrasound... they look exactly the same!

But now, in retrospect trying to think of our little cora as the same baby in my belly just blows our minds. We had no clue what we were in for, what being parents would be like, and how much she would rock our world. Now we can hardly picture what life was like before her. Life has forever changed. Every single daily activity, thought, action, feeling- it's all new, it revolves around Cora. And we love it.

pinterest wednesday!

liquid sidewalk chalk / petshop scavenger hunt / snowday painting

 busy board / close your clothes book / chalkboard fence

 

Well, I have had some time to pinterest-around. Little sunshine (aka cora) naps pretty well and sleeps through the night for now- which means I have some free time on my hands! I have been dreaming of what I can do with Cora when she is a big girl. Oh, I can't wait for the craft time we can share. So much fun! But for now I do the crafts for her.

So I jumped on a pinterest find.... taggy blanket. Cora loves tags on all things. They are silky, smooth...and unfortunately, I think, rather ugly. Initially I cut the tags off of all things cora-bound. I love using my seam ripper to take all of those tacky labels off of Cora's toys and clothes. Whoops. She loves them. Bad mommy. So, in lieu of her tag obsession I made a taggy blanket last night. She also loves sucking on wash cloths- like in the bath, or burp rags....so what a perfect combo- I think.

I had some left over flannel fabric from her fitted sheet project and some fleece laying around. I bought $14 worth of ribbon- what a rip off. Anyways. The ribbon is turquoise... and green... and it makes me happy. I sewed it all together- first sewing it improperly- so I re-did it....and voila! A tiny pretty taggy blanket, that happens to match her room. She likes it so far, but we shall see if it lasts.

 

Next on my craft-to-do list:

- artwork for Cora's plain-o room. yet to be determined, but pinterest will definitely be involved.

- fall wreath for our front door...yay... i love the holiday season!

- recruit matt to help with a "busy board" from above

- ribbon octopus to keep cora's toys from hitting the ground when we go out to eat