Repair To Be New

Normally I do not sew clothing.  I really don't enjoy it because I always come across some crazy problems that just drive me nuts.  This time was no exception to that fact either.

 

Seth had a pair of pajama pants that waist elastic broke.  I thought since this was a repair job and not an actual "create new" project that I would be fine.  Yeah, no.  For some reason the person that made the pants did several sewing no, no's and the perfectionist in me just had to fix them.  Now while fixing his pants daddy somehow ended up killing a pair of pajama pants himself.  I knew I wouldn't be able to repair that damage so I decided to turn them into a pair of pajama pants for Seth.  NOT an easy thing to do but I did it somehow.  Now hopefully the next time I make any clothing I won't have any problems, one can dream right?

Eleven Months Old

As this kid ages he just gets that much harder to get a decent picture of him next to his growing buddy.  Although I love how active he is cause I know it means he is at least enjoying life.  He runs all over the house now and only falls when bumped over by a dog or when he is super tired that he trips over his own feet.  My little man has also FINALLY mastered waving bye-bye.  I love it!  Sometimes he will be watching himself in the mirror and he'll end up waving to himself, super cute.  One of Seth's favorite games to play is peek-a-boo.  He now can put a blanket over his face and pull it up or down to see and then he'll hide behind it again.  If he doesn't have a blanket he will turn his head away from you and then back again.  Another thing he is really getting good at is turning the pages in his books.  He is really smart because his books are on the same shelf as ours and he will (most of the time) only get his books out to read.  Seth likes to pick one book and then carry it over to us to sit in our lap to read the book to him.  I am excited to see what he is going to learn before he turns one in a month.

 

Proof of my wild man!  I'm just thankful this time I had daddy to help take a picture of him or else we wouldn't have anything to show because I totally did not have the energy this morning to deal with his craziness being all over the place.

Thanksgiving!

Most people look forward to Thanksgiving because of the wonderful and tasty food.  Others love it because of being together with their families.  Well I love all of those things but it is hard to get past pregnant morning sickness.  I've had it hit me really bad in the morning and at night so I was a little nervous about dinner time at our house.  The one thing that did make me happy was knowing this was Seth's very first Thanksgiving and he was going to get to try some awesome food.

 

 As you can see our little guy was ready to be a big help with carving the turkey.  I find it funny that the turkey is as big as him.  I do know that they both even weigh close to the same amount too.

 Almost time to dig into the bird.  Someone is super ready to try that turkey, don't you think so?

 One of our family traditions for the month of November is to create a thankful leaf pile.  Every day each family member says what they are thankful for that day and we write that down on a leaf and add it to the pile.  This year Michael and I shared a leaf and Seth had his own to say what he was thankful for that day.  Seth can't talk but we would write something down that he did that day or especially loved and let that count for him.  The things our family was thankful for this year and in no particular order either:

Sleep, Warm and soft bed plus blankets, Music, Kindness, Lilly, Talents, Family, New shoes, Turkey, Date night, Food, Hugs, Home, Daddy (my best friend), Daddy's job, Pj's, Wood, Car, Children, Technology, Ocean, Clean flowerbeds, Winter, Crafts, Friends, Baby sister, Sacrament, Mommy, Toys, Art, Doctors, Bath time toys, Medicine, Freedom, Fish, Hope, Photos, Peek-a-Boo, Faith, Ice cream, Milk, Telephones, Family time at home or wherever, Water, Walks with the dogs, Road trips, Humor, Aunt Dawn, Grandma and Grandpa, zoo, Temples, Holidays, Church, Daddy surprises, Scriptures, and Cheese.

I just had to add this picture of Seth in his adorable bib.  We haven't even feed him Thanksgiving dinner yet but as you can see he is already happily stuffed.  He sure did love all of dinner and happily went to bed that night.  Yeah for big meals that can knock a kid out for the night.

Yearly Turkey Gathering

 I saw this really cool idea on Pinterest of how you make a table runner with family members hand prints looking like turkeys.  I thought it was a really cute idea but needed to be taken just a little bit farther so it could become a fun family tradition.

Instead of a table runner I made a table cloth out of some muslin and fall quilt fabric for the binding.  I decided that our turkeys needed to be placed on a table cloth so that each year we can add our children's hand prints to it and watch them grow up over time.  Of course for this very first year both daddy and I added our hand prints too.

I have to say that it is very hard getting an almost 11 month old kid's hand print done with an ink pad in different colors and trying not to let that adorable child mix the colors together either.  As you can see I failed a little with getting the feathers different colors but I'm still pretty happy that I just got anything on the table cloth with how wiggly he was.  I'm just hoping next year since he will be close to turning two, I'll get a much better hand print without so much trouble.  Although then I'll have a little girl close to the age he is now to do this with all over again so it should be fun.

Relax My Little One

YEAH IT IS DONE!!!!!!  Oh my goodness.  I knew I would get this finished before our little girl was born but I never thought I would have a cross stitch that would give me so much trouble.  Like honestly whoever came up with this design, which is cute I'll give them that, HATES people who cross stitch.  I had so many problems with this thing.  First I was given all the color that I needed right? WRONG!!!  I was shorted out on a color because of poor planning on the designers part.  Then there was a symbol on the design that wasn't on the chart and one on the chart that wasn't in the design.  I thought maybe they just made a mistake but nope that wasn't it at all.  There was a lot of other things that drove me nuts so at least now I know never and I mean NEVER buy this brand again!  I'm just hoping that our little girl will be happy with it when she is older.  I know Seth really likes his because he looks at it a lot so maybe our baby girl will be nice to me and do the same.  Anyways one more thing down and ready for this girl to come.

Service Auction

This was a Relief Society activity that I had been waiting for months to happen.  I was so worried that I was going to miss it too because I was still feeling really sick but I decided to go anyways and just try really hard not to breath much so I wouldn't get anyone else sick.  I was very excited to see what other sisters talents are and what they had offered to do as a service.

 

 I was only able to get one thing but it was something I really wanted for Seth to have.  Some bow ties!  It has been on my to-do list to make him some so he will look a bit nicer for church but I just haven't had much time or energy to do it.  I also lack the know how too.  I did find a few directions on Pinterest that I need to try out but it was just nice to have it already done.  I did want to get some really cute hair bows for our baby girl but I didn't have enough auction points to get anything else so I guess I'll just have to start making those, AFTER she is born.

The Must Stops

I just love the beach!  The sound of the ocean is so wonderful and peaceful to me.  The smell of the sea is also rejuvenating too.  Honestly I go nuts when I am close to the coast and can't go.  This was at the very top of my bucket list of a place that Seth needed to go to.  I'm hoping he will love it as much as me one day.

 

It was a pretty cold day so I just made sure that we were both bundled up the best that we could be.  Again it was suppose to be raining, which it did a little, but it hardly stayed around so it was a nice day at the beach. 

Seth was very interested in the waves coming in and out.  At one point the waves had to come and greet my little ducky and me.  I tried to get back away as fast as I could, which isn't that great for this pregnant lady so my shoes got soaked but Seth stayed dry.  YEAH!  I'll take what I can get.  He of course thought it was funny which is fine with me.

Thankfully it was  another family fun trip day with everyone but Grandpa and daddy.  Seth's cousins were building a sand castle.  I never got to see if they actually finished it or if the waves got to it before they could.

Grandma and us decided to walk down the beach instead of playing in the sand.  It was a lot of fun to have some time together.  The only frustrating part for me was how the stroller kept getting stuck in the sand.  Reason why is one of the wheels fell off at the cheese factory as I was putting it into the car.  I thought I had fixed it but I guess I didn't do such a good job because after that it wouldn't turn straight anymore hence you get stuck in the sand a lot.

Seth just loves spending time with his grandma no matter where or what the whether is.

Finally the next day daddy was back and it was time to go home again.  We got out the door a little later then what we had planned but it is just nice to spend as much time as possible with the family.  Of course I had one last must stop place for us to do together and I'm glad that I really pushed for it too.  Even though it was dark we stopped at Multnomah Falls.  You couldn't really see the waterfall but we walked up to the lower portion to let Seth enjoy the sound of the water coming down.  We weren't there long but it was still fun to go.

Say Cheese

 

One place that I really wanted to take Seth to was the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  I was totally hoping that daddy would be back from his business trip by then but he had to stay an extra day so he missed out on the fun.

 

Right before you go into the factory portion there is this adorable photo spot.  I decided that since daddy was gone Seth could be the "man of the farm" for the moment.  Plus mommy has been feeling pretty big with my pregnancy finally coming to an end so the cow was perfect for me to be.

Now this is a kind of funny story of a picture.  When Seth was in the stroller he really could only see the top portion of the building, meaning only the lights.  Once I took him out to let him get a better view his eyes went super big from the entire other world below.  He just loved it.  Also I have never seen any of the workers do this before but the ones in the photo actually were looking up and waving at Seth for several minutes.  Boy!  My kid must be too good looking to get so much attention.

My little man happy to see where his cheese comes from and loving all of the attention too. 

Of course you can't go to the Cheese Factory without sampling the cheese they have.  He did pretty good and liked all of it except one, the squeaky cheese.  I figure when he gets older he will really like that one.  Now you also can't leave this place without trying the ice cream too.  IT IS THE BEST!!!

This was Seth's very first time trying ice cream as well and since daddy couldn't be with us I got us both daddy's favorite flavor so he could be somewhat a part of the experience.  Also, I must confess, I was thinking if I get Seth to love daddy's favorite flavor then maybe he will leave alone my favorite flavor and I can have more to myself.  Although I'm sure it will be our baby girls favorite or something just to even things out.

Before we left I had to get just one more picture.  I would honestly use this as our Christmas card photo if daddy was with us because it is so funny.  Several people standing on the side were laughing because they liked the idea.

Children's Time To Discover

By the zoo there is a children's museum which I wasn't planning on taking Seth to at first but when I heard his cousins were going I thought we should go too so he would have some more time to spend with them.  I didn't know how much Seth would really care about the exhibits but he just loved it all.

 

The first area we played at was the Twilight zone.  This was a really cool and fun spot with lots of different things kids could do with lights.  However my little man was much more interested in the stuff animals then anything else.  He found a little skunk that he had to play with for the majority of the time we were in that zone.  I'm not sure if his great grandpa would be proud of this or worried.

Something that Seth really enjoyed was the toy train they had.  I couldn't get all of the table into the picture for you to see how large it really was but get this the lucky kid had the entire thing to himself.  His cousins have a toy train like this at home and Seth had a blast playing with it so I'm not surprised that this was another favorite spot of his at the museum.

One area that I think he was a little confused by was the music/theater area.  There was a lot of other kids and commotion so I think he was a little overwhelmed because he just ended up watching the other children.  Although I must say that he looks pretty cute up on the stage with his cousin and aunt.

One of my favorite spots in the museum was this cute little boat they had in the corner of an area.  It had some cute water stuff animals for kids to play with.  It even had a penguin that Seth found and cared around while in the boat.  He really liked looking out the small windows at people as they walked by.

Since on this day my cold had really hit hard I took Seth into the baby portion of the children's museum.  It wasn't as great as I thought it was going to be but thankfully it had some good places for me to sit and rest while he played.  Seth really enjoyed this light table with the shapes.  It was a good spot for him until an older kid (who probably shouldn't have been in this area) came along and took all the toys.  Not sure where that kids parents were but whatever.

Once I was feeling a little more rested up I took Seth into the water zone.  My ducky loved it there!  Sadly this was the only spot in the entire area that he could see into the water tank.  He couldn't reach the water at the bottom but he was thankfully happy to just hold the toy boat that I gave him to play with.

I think he also liked getting splashed in the face a little too.  I'm sure that he would have spent a lot of time here but because of how much water was on his face he was shivering pretty bad and we had to move on to the next spot.

This was a pretty cute dentist area and not too big either.  I tried really hard to get a picture of Seth laying down with his head in the alligators mouth but he didn't like that so I got what I could.

Of course my little duck knows where the water and fish are at and had to spend his last amount of time with them before we had to go home.  It was a pretty cute museum and we didn't even go to every portion of it but we did cover quite a bit.  Hopefully next time he will have just as much fun as he did this time or more.

Little Duck In A Big Pond

A first that I have been just about dying to do with Seth is take him swimming in a really pool!  Where we live you have to have a gym membership to use the pools and the one public pool that I know of isn't in a very safe area so I don't want to take him there. 

 

One of my friends gave me a swimmer jacket suit thing and I was excited to have a chance to try it out.  Yeah, that didn't happen because the life guard on duty wanted it to be of a certain company approval and since I couldn't find that on a worn out tag I wasn't able to use it.  Thankfully they had some life jackets we could use for free.

My little man in the pools life jacket.  When out of the water it fit him great but when in the water it would choke up on him which I really didn't like but there wasn't anything I could do about it since I wanted him to have something on even though I was going to be holding him the entire time.  Yes, I am a very protective momma.

At the start Seth didn't like being on his back to float but he got use to it and by the end he almost feel asleep in my arms.

He loved splashing around in the large pool too and made sure that we both got plenty wet.  I'm just really proud at how well he did the entire time.  When we were leaving another mother came up to us and asked if he was a graduate of mommy and me swimming and I told her this was the first time that he had ever been in a large pool and she was super shocked because of how good he was.  Yep!  That is my adorable ducky.

I know we weren't there super long but to a little kid that did a lot of swimming, and I mean actually swimming of kicking legs and moving arms, it was long enough to wear him out.  He doesn't normally snuggle mommy but this time he was more then happy too.

I was just happy that he took such a good nap when we got back to grandma's house.  Of course I also enjoyed a good nap myself since I was starting to get a cold too but you can never let something like that stop you from having fun and getting an important bucket list of firsts done either.

Visiting The Past

It has become a tradition of mine that anytime I am back in my birth state to go and visit the first house I was raised in.  I have several very happy memories and I just like to see how things have changed.  Of course it was also great that I got a chance to take my son to see where mommy grew up too even though I know he wont remember being there.

 

Once again the color of the house has changed and some of the landscaping too.  Seth really didn't understand what I was showing him but that is okay cause he was just happy to be out of the car for a few minutes.

I think one of the biggest changes that shocked me with the house is when I was growing up there was a tree in the center front area that was taken out with the new owners and now whomever owns the house put a tree back in but to the side.  I am interested to see how the house will change in another few months or years.

I Love To See The Temple

Of course I just had to take Seth to one of my most favorite temples in all of the world.  I LOVE THIS ONE!  It holds a lot of special meaning to me and I also think it is fun to visit the temples for him to see what I know is important to our family.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the entire trip.  I just love this kids smile.

Seth had a great time playing on the temple grounds for a few minutes.  He especially loved splashing in the puddles.

King Of The Wild Things

I know that I was much more excited to take Seth to the zoo then he was being there or at least in the beginning since this was the first time he has ever been to a zoo.  It was a large fun family affair with Grandpa, Grandma, two aunts and two cousins, plus daddy and mommy too.

 

The weather was suppose to be rainy for the entire day but we lucked out with it not being so bad at all.  Just really over cast and cold so I made sure that we were all bundled up really well before we went out.

Our little family at the zoo entrance.  There was several people putting up and testing the zoo lights that they were getting ready for Christmas so it was kind of an extra fun treat for us because we will be missing going to that this year.

First animal that we got to see was the lovely Mountain goat.  I really liked the little statue that was there by the pin. 

One of the nice things about the cooler weather is all of the animals were quite active.  There bears were especially fun to watch.

The eagles were too far for Seth to see so I took a picture of them and showed him them through the camera.  After he saw them in the camera he tried looking for them in the cage but he still couldn't see them.

The zoo that we went to has been making some changes and the eagle area has a fun place for kids to play in now.  It was just to tempting to not get a picture of him in the eagles nest.

Another area of the eagles cage was a little river pool with some fish.  Seth has always enjoyed looking at our fish in Lilly's tank so we thought he would like to see these ones since they are so big.

Funny enough I think this was his most favorite part of the entire zoo trip.  He just loved watching the fish swim.  Michael and I were joking that for his first birthday we will need to get him a fishing pole cause he takes after two of his great grandpa's too much. 

 

Another fun thing the zoo has for kids is little areas that they can get close to the window and look at the animals.  When we were at the leopard pin it was hard for Seth and I to get close cause you had to go into this little kid hut but I managed to get us both in there so he could see the big kitty.

One of my favorite animals at the zoo was the tigers.  They were just picture perfect that day and I couldn't help but get lots of photos of them.

Of course we had to visit the penguin tank area.  I just love all of the different penguins at the entrance that they display.  We even found the cousins of Seth's growing buddy Mr. Penguino.

Now why is it when you try to take a picture of a kid with his growing buddy animal they all choose that moment to jump in the water?  Only one stayed out for us so I'll take what I can get.

Even though our little girl isn't here yet I had to get a picture of her/me with her growing buddy animal too.

Another must see animal for our family is the monkeys.   Not too many were outside because of the wet/cold weather but we still enjoyed looking for them.

 

Okay, I just love this picture.  I am so thankful for a much better camera that my sweet hubby got for me.  It sure makes the world of a difference.

 

The zoo we were at also had a lot of baby animals that were born recently.  One that Seth really loved was the baby elephant.  He was super excited to watch them.  The mom elephant was also AMAZING and doing tricks when we got there.  I wish I had pulled my camera out faster so I could get some pictures but it was still a lot of fun to watch.

 

Just a sweet moment with the cheetahs.  I also got several more pictures of these two together because really how often are you going to get to see something like this?

At one point Seth did fall asleep and missed part of the zoos animals but we still went through the entire zoo for fun.  It was a lot of walking for me since I move pretty slow at the moment but it was still a blast.  I am excited for when our little man will be a bit older and can enjoy this even more.