Fall-tastic times

Around here, everyone is saying that the leaves are falling early this year - they sure are falling fast. I took this picture a few days ago, and now the vines are nearly bare.

 

I see these vines climbing over our neighbor's fence from the kitchen window of our little rental house, they're always pretty in the fall.

In other fall news, E is currently showing a lot of interest in using silverware at meals. I've been using his little wooden bowl a lot, and giving him mini spoons and forks to practice with.

Chewing on the toothbrush feels good when you're teething!

Mr. Muffin is also keen on "giving five" - taught to him by Grandpa. Today he turned a light switch on for the first time too!

Big Changes and Quick Change Trousers

I mentioned that I thought E was starting to say "mama," and now I really think he is.  He will say, "Mamamamamama" when he wants to give me something, when he wants me to give him something, or when he really wants my attention on something.  Once in awhile he says "Dada" too!

Some other changes are in the air: Mr. Tiny walks more often with his arms at his sides now, rather than up in the air for balance.  I've noticed him picking up things, especially food, with his whole hand when he needs to, instead of always using thumb and index finger.

 

What cute pants you have there, Mr. Muffin!  We have been having a little bit of a tough time finding pants that fit over the cloth diapers, so I sewed this pair for E.  The pattern is Quick Change Trousers, from the book Handmade Beginnings.  I'd read a lot of blogs saying that these pants are great for cloth diapers.  While they are super cute (and reverseable - although the reverse side is a little busy with that circle pattern fabric making up most of it), they are definitely not the answer to our fit dilemma.  The improvement in fit over store-bought sweat-style pants is negligible.

I have another pattern in mind to try, and although I don't think it's as cute as this one, I have higher hopes for it actually fitting.  I might also try making this pattern in knits, I think it would fit well then.

Pixie Hat: Complete!

After I finished my hat, I started in on a hat for E.  I thought this "pixie" style with a point in the back was too cute.

The green yarn is Socks That Rock medium-weight in the beryl colorway.  I've had this yarn quite a long time and tried to knit it in to a number of things, but most of them just didn't work out.  I find it rather too thick for socks, despite the name.  I realized a third of the way through that I wouldn't have enough of that darn green yarn, hence the gray stripe, in Regia 6-ply (another sock yarn that I find too thick for socks).

 

View from the side:

 

And the back:

Stay tuned for details on Mommy's headband :)

Hubbo put the hat on Mr. E for these pictures, I would have made it a bit tighter, but then, E never likes it when I put his hat on.  Hmm...

If you look carefully, you might notice that in the previous post, the hat isn't oriented in the same way as it is here.  This is the way I intended for it to be worn, but it looks cute either way!

1-3

Thirteen months (and a day)! I had every intention of writing this post last night, but I fell asleep immediately after putting E to bed, oops.

1-3 month day was a busy one.  It was pretty chilly in the morning when we went to the farmers' market to pick up some eggs.

Stay tuned for details on the pixie hat

Then we went to the Spunky Dunkers doughnut shop.  It was packed, as you might expect a doughnut shop to be at 10 on a Saturday morning.  They had a lot of seasonal (like pumpkin) doughnuts, but we stuck with tried-and-true favorites.  Overall, I think they were pretty average.  Glad we went once, but we probably won't go again before moving day.

 

Fun facts about 13 months:

• You weight 22 pounds and 15 ounces
• You are 31" tall
• You might be starting to say "mama" (when you give me things)
• Roasted butternut squash is about the only thing you don't like to eat
• You've gotten really good at standing up on your own

Baby's First Drawing

Today was a busy day for E. This morning, he learned how to flip a light switch! (But only down, flipping up is a bit trickier.) Most of the switches at our house are old-school (original from the 50's?) hard-to-flip and very loud. The bathroom, however, was remodeled recently and has "normal" switches, so we practiced in there and he was able to turn off the lights by himself.  He can't reach the light switches yet when he's standing on the ground, so I'm not worried about him playing with them and turning the house into a disco party.

For E's birthday, my parents gave him these way cool beeswax block crayons.  Unfortunately, the first thing he did with them was try to eat them.  So I put them away for awhile.  This morning, however, I was writing with a pen, and E kept trying to take it and write, but he couldn't hold it quite correctly to get it to make a mark.  I got his crayons back out, and he made this drawing!

 

I followed my dad's advice to try giving him the blue crayon instead of the red, in hopes that he wouldn't eat it because there isn't too much food that's blue, while he loves some red foods, like strawberries. It worked - there was no eating of the crayon!

I had chosen red originally because I remember reading that the Montessori approach to painting and drawing is to start with a single color, and they start with red. We might as well start with blue, if you ask me.

What do you want with my drawing?!

The drawing is on the back of a recipe for butternut squash soup.  I really like this soup, but it's a project to make, so I generally only have it once a year, in the fall.  This time I spread it out, I made the stock (since I had some bones in the freezer) a few days ahead, and I diced the squash a day or two in advance too.  I roasted it in the morning, and then just the actual cooking of the soup had to take place in the afternoon/evening.  I added black beans too, yum.

 

Baby in a hood, too cute.