Happy Fourth of July, or Independence Day! We had planned a Fourth of July party at our home for some friends to watch the awesome Bellingham city fireworks – until we realized that they started at 10 p.m. One clear indication that you have a baby in your home is the desire to get to bed before midnight. =) So, our new plan is that Chris and I are doing an afternoon date (okay, that’s a lie or perhaps just an optimistic euphemism; we’ve hired a baby sitter so we can get 3 hours to clean the garage and 1 hour for a date afternoon. Between that and the no party situation, we are a barrel of fun). Rest assured, my goal is for Jamisen to be wearing his bow tie onesie all day. Judging from his expression below, I’m not quite positive that’s in the stars (ha! Get it? Punny!).

We’re hoping for some baby park time (Jamisen loves the park) and some serious craft time. Look for crafting photos later today. We had a great time eating blueberries and eggs this morning and then jetted out for a quick hike to the beach before morning nap time. [Read more…]

Our family snuck away for a little Washington Coast beach time recently. Both Chris and I worked during Jamisen’s nap time (he’s thankfully still taking 2 naps a day) and when he wasn’t napping, we were happily exploring the great outdoors (that is, when it wasn’t raining). It didn’t rain for a couple days so we literally spent every moment possible outside during these brief interludes of sun. Though Jamisen has been to the beach before, he wasn’t really mobile so this was his first real introduction to sand. [Read more…]

Hello Weekend and hello parentals! We’re so happy that Grandma and Grandpa Faiola are visiting this weekend. We started our morning like we do every morning, just before 6 a.m. with a change, a bottle and a hug. But, unlike every morning, we had a fun hike planned with the Grandparents. The second breakfast was finished (a delicious green bean, cashew, mushroom omelet – yum!), we hoofed it out as fast as we could to one of our glorious Washington State Parks and hiked to Clayton Beach. [Read more…]

This Father’s Day started out with Chris giving me the best present of all – an hour of extra time to sleep in. Because we scheduled Soap Weekend Intensive over Father’s Day Weekend (whoops!), Chris has the joy of spending the entire weekend with perfect Mr Jamisen while I soap it up! Soaping has been exhilerating but exhausting so it was wonderful to get to sleep in an hour. Best. Father’s Day. EVER.

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Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there! We had a wonderful weekend (thanks to awesome planning by Chris). Betweeen two hikes in the sunny Pacific Northwest, a lovely visit to a local sculpture park, visits to the park, bouquets of flowers and a new Nook (hello, Mother’s Day gift from sweet husband!), it was an energetic, busy and joyful weekend. [Read more…]

It’s hard to believe but Mr. Jamisen is 1 year old. He went from this:

To this:

In ONE YEAR! Seriously. How did that happen? He’s like an actual little boy-person. Things that Jamisen can do now: pull himself up on chairs and legs to a standing position, ‘scoot’ around things, point, wave, clap, say: Mamma, Dadda, ba-oon (balloon) and hi and eat good sized solids. He has his own Twitter account for photos. You can follow him @bramblebump. I post photos every few days and my favorite right now are pages 16-20 from when he was teensy, teensy tiny! Everyone told me it would go quickly and it has – it’s been like a blink of an eye from when he was just 6 pounds leaving the hospital until now when he is a healthy 22 pounds. [Read more…]

It’s only halfway through the weekend and we’ve packed enough fun in for multiple weekends. It wasn’t until after I had baby Jamisen that I realized why everyone looked forward to the weekend – play time! Pre-baby, weekends were for working, hiking and reading. And post-baby, weekends are for crawling races, hiking and reading. It’s not all that much different except it’s minus most of the work-work. Obviously, I still have housework with Mr. Jamisen loving to take things **out** of drawers but not so enthused about putting them back **into** drawers.

I spent part of the day (during Jamisen’s nap times) at the Bellingham Farmer’s Market gathering signatures for a public show of support for a wrongfully fired Port Director (local news coverage on it here). If you happen to live in Whatcom County and want to sign the petition, you can find it here. It was such a delight to spend part of the day outside, in the sun (one of the first days of sun in Bellingham recently) and then intersperse it with quality baby time. I can already see my freckles coming out with just a few hours in the sun. [Read more…]