Sight-seeing around the Bay Area

B’ys. Whoever said “the days are long, but the years are short” gotter all mixed up.

The days and nights are completely blended into one big ol’ day for me. My entire 24 hours are broken up into 2 (mainly 1.5) hour intervals with feedings. I often forget what day it is, except I don’t because I have to track Alfie’s medicine intake and have the days written out. So that helps lol. Honestly the days are literally flyin’ by and not creeping by at all like I thought.

I’m itching to grab onto every last moment where my baby was a newborn, now and infant. It’s insane how excited we get when he does the simplest new thing.

I love it. We love it. This little kid of ours is teaching us way more than we thought possible. He brings me so much joy. I catch myself smiling at him and now this (well last week) week he’s been grinning quite huge back at us. Makes all those inconsolable moments of his worthwhile haha.

So it’s been about a month since I was loaned the Lexus. That’s when we had two sets of visitors at once. Had a fine ol’ round of visitors there in March. My Mom, and also my husband’s awesome aunt from Germany (!!), and also my husbands relatives from British Columbia. I requested a larger vehicle for review to comfortably fit four adults and the car seat for baby. Cause man those car seats take up way more room that I would’ve thought.

Baby had his first ever car-diaper-changing experience in that Lexus. Kiddo knows style.

We did a slew of sight-seeing around the Bay Area with checking out Google for the first time, going to the Pulgas Water Temple (gorgeous) to me having a solo hour along cruisin’ in the car. Windows down, music up… it was glorious. We took full advantage of the Lexus and took it to SO many places. Capitola Beach for one of the first warm and sunny days of the season, up along highway 9 to see some redwood trees. 

Alfie OWNED the show. Per usual.

The 2017 Lexus RX 350 AWD F SPORT was the perfect size for all the adults, Alfie, and baby too. Thanks for the loan! (Pretty sure Alfie always enjoys it the most ;))

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Earth Day weekend

Sure, we may live in a concrete tech jungle here in Silicon Valley, but there’s plenty of green space to go out and explore. Set that phone of yours to airplane mode and get outside more to explore. Get lost, and adventure. Whether I’m solo or with baby in tow I need to get out of the house at least once a day to get fresh air (and of course to not go stir crazy).

This particular outing I brought some peach noosa yoghurt (I received a few free coupons to try it out. They’re all gone now lol) to chow down on, because whenever I do leave the house a snack is always on my list of items to never forget (including baby, keys, and phone) cause this nursing Momma is always hungry and never full. It’s an all-natural fuel for keeping me alert and never hangry, ’cause you know I’m only working with a handful of hours of sleep here.

The entire week has been pretty weird. First we had some wind, rain, including an earthquake. But for the last few days the weather has been pretty rad and cooperative. Wearing a wind/waterproof jacket is key for this April weather. The hard shell I’m wearing is from La Sportiva, called the Hail jacket. Fun fact, my climbing shoes are from La Sportiva as well and those feature 98% recycled materials. La Sportiva is committed to providing not only the best technical products available, but to protecting and preserving the places they love.

Earth Day is just around the corner (tomorrow!), and I’m already thinking of earth day themed activities for my wee one to participate in. He’s obviously much too young this year but having these ideas in my head for the future.

Up-cycle with whatever you have around the house for these activities:

  • Mini greenhouses! Plant herbs or even flowers in an old paper egg carton, cover it so it keeps the heat and moisture in and you have yourself a little garden. You could either use old paper egg cartons for these, or even an old yogurt container (somewhat off topic I’m addicted to my morning yogurt topped off with slivered almonds in the a.m.).
  • Decorate your own reusable bag.
  • Finger painting! Get out some green, and blue paint, draw a circle and your kid can go to town painting the earth in whatever artistic way they please. Roll out a long piece of butcher paper and have at it.

Like I said above my baby is a bit too young to join in on these things this year. But I’ve been eyeing up busy toddler on Instagram for baby and children’s activities since I first found out about her. So if you have a child of any, I’d suggest you to give her w follow too. She has some great ideas even perfect for rainy day activities.

Earth Day is an annual event celebrated on April 22. Worldwide, tons of events are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection.

What are your plans for Earth Day weekend?

Stay in the loop with noosa yogurt by checking out their Cream of the Crop Fan Club. 

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Two month postpartum favourites

Well holy cow, have a two month old baby on our hands as of today! He’s still sleeping in our room, in his bassinet for now. Any day he’ll grow too big for it length-wise. But so far everything has been going great. I can tell his fake cries from his real one’s – the fake ones sound a bit more whiney and immediately stop as soon as I say his name haha!! He just wanted to chit-chat, sure!

He’s finding his voice more now, and that’s so interesting to see. Oh and he’s completely obsessed with his tongue, and sticking it out. Tomorrow now is a huge day for him as he see’s his pediatrician and gets a whack load of needles. Neither of us are looking forward to it.

I’m getting better sleep than I thought, these past 2-ish weeks. He tires out around 8-9-10pm, and when I put him down for the night, he’ll sleep right through until 3am. I probably shouldn’t type that out, because as soon as one thinks they have a schedule for their baby, it immediately gets thrown out the window, doesn’t it? After 3am or so, it’s all over from there. Once in a blue moon he’ll sleep a few hours after that, but mostly it’s every hour (which is ok, considering I tend to get that one big stretch of sleep at the beginning….IF I go to bed/sleep the same time as him).

During the day though? I don’t think he’s much of a baby for napping. He has a few 10-30 minute catnaps throughout, but doesn’t go for a few hour nap at all, at least not lately.

As many tell me, and oh boy do I know it, this time is precious and flies by quickly. So I’m not too worried about getting things done (like a load of laundry, 0r getting back to emails, etc). Because I know I’ll want this newborn stage back once it’s gone. Or any stage of his life, for that matter.

Our babe loves movement, so whenever we go for car-ride adventures (Alfie included) baby loves looking out at the window, and often falls asleep. But he can tell when the car stops at stoplights, because he’ll immediately wake up screaming like someone is hurting him. He’s a character for sure. Put the foot on the gas once the light turns green, and he’s golden again.

Enough chit-chatter, let me tell you some of my two month postpartum favourites (for both baby and me):

Bright Stars Playmat: This is the exact playmat we have for baby. I’m not sure if he’s too young for it, but once a day or so I put him down and play with him and he stares intently at some of the items swinging around. This is the spot where he also does tummy-time, and luckily since he loves lifting his head whether he’s on me, or on the mat, he doesn’t mind tummy-time.

Baby Bouncer: Our little guy is in this more than he’s on the playmat, mainly because he’s strapped in and ready to go lol. This thing rocks (has two settings for speed) and plays music or white noise. It has removable parts for throwing it in the wash when he spits up on it. Now that he’s getting older, he can stay in it for more than five minutes without getting upset. This is the bouncer where baby first smiled at me! I’m going to call that a win.

Mobile for crib: He hasn’t spent much time in his crib because he either naps in the bassinet out in the living room, or sleeps in our room (in the bassinet). He’s laid down on his crib for a nap I think once (lol), but we’ve added a whale-shaped mobile and he loves staring at it. So when I’m cleaning up the nursery room I lay him down and turn on the mobile and he’s totally content staring at the little whales moving about.
UPPABaby VISTA stroller: Still loving the UPPABaby VISTA stroller that I talked about last month!
Lille baby carrier: I’ve use this carrier a handful of times this month with baby and it’s so sturdy and a great carrier. Then again I don’t really have anything else to compare it to, ha! I have to admit though it’s a bit challenging to put it on by yourself – I’ve done it, but it’s hard.
Diaper backpack. I chuck it under the stroller, or it’s on my back constantly, and both hands are free for picking up baby. I love it, and I bought it on eBay for $16. Hunt for it, since this is the actual seller I bought it from, but you can totally find it for as cheap as I did (it took AGES to get in from overseas though… a few months lol). See more photos of it here on an old blog post from December.
Long sleeved tee’s from Target: I own I think 6 long sleeved tee’s from Target’s line called A New Day, in an assortment of colours. I have been living in these while pregnant, and postpartum. They’re comfy, they wash well and I can pitch them in the washing machine and dryer (unheard of! I rarely ever dry my clothes in the dryer!) and they don’t shrink. Ugh they’re so soft guys…and they’re $10.
Favourite Tanks from GAP: Since it’s still kinda cool here and I’m also nursing my baby, I like to be discreet when feeding and often wear two layers of clothing. The tank top’s from GAP are my favourite to wear under the Target long-sleeved tee’s. A word to the wise (or penny pincher like myself): never buy these full price, they go on sale for 30% to 40% off ALL the time.
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