Trains, Automobiles, and Buses!

Corbin and I went on our second big adventure this past week, the first being the trip to Spokane with Grandma S in July. This time we went down to Bend to visit Grandma and Grandpa H. My dad came up to Bham last weekend for a Kayak race and then Corbin and I headed down to Bend with him, sans Adam. Corbin did pretty well in the 8 hour car ride to Bend. It helped that we left during his nap time and then it lead into his bed time. He did wake up when we went below 50 miles per hour in Oregon. Ha! We had a great time with grandma and grandpa! Corbin was a steller little kiddo. He slept awesome, except for one night. 8-9 hours a night. He took great naps and played hard. He also had his first giggle fest! He has laughed a couple of times but this one was a huge constant giggle! It was so cute. I of course was the only one to witness it. We went out for coffee with my mom's friend and while they were getting our drinks, Corbin noticed the fire in the fireplace. He just laughed and laughed at it as if it was the funniest thing in the whole world. It was pretty precious. He also got really good at getting his thumb in his mouth and sucking it! We watched some Red Sox, went for walks, celebrated my mom's upcoming birthday. This picture here with my mom has inspired an idea. You will see it soon.

Corbin loves those zerberts! It is so fun to watch as he gets more and more interactive.

Then we headed on the bus to Portland! He also did a great job on the bus. He only got fussy when his diaper was really wet and luckily we were close to a stopping spot for a change. It was weird to be on the road and not have him in the carseat. I kept him in the sling, standing, a lot, because it felt slightly safer. He nursed and took a few cat naps and made faces at the little girl behind us. She wanted to know if he liked bacon or cheese (both of which she was eating) and I said no, not yet. He only drinks milk. Her reply was, so do I! She was funny. We arrived in Portland and Ali came to pick us up at the train station.

We hung out with Sam, Ali, and Sarah in Portland. Took some walks, went to eat, went to some baby shops, ate some good food cooked by Sam, played Bannana Grams and had a good old time with my good college friends.

Here he is with that thumb in his mouth!

Then we went on our final leg of our trip, the train to Bellingham!

We got to experience our first time getting special treatment because you have a baby. Instead of having to wait in the really long line, we got to skip it, board the train first, and have help from Sam and Ali! Which is a good thing, because we had the stroller, car seat, suitcase, and diaper bag. Corbin loved looking around at the train station. So much to see!

Corbin did great on the train too. He did a lot of comfort nursing when he got fussy. I didn't want him to upset any of the other riders and we didn't have anyone but me to keep him entertained. We sat next to a college girl from Portland to Tacoma, she wasn't that interested in him. Then we had the whole seat to ourselves. He loved looking out the window. He also took some naps, played around, walked up and down the train, and ate. He was sooo tired by the time we got to Bellingham. We were so excited to see Adam and Brindzi. They both missed us and we missed them! But we made it! It was a fun little adventure.

Now we are home, making apple sauce, doing yard work, and blogging. I have been inspired to do a special project, hopefully you will see it soon!

Lily Bean visit

Corbin met his virtual friend Lily Bean today. Lily's mom and I went to graduate school together but she lives up in the great north and so we haven't gotten together yet with the babies. Lily is about a month younger than Corbin. It was her first other baby experience! It was fun to see her look at Corbin :-)

She was still waking up when she got here. Corbin was saying "come on, you can do it".

Corbin has been making some big miles stones this last week. It seemed that for so long he was doing something big and new every day. Then he plateaued off, sure he was still growing and changing but they were smaller things. We also hit a little bump in the sleep road last week. He went from a champion sleeper to frequent waking. A real baby. I now have a whole new empathy for Becky when it comes to sleep :-) We are hopefully back on track with the sleeping. Tonight we might even try to not swaddle him for the first time at night. He broke out of the Miracle Blanket last night!

Yesterday he started grasping and holding things with two hands. His now not only bats at his mobiles but he can grasp them and pull them to his mouth, with both hands. He was getting frustrated at the black and white clowns on his gym because they were attached and once he got a hold of them, they wouldn't make it to his mouth! So he liked some of the other toys that I attached and were easier for him to get them into his mouth. He also really likes this one rattle that he can hold, shake around, and put into his mouth. Do you hear a pattern!

We also went to our first Doctor's appointment that was not routine. I thought he might have an ear infection. But he doesn't. He had a small cold last week, wasn't sleeping well, and fussier. I think he must just be changing and growing. And we had our first fall and injury. We went for a walk the other day. I had him in the front pack and I had to get off the pavement for a stupid car that didn't want to give us any room. When I stepped back onto the pavement, I rolled my ankle and went down. I fell and skinned by knee, used my hand to protect Corbin and he got a scratch on his forehead either from his own fingers, or from the buckle. It scared us both!

Ok... he's waking up from his nap. Gotta go!

Orange=Delicious

Yellow=meh

Can you see the color difference? It's kind of hard to see in the picture. On the right we have store-bought eggs, fed vegetarian flaxseed-enhanced feed, with no antibiotics or hormones. The two on the left are from our own chickens, fed whatever we have lying around (today they might get the last slice of generally bland sugar-free, gluten-free, vegan chocolate cake). It's always amazing to me how different even the most natural and organic and free range of store eggs look, when compared to the real thing.

I think two of our four hens are laying now, as I found two eggs in one day this week. Four is more hens than we've ever had. In the past we kept the fresh eggs for eating, and bought eggs for baking. I'm excited to not have to do that this year. Once the eggs start rolling, they'll really be rolling.

Chickens are the best!

Speaking of which, we're about to split a quarter of a grass-fed steer with our friends Becky and Kevin and Aki and Rich. As Erin and Corbin and I are right in the thick of the CAFO section of The Omnivore's Dilemma, we've decided to cease our consumption of CAFO beef. But we like beef, so it's time we found a better, tastier, healthier option. I'd like to do this with chicken, too, especially since it's a meat we eat much more often. They're all sold out for this year, though. Maybe next year.

Happy eating!

Gratuitous Corbin Shots

Corbin has been working those abs!

Pickle Party

I checked less things off my list than I was hoping this weekend. Ah well. At least I got to check off pickles. Plus, good friends Sabe and Tom are here to visit. So I've got excuses.

I don't even like pickles. But I like making them. We've had a late glut of cukes, and something had to be done. We'd never made pickles before, but we had made dill beans, and they're basically the same.

Fourteen pints of garlic-dill pickles

Three quarts of dill beans, too

And we dug up our potatoes. This is about half of them.

And we picked our eight plums.

Nice horns on that guy! Thanks Sabe!

Oh yes

Cider anyone?

We went down to Bainbridge this past weekend to partake in a long standing Shaffer and Henshaw tradition, Cider Pressing! They have been pressing cider each fall for 28 years! When Susan and Kris started Adam and Dana (the two oldest boys) were on their backs. Now Corbin is on mine (or in the front in his case :-). This year we brought down 16 bags of apples from 2 of our apple trees. We contributed this to the other bags of apples, totalling 63 bags of apples and some coolers! Wow, was it a lot of apples. We also invited our future farming friends Jill and Paul to come down and see how it was done. There were a total of 17 of us helping out in the pressing! It was a beautiful fall day and everyone had a great time. We ended up with 45 gallons of Cider! Adam and I took home 10 gallons for our freezer. Enough cider to last us through the year.

One tired little guy!

My camrea ran out of batteries so you can see more of our weekend fun here. Meghan did a great job of explaining the whole process and had some great shots!

Friends

Friends. Right now Corbin and Brody don't have a choice but we have great hopes that this will be lasting friendship! I have images of them tromping through the woods with their dogs in tow going to make a fort behind Kevin and Becky's house. Or riding their bikes from one house to the other, but there is that HUGE hill. I am not necessarily friends with my baby friends but I am still good friends with many of my elementary school friends. Some of them for 23 years! Who knows where this friendship will go. But for right now it's just too cute and I love getting these kind of photos.

Play time!

Play, eat, poop, nap. All in a good day!

Personal and parental decisions

I didn't take many pictures last week. Don't worry I still have a huge amount of pictures! If you want to see some that were taken last weekend during our Shaffer family visits check here.

Like I mentioned before in my last post. My week of being a SAM has gone by fast! My days kind of blur together. Although we did some fun and new things last week, it's hard to remember which day we did what. We went on some walks with friends, went to a baby and mom class, and I did some toy research during Corbin's morning nap. His morning nap has been developing pretty regularly. They say that is the one that starts first. Almost like clockwork, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours after he wakes up in the morning he is ready for a nap. It gives me time to do the dishes, check my email, look on the computer, and sometimes write a blog!

This past week I was reading some blogs on non-toxic toys and teethers, as Corbin has started to put lots of things into his mouth. Adam and I make some very conscious decisions about what we put in our bodies and use in our home. We try to buy organic, non-processed, whole grain, non-hydrogenated, and in-season food. Although we are not perfect, we try. We buy eco-friendly paper towels, toilet paper, non-toxic cleaning products, all of which tend to be more expensive, but we feel that it's important to do these things for ourselves and our world. And so now that we have this new little guy in our lives, we have more choices about what to do for him. It brings in a whole new set of questions about what choices we make in toys and things for him. This past spring we both changed to stainless steel water bottles that did not contain BPA. We chose to get Corbin glass bottles or BPA free bottles. And yet, this is just one thing I know about, so I made a choice to try to avoid it. Then a friend form high school sent me some blogs and sites that she looks at for info on choices for toys and other things for babies (thanks Jessie). I got sucked in. In a good way, I think. I found some teethers that don't contain BPA. But then I got thinking... how many other things are out there that I don't know about that I should be avoiding? Or is it one of those things that you can constantly be finding more and more till it's almost overwhelming? I went from looking at teethers, to realizing that the pacifiers that we bought, although the nipple didn't contain BPA, the plastic part that holds the nipple does. So then I got new pacifiers. Then I realized this new soft cozy bear lovey blanket that Corbin has been using at bed time and sucking on isn't organic. And he's putting it into his mouth. Should I get an oraganic one? Does everything he puts in his mouth be organic? Is he sucking in chemicals in the fabric, ect...and it just goes on and on... and I realize am I being crazy? How much is too much? How much should I worry about? Or can I just do what I can? and that is where I come back to. We are not perfect. And organic isn't alway perfect. We can only make so many decisions. We just hope we are making the right ones. And it's not worth worrying about. If did, I might get crazy! It's so easy to get sucked into these type of decisions. The safest toys and gear, the all organic, non-toxic, the no China toys, the organic food, the local food, and it goes on and on...we do what we can. We try to make good decisions and weigh things like cost, what's most important, and what we can do. Without going crazy. My rant. My thoughts, although jumbled. I think these things are all good things to think about, no matter what decicion I choose. Here are the sites Jessie sent me if you are interested:
http://zrecs.blogspot.com/
http://thesoftlanding.wordpress.com/
http://healthychild.org/main/

And alas... this week is EAT LOCAL WEEK! Check out what might be going on in your area. We will be venturing out to a local restaurant this week sometime to take in some local food other than our own! We still have been enjoying yummy food from our garden this past week. Here is a pizza we made last weekend with the Shaffer grandparents with all our own veggies. Yum!

Where did the week go?

Where has the first week of being a SAM (stay at home mom) gone? Adam's first week of school has gone by and it's already Sunday. We had a full weekend of fun filled dinners with soccer friends, co-workers, and good friends. It's sunny and fall like outside. And Corbin is happy! Pretty good I'd say.