related?

ya think?

rain rain go away.

i decided i could wish the rain away or deal with it and go outside anyway. this morning, with kaimana in tow, that's just what i did. after many days of deliberating, i decided that today would be the day that i would purchase a zoo membership. excellent! zach had to take the car to work this morning, but i was determined. i checked the bus schedule, threw rain jackets on kaimana and myself and hit the pavement. we arrived soggy but excited at the zoo and hung out there for 4 hours. despite the weather, a lot of the animals were active. they also have an indoor play/interactive learning area where we played for a while to dry out a bit. unfortunately, kaimana fell asleep on my shoulder on the way to the giraffes. fortunately, we'll go again soon!

just enough.

there's something to be said for having just enough.

in this case i'm referring to having just enough space. it impels you to dispose of clutter, get organized, and only hold on to the things you truly treasure. goodbye junk. goodbye clothes i haven't worn in more than two years. goodbye books from college that have been held on to 'just in case'. it's hard enough with a one-year-old to feel uncluttered without clutter from the past hanging around.

one of things i now truly treasure is the freedom from working a job that was making me miserable. yes, we've given up apartment managing. thank goodness! which also means we've moved out of the old and into a new apartment. it's a great little space, but is a little less space than we had. but i don't notice it (well, maybe i notice it a little in the kitchen). it fits us perfectly.

i'm also starting to treasure my 'me' time for the first time in a long time! (that sounds like a lot of time.) now that the move is complete and the holidays are over, i'm finding that i'm actually able to do things like, for instance, blog. and work on the quilt i started 3 years ago. and prepare lasagna in the middle of the day so that when dinner time rolls around it's ready to go! it feels so good to have time. not too much, so that i'm sitting around wondering what to do next. just enough.

january to january.

january 2009

january 2010

spinning.

favorite new kaimana trait.

bedtime. sometimes happy, sometimes sad. kaimana has had his ups and downs when it comes to going to sleep for the night. since january, once he's asleep he usually stays asleep. it has been getting him to go to sleep that has been the issue. so, around 10 or 11 months, we started our serious bedtime routine. pick up our toys, take a bath, brush our teeth, get jammies on, read some books, rock for a bit and then hopefully lay down while still awake so that he'll fall asleep 'on his own'. this worked well until around his 1st birthday. it became a 50-50 chance that mommy or daddy would have to go back into his room a few times in order for him to calm down, lay down, and go to sleep. until.....

we scratched the routine.

last week, we had my brother darren over for turkey dinner, and knowing that it would be a struggle to get kaimana to go to sleep when he knows there someone new to play with, we let him stay up a bit later than usual. after darren left, we skipped bathtime and went straight into our jammies. i was picking him up from the changing table and getting ready to read books when i realized kaimana was pointing at his crib. huh, i thought, is he saying he wants to go to bed? so we turned off the lights and i set him in his crib. he sat there until i said "lay down and go to sleep", then he fell over and, well, went to sleep. so our new bedtime routine is much less grand, we simply put on jammies after picking up the toys and trot off to bed. kaimana actually follows me from the living room to his bedroom when i say "time for bed".

he also slept until 8:30 this morning. which i'm not about to expect everyday, but it sure was nice.

long long time.

wow. haven't posted anything in soooooooo long! sorry about that. what have we been up to you ask? well, kaimana had his first birthday, we visited to zoo, we went sailing with him for the first time, we visited friends in wenatchee, and have been doing our best to enjoy as much outside-time as possible as the weather is a-changin'. here are some slideshows to catch you up on our fun times!