I've finally made it through my backlog of Arlo video footage! It went back to when he was 15 months old, and it's crazy to see how much he's grown just in that amount of time. I've included the 15- and 19-month videos below; if you click through to Vimeo, you can see the 16- through 18-month videos too.

I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep making these (you can tell the 18- and 19-month videos are already pretty short), but it sure is nice to be able to go back and see Arlo growing up!

As I mentioned earlier, we recently bought Arlo a toddler bed from IKEA, and I sewed a few fitted sheets using the same general approach I used when sewing sheets for his crib.

I made three sheets: (1) a combination of Michael Miller Ta Dot flannel and some white flannel from a thrifted crib sheet, (2) In the Clearing flannel from the Loulouthi line by Anna Maria Horner, (3) Lost and Found by Jen Allyson for My Mind's Eye.

I made a quick drawing to show how I made the sheets, in case it might help somebody.

For each sheet, I bought 2.25 yards of fabric (45 inches wide). I pre-washed it, then cut out squares from the corners to give the dimensions shown in the picture (IKEA toddler mattresses are 63 x 27.5 x 4.75 inches). I sewed up the corners, added a casing for elastic around the bottom, and threaded 2.25 yards elastic through. I sewed the ends of the elastic together and closed the casing. Quick and easy! The sheets aren't perfect--the flannel especially shrunk quite a bit, so the sheet pockets aren't very deep, but it stays on well enough.

Another recently finished Arlo-related project: a toddler cowl. I wanted something to keep his neck warm, and a cowl seemed like it might stay on better than a scarf. I used the bandana cowl pattern from Purl Bee with a couple modifications (details on Ravelry), and I love how it turned out! I might need to make one for myself too--I love my cabled cowl, but it would be nice to have a little more cowl coverage in front for when I wear v-neck tops.

We spent the holidays in Portland this year--our first time since we moved here. I missed seeing my family, but it was nice being able to relax at home instead of traveling with a toddler. We got a living Christmas tree, which worked out well. Arlo and Patches were interested in the low-hanging ornaments on the tree, but we had enough non-breakable ones that we made it through Christmas without any ornament casualties.

Arlo was still a little too young to understand what was going on, but he seemed to enjoy himself. A few weeks before Christmas, we made a batch of gingerbread cookies (good recipe!), and Arlo helped cut out the cookies (his favorite part was eating the cookie dough). I frosted them with a little royal icing while he was napping (I used an icing mix from the Decorette Shop, since I didn't want to worry about egg whites).

We also did a cookie swap with some of the other families that we met at our new parents' group when Arlo was a little baby. I chose to make buckeyes, since those are a favorite of mine. The recipe I used was a little non-traditional, but it tasted good. If I made it again, I'd crush my graham crackers more finely, and I'd buy a little more chocolate, since I ran out about 3/4 of the way through dipping.

Patrick's family (minus Jay and Heather) came to visit for a few days starting on Christmas Eve, which was nice. Arlo was a little overwhelmed by all the visitors at first, but he warmed up to them.

We're still figuring out how to combine our family holiday traditions; this year we did our big dinner on Christmas Eve, which is Patrick's family tradition (I like it; it means I can be lazier on Christmas Day). We had glazed ham (using a Beeler's cooked uncured half ham), mashed sweet potatoes, flaky buttermilk biscuits, fast buttery peas, and kale and ricotta salata salad. For dessert, I made gingerbread with apple compote. Everything was tasty and not too much work, with Patrick and I working together. The only thing I wouldn't bother making again was the apple compote. It didn't add much to the gingerbread.

I mostly followed my family's Christmas breakfast tradition, but instead of sour cream coffee cake, I made a holiday breakfast wreath (along with scrambled eggs, sausage, grapefruit, and orange juice). The wreath was very good (and it's nice to be able to make it the night before and let it rise in the fridge overnight), but so is our traditional sour cream coffee cake. I think we might go back to coffee cake next year.

Arlo's big present from us this year was a play kitchen, which we bought used at Village Merchants last summer, on a tip from Susan. We bought a pots and pans starter kit from Spielwerk, and Arlo's Aunt Meg gave him a wooden food set, so his pantry is well stocked. I want to make him some felt food too--I'm thinking I'll try making a ham first, since that's what he's into these days :)

The first present Arlo opened on Christmas was a wooden peg puzzle, and he just wanted to sit down and play with that instead of opening more presents. I can't blame him--it's a fun puzzle, and it has a school bus on it!

We had a quiet New Year's Eve. We invited a few friends over for a game night and had hors d'oeuvres for dinner, plus chocolate fondue. If we do the same thing next year, I'll opt for more make-ahead dishes, so I can spend more time with our friends instead of in the kitchen! It was a tasty meal though.

• Hummus with carrots, celery, broccoli, and homemade pita chips (cut into wedges, brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and bake at 350F for 8 min. per side)
• Dates stuffed with parmesan and walnuts
• Potato pancakes with creme fraiche and caviar - These were good, but not as good as I remembered
• Pigs in blankets (half made with Yves veggie dogs and half made with Beeler's Lil' Bites) - Yum!
• Mexican chocolate fondue (recipe from Fondue) with mini churros and rice krispie treat balls (there was supposed to be fruit to dip too, but none of it was ripe in time) - The churros were tasty but required too much standing at the stove when I was supposed to be enjoying the company of my friends! If I made them again, I'd use a larger star tip (I used my largest tip, which was only about 3/8 inch), which would also reduce the amount of time it took to make them, since the churros would be bigger. On the bright side, this was my first time deep frying anything, and it went smoothly. I was kind of afraid I'd start 2012 with a hot oil burn, but I avoided that, so yay!

For New Year's breakfast, we did our traditional Dutch babies, sausage, and fruit, with orange juice spritzers. And for dinner, we had braised ribs with black-eyed peas and collard greens on rice. It's a good recipe, but next time I'd probably make it without the ribs, since they didn't add much.

A few weeks ago, I got some unexpected news from the company I've been working for (in varying capacities) for the past seven years. They're having trouble raising enough money to continue 2012 fully staffed, so they're planning wide-ranging layoffs in mid-February. To save money in the meantime, they decided not to renew my contract for 2012, so I won't be working for the next month and a half. I'll find out in mid-February if they'll be renewing my contract for the rest of the year (well, until I go on maternity leave in mid-April). Since I've only been working part-time (~10 hours a week) since Arlo was born, losing my job wouldn't have a huge impact on me, but I'd be sad to lose that part of my identity. It's a good job, and I appreciated being able to maintain my career a tiny bit while staying home with Arlo. I'm hoping for good news in mid-February (but even more, I'm hoping for good news for all my coworkers, who work full-time and have Bay Area mortgages to pay!).

Although my career might be in limbo for much of this year, I think the family side of things will more than make up for it. I can't wait to see how Arlo grows and changes this year, and we're excited to meet baby #2 in May! It's shaping up to be a crazy, wonderful year!

Arlo turned 19 months old a little over a week ago.

He is turning into such a big kid! He took to the BabyBjorn toilet trainer potty ring within a day or two, and we've now retired his little potty in favor of using the big potty all the time. It's so great that he's willing to use it--it's nice not to have to rinse out the little potty anymore.

Since it's getting to be a struggle to put diapers on Arlo, I've decided to try switching him to training pants--mostly because they're easier to take on and off, not out of any interest in starting potty training. I've ordered a couple different kinds of cloth training pants from Etsy, and we're going to start trying them out next week, just around the house during the day. I have no idea if it will work. Apart from the occasional miscommunication, he's got the pooping in the potty thing down already (yay!), but he still pees in his diaper whenever he feels like it. We'll see what happens. I'm not particularly motivated to start potty training in earnest, but it seems like we might as well try switching to training pants now. If they don't work, we'll go back to diapers for a while (Antsy Pants look like a good pull-up-style cloth diaper, if we choose to go that route; I just don't want to spend that extra money unless we have to).

Arlo hit another big-boy milestone a little earlier than I'd envisioned this past month--we switched him to a toddler bed in mid-December. With my growing belly, I was having trouble getting him in and out of his crib (and we wanted to try to move him out of it by August, so that baby #2 could use it), so we decided to see if he'd go for a big-boy bed. Since his room is pretty small (and he'll be sharing it with his little brother), we decided to get a Sniglar toddler bed from IKEA, rather than getting a twin bed right away. Patrick and Arlo assembled it, and I sewed a cozy fitted flannel sheet for it (more details to come in a future post).

We let him get used to having it in his room for a few days before we started offering it as an option for sleeping. He chose to sleep in it after a day or so, first for naps, and then for bedtime too. Despite my worrying, he took to it without any problems and now sleeps in it all the time. So far, he hasn't tried getting out of it when he's supposed to be sleeping, and he seems to be really happy with it. The only problem we've encountered is that it's easier for him to drop his blankie off the side, so we normally have to get up once or twice a night to retrieve his blankie for him. Not awesome, but at least he goes right back to sleep once it's returned. I'm willing to deal with that minor inconvenience, given how well the switch has gone otherwise. Oh, my big kid!

Patches has joined Arlo in his new bed a few times, which is super sweet. She normally keeps her distance from him when he's awake (unless he's got treats), so it's nice to see them together.

Arlo is starting to recognize a few letters and numbers, which is exciting. In addition to the letter O, which I mentioned last time, he can identify D, I, and sometimes Q. He can also identify the numbers 2 and 4 most of the time. Little kids are amazing!

It seems like he has been picking up new words a lot faster in the past few weeks, which is so fun! His favorite words around Christmas were, appropriately, "cookie" and "ham." Around the same time, he learned "more," "yeah," and "no," which made it a lot easier to figure out what he wants. He's also picked up "bye bye" in the past few weeks, and he now tearfully says bye bye to everything he's been playing with before he goes upstairs for his nap/bedtime--bye bye book, school bus, puzzle, shoes, etc. He does the same thing when he's been playing with a fun toy at a store and it's time to leave. The nice thing is that even though he's sad about having to stop playing, he still goes with us without resisting. We'll see how long that lasts. I feel really lucky that he has been such an easygoing little boy so far.

I actually feel like he may be starting to make the switch to headstrong toddler, though we still have it pretty easy. Ever since he learned to say "no" and "yeah," he's been much more assertive and gets upset if we don't comply with his requests. He has also gotten really hard to deal with during diaper changes, as I mentioned above. But I think we still have it pretty good. It makes me a little nervous about how his little brother will turn out, since it seems unlikely that we'll get two mild-mannered babies. We'll just have to wait and see...

Speaking of baby #2, everything is going well so far. I'm 23 weeks pregnant today (time to take another belly picture!). I felt the baby kick for the first time around 17 weeks, and Patrick was able to feel him kicking for the first time right before we went to bed on Christmas (when I was 20 weeks along). I think this is just about the same timing that we had with Arlo. The kicking definitely makes it seem more real, though I think I'm still coming to terms with the fact that we'll be doing the whole newborn thing all over again this summer. Really?

We went in for a follow-up ultrasound last week, to make sure the baby is growing well and to check the location of my placenta. The baby's size looked good (yay!), but my placenta is still low, so we're going to have another ultrasound in 6 weeks to check on it. I'm not too worried, since the same thing happened with Arlo, and my placenta moved eventually.

We've signed up for a birth preparation class offered by one of the midwives I'm seeing (Inner Work of Birth, for those of you in Portland). It's supposed to be good for women who have emotional issues to deal with, such as a difficult previous labor. I feel like I'm getting closer to resolving my issues regarding Arlo's birth, but I think it's worth taking this class. I've also read a couple birth preparation books, my favorite of which was Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way. It's a little dated in parts (I may not have the most recent version), but it contains lots of useful information. I don't think we'll use the Bradley method, but some of the techniques could still come in handy.

Here's a quick craft and food roundup post while Arlo naps…

I've been knitting a lot lately, what with the cold weather and pregnancy tiredness. Here's what I've made, with Ravelry links for more info:

1. Fluffy fishy mitts - so named because I used some beautiful Leethal handspun named Twisting Fishies.

2. Mittens for Arlo and Everett - I used yarn with a very slow color change, so I had to make two pairs in order to get the colors to match. Plus I like Everett and want his hands to be warm too!

3. Bulky pink mitts - made for my coworker as part of the Pay It Forward meme that went around Facebook at the beginning of the year.

4. Toddler sophisticate sweater for Arlo - I love this sweater! The only problem is that the buttons are a little small, so the front tends to pop open. He still wears it a lot though; it makes me happy :)

5. Star ornaments - continuing my new tradition of making matching ornaments for our tree and Arlo's ornament box.

As for food, I don't think I ever wrote about our Thanksgiving meal this year. We almost made it all vegetarian (since the majority of our guests were vegetarians), but we ended up buying a small turkey roast (essentially a bag of white meat; not that appetizing, but easy to cut) so that we'd be able to have turkey sandwiches the next day. We also had lentil salad, golden crusted brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce, buttermilk mashed potatoes, and rolls from Little T. For dessert, we had apple pie (my standard Damn Fine Apple Pie recipe from In the Sweet Kitchen) and pumpkin pie. The pumpkin pie tasted good, but it was a little runny in the middle even after reaching 175F. I think I had the same problem last year. Next year I need to remember to bake it a little longer.

And a list of recent meals worth making again:

• 30-minute shrimp and sausage gumbo - This was fast and tasty
• Pan-roasted flank steak with garlic, potato and blue cheese gratin, and steamed broccoli
• Pasta with hashed brussels sprouts and pine nuts - Mmm, brussels sprouts! This dish came together quickly and was yummy
• Chicken tikka masala - Next time I might try using okra in place of the chicken (I'm still trying to recreate the bhindi masala I used to get at Darbar in Palo Alto)
• Sopa seca with black beans - This was my first time making fideos, and they were good!

We got our final amnio results today, and everything looks normal (also, we have official, 99.999% confirmation that it's a boy). Phew! I'm so glad we can put that behind us and worry about more normal things, like baby names.

Also, here's a crooked belly picture from about a week ago, since I didn't include one in my last post.

We're doing well--settling in for our first Christmas in Portland, trying to keep Patches and Arlo from taking all the ornaments off of the lower half of the Christmas tree. More soon, with pictures!

Arlo is 18 months old--what a big kid!

He continues to comprehend more and more about the world around him. When he's about to do something he knows he's not supposed to do, he'll stop, look at us, and say "uh uh." It's nice to know that he knows the rules, even if he doesn't always follow them.

As I posted earlier, he started walking a few weeks after his 17-month birthday, much to our excitement. He still prefers crawling or cruising when he wants to get somewhere, but he'll walk if we ask him to or if he wants to get a reaction out of us. I kind of figured that once he started walking, he'd be walking and running all over the place, but that hasn't happened yet. He's developing at his own pace, which is fine.

The same week that he started walking, Arlo started saying "mama," and now he says it all the time. Yay! It makes me happy :)

He has a shape sorter and has gotten really good at sorting shapes and can identify the oval shape by name (he likes words that contain the "o" sound). He can also identify the letter "O" and will point to it excitedly and say its name when we're looking at a book or a cereal box or junk mail. He also thinks that "D" and "Q" are the same as "O," but that's understandable. It's so cool seeing him learn new things!

On Thanksgiving night, Arlo came down with his first big fever (102.6F) and had trouble sleeping. We ended up taking him to urgent care the next day, feeling pretty confident that it was an ear infection, but the doctor said his ears looked fine, and by then the fever was gone, and he was just fine the next day. It's a mystery!

Shortly after he recovered from his Thanksgiving illness, we decided to cut out Arlo's morning nap for good, since it was starting to affect his afternoon nap and nighttime sleeping. He has handled the transition just fine and now happily takes a single 2-hour-long nap in the afternoon. I think I miss the morning nap more than he does. On the plus side, he now has more time to do fun activities with Patrick on weekend mornings while I'm at my prenatal yoga class.

Arlo's cup drinking skills have improved a lot in the past month, though he still gets absentminded at times and spills his drinks (and then says "uh oh" and asks for a towel to mop up the spill--what a kid!). We ended up skipping sippy cups all together, so Arlo drinks from little plastic IKEA tumblers at mealtimes. It's working out pretty well.

He's still trying to figure out how to use utensils. He can usually get food onto a fork or spoon, but it tends to fall into his lap when he's trying to maneuver it into his mouth. At this point, he usually gives up on his utensils pretty quickly and relies on his hands instead.

He has recently discovered pomegranate seeds, and is super into them right now (I wish I could eat them too, but there's mixed research about whether pomegranates are safe during pregnancy, so I'm choosing to avoid them for now). Not surprisingly, he's pretty picky about new foods (and he nervously waves away any liquids offered to him on a spoon or in a bowl, which is a little frustrating when we're having soup for dinner). Based on the advice in Ellyn Satter's Child of Mine, our approach has been to offer him whatever we're eating, and he can eat or not eat it as he desires. We have snacks in the morning and afternoon, and I try to make these more appealing to him (cheese, dried fruit, toast!, and crackers), and then meals are more adventurous. He'll usually find at least one part of the meal that he's willing to eat, and he drinks a lot of milk to make up the difference. It seems to be working fine--he's still growing.

A little over a week ago, I decided Arlo might be interested in trying out the big potty instead of his little free-standing potty, so I bought two BabyBjorn toilet trainers from Milagros. They work great, and Arlo took to them immediately. Most of the time, he now insists on using the big potty instead of his little potty. Works for me--less cleanup!

He has recently become more communicative about when he needs to use the potty (with lots of false alarms and misses, but some successes too), and I've been thinking it might be time to try switching to training pants during awake times. But I'm not sure I have the energy to deal with the extra cleanup that would entail. He's pretty good about pooping in the potty (yay!), but he still pees in his diaper most of the time, so we'll definitely have some messes to clean up when we switch. It would help if he could walk to the potty and pull down his pants himself, but he's not quite to that point yet. Hmm, I don't know.

In baby #2 news, the past week was kind of rough for us but had a happy ending. We got some worrisome genetic screening results last Friday and ended up doing an amnio on Tuesday. The good news is that the preliminary amnio results are normal (with 98-99% certainty; we'll get the 99.999% certain results in a few weeks). I wrote a couple private entries at the time that are now public, in case you want to read all about it: screening results, amniocentesis, and preliminary amnio results. In case you don't want to read all about my amnio, the short version is that I have low PAPP-A levels (which led to an elevated trisomy 18 risk in the screening), we're having another boy (!), he has a single umbilical artery, and he probably has normal chromosomes (phew!).

There are risks associated with my low PAPP-A levels and the baby's single umbilical artery (most notably low birth weight and miscarriage, ugh), but I'm trying not to worry about that right now. The doctor I talked to during the amnio didn't seem too worried about either of those things, and this pregnancy will proceed however it wants to whether I spend my time worrying or being excited, so I might as well enjoy myself (this attitude was inspired by an email from my mom, and I'm trying very hard to keep it in mind when I start thinking about things that could go wrong).

Before we took our little genetic screening detour, I had been spending some time reading about different birth preparation methods. I still don't know which (if any) I should pursue. Hypnobabies is billed as a more comprehensive program than hypnobirthing, but I would feel like a chump if I invested my time and money in another hypnosis program only to have it not work again. There's also the Bradley method, but that becomes a pretty expensive proposition when you factor in 12 evenings of babysitting. For now, I've requested a Bradley method book from the library to see if I can glean some useful information from it.

I also found a free online e-book of Ina May's Guide to Childbirth through my library system (thanks, Multnomah County Library!). I enjoyed reading it, and I'd like to revisit the second half of the book as we get closer to the baby's due date, to remind myself of Ina's pain relief and birthing tips. The birth stories in the first half of the book were a fun read too, though some of them were easier for me to relate to than others. This book made me think that maybe I don't need a birth preparation class this time around, as long as we have a doula and supportive midwives. Hmm.

Good news--we just got our preliminary amnio (FISH) results back, and they're normal. That means that with 98-99% certainty, the baby doesn't have trisomy 13, trisomy 18, or Down's Syndrome (check back in two weeks for the 99.999% certain results, which will hopefully be the same). Hooray! It's such a relief to get good news after the past week of roller coaster emotions. Time to go back to excitedly anticipating baby #2's arrival and trying to choose another boy's name.

The amniocentesis this morning went well. I spent the prior 24 hours getting more and more freaked out about the baby potentially having trisomy 18, reading stories from other parents online (not a good idea), and thinking about worst-case scenarios over and over again, no matter how hard I tried to stop. Ugh. So I was feeling pretty apprehensive going into the appointment, afraid of what they might see on the ultrasound. Luckily, they said that the anatomy looked normal (which would be unusual if the baby had trisomy 18; normally they would see some soft markers or defects), and we'll have the preliminary FISH results from the amnio either tomorrow or Thursday. The FISH results are 98% accurate, and then the official 99.999% results take about 2 weeks.

We ended up taking Arlo with us to the appointment, and he did a great job hanging out for the whole two and a half hours (we had a long wait at the beginning, but luckily there were fun toys in the waiting area). We started the appointment by talking to a genetic counselor, who was very reassuring and calming. I was impressed by how much she knew about my labor history with Arlo, plus she had a big basket of toys that kept Arlo busy while Patrick and I talked to her.

She said that the main thing that led to me having such a high risk rating for trisomy 18 was the very low level of a protein called PAPP-A in my blood (the reading was 0.15 MoM, which puts me in the first percentile). This could mean my placenta isn't doing its job well, and it can be associated with small babies and preeclampsia, so that's something to keep an eye on, assuming the amnio results come back normal. But she said that in 90% of women with my level of PAPP-A, the pregnancy goes just fine, so there's no need to freak out about it (a common theme in our conversation).

Next, we had an in-depth ultrasound, looking for any defects. It was hard to know what to feel during the ultrasound, because the tech, though very friendly and chatty, gave no indication of whether what we were seeing was normal or not. So we were in suspense until the doctor came in to talk to us at the end. I wanted to get excited about seeing the baby moving around (and finding out it's a boy!), but I didn't want to get any more emotionally attached if we'd just be hearing bad news at the end of the ultrasound. Luckily, it didn't end up like that--the doctor came in and said that everything looked normal, and then proceeded to talk about what she would be doing for the amnio (we decided to still do the amnio, even though the ultrasound looked good, since trisomy 18 is such a serious condition).

Although the baby's anatomy looked normal, the ultrasound showed two notable things: (1) My placenta is currently low and close to my cervix. Hopefully it will move in a few weeks, like it did with Arlo. This was actually a little bit of a relief, since I'd recently read about placenta percreta, where the placenta grows into the scar from a previous C-section, so I was glad that we don't have to worry about that. (2) The baby has a single umbilical artery, instead of the normal two arteries. The doctor didn't seem super concerned about this, but it can be associated with reduced fetal growth, so they want to have me come in for a few more ultrasounds over the course of the pregnancy, to make sure the baby is growing well.

Next, Arlo and Patrick left the room (to avoid any toddler needle grabbing) and the doctor did the amnio. They used the ultrasound to find an area away from the baby, and then the doctor inserted a really thin needle into my belly. After it was in, she removed the needle part and left a skinny tube in its place, so that the baby wouldn't get poked if it moved. She removed a couple tablespoons of amniotic fluid, and it wasn't totally painless, but it wasn't bad--no acute pain, more of a deep, crampy feeling. I felt a little shaky afterwards, but that may have just been from bracing myself for the needle.

I'm on orders to take it really easy for the rest of the day (no Arlo-lifting, if possible), so I'm hanging out in bed while Patrick takes care of everything (he's so great!). I haven't taken it this easy since Arlo was a tiny, tiny baby.

I was telling Patrick that I'm feeling much better after the ultrasound today, but I'm not quite ready to switch from emotionally distancing myself from the pregnancy (the mode I've been in for the past five days, since I got the call about my screening results) back to being excited again. Maybe once we get the FISH results, I'll be able to relax. I just don't want to let down my guard too soon and then get some horrible news. But I also don't want to distance myself from this pregnancy for 2 more weeks while we wait for the final amnio results. Anyway, today was a step in the right direction, and I think I'll sleep much better tonight than I did last night.

We got some worrisome screening results for baby #2 on Friday. I did the final blood draw for the sequential screen on Tuesday, and based on the results, the baby is at an elevated risk of having trisomy 18 (a 1:21 chance, instead of the standard 1:2200 for a woman my age). I hadn't read much about it before, but trisomy 18 is bad news--babies with it typically have heart or kidney defects, and most die within a week of birth. Those that survive have a lot of health and developmental problems. Not good.

I keep reminding myself that there's a 95% chance that the baby is fine, but it's hard not to think about worst-case scenarios. After some deliberation, we've decided to get an amniocentesis so we can know for sure what's going on. The amnio comes with a small risk of miscarriage (1:500 for OHSU), but we've decided that risk is worth it to have peace of mind for the rest of the pregnancy, instead of spending the next 20 weeks worrying about this. So, amnio on Tuesday, and then we wait a couple of weeks for the results. Hopefully holiday preparations will help distract me while we're waiting (it's our first Christmas in Portland!).

This has made me extra appreciative that Arlo is healthy. He is so special to us. Hopefully his baby brother or sister will turn out to be equally healthy, and I'll look back on this and feel silly for stressing out about it.

So we have some good news to share--I'm pregnant again! The baby is due May 8, a few weeks before Arlo's second birthday. Here's a scan from our 11-week ultrasound. I think it looks like the baby is wearing a toupee, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case :)

As of tomorrow, I'll be 16 weeks pregnant. I'm feeling pretty good. My experience with morning sickness this time around was a lot like it was with Arlo--no vomiting (phew), just food aversions, general feelings of yuckiness, and fatigue. Patrick has been amazing and has done so much to cover for me for the past few months while I've been laid low by morning sickness. Most of my symptoms subsided a few weeks ago, but I still get tired a lot--probably due to having a toddler to take care of this time around. Here I am at 14 weeks, looking as big as I did at 20 weeks with Arlo. I started showing around 9 weeks. I guess my uterus and abdominal muscles were all too happy to stretch out this time around.

So far our checkups have gone well, and our ultrasound at 11 weeks went smoothly. Yay! This still doesn't seem quite real, but I think it'll become more real once I start feeling the baby kicking (any day now!). I think part of it is that we weren't planning on getting pregnant again quite so soon. We definitely wanted to have another baby, but we were thinking the spacing would be closer to 3 years than 2. But we'll make it work. Plenty of families do this!

I've decided to try for a VBAC this time, mostly because I don't want to go through another long, painful C-section recovery like I did with Arlo. We're planning on having my mom come stay with us when the baby's born, so at least we won't be totally flailing if I do have another C-section and am stuck in bed for a month, but I'd really prefer to be mobile for that first month of new baby amazingness.

In the meantime, I've got some emotional baggage to work through from Arlo's birth. I tried to portray it as positively as I could when I wrote about it after he was born, but it was a really hard experience for me, and I feel some bitterness and regret about how it turned out. Obviously, I also feel immense gratitude that Arlo and I both came out of it healthy, and I feel joy that we have such an amazing little boy, but that doesn't change the fact that there are negative feelings wrapped up in my memories of Arlo's birth and first few months of life (breastfeeding problems, ugh). I wish it wasn't that way. Hopefully someday I'll be able to get past the negative stuff and just remember the good parts.

I'm doing a few things to improve my odds of having a successful VBAC. Instead of the OB/GYN I saw with Arlo (who I like as a gynecologist but was not a good match for me as an OB, in retrospect), I am seeing the midwives at OHSU. We have had a couple of visits with them, and I am really happy with my choice so far. I feel like I have as much time as I want to talk at each visit, and they are sympathetic about my past birth experience and seem genuinely interested in helping me achieve a VBAC. They have an 80% VBAC success rate, which I believe is the highest in Portland.

I've also started going to yoga classes once a week again, after a little morning-sickness-induced hiatus. I didn't exercise regularly when I was pregnant with Arlo, and it seems like being in better shape could only help with labor and delivery this time around. I just switched from a normal yoga class to a pre-natal yoga class at Zenana, and I think it will be a good fit for me. The instructor talks a lot about how the different positions can be used during labor, which I think will be really useful information to have. I definitely want to have a wider range of tools to draw on this time around, rather than just trusting that hypnobirthing will work for me like I did with Arlo (I might incorporate some of the hypnobirthing techniques this time around, but it definitely won't be the only thing I do).

The midwives have recommended a childbirth preparation class that is intended for people who may have some issues to work through regarding birth, so I'm going to try to take that in the spring.

I want to strike a balance between feeling prepared for birth and not stressing out about everything. I especially don't want to spend time worrying about how the baby is positioned this time around, since I did all sorts of things to optimally position Arlo in the weeks leading up to his birth, and he ended up sunny side up anyway. At least now I've had a C-section, and I know it won't be the end of the world if I have to have another one. Hopefully that will make me approach things a little more sanely this time around, so I won't go through 80+ hours of on-again, off-again labor and horrible ineffectual pitocin contractions before deciding it's time for a C-section.

The same thing goes for breastfeeding--hopefully it will go smoothly this time, but if it doesn't, there's no way we can expend the same amount of effort we did getting Arlo to breastfeed. We'll have a 2-year-old to take care of this time around--I won't be able to pump around the clock and go to lactation consultant appointments and support groups. We'll do the best we can, but I need to remember to be flexible and be prepared to let go of any notions I might have of how things will be. It's okay to have goals, but it's not good to cling to them so doggedly that you make yourself miserable in the process. This time around, I want to do a better job of enjoying the amazing experience of meeting our brand new baby!

Hmm, I guess that was a lot of heavy stuff to tack onto a happy pregnancy announcement post. It was good to write it all down though. And now that I don't have to keep my pregnancy a secret anymore, hopefully I'll get back to posting more regularly. Or I'll just keep sitting on the couch, knitting and watching TV shows online. That's about all I'm good for at night after Arlo goes to bed. I hope I'll get some of that magic second trimester energy soon!

Arlo had his first haircut this morning. Here he is before and after:

He did not like having some strange lady mess with his hair, and he was crying and flailing his arms around after only a few minutes, so we took the haircutter's suggestion and gave him a lollipop (another first) to calm him down. Luckily, it worked. He left Rudy's with a blue tongue and a big boy haircut.

Arlo started walking today. Yay!

Hmm, apparently it has been a month since I posted. Arlo is seventeen months old now. He's so great; he just gets more and more awesome every month!

In the past month, he has gotten really interested in sorting things and taking small objects in and out of larger objects--for instance, he'll open the spice drawer (he can open our kitchen drawers now--yikes!), take out every jar he can reach, and then put them all back in the drawer. When he started doing this, I tried to get him to smell the different spices, but he was adamantly opposed to that game, waving the jars away and wrinkling his nose. He can also locate the jar of paprika in the spice drawer and bring it to me when asked. Not super useful, since I hardly ever cook with paprika, but it's a fun trick.

He enjoys sorting bags of apples and potatoes, occasionally stopping to lick each one. Luckily, the potatoes were pretty clean to start with, and they were very clean when Arlo was done with them!

He has recently figured out that when food is hot, you're supposed to blow on it, and now he'll blow on his food (and ours) at all meals, whether it's hot or not. When he sees a pot steaming on the stovetop, he'll blow at it. I may be biased, but I think it's super cute :)

He has gotten very sensitive about certain parts of books--we have a Richard Scarry book where a pig trips and falls down, and every time we read it, Arlo makes a concerned noise and points at the pig and keeps wanting to go back to that part and look at it again, even though it clearly bothers him. He feels the same way about a book in which children go sledding, even though we assure him that they're having fun.

He continues to be pretty shy around strangers. Sometimes he'll smile when somebody talks to him, but most of the time he furrows his brow and looks at them suspiciously. Or if he's feeling really shy, he'll bury his face in my shoulder, which I love :)

At the beginning of the month, we thought his morning nap was going away, because there was a week or so where he was skipping his nap every other day. In retrospect, this may have been due to teething--another molar came in this month (he now has 2 of 4 first molars). At this point, he's back to napping pretty much every morning, though he can handle skipping the nap when needed. I have a feeling that if we just stopped putting him down for his morning nap, he'd do fine with only the afternoon nap, but I'm hesitant to give it up, because it gives me a few extra hours to get work done on our non-nanny days. Since Arlo seems fine with or without his morning nap, I figure it's okay to keep the nap for selfish reasons for now.

His vocabulary continues to grow. He especially seems to like words with an "o" sounds--"toe" and "two" are some new favorites from this month. His newest phrase, as of a few days ago, is "school bus" (we saw one out the car window on a drive up to Seattle). He says it very wistfully, apparently wishing that he could see one out the window at home, but it never happens. Maybe we need to take a field trip to a school to see some in person. He's pretty fixated on it at the moment--we even heard him wake up one night around midnight, whimper "school bus" once, and then go back to sleep. Poor child.

He has said "mama" or "ma" a couple times in the past few weeks, but he'll normally refuse to identify me when Patrick asks what my name is. Meanwhile, he says "dada" all the time. Many times throughout the day, he'll look out our front window and ask for "dada" and then say "bike." "Yes," I'll say for the fifth time that morning, "Dada rode his bike to work. We'll see him at dinnertime." It gets a little old, but it's nice to know that he loves and misses Patrick. Between watching for dada and garbage trucks (and now school buses), there are a lot of little baby handprints on that front window. I suppose we should wash it sometime…

In addition to his ongoing obsession with garbage trucks, Arlo is now very interested in garbage cans and recycling and composting bins. Portland just instituted a new composting program (yay!), and we got a few pieces of promotional mail that included bright pictures of compost bins, which Arlo loved looking at. Now, whenever we walk around the neighborhood, he points out every single bin.

He's still not walking, but in the past week he has done a lot of unsupported standing, so I think walking will happen soon. I'm not really worried about his late walking from a developmental standpoint (he's cruising and standing, so he's clearly on the right path); it's just kind of frustrating because so many younger babies have been doing it for so long, and now whenever people hear that he's 17 months old, the default response is "Oh, so he's walking then?" On the plus side, I've had a few people tell me that they or their kids didn't walk until 17 or 18 months, so I know Arlo's not the only one. If we make it to 18 months without any walking, then I'll talk to the pediatrician.

We had a couple fun visits from family in the past month. Patrick's sister Meg visited, and we went apple picking at Kiyokawa Orchards. It was everybody's first time visiting an apple orchard, and we had a good time. Arlo was all business--as soon as he picked an apple, he'd want to put it in the bag and pick another one. Arlo was a little unsure about his Aunt Meg, but they got in some good auntie-nephew time together. We got out the easel that I had picked up at Piccolina a while back, and Arlo enjoyed drawing with chalk (with a little help from Meg).

A little later in the month, my mom and Alan had a nice long visit and got in some good grandparental activities, like reading books with Arlo and going to the park. It made me wish we lived closer to our families so we could share the more mundane parts of life with them. Everybody should have a chance to push Arlo on the swings at the park!

We also went on a family pumpkin patch outing to Sauvie Island, along with some of the families that we met in our new parents group when Arlo was first born. All of the babies have grown up so much! Arlo enjoyed rolling the pumpkins around and pointing at the hayride tractor as it drove by. We picked one pumpkin, which served as our lone Halloween decoration this year (we'll have to do better once Arlo is old enough to get excited about Halloween).

For Halloween this year, I decided to dress Arlo as Huckle Cat, from the Richard Scarry books. I sewed a pair of Oliver + S sketchbook shorts out of a thrifted pair of men's corduroy pants and then turned them into lederhosen (kind of) by adding suspenders and felt embellishments. I also knit Arlo a kitty hat, which he didn't really enjoy wearing but kept on his head for a reasonable amount of time. My first try at the kitty hat turned out too big, so I ended up wearing it.

I also sewed a last-minute Lowly Worm doll (based on this post), which I think helped make the costume more recognizable. Plus it made Patrick happy, since he had a Lowly Worm doll when he was a little boy.

Now that the weather has cooled down, I've been getting more excited about knitting. After finishing the kitty hats for Halloween, I made a quick striped hat for Arlo's buddy Everett, who turned one today! It's made of a super soft alpaca-wool blend, and I added a pom pom, using the Clover pom pom maker that Star gave me. Here it is, modeled by Arlo (details are on Ravelry).

I'll end with a little roundup of recipes that we've enjoyed recently (I need to remember to start taking pictures of food again!).

• Indian-style curry with sweet potatoes, green beans, and chickpeas - A tasty way to eat lots of vegetables
• Buttermilk drop biscuits - Easy, fast, and a good way to use up buttermilk
• Sweet potato muffins - Yummy and healthy. I should really buy Good to the Grain, especially since we have a big collection of specialty flours sitting in the fridge, unused
• Millet muffins - These were tasty. I'm not totally sold on the little millet nonpareils (some of them were more chalky than crunchy), but I'd make this recipe again

Arlo turned 16 months old a little over a week ago. He's getting so big!

In the past month, he's gotten really good at climbing down from things on his tummy, feet first. He can climb down from chairs, the couch, and even our bed. He tried to climb down from his changing table, but luckily I stopped him before he let go. He has also mastered going up and down the stairs. When it's time for a nap or bedtime, he'll happily crawl up the stairs to his bedroom (with a few detours into the guest room and bathroom). It's so nice!

He's figured out how to give close-mouthed kisses, and he'll give me a kiss every night before bed, upon request. He also knows how to hug, but he usually reserves those for his stuffed animals.

He has been picking up all sorts of words. He can say "koala," "kangaroo," and "carrier," but he still doesn't say "mama." What's up with that? Most of the time he uses "dada" to refer to both me and Patrick (though he definitely thinks of Patrick as the primary "dada." I just get called "dada" because he doesn't have another name to call me). With some prompting from Patrick, Arlo will sometimes call me "ba" or "baba," and when asked where mama is, he'll point to me. He's capable of making the "m" sound, so I'm not sure what the holdup is. He'll figure it out eventually.

He's getting good at animal sounds, especially his dog and monkey impressions. Sometimes when he wakes up in the morning, he'll lay in his crib making monkey sounds until we come get him. It's pretty awesome :)

Arlo also loves listening to music on the record player, especially the Go-Go's Beauty and the Beat. He'll say "gogo" repeatedly until I cave in and put on a record. He'll usually settle for other music (thank goodness!), but the Go-Go's are definitely his favorite.

Without any intentional encouragement from us, Arlo has developed a strong interest in things with wheels--trucks, cars, bikes. We have a couple Richard Scarry books, and he'll always turn to the pages with cars, construction equipment, and fire trucks. The highlight of his week is garbage day. Every time he hears a garbage truck outside, he'll perk up and rush to the window or crawl over to me and beg to be picked up so he can watch the trucks go by.

He's still not walking, but crawling serves him just fine. He used to sit on my lap during his entire nap routine, but now he'll climb down from my lap almost immediately and crawl around his room while I read him a book and sing him a song. He loves to explore--opening cupboards, wiggling doorknobs (can't quite open them yet, phew!). But he'll still happily go in his crib when it's time, grabbing for his blankie and sticking his thumb in his mouth.

His first molar came in a few weeks ago--on the lower right. I assume the others are on their way. He handled it without too much fuss, thankfully.

He continues to be a pretty picky eater. Anything mushy gets flung on the floor, including his once-beloved sweet potatoes. I'm sure he'll change his tune eventually. We had our first grape harvest this year, and Arlo quickly mastered the art of eating grapes off the stem. Our homegrown grapes were small, so I didn't have to cut them in half, which was nice. We could just hand him a bunch of grapes and let him entertain himself.

Arlo loves reading books with us. He especially enjoys poring over our Richard Scarry books, pointing at everything. Patrick has taken him to the library a couple times, and they've come home with a stack of library books, which has added some nice variety to reading time.

Arlo loves going down the slide at the park, and once he's at the bottom, he'll turn around and try to clamber back up (somewhat successfully) so he can slide down again. Patrick took him to the swimming pool for the first time this weekend, and it sounds like Arlo enjoyed it, though he clung to Patrick like a monkey the whole time.

In non-Arlo news, we've enjoyed some home improvements lately. Patrick hired Carl of Vintage Wood Works to fix a few things before winter descended. He de-squeakified our main stairs, rebuilt our basement stairs, installed a new basement window and door, and replaced our front porch railing. It's so nice having the house spruced up. If you're looking for a contractor in Portland, Carl is a good choice. He worked quickly and thoroughly, and he always had a smile for Arlo. Here is our basement with no stairs (luckily, it has a side door, so we were still able to get down there to do laundry).

We also finally bought a new oven and fridge, after living with the old, duct-taped models that came with the house for three years. Our old appliances weren't so bad once we got used to them, but it sure is nice to have a range with a working broiler (and an induction cooktop and convection oven--ooh la la!).

As an inaugural meal for our new range, I made steak au poivre, roasted potatoes, and buttered peas. It was very good, though next time I'd do the potatoes at 450F, since they didn't get quite as browned as I would have liked.

Other recent dinners haven't been as remarkable, but we have had two good snacky cakes recently. The first was an Italian almond cake, which wasn't too sweet and was nice for afternoon snacks. Second, I made a plum torte, which was yummy and a good use for the pretty Italian plums at the farmers' market.

This weekend, I took a fun papercutting class from Nikki McClure at PNCA. (Big thanks to Patrick for hanging out with Arlo all weekend while I was off on my fun crafty adventure!) This was my first time trying papercutting, and I enjoyed it. The materials are pretty affordable, and it's so cool seeing the finished piece emerge from the paper.

I based my first piece on a picture of Arlo and me, from Jon and Katie's wedding. First, I traced the photo and decided which parts would be black and which would be white (all of the black pieces have to be connected, so it takes a little thinking). Then I used graphite tracing paper to transfer the image onto black paper, and I cut out the picture with an Exacto knife. I wasn't going to include the flower pattern on the dress originally, but I'm glad I did--I like the texture and definition it adds to the picture.

I might do something in the top right corner, and I want to make a companion piece based on a picture of Arlo and Patrick, but I thought I'd post these pictures before too much time elapsed, rather than waiting until I'd completely finished the project.

During the class, we took a field trip to the Museum of Contemporary Craft, where Nikki is currently showing a retrospective of her work. She walked us through the show and talked about the techniques she used and the history of the pieces. Understanding more about the papercutting process makes me appreciate her work a lot more--it takes time and skill to create such intricate pieces! I'd definitely recommend checking out her show if you're in Portland. It's really beautiful.

In other crafty news, I finished sewing a summery sundress just in time for our rainy autumn weather (oops!). Luckily, summer briefly returned this week, and I got to wear my new dress for a little while.

This was my first try at making the Colette Chantilly dress. It was a practice dress, so I used a $3 thrifted sheet for the shell and muslin for the lining. I cut the yoke and midriff front on the bias, to add some visual interest. I cut the midriff front a couple sizes bigger than the rest of the dress, to accommodate my post-Arlo waist (I've started doing some exercises to remedy that, but no progress yet). This was my first time installing an invisible zipper, though it turned out that I could pull it over my head without using the zipper--go figure! This was also my first project on my new (used) Bernina 730, and I loved sewing with it!

The dress turned out wearable, but I think it would look nicer (and be less heavy) in lighter weight fabrics, as the pattern recommends. I'm planning on making this dress again (next year, I guess), since it's cute and it has pockets. It uses a lot of fabric, but I think it's worth it. The pattern and instructions were awesome, of course. I love Colette Patterns :)

I also finished knitting a shawl right before our trip to Montana. It's the Stripe Study shawl, made in two beautiful Madelinetosh yarns (more information on Ravelry). Although I love the graphic nature of the finished shawl and the process used to knit the shawl, I'm not 100% sold on the final product. I'm not a big shawl person, and I'm having a hard time finding a flattering way to wear it given its asymmetry and size.

I'm also unhappy with how the blocking turned out, but that could be fixed pretty easily. Maybe I'll give this shawl another chance now that fall is here. Or it might get turned into a new sweater for Arlo--I want to make sure that yarn gets put to good use!

Arlo turned 15 months old on Tuesday and obliged us by smiling for his orange chair pictures.

His 15-month checkup went well--he's continues to be long and lean with a big head. Every time we go in for a checkup, I have to remind myself that it's okay that he's only 25th percentile in weight. All that stress about him not getting enough milk in those first few months left its mark on me, I guess. But now that he is totally weaned to solid foods, I'm much less worried that he isn't getting enough to eat. (I think I forgot to mention that he stopped nursing 2 months ago. It happened shortly after this post. He just wasn't interested anymore, and I was ready to be done too, so we stopped)

He's still not walking; I guess crawling serves him just fine. I don't feel like he has changed that much in the past month, apart from becoming more expressive and opinionated and learning more words. His latest trick is that he'll lift his arms up on request (potentially useful for removing tight sweaters this winter). It's so cool that he understands us and will usually do what we ask him to. What a little person he is!

As I mentioned before, we've been going on all sorts of fun summer adventures. We took a road trip to Montana (the first time any of us had been there) to see Glacier National Park. It was beautiful! The only downside of the trip was that Arlo doesn't like being stuck in his carseat for very long, so there was a lot of this on the drive there and back:

Although vacationing with a 15-month-old isn't very relaxing, I'm glad we got to enjoy the trip as a family. We had plenty of good moments too.

We broke the drive up into two days each way, spending the night in Coeur d'Alene both times. It seemed like a nice town. The bed and breakfast we stayed at, The Roosevelt Inn was great, and it was walking distance to the lake and downtown. We stayed in the Noble Suite, which was perfect for us--we put Arlo to bed in his Peapod in the smaller room, and then we were free to talk at normal volume and watch movies (on our laptop--they don't have TVs, but they do have a big DVD collection) in our room.

We rented this cabin in Hungry Horse, MT, which was pretty close to Glacier's west entrance. It was right on the Flathead River, which was nice--we took the little path down to the river a couple times, and it was relaxing to sit there and watch the river go by (a little less relaxing when accompanied by a toddler who wanted to crawl around and stick his hand in the water). There was even a nest of baby eagles right across the river!

This cabin's kitchen wasn't quite as well stocked as the Mt. Hood cabin, but otherwise we were really happy with it! There was no high chair, so Arlo got to use a grown-up chair for meals, which worked out okay, except he had to stand up to reach his food, which then inspired him to try to climb onto the table. Not ideal, but it all worked out.

We got into town on a Saturday afternoon, and since check-in time for the cabin wasn't until 5pm, we killed time in Whitefish. We bought bear spray at a local sporting goods store (and didn't have to use it; phew!) and then walked around downtown Whitefish. We got huckleberry frozen yogurt at Red Caboose, and Patrick bought a cowboy hat but was afraid to wear it in public, for fear the locals would ridicule him for not being a real cowboy. Authentic or not, I think it looks good on him!

We got some tasty takeout from The Shak and ate it at the cabin, then put Arlo to bed and watched DVDs (we made it through the second season of Party Down while we were there, as well as Michael Clayton and The Devil Wears Prada--I can't believe Patrick agreed to watch that last one with me!).

The next day was our big day for exploring Glacier. We started out by hiking to Avalanche Lake, by way of Trail of the Cedars. We'd packed a picnic lunch to eat at the lake, and the hike was twice as long as I was expecting (2 miles each way; not roundtrip), so I was pretty hungry and grumpy by the time we got there. But I got over it quickly when we got to the lake, since it was so beautiful. And boy, did those sandwiches taste good after all that hiking! We had picked up a used Kelty TC 2.1 backpack at Piccolina before the trip, and it worked well for Patrick (I didn't try it; it's tiring enough for me to hike unencumbered).

Next, we drove along Going to the Sun Highway, which was amazing. I hear it was closed through mid-July because of snow, so I'm really grateful that we were able to see it. Arlo slept through the whole thing, which was okay, since he probably wouldn't have been able to see much from his car seat.

Arlo woke up just as we exited the east end of the park, and we stopped at the Park Cafe in St. Mary for pie (chocolate cream, strawberry rhubarb, and a piece of coconut cream for later). Yum! We also bought Arlo a little mountain goat at the gift shop--couldn't resist.

It was getting late, but we stopped at Logan Pass to squeeze in the Hidden Lake hike before dinnertime. Another absolutely beautiful hike, and this one was pretty easy--it was a boardwalk path most of the way. The path was snowy beyond the boardwalk, and the sun was going to set soon, so we decided to head back without seeing Hidden Lake itself. It was still a beautiful hike!

When we got back to the Logan Pass visitor center, we stopped for a snack, and we spotted a deer right off the path. Pretty cool!

The next day, Patrick hiked the Highline Trail by himself (too hard for Arlo and me). I walked around downtown Hungry Horse with Arlo (it's a very small downtown, as far as I could tell), had a huckleberry shake, and hung out at the cabin. I would have liked to spend another day in the park, but we're going to go back next year, so we should have more time then.

After another overnight in Coeur d'Alene, we headed back to Portland, stopping in Hood River for ice cream. We drove home by way of the beautiful Columbia Gorge Highway and stopped to feel the mist at Horsetail Falls. Arlo wasn't sure what to make of it.

The next day, we repacked our bags and went to Edgefield for the night, to see The Decemberists! Their concert at Edgefield two years ago was wonderful, so we were excited to see them again at the same venue, this time with Arlo. This was his first concert, and he managed to stay awake through the whole thing, including two encores (they played The Tain in its entirety, along with the Mariner's Revenge Song!). I had been worried that he'd have an overtired meltdown around 8:30 (and that one of us would have to take him back to our room and listen to the concert from there), but he sat quietly on Patrick's lap the whole time, sucking his thumb. What a champ. I'm so glad we went--it was a beautiful night!

Also, I totally recommend getting a room at the hotel when you go to see a concert at Edgefield, if you can swing it. It was so awesome to be able to walk back to our room and put Arlo to bed right away, instead of waiting in the parking lot for hours.

We had a block party on our street last Sunday (organized by Patrick and our neighbor Stacy), and it went really well! We don't talk to our neighbors very often, but we should. It's always fun getting the whole street together. A couple of our neighbors have lived on this street for 50+ years, and they said that back then, kids would play softball at the intersection outside our house, and at least one of our windows was broken by a softball during a game. I guess I'm glad they don't do that anymore, otherwise I'd have to be the mean mom who yells at the neighbor kids.

We also got to meet the couple who bought the scary house last year. They're avid gardeners, and it's so exciting see what they're doing with the house and yard. I think they've gotten a very enthusiastic welcome from the whole neighborhood :)

On Tuesday, I biked to the Bagdad Theater to see Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis talk about their new book, Wildwood (quite a Decemberists-heavy week!). It was a fun event--I loved hearing about the process of writing and illustrating the book. I haven't read many books for fun since Arlo was born, so I've enjoyed getting wrapped up in Wildwood for the past few days. I'm excited to read it with Arlo when he's older!

Yesterday afternoon, we drove out to Cannon Beach for a quick beach trip before fall arrives. This was our first visit to Cannon Beach, and I can see why people like it. The beach was windy but sunny (so not too cold), and the sand was really soft. Arlo had a great time crawling all over the beach and getting super sandy, and he only ate a little beach debris :)

I have lots to share--since I last wrote, we drove to Montana, saw the Decemberists perform, and observed Arlo's 15-month birthday! But since it's summer and I'm feeling lazy, all I've got for you tonight is a quick list of recent meals we've enjoyed. Details about our adventures are coming soon...

1. Lula kebabs and bulgur pilaf with Greek salad, which then became bulgur kebab burritos the next day. Everything turned out well, and I enjoyed the novelty of making the leftovers into burritos. I'm not usually a big lamb fan, but I liked it in this recipe.

2. Skillet Spanish-style chicken and rice topped with avocado. The perfect meal for nights when you just want to sit at the table and shovel food into your mouth :)

3. Farfalle with yogurt and zucchini. Found via Alison. Another good shoveling dish, and this one is quick to assemble! Definitely a good recipe to try when you've got lots of zucchini to use up.

4. I made horchata for the first time, to go with disappointing fish tacos. The horchata was good but too sweet for me. I'd try this recipe again with half the sugar.

5. Crispy pan-fried pork chops, buttered spaetzle, sauteed cabbage. This was a labor-intensive but tasty meal. I had a traumatic spaetzle-making experience when I was in high school (stressful cooking process + yucky finished product), but I'm glad I tried again; this spaetzle was good! Based on a tip I found on the Cook's Illustrated site, I used our perforated pizza pan as a spaetzle press, and it worked well. Much cleaner than using a colander, I think.

   

6. A three-salad meal: paella pasta salad; roasted beets with feta and pistachios; and carrot-blueberry salad (salad #7). I'm still not sold on the carrot-blueberry combination, but the paella salad and roasted beets were very nice.

   

7. Peach cobbler. Yum!

   

8. Chocolate sour cream Bundt cake. I made this to take to a quilting bee, and I was really happy with how it turned out--moist and delicious.

   

Arlo at Fourteen Months from Caitlin D on Vimeo.

Here's Arlo's 14-month chair picture--a little belated, as he's halfway to 15 months by now.

Although he still doesn't say mama (hmph!), he loves to point out bikes and buses ("ba!"), and he knows what lions and crows say (he has the cutest roar I've ever heard). He's very good at crawling and stair-climbing, and he loves swinging at the park. He has taken to crab-walking when he's on a surface that he doesn't want to touch with his bare knees (like scratchy grass or concrete).

He's definitely more selective about what he eats now compared to when he was younger. He loves fruit, especially strawberries, cherries, and blueberries (all of which he refers to as "ba"--berries). I don't know what he'll eat when summer's over--cheese and cheerios, I guess. We still give him the same food we're eating at each meal, even though he usually leaves most of it untouched (or flings it on the ground if he's feeling dramatic). He gets two snacks a day, in addition to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I have been baking and freezing biscuits and mini muffins (banana nut, zucchini, carrot spice) for the morning snack--thaw a couple, add a glass of milk, and you're done. The afternoon snack usually involves cheese, fruit, and bread/crackers/cereal. It gets repetitive, but his lack of molars kind of limits our options.

Arlo is a good sleeper and has been for a while--I'm really grateful for that! He'll pretty reliably take a 1.5-hour nap in the morning and a 45-minute nap in the afternoon and sleep through the night from 7pm to 6:30am (he'll cry out a couple times a night, but he'll usually go right back to sleep without any help from us). I don't know how much longer the morning nap will last. The sleep books say it's supposed to go away by 15 months, but I don't see how he could function without it. I'm happy to hang onto it for a while longer.

Patrick and I recently went to see our first movie in a theater since Arlo was born. We saw Midnight in Paris (I love this red and white dress from the movie), and then we rode our bikes home in the warm summer evening. So great! I was enjoying myself so much that I made Patrick ride an extra lap around Ladd's Circle.

Last weekend, we went to Seattle for Jon and Katie's wedding (yay!). We stayed in downtown Seattle on Friday night, at the Ace Hotel. After checking in, we grabbed a quick dinner at Tavolata. They were able to seat us right away, which was great. The only drawback was that they didn't have any high chairs, so Arlo sat on our laps (mostly Patrick's), which is always an adventure at restaurants. It all worked out though, and the food was great.

After dinner, Patrick put Arlo to bed in our hotel room (in the Peapod) and then headed to Katie and Jon's rehearsal party (with karaoke!). I stayed behind with Arlo, and since we didn't have a suite, I turned out all the lights, put in my headphones, and watched movies on my laptop (much better than knitting in the bathroom).

As with previous trips, our ability to explore was kind of limited by Arlo's need for naps (or, more precisely, my insistence that we stick to his nap schedule), but we still fit in some good stuff. Patrick and Arlo went for a walk to Pike Place Market after breakfast at the hotel (and ran into Katie and Kim buying flowers for the wedding). After Arlo's first nap, we had a great lunch at Macrina and then drove out to Issaquah, where we were staying that night. I had been hoping for an early check in so Arlo could take his afternoon nap in our hotel room, but no luck. Instead, we set up his tent on some nicely manicured lawn at the edge of the Hilton Garden Inn parking lot and put him down for his nap there (kind of weird, I know, but it seemed like a better option than getting him to nap in the car). It took him a while to settle down, but he eventually fell asleep. I took a little nap too. It's nice sleeping on the grass.

When he woke up, we were able to check into our room and get all dressed up for the wedding. Here we are waiting for the elevator:

The wedding was at Fall City Farms, and it was great. It was great catching up with friends, and the wedding was beautiful :) Congratulations, you two!

(These two pictures were taken by Kim--thanks, Kim!)

Our plan was to keep Arlo up as late as he'd tolerate, since it was a special occasion. He started melting down around 8pm (an hour after his normal bedtime), so I drove him back to the hotel and put him to bed (and watched more laptop movies) while Patrick stayed and hung out with friends until the wee hours of the morning. Hopefully at next summer's wedding(s), Arlo will be able to stay up late enough to do some dancing (he only made it to the cake cutting this time around).

The next day, we drove to Snoqualmie Falls. I'd originally planned to go to Salish Lodge for lunch, but when we got there it seemed like too much work to wrangle Arlo at a nice restaurant, so we went to Snoqualmie Brewery and Taproom instead. Their sign said they were child friendly, and they did not disappoint. That place was packed with babies. I'm surprised they had enough high chairs to go around! The food was fine. Oh, how our lives have changed since having a baby. I would never have passed up a fancy lodge meal pre-Arlo!

Snoqualmie seemed like a nice little town. If Arlo likes trains when he's older, we should go back--they have an old train museum.

***

As I mentioned earlier, I sewed Arlo an outfit to wear to the wedding. Sewing baby clothes is so fast compared to adult clothes. I made the Oliver + S sketchbook shirt and shorts, size 12-18 months. For both pieces, I used freezer paper to trace the patterns, which worked great!

I made the shirt out of a sweet blue floral print from Lecien (Memoire a Paris), and the shorts are Bella solid cotton, both from Bolt. I made a matching pocket square for Patrick, at his request :)

The shorts turned out a little snug because of some missing seam allowances (note to self: always check the pattern errata before you start a project), but they fit fine as long as Arlo's wearing disposable diapers.

I'm really happy with how the outfit turned out--I think it's cute, especially the little shorts. I'll probably make these in a larger size when Arlo gets bigger. Next time I'd make the shirt with a pointy collar instead of the band collar, since I like the look of a pointy collar better.

I also made Arlo the Herbie hat (#38) from Ottobre 3/2010. As with the coconut cap, I used a recycled hemp/organic cotton blend for the exterior and shirt leftovers for the lining. I used Pellon 808 for the brim interfacing and Pellon ES114 for the body of the hat.

I don't think it turned out as well as the one in the magazine, but maybe Arlo just needs to grow into it a little more (I made the 50 cm size, and he has a 49 cm head). Luckily, we'd also brought along his coconut cap, which fit better.

Such handsome men, these two!

I've been thinking about upgrading my sewing machine lately, and inspiration struck yesterday, after reading this post. I started reading more about old Bernina machines--everybody seems to love them. I found a good-looking Bernina Record 730 for sale on Craigslist, Arlo and I went and checked it out this afternoon, and I decided to buy it! It was expensive compared to the sewing machine I've been using for nine years, but much cheaper than a new Bernina. This machine should last for a long, long time--it's solidly constructed!

Here are some glamor shots:

I love all the embroidery stitches lined up next to each other, though I'm not sure how often I'll actually use them. I'm also excited about the buttonhole function, but first I need to get a buttonhole foot (it only came with the standard foot and an adapter foot; none of the cool feet that originally came with the machine). Thank goodness for eBay!

As I mentioned earlier, I've been doing some fun sewing for Arlo lately. I've finished his outfit for our friends' wedding, but I'm going to wait to take pictures of it until the wedding (getting him into the shirt and shorts and finagling him into keeping the hat on just to take a few pictures sounds too exhausting). In the meantime, here's a second hat that I made for fun!

It's the coconut cap from Ottobre magazine (3/2010, #39). I used leftover fabric from Arlo's other hat and shirt--a recycled hemp/organic cotton blend for the exterior and a sweet floral shirting from Lecien (Memoire a Paris) for the lining. Both were from Bolt.

This was a great little project! It came together quickly and used a small amount of fabric. I think this will be good for Arlo to wear under his bike helmet in the fall (Patrick has a similar cap that he wears when he's riding his bike). I might make a winter version using wool remnants from the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store (any excuse to go paw through their bins of fabric!).

A couple of notes:

• I made a size 49 cm by tracing halfway between the 48 and 50 cm pattern lines.
• I used Pellon 808 for the brim interfacing and Pellon ES114 for crown, since it's what I had on hand. They worked fine.
• I left off the decorative ribbon trim on the back because I didn't have any good ribbon.
• I handsewed the facing (using ladder stitch) instead of machine stitching, to make it look tidier (my topstitching tends to be messy).
• I was a little confused by the instructions for attaching the elastic, but the hat stays on Arlo's head, so I must not have messed it up too badly.

Yay for quick and easy sewing projects!

As I mentioned in my last post, we went on our first annual family camping trip last weekend, at Dungeness Spit on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. This was Arlo's first camping trip, and it went well, all things considered. Here he is helping Patrick test-drive the tent in our backyard (we got a new family-sized tent for this trip).

Patrick did the majority of planning (and all of the cooking) for our trip, which was great. Since many of the campgrounds on the peninsula don't take reservations, we just drove up there, with a list of fall-back campgrounds in case Dungeness Spit was full. When we got there on Thursday afternoon, there were plenty of campsites open, though I think it filled up by evening (but many of the campers left on Friday morning, so I think if we'd gotten there early on Friday afternoon, we could have found a site as well).

We set up camp at site #13, which was pretty removed from the road and had a nice amount of late afternoon sun. It was a generously sized campsite, with room for a couple of medium-size tents in addition to our big tent (maybe we'll have to bring along some friends or family on our second annual camping trip!). The campground was really nice--there were plenty of trees and bushes between campsites, bathrooms with showers, and a bluff with beautiful views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Dungeness Spit just a few steps from the campsites. My only complaint was the chilly weather.

I quickly realized that I hadn't packed enough warm clothes for our camping trip (it's the middle of July--why would I need long pants?). Luckily, Arlo was too busy crawling around the campsite to be cold. I had been worried that he would spend the whole time eating gravel, and he did get a few handfuls of it in his mouth, but he pretty quickly figured out that rocks weren't for eating.

After a nice camp stove dinner of bean and brown rice burritos, Arlo had an al fresco potty sit, and then we put him to bed (in his little Peapod tent inside our big tent). He cried for a while at his strange bedtime surroundings, but he eventually went to sleep.

After Arlo was in bed, Patrick built a fire, and we sat next to it and talked until it was dark. It was nice :) Our first night's sleep was not so nice, because of the aforementioned cold weather. Our summer sleeping bags just weren't up to the task, and I spent the whole night curled up in a little ball, trying to get warm. Arlo was in his sleep sack, and he did just fine. He only woke up once that first night, and he went back to sleep after Patrick covered him with another blanket.

I was in a bad mood that morning--cold, tired, and hungry. It was hard being patient with Arlo. Things looked up after we ate our oatmeal and the sun came out. After Arlo's first nap, we drove to Port Angeles and found a nice outdoor store, where I bought a pair of pants and Patrick got some long underwear. We also got some donuts from a little shop across the street. The trip got a lot better after that :)

Next, we went to Storm King ranger station and took an easy hike to Marymere Falls. We had a little picnic at the top of the trail, which was nice. Ten minutes later, a family of about 20 people (headed by a recorder-playing grandfather) also stopped for a picnic. It was a little crowded, so we packed up and headed back to our car.

Arlo took a quick second nap in the car on the way back to our campground, and then we hiked down to see the Dungeness Spit (it was a 15-minute walk from our site, with a $3 entry fee). The spit was beautiful, littered with driftwood. This was Arlo's first time at a beach, and he seemed to enjoy it. We should take him to another beach before the summer is over!

Patrick made chili over the campfire for dinner, and then we had s'mores and tea after Arlo went to bed. The second night, we slept much better because we were warm enough. Arlo woke up a couple times, but he went back to sleep pretty easily.

It was foggy and damp the next morning, and Patrick wasn't able to get a campfire going, much to his frustration. Luckily, we had our trusty camp stove, and he was able to make our breakfast burritos on that (yum!). After Arlo's first nap, we packed up camp and headed home. We stopped in Hoodsport and had an impromptu picnic lunch on the grass in front of their library, and then got some yummy salted caramel swirl ice cream at Olympic Mountain Ice Cream.

Driving for 5 hours to get home after camping for 2 days wasn't great; it would be nice if we could find a camping spot closer to home for next year's trip (we should really go on more camping trips near Portland; Beverly Beach is the only place we've camped at since moving here). On the other hand, Dungeness Spit and the surrounding areas were beautiful, and I'd be happy to camp there again. I'm excited for next year's trip because Arlo should have fewer nap/bedtime constraints, so we can spend more time exploring!

P.S. Today is my 10-year blogging anniversary. Crazy! I sometimes feel sheepish about the naive things my younger self wrote, but it's nice to have a record of the past ten years to read when I'm feeling nostalgic.

Wow, it has been almost a month since I wrote a substantial post! Here's what's new:

• Arlo is very interested in all of the bikes, cars, trucks, and buses that pass by our house. He's particularly eager to point out every bike that he sees ("ba!"). He's also very interested in garbage trucks. We'll frequently go outside on trash day to watch the garbage men at work, and sometimes we even get a wave from them!

  He's also really into vacuuming right now. When he was younger, the sound of the vacuum scared him, but now he begs for us to vacuum. He'll crawl over to it and point at it beseechingly and then smile and crawl after us while we're vacuuming. When we turn it off, he cries. What a strange little boy :)

• Arlo loves listening to music, and he's recently started dancing along to certain songs, mostly while seated. He'll alternate between bopping along with the beat and swaying from side to side. It's super cute :) I think its time to expand our record collection to include more danceable music.

  

• He is becoming more and more adept at pulling up on things, standing while holding on with only one hand, and climbing stairs. He has learned that by standing on his tiptoes, he can reach even more stuff!

  

• His vocabulary is still pretty limited. A few weeks ago, he started mimicking us saying "oh well!," shrugging his shoulders and putting his hands in the air. It's great! He'll do it whenever one of us says "oh well," or when we say "a wall" (sounds the same, it's understandable), or just when he feels like it. He knows how to make me laugh :)

  He's also been doing a lot of jargoning lately (speaking his own baby language). His latest favored pseudo-word is "boojie boojie." It's fun to say--try it!

• He continues to be picky about food and eats less than he used to, as expected. He'll stash unwanted pieces of food under his legs when he's in his high chair, or he'll just throw them off the table if he's feeling dramatic.

  

• After a month of relative calm, Arlo appears to be teething again. That, coupled with his frustration at not being able to communicate with us, makes him difficult to be around at times. But when he's not being angry and disagreeable, he's the funniest, cutest little boy ever. It all balances out.

  

• I'm currently working from home three mornings a week while Arlo hangs out with his nanny (I also work during Arlo's morning naps on non-nanny days). I feel lucky to be able to continue working a relatively small number of hours per week--it's a good fit for me. We switched nannies a few weeks ago, because Becca Jo decided to go to nursing school (yay for her!). We were sad to see her go, but our new nanny, Samantha, is doing well, and Arlo seems to be warming up to her. I think he's more entrenched in his stranger anxiety at this point than he was 6 months ago, so it's taking him longer to get used to her than it did with Becca Jo.

  

• We have driven up to Washington twice in the past few weeks. The first time was so Patrick could do the Seattle to Portland bike ride, and the second was to go camping (that gets its own post). Arlo and I came along on the StP trip so that we could shuttle the car back to Portland while Patrick and Andrew (and Eric, who is currently living in Seattle) rode their bikes. The only downside is that it was a very quick trip to Seattle (arriving around 6pm and leaving at 9am the next morning), and because of Arlo's sleep schedule, we didn't have time to do any exploring. We did get to have dinner at Eric and Kim's place, which was nice. I like catching up with college friends--we don't do it often enough!

  (Picture by Kim; Arlo and I were asleep when these guys got underway)

  

  We stopped in Olympia for lunch at The Bread Peddler on the way back. The food was good, but we sat in a little atrium and were surrounded by well-meaning baby-oglers who kept getting in Arlo's face and distracting him from eating his food. One older man just kept telling Arlo over and over again, "You're a hunk. A hunk of burnin' love! If I was as handsome as you, I'd have trouble being modest." Arlo got a little overwhelmed by all of the attention. Oh well, being overly adored by strangers isn't the worst problem to have.

  Arlo isn't as patient about long car rides as he was when we drove to California when he was 6 months old. Hopefully that will improve before we drive to Montana next month. Gulp.

• The weekend after StP, my dad and Vicki visited us. They got to see Arlo's new "oh well" trick, and my dad even got a high-five! It's good to see family; I wish we lived closer.

  

Recent recipe notes:

• Two good breakfast recipes from America's Test Kitchen that are worth a remake: breakfast strata and buttermilk pancakes.

• The bulgur and lamb kibbe from Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way was a little boring by itself, but it was yummy in a pita with tahini-yogurt sauce, shredded lettuce, and tomato.

• Ziti with broccoli-anchovy sauce - Easy and tasty. I've tried a couple Cook's Illustrated pasta recipes that involve anchovy-based sauces, and they've all turned out well. So now I'm a person who buys anchovies, I guess.

• Dilled potato and pickled cucumber salad - While I was making this, I was a little worried about how it would turn out because of the combination of ingredients (I'm not a huge fan of dill), but it was actually very nice. I don't know if it will be my go-to potato salad recipe, but I'd make it again. Served with roasted sausages, zucchini, and Little T pretzel bread (yum!).

  

• This golden Israeli couscous recipe is pretty good. We had it with my favorite brown sugar-glazed salmon (from the Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook). I think if I made it again, I'd substitute currants for the dried apricots to make it a little less sweet.

• I made a batch of pina colada sherbet (from The Perfect Scoop, of course) a few weeks ago. I reduced the sugar by half and left out the rum, and it was still very good. I used fresh pineapple instead of canned, which probably helped.

  

In crafty news, I've been sewing the Oliver + S sketchbook shirt and shorts for Arlo to wear to our friends' wedding in August. I'm excited to share pictures once everything is done. The shirt is ready to go, but I hit a minor snag with the shorts tonight. After finishing them (and scratching my head over the fact that the pattern pieces didn't fit together quite right), I checked online for errata, and it turns out that some of the printed pattern pieces were missing their seam allowances. Argh! That's a good reminder to me to either make a muslin or check for pattern errata before starting a project. Arlo was already in bed when I finished the shorts, so tomorrow we'll find out whether he'll be able to squeeze into them despite the missing seam allowances. If not, I'll just have to make a new pair. It wouldn't be the end of the world; they come together pretty quickly.

Two new videos: Arlo at 12 and 13 months! The 12-month video is my favorite :)

Arlo at Twelve Months from Caitlin D on Vimeo.

Arlo at Thirteen Months from Caitlin D on Vimeo.