Mutant Fruit!

One of the things I love about living in California is the abundance of fresh, affordable produce. Especially at this time of the year - the fruit is just so good. Strawberries are one of my favorites. They are grown at farms right down the street and can be purchased at road side stands as well as at the grocery stores. It is possible to get a pound of strawberries for 88 cents at some times during the year! 

I bought some strawberries yesterday and I must admit that while delicious, they are also a little bit scary. I am even going to call them Mutant Strawberries. They are HUGE!! Some of them are almost as big as the apples I bought, and others are definitely bigger than the clementines we have. I'm not sure if this naturally occurs in nature or if it is done by mutating the strawberry genes so much that they might become unrecognizable. For now, I'll just eat them and enjoy and hope they aren't too bad for us. Here are some pictures to prove I'm not kidding...

This apple is what I'd consider normal size

OK, so this angle fools the eye a little bit

The strawberry is actually larger than the clementine - crazy!

Straub's Rooming House

Since we have moved to California we have never had a shortage of visitors. I'm pretty sure we have seen more friends and family here than we did when most of us were living on the east coast. Not that I'm complaining! It has been great to have visitors especially since we don't have a group of friends out here. (We're working on that, but it gets harder and harder to make new friends the older you get.) There has barely been a month since we moved into our current house that we haven't had guests. We recently had my college roommate Becky and her husband and son visit us from Texas for a few days, and our friends Rob and Moe from New Jersey were here right after that. In the middle of all that was Easter and we also just celebrated Chris Sr.'s birthday too! Lots of excitement in the Straub house lately. Next up on the visiting list is Grammy (my Mom) who will be here in May. We can't wait to have her here and I know she's really looking forward to spending lots of quality time with her grandson. 

Here are some pictures from the past few days:

Easter Morning

In his Easter outfit...yes, I put linen on a baby

Making a wish...

Eating the Jumperoo

Looking Cute!

Solid Foods

Yes, I eat solid foods and like them. My son isn't as comfortable with them.

We're working on Cotton's love of solid foods. We have tried rice cereal multiple times and the last few times he has willingly taken a few bites. The first couple of tries included some wiggling and screaming. Since then he hasn't exactly been excited about it, but he has opened his mouth up for the spoon. I consider two or three bites a success.

Yesterday and today we decided to be adventurous and gave organic peas a try. To my surprise he ate them and really seemed to like them. He was opening up for the next spoonful before I could get the peas on the spoon! I'll be sticking with veggies for a while so he doesn't develop his sweet tooth too early.

Day One of Peas

Getting ready for day two of peas

Peas make me Smile!

The Snail Hunter

Snails make me squeamish. Unfortunately we have lots of them that live around us. The worst is when you walk outside (never shoeless) to bring things to the recycle bin at night and you feel a big CRUNCH when you take a step. I'm not proud to admit it, but I am a snail killer.

I may be an inadvertent snail killer, but I am NOT the snail hunter. My wonderful husband gets that job. He may act like he doesn't like it but I see the way his face lights up when he sees an image like this one:

That is a photo of one of the pillars in front of our house covered in - count them - at least EIGHT snails. Yuck! Luckily Chris has a system of removing these snails and disposing of them. He uses a trusty G2 (Gatorade) plastic bottle and pops them off the wall. I hope no one from PETA is reading this blog, or they may be on the hunt for the Snail Hunter...

5 Months Old!

It is hard to believe but Cotton is 5 months old as of yesterday (4/16/11). He is growing so fast and is so much fun. He really loves to laugh and smile and we're enjoying every minute with him. 

Play time!

Hanging out in the Bumbo

Watching the dogs and ignoring Mommy and her camera

Leftover Bananas

You all know what I'm writing about. Those bananas that sit in the fruit bowl or on the kitchen counter that are just a little bit past their prime. They are starting to get that not so fresh feeling - a little bit mushy, brown spots, you can start smelling them when you walk by. Maybe, just maybe, there are some fruit flies that have appeared out of nowhere...not that it happens at my/your house.

Sometimes I get daring and try to eat one of these bananas, and I usually regret it. Sometimes, I toss one of these bananas in the blender with some berries, yogurt and juice or milk to make a healthy smoothie. If I'm really ambitious, and I have at least 3 of these old bananas, I will make banana bread. Lately, I have only had one of these sad and lonely bananas. Because of this I have started making banana muffins. I love to bake, thanks to my mother. She would always bake things from scratch when I was growing up, and still does today. Luckily she let me and my sister "help" her. Helping her usually consisted of holding the hand mixer and licking the bowl. Mom has a standby muffin recipe in her head that she made up one day. It works for blueberry muffins, apple muffins, and yes, banana muffins. She has given me that recipe - not in writing - and I now have it in my head too!

My favorite kitchen appliance

There used to be a dozen...

The only difference between my mom's banana muffins and mine is that I use my KitchenAid stand mixer instead of mixing by hand...I LOVE my stand mixer. Here are some photos of the muffins I made yesterday. Please note that there are not a dozen muffins - because of course I keep eating them.

Yummy!

The Jumperoo

Nana and Papa gave Cotton a Fisher Price Rainforest Jumperoo for Christmas. Until just the past week he didn't really know what to do with it. Now that he is interacting a lot more with his toys and surroundings, he seems to be taking more interest in it. He's still a little small for it, but to fix the problem I put a pillow under his feet to help stabilize him a bit. Here are a few pictures of some Jumperoo fun from this afternoon. 

Not So Crafty...

I like to think of myself as somewhat creative - but it tends to be more in theory than in action. One area where I had some great ideas and intentions was creating a scrapbook to commemorate our wedding in November 2009. I bought some of the crafts I needed, the actual book, some stickers, ordered lots of prints of our wedding photos, etc. But it is now April 2011 and I have yet to complete this scrapbook. I have a few good excuses - moving across the country, selling and buying a house, having a baby - but mostly I'm just afraid that my scrapbook won't live up to the dreams of what I think it should be.
I really admire those who can do this for a hobby, but I think my need for perfection has me scared to get the project done. This post will just have to serve as my motivation to finish it so I won't be embarrassed about it sitting in the closet.

I also have a big pile of pictures and items for Cotton's baby book - I have started that project and of course it will remain a work in progress as he grows and changes and reaches his milestones. But first I need to get my wedding project done!

So, the next time you talk to me or write to me, make sure you ask about my progress on the scrapbook. You may just guilt me into finishing what I already started.

Mary's Birthday Cake - that is a strawberry you see peeking out!

Christopher met his Grampy and Aunt Mary for the first time this past weekend. They arrived in California on Friday and stayed until Monday night and a good time was had by all. The weather was cool but sunny so we didn't do any swimming, but we did enjoy lots of outdoor time on walks and visiting Santa Barbara. We had an early birthday celebration for Mary's birthday and even made a cake. We also made our second attempt at solid foods. Rice cereal just doesn't seem to be a favorite of Cotton's - maybe he'll become a fan of peas instead!

Two Handsome Guys

Christopher had lots of fun and did plenty of smiling and laughing - hopefully making his special visitors feel pretty good about their time with him. Based on these pictures - I think you can see that we had lots of fun. We're all looking forward to a visit to the east coast in a couple of months.

Aunt Mary and Christopher

The Big Orange Book

During the past week the pilot light on our hot water heater has gone out twice - and we're really not sure why. This unfortunately resulted in cool to lukewarm showers at best. The good thing is that I'm used to taking quick showers so I can get back to spending time with Christopher - so this helped make my showers extra speedy!
The first time the pilot went out I was worried about how we should fix it. Neither Chris nor I had ever had to light a pilot on a hot water heater so we weren't familiar with it. We also both have somewhat irrational fears of gas and anything having to do with flames near gas - although when I think about it I'd say we're probably wise to be somewhat afraid of gas and fire. I actually volunteered to be the one to solve  the problem because I get a strange sense of pride when I figure out how to fix things.  So with Google and YouTube on my side, I did some searching and found what I was supposed to do. Before I headed out to the garage with flashlight and butane lighter in hand I said my "I love you"s to both of my Christophers and said a quick prayer that I wouldn't blow up the house. I'm proud to say that on the second try I got that monster back up and running again.

And because of this fix-it adventure I have to ask: How did anyone ever learn how to fix things before the existence of YouTube?!? It was my savior in this instance. I watched three different videos explaining exactly what to do, and the last video just happened to include our model of water heater.
And by the way, I'm just kidding about YouTube. I know that before it existed everyone had one of those big orange home improvement books in their basement or garage. We still have one somewhere around here.

Sleep is Overrated...

Feeling sleepy before bed time

At least that is what Christopher (a.k.a. Cotton) seems to think. He will be 5 months old in less than two weeks and every once in a while he decides to have a night where he wakes up every 2-3 hours. Last night was one of those nights. It is almost worse now because I have become much more used to long stretches of sleep.  Even though he always gets up at least once during the night to eat, it doesn't bother me at all because I usually get a 5 hour stretch of my own sleep.

It is a good thing he is cute because otherwise I'd be very grumpy. The hardest part about the wake ups is when I realize that he needs a diaper change. Whenever I change his diaper during the night, which these days is not often, he wakes up and gives me a big smile and babbles a little bit in the dark. It is one of the hardest parts of being a mother to try to ignore this cuteness and stick to the plan of not talking to him. The talking will just wake him up even more and give him the signal that it is play time.

Exploring after toppling over on the couch

Luckily, we have a handy one cup coffee maker so that I get can my caffeine fix in the morning. Once I've got a cup in me I'm usually able to have some fun playing with Christopher as we start our day.

Weekend fun with Cotton and the dogs

Stella wants to play!

We're always working on Tummy Time around here. The older the baby gets, the more interested the dogs seem to be in him. Here are a few pictures from play time this weekend.

I'm actually happy about being down here. 

Tucker - don't be eyeing my toys...

Mr. Serious

I just love my Rainforest Crib Mobile!

Fancy Interior Designer & Gardener

OK - we didn't really hire these folks, instead we tried to tackle some projects on our own.

On our weekends we try to have some fun, get projects done around the house, spend quality time with Cotton, and use the rest of the time to relax. Over this past weekend we managed to fit most of that in - although I must say we were very disappointed in the weather. I keep saying we moved to California partly for the weather, but in the year plus since we've been here it has definitely been cooler and wetter than an average year. I still can't complain though, because I know those of you on the east coast really suffered this winter.

On Saturday afternoon we decided to go out to lunch just to get out of the house. We packed up ourselves and the kiddo and off we went to Camarillo - which is basically the next town over from us. It is actually down a seriously big grade and it is always an adventure to drive there. The restaurant we chose is called Brendan's Irish Pub. Yes, they have Irish pubs in California too. This place is relatively new and it came recommended to us by some friends (do our realtors count as friends?!?). It was actually pretty good and not crowded which is always nice in case we have to deal with any baby fussiness. There was even a road sign pointing to Mitchelstown inside - for those who don't know Mitchelstown is a large town very close to where my mother grew up in Ireland. The funny part of the restaurant is the exterior - it just looks weird to have a cozy Irish pub housed in a strip mall in a large stucco building with a tile roof. But that's California and we just have to get used to it.

One of our cool new nightstands - the lamp is relatively new too!

After lunch at Brendan's we decided to check out a consignment furniture shop where we bought our media cabinet a few months ago. We were in need of new nightstands for our bedroom, especially since we still had two lamps sitting on the floor next to the bed. I'm happy to say we had great success and found some really unique tables for our bedroom. We specifically decided not to purchase a matching bedroom set so that we could have a room with some character and the challenge of creatively decorating our space.


On Sunday we made a trip to the Home Depot - how very suburban of us. We had a few areas in our yard that needed some color so we decided to get out the "garden weasel" and get to work. Most people around here pay gardeners to do this type of stuff but we really enjoyed digging and planting and are pretty happy with our handywork. I actually went back to Home Depot today to buy some more flowers and am ready to get back to work!

Next up - fixing the leaky faucet...

If a tree falls on your house does it make a sound?

The answer my friends, is yes, yes it does.

We have lived in our house for 8 months. I actually had to count that out on my hands because I couldn’t believe it.  In these eight months we have taken on numerous home improvement projects. The majority of these were cosmetic and for personal preference and not because things were in bad shape. The house was built in 1999 and was extremely well taken care of by the previous owners.  We had the entire interior painted (the whole house was builder’s grade white), a door installed to create a guest room, built in shelves and cabinets installed in the living room, bought new gas log sets for the fireplaces, bought new furniture, put in an in-ground pool and spa in the backyard, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting.

The fence stopped the tree from fully crashing into the side of the house.

We really thought we were done with our major projects, except for some flower planting we’d like to do in the yard. Mother Nature apparently had different plans for us. After a big rain/wind storm on Sunday, March 20 we were handed our next home improvement project. A large eucalyptus tree in our side yard, probably at least 75 years old, was completely uprooted and knocked onto our fence and house. Luckily for us no one was hurt and there wasn't much damage to the actual house. We just had the tree removed and we'll have to get our wrought iron fence fixed next. There may be some scratches on the stucco, but nothing major. There truly is never a dull moment around here!

The one positive that comes from the whole experience is that we’ve got some more great views of the Santa Monica National Mountains in the distance. We'll have to wait and see what our next project will be!

Opening Day!

Since life has been such a whirlwind for the past couple of years I have decided it is finally time to make sure to document it. A blog seems like the perfect way to do this and to keep in touch with family and friends at the same time.

We have officially been California residents for more than a year now. This fact in itself is extremely hard to believe - but add in selling a house, buying a house, moving twice, giving birth to a beautiful baby boy, putting in a swimming pool, and searching for a new job, and you've got one very exciting year.

Not only is this opening day for this blog, but yesterday was also Major League Baseball's opening day. It seems much earlier than usual to me and I'm not sure we can call it "official" in this house since neither the Boston Red Sox nor the Philadelphia Phillies played. It was also 90 degrees here, and that just seems too warm for the first games of the season. We did happen to celebrate the occasion in our house by having a dinner of sausages with peppers and onions, and an ice cold beer. At least we were healthy and had chicken sausage on whole wheat buns! Cotton couldn't partake in those treats but he did see a few minutes of the Dodgers game on TV before bed, and he wore some baseball pajamas in observance of the day. He's got plenty of Phillies gear thanks to our friends in South Jersey, but we've got to work on his Red Sox wardrobe too.

We're really looking forward to taking Cotton to some games as he gets older. Hopefully these will include a trip to Anaheim, San Diego, and maybe, just maybe we'll bring him to Dodgers Stadium (I'll write more about my disappointment in Dodgers Stadium in another post). For now, we've got to celebrate the Phillies first win and hope for the same from the Red Sox.