mother's club say what?

i'll be honest. after we moved here last year, i had a difficult time adjusting. levi being gone, having no friends, nothing to do, and not knowing where to go was kind of a downer. my mom visited a few weeks after levi started school and immediately signed me up for the mother's clubs in the area. i sat there, somewhat disgusted, and thought to myself that i would never go to something as tacky sounding as a mother's club. however, few weeks later with no friends and only my child to talk to, i decided that maybe i should go to the new member welcome for the san bruno mother's club. best. decision. ever. 

for those of you who don't know what a mother's club is, it is exactly what it says, a club for mothers. or fathers. a place for us to vent about our children not potty training/eating/sleeping etc, or hang out when our husband's are gone until late. or a place for us to go party all by ourselves with our mom friends. or switch off babysitting. i'm not sure about all mother's club, but ours has a walking club, book club, movie club, in a pinch {taking meals to those who had a baby/got sick etc}, crafting club, playgroups, classifieds and so much more. it also has a board {president, vice president, secretary, treasurer etc}. of which i am now president for the year with my fabulous friend elena. wahbam. 

i don't think i can say enough good things about joining it. i have met so many amazing people, in totally different stages of their lives, but we all have something in common-- crazy children. i love how different everyone is; it gives me and zak the ability to meet people different than those.... in the utah bubble. no offense, still love you guys. san francisco provides such a great opportunity for us to meet those who have spent their whole life here, and know all the secret spots to go to. 

{sorry for the crappy phone pics, but some of my favorite ladies at our board member appreciation lunch} 

how cute are our thank you bags with my delicious caramel corn? i love them. 

one of my fears is moving to canada and not having a network like this to immerse myself in, when like moving here, i know no one {besides levi's family, of course}. i'm hoping that by that time, i'll be an expert in mother's clubb-ing, and if necessary, i can start one up there too.

so, in conclusion. if you live here, join our cool club. if you don't live here, google one by you. or make one. because it's great. 

this amazing place.

since we're "over the hump" now, i keep thinking about all the things we have left to do in this amazing city. i can't believe we now have less time left than we've been here. it's kind of boggling my mind. when levi originally talked about coming here, i was vehemently opposed. like "there's no way in hell i will live there, i'll never see you". but things change, promptings happen and then we ended up here and i can't imagine going to dental school anywhere else. 

{view from the bay area discovery museum. amazing.}

i love san francisco. i love the sky line. i love the people we've met. i love finding a special hole in the wall restaurant only known to locals. i love the weather, fog and all. i love the bagillion parks around for us to find. i love the amount of kid things there are to explore here. this place is amazing. yes, it's very expensive. but how often are we going to get the opportunity to live in a place filled with such culture? 

when we moved here, we created a "bucket list" of sorts. most of the things we want to do are touristy, but we want to get the most out of our time here. 

• run across the bridge
• go to a Giant's game 
• go to Off The Grid
• drive down Lombard street 
• try Gorilla BBQ
• Alcatraz 
• Drive to the beach house down highway 1 
• see the Painted Ladies 
• ride around town on the motorcycle

i know we have tons more things that we have to do, anything you recommend?

since new years, i have been trying to get zak out more frequently to cool places and he has been loving it. so much that he asks "mom, what cool place should we go to today?" every morning before breakfast. it's kind of obnoxious because he now expects it, but i do love the experiences we are having. too bad that he will not remember any of it. sad.  

so to start with, one of his favorite places is the zoo. 

our season pass has gotten our money's worth. most of the time, we come to eat lunch and watch the train go by and then go home. going with friends allows him to branch out a bit. and adds a little chaos too, but who doesn't need that in their life? ;) 

 zak's next favorite place is the bay area discovery museum. it's amazing. and is in the most gorgeous location {see picture at the top}. it's right across the bridge in sausalito and is a great place to let him run wild, especially when the weather cooperates. 

driving the boat is a favorite.

 they also have an entire building devoted to trains and their tracks. WINNNNERRR. 

 i go to look at the bridge and marvel at this amazing place that we live in. he goes for the diggers, trains and boats he can drive around. win for both of us. 

we recently started a music class through south san francisco parks and rec. to say that he loves it is an understatement. music really speaks to him; he learns so much through it, and will calm down, participate and love every second of it. this class was no exception as you can see from the picture below. miss theresa lets them play with tons of instruments, dance around with parachutes and sing lots of songs with mom. it's a win. i think we will be doing it for more than just the 8 weeks. 

he was happy, i swear.

mom's favorite place to go is the beach. we have a great one about 5 minutes away from us, that's a little bit warmer and nice when it's sunny. we went there this morning while levi went surfing and got to bask in the warmer sunlight until nap time. it was great. 

 it was a little too exhausting for the wee man. he gave in about half an hour after we got there. 

zak loves the beach. another thing he got from mom. we made soup, train tracks, buried feet, ate snacks, dug holes, and so much more. oh and pretended to surf. 

love his sunglasses too. he's such a cool dude. 

 i love that greysen can sit up now. it makes my life so much easier. 

these are only a quick three of our favorite places. i think i'm going to start writing down other ones we do so that i can look back and see everything that we did while we lived here. we've got to start crossing things off our bucket list, or we will leave wishing we could have done so much more than stay home and watch tv on levi's free days. 

crafting snafting.

for some reason, the last several weeks, i have been inspired to craft/redecorate. could be because all my stuff was sitting on the ground in the dining room and zak kept playing with it, or because all my christmas decorations gone make our house seem so boring. 

what's better to decorate for than the next holiday of lovey-dovey-ness? 

this last week, i crafted with some girls from dental school and made these cute things. So fun eh? Super easy with wood letters, mod podge and scrap book paper. We antiqued the edges with a chalk stamp. It's my favorite. 

I saw a ton of felt garlands on pinterest, and decided i should make one because i already have tons of felt from my headband making extravaganzas. you're technically supposed to sew it together, but i'm super lazy and just hot glued it. or maybe it's because i couldn't figure out how to thread the bobbin in the sewing machine. you'll never know. i originally only made one but then i saw it hanging on the frames all by itself and decided it needed another layer. much better. 

i want to make some more valentine-y things but i haven't decided what else is speaking to me yet. i need to stalk pinterest more.

on a different note, we may or may not have bought a french fry cutter to make veggies small enough for greysen to snack on. it's pretty awesome. so far we've baked sweet potato fries and regular fries and they're both delicious. and healthy{er} too. 

a long time ago, ok, like three months ago, i had a craft night at our house and made these chevron canvases. ok. that's not true. i tried to make them, but couldn't mathematically figure out how to make the stripes, so levi taped it. and i painted it. i have a cool husband like that. but, like the other things sitting on the floor in my dining room, i jut got around to finishing them now. i'm loving the addition to my dining room now. as a side note, aren't these printables like the cutest? totally googled "kitchen printables" and they showed up. i don't remember what website though, sorry! 

 this project was probably my favorite one. i'm especially proud of it. levi had a bunch of 2x4's left over from his garage cleaning up project, so i decided i would antique them and make them jewelry holders since i've been buying more from groopdealz. it's like an addiction. i love cheap jewelry. anyways, i stained them with apple cider vinegar and steel wool and then spray painted them cream and then sanded them down. i bought some knobs from anthropologie and then my crafty/genius husband figured out how to attach them to the wood. and here they have sat in our room. and every time i look at them, i burst with pride. ;) i also wear my stuff much more frequently now that it's not in a giant pile on my dresser.

i also made these burlap covered canvases at my craft night, and left them in the dining room because i couldn't find anything to do with them. then i realized that i could poke my earrings through it to hang them. GENIUS. sometimes i just amaze myself. 

that is a brief summary of my achievements this past week. i forgot how much i love to craft/decorate because i haven't done it in such a long time. funny how being awake during nap time can be so productive. 

six months.

i haven't done a post about this dude in a while. although he's not six months quite yet, in a week to be exact, i figured i might as well post on him while i've got the stream going. 

we've been doing solid food, and he has been loving it. i began doing baby led weaning with him, and he looooves feeding himself. 

i had to find pictures of zak eating, because i love comparing their looks. unfortunately, greysen got the short end of the stick on the hair, making him look a little less cute than his brother. no offense baby, we still love you lots, but your brother was just so precious. see below. 

however, in greysen's defense, he smiles way more and is way more chill than his brother, so he wins in both of those departments. 

he's getting better at sitting up!! he can go for a few minutes before getting overly excited and falling. trying to watch zak has a lot to do with that because he likes to follow him around and that causes him to fall. he has absolutely no interest in crawling/moving but neither did zak until 9 months so i guess we just have slow moving children to begin with. 

his favorite foods now include: roasted broccoli, cucumber, ham and anything that mom and dad will let him eat off their plates. he gets very offended when we eat something different than him. 

yes, that's just a stick of ham chilling in his mouth. that's how we roll. 

he still does not nap anywhere besides his bed. his longest nap outside our house is about 20 minutes, unlike his usual 2 hour ones. it's unfortunate, but luckily he's pretty content so you can't really tell most of the time.  

his sleeping patterns have been totally wack since coming home from canada and getting sick.we've been working on readjusting them, but being sick just ruins everything. cept for his personality. he's still just as happy.  

i just want to squish those cheeks so much. love you little man. muah.  

adventures.

one of my non written resolutions was to get out more with zak. unfortunately we may have set the bar too high the past couple weeks because now he says "i just wanna go do something fun mom" when he's been stuck inside for too long. doubly unfortunate is the fact that it is freezing outside recently! like really cold. not canada cold. just san francisco cold. 

but last week, grandpa came into town so we took him to our favorite cheese steak place by dad's school. it's seriously amazing. if you haven't been to the cheese steak shop on divisadero, i highly recommend it. 

 as you can tell it is kid approved as well. yes, admire our parenting for letting greysen enjoy clean, healthy food. 

we then went to the beach house for a few days so that dad and grandpa could go golf. thrilling for us, let me tell you. while they golfed, we snuggled, went on way too long walks, played in the jacuzzi tub and went to the park.

greysen just adores his brother. i think the feeling is mutual. i love them too. 

we went on this walk that ended up being at least a mile, with several steps because he wanted to go down to the beach. zak had to take several breaks on the way back because it was way too long for him. so that was an adventure. 

 he was a little tired coming home. this was before we even pulled out of the driveway of the beach. 

 zak has become an excellent long boarder. going in uncle josh's footsteps.  =) 

we spent a couple days this week at zak's very favorite place. the zoo. 

 this is zak's bestest friend. who's only two months' older than him, but he looks like a giant compared to him. 

we also went to burlingame to see zak's second favorite place. the caltrain station. i know, he has high expectations of fun. he's easy to please. 

however, we did also make it to j crew to buy presents, and anthropologie for this fabulous mug to make me going to the train worth it. =) i could spend a lotta money in both of those stores. 

we went to the zoo again today with some other friends and got to do special things; ride the train, carousel and buy hot chocolate. he is so lucky.  

mom's a little tired now. we may have to tone down having so many awesome things to do during the week, taking the two of them places is always an adventure.