A Fall Day in the Mountains

I have always enjoyed seasonal activities, so last Sunday Liam and I joined some friends at Riley's in Los Rios Rancho, near Yucaipa. It's a great little place you can go to pick apples and pumpkins and enjoy some great BBQ and apple pie. There's even a little country store there if you'd like to do a little shopping while you're at it. It was great to get out of the city for awhile and enjoy a beautiful mountain day. This was the first outing I've had with Liam that I felt he was ready to get down and walk around, and--as you can see from the pictures--he had a lot of fun exploring his surroundings. I admit a major motivation for me in making the trip was to get a few cute pictures of Liam playing in the pumpkin patch and toddling around the ranch. I may be biased, but I think it's safe to say, "Mission accomplished!"

Look at that big boy getting around in shoes!

Liam did a great job getting around in spite of the uneven ground. He did take several tumbles, but none of them seemed to phase him. I was also happy to see that he doesn't seem to mind having shoes on--they didn't seem to trip him up very much, either.  Since Liam is still new to walking, I was able to keep up with him pretty easily this time, but I have a feeling this job won't be so easy in the near future! On this particular trip my main responsibility was to keep him from putting things he picked up off of the ground in his mouth. For the most part he was far more interested in the dirt than the bright, orange pumpkins, which is why in most pictures you see his little hands holding the dirt and other debris he collected during his explorations. Yay, dirt!

Mommy and Liam--this one is my favorite. 

I call this one, "Baby of the Corn."

Chasing Liam

Over the past year I've enjoyed taking Liam to the Villa's Outer Peristyle garden for little photo shoots with a beautiful backdrop. It used to be so easy--I'd lay him on a baby blanket, try and make him laugh, and snap away as he remained (pretty much) in the same place. Those days are no more. My baby boy has learned how to walk, and there is no getting him to hold still anymore. As you can see from the pictures, all I can do now is chase him around with the camera and hope that the shutter speed is faster than he is!

Our New Home

It was a daunting task, but over one weekend we moved out of our old apartment and into our new one. It was a hectic and VERY long weekend, but now it is over and it is time to begin unpacking and settling in to our new home. Actually, although we still have a couple of stacks of boxes left (mostly books, of course!), I was able to  unpack most of our stuff over the past week or so. I tried to unpack a box or two each night after supper, so by the time my work week was through we were much closer to making our living room a box-free zone. Unpacking is definitely easier than packing, although it's a challenge deciding where things should go. Anything that is of questionable value to have around on a daily basis is now being relegated to our garage space. With the luxury of storing things in the garage, I find that our new closets are quite spacious. Even after everything is unpacked, I think we may still have a little room to spare.

We have been in our new place since the first of October. As you can see from the pictures, we are settling in, but we don't have our family pictures or other decorations up, so the walls still look rather bare. Once we have more homey things up, I'll take pictures of the other rooms, but for now the living room is the most settled. I admit that, looking at the empty apartment, I wasn't immediately sure how "liveable" the space would be for us, but the more we've settled in the cozier and homier it feels. In part that is what happens to a space with you fill it with your things, but Eric and I both agree that this apartment feels homey in a way that our other one never did. Why that is, I don't know, but there you have it. At first Liam was a bit wary of the new place, but after fifteen minutes or so of fussiness and confusion, looking around with wide eyes, he started puttering around and didn't look back. It's only been a few days, but so far everything that I thought I would like about the place is proving true, making the drawbacks fade into the background. I'm looking forward to continuing make the place our own and adding more homey touches, like getting our pictures and wall hangings up.