Make sure to vote! Left hand side, if you hadn’t noticed. Refresh and they will change.

Check out the comment received on my last post.

If you, too, would like SEO that good on your site, please contact us at Oregon Coast Design.

With so much going on (or maybe so little?) it’s easy to forget the nitty gritty of blogging about daily life. Or at least posting picture of "everyday." So…..let’s see. Weather has been crazy! Lots of hailstorms and even rain mixed with snow. Even some "sticking" or whatever you call it when you wake in the morning to a layer of frozen hail covering everything.

After a random "sunny" hailstorm yesterday.

Ali is doing well. She’s begun waving….kind of. But it’s something we’ve been working on and waiting for for awhile. She also finally started clapping today! Or something clapping-ish. It’s so funny how kids hit some milestones way ahead, others right on time, and yet there has to be at least a couple they lag on. Still sleeping really well in her crib. Until sometimes between eleven and one that is. Which is probably more my fault then anything because it’s easier to just take her if I’m going to bed or already asleep. Also she still wakes near hourly most night after she goes down. Will she ever sleep through the night?

Also, the last two mornings she’s woken up at six! YUCK and I hope that doesn’t continue. We’ve had a slight cold blow through around here. Why is there something so cute about a little kid with a runny nose? Maybe that only when it’s your own kid? And when it’s just a touch of clearish sheen, not any nasty green gunk. Yech, I’ll gag just thinking about it. Another recent development is some hardcore cruising. It’s kind of scary how quickly (so it seems!) Ali went from wobbly standing to confident climbing. Yes, climbing. She is trying to tackle our stairs but usually only gets just past halfway up (about stair seven) before going back down. Which, is fine with me. I’m glad she know how to get down because I don’t think that is always the case at first. Seriously though, we really need to invest in some baby gates.

Crouching to pick a fallen pacy is no big thing now.

Beyond that I can’t think of much. Tony is really busy. It was nice to have a weekend home. Alone. I really, really, really, want real spring to be here. I know I need to update on next door (Tony has been working on hooking up a web cam actually, if you are wondering what the new box on the right is). Hopefully will get to that soon. I am waiting on getting pictures situated. Basically, at the moment, the whole thing is a huge dirt lot. A portapotty was delivered Friday though, so I’m anticipating a lot of work this upcoming week. Thus far they’ve just been coming for a few hours in the morning and then peacing out. If anyone is there at all…

Ah yes, I did just remember something else. Ali’s new sense of exploration. Which is especially keen in the kitchen and has prompted a couple baby locks, some reorganizing and a whole cupboard and lower drawer designated for her stuff. One is full of all the jars from baby food that we’re keeping, and her cups and stuff and it is emptied out more times a day then I can count. Probably as many as it all gets put back in!

It is so, so nice to be home. The drive was gorgeous. Ali did great. I’m so glad I cleaned up a bit before we left. It’s quiet, inside the house and out. I don’t miss living in the city (ok, suburbs). Ali was so cute when we first got back. She totally knew she was home and you could just tell she was more comfortable here. Suddenly she is SUCH a little explorer, crawling from room to room and checking everything out. Trouble, trouble. 

Though we are glad to be back, we did have a wonderful two weeks. Thanks to my parents and Tony’s mom, who each allowed us to invade their homes for a week. Thanks to our siblings who had to put us with a baby coming first in nearly all regards. Thanks to all the friends and family who made an effort to get together with us. There were a lot of good times had and we look forward to doing it again. But NOT TOO SOON.

We did so much stuff that I hope to break the posts us so as to give some events the attention they deserve. Also there are some videos and stuff but those are a pain to upload so they will probably trickle through in the next few weeks. How is the new design for you all? I really hope you are enjoying it as much as we are. Lastly, our baby was nine months old yesterday. I have no words for that…

The snow at Billie’s house.

Ali at Pike’s Place.

And her parents.

At the park.

Playing Nana Kris’ piano.

Checking out the cat food.

Playing outside with Uncle Dave.

Sucking her toe.

Making a mess as usual.

Little Miss Independent.

So, did you notice?

It goes without saying that we made some changes around here. You’ll be noticing new things wherever you look, so I wanted to put together a quick post to let you in on some of the finer points. But first, a massive thanks to one Karlin Johnson, our designer at Oregon Coast Design who did a fabulous job on not only this site, but on the OCD one as well. Karlin is a joy to work with and does an outstanding job. Also, of course, thanks to Ashley and Ali for their patience during all of our projects, including this one.

The design is cleaner and crisper, more contemporary, and more pleasing to the eye. I won’t say too much about the new look because it pretty much speaks for itself.

On the technical side, things should be much quicker. We’re using a newer version of the WordPress platform that has significant speed improvements, and we’ve pared down our plugins a bit. Also, there are less images to be preloaded, and we’ve begun caching local copies of the images, which means (in english) that those of you who couldn’t see the images before, should be able to now.

The navigation has been reworked to move some of our infrequently used features (links, archive) into the main menu. The archive has been significantly overhauled, and the links will be renovated in the coming weeks. The contact page is slicker now, and should be just as impervious to spammers.

Now for my two favorite new features. The first you may have already noticed. Right under the byline of each post is Ali’s exact age (to the minute) at the time the post was made. For pregnancy posts, the time to delivery is listed. Also, in the upper right corner of the page, you’ll see any posts which were made on this day in previous years. For now there’s only one previous year, but in the future it should get increasingly interesting. If there’s nothing there, it means we didn’t post on this day last year, so check back tomorrow.

Just a warning, in the future you may get some ads. They are a necessary evil, but we’re working hard to make them as minimally invasive as we can. Each ad will be handpicked by us, so there won’t be anything we don’t approve of and if you get the urge to click, please do, because it helps us to pay server costs.

Finally, a plug. We carried out this project exactly as we do each and every site we design, and it is indicative of the high-quality work we produce. If you are thinking about creating a web site, redesigning your web site, or just want to pick our brains, please contact us at Oregon Coast Design.

Thanks for reading and enjoy!

Even though she loved baths before, she now loves them even more. Sitting up is huge fun for her. And has moved on to crawling around, trying to stand on the side, and generally just wreaking havoc. I probably spend a good portion of bathtime covering my eyes. Which is why it’s good we take videos!

Also… and I may not supposed to be saying this, but so what I’m too excited. We are working on a huge site redesign with Ms. Karlin Johnson that is going amazingly well and will hopefully be coming to you soon. Please begin using Firefox now!

Ummmmmmm…..

Someone found our blog today by searching that. Weird.

Its been awhile, but I’ve been saving up the best Ali content for you, my loyal readers. But first, you must sit through a quick note. I’m doing some blog upgrades tonight, and I’m gonna try to find a way so those of you with facebook-blockers can still see all the pics. Also, I hope to be back soon with some more substantial content. For now, dig into this (all content from my phone)…

Our "last" visit to the place where we met, Ashley’s old stomping grounds, Subway.

The moving truck. Car trailer visible on the right. It was a pretty big rig for these mountain roads.

Ali in her little fake-walker bouncy thing. Watching us unpack.

Having a chill in the big bed.

Sweet little hat and coat.

And a bunch of bath videos. She absolutely loves baths.

If you haven’t noticed the site got a little face lift this week. Check out the Pictures link on the right side of the page for albums…a new approach (via Facebook) that impact the number of pictures I post. Or, may not. The newest development was inspired by this blog, friend of a friend of a friend, that I happened upongst. Btw, if the pics have been slow to upload lately (like, the last three plus weeks) it’s because I’ve been using the high res ones and it seems to struggle everything. Sorry and we’re working on it!

Other news. BIG news. We officially have until October 17th to be out of our house. We’ll be headed down to Rockaway, Oregon where we’ll be living in my parents’ beach house for awhile. You know, saving money, paying off debt….lovely things like that. Though the move is going to be challenging and the small town a very drastic change of pace, we are super excited for so many reasons.

Ugh. Techinical difficulties are such a drag. We’ve been really busy around here though, so it may not have mattered much anyway. Though, now that I think about it, I’m not sure what exactly we’ve been so bust with. Tony, working of course. Ali, being two months old an incessantly needy (which is FINE and expected and most of the time adorable, but also exhausting and trying to one’s patience). Me, trying to let Tony work, trying to keep Ali happy and healthy, trying to keep the sink empty of dishes, trying to get back on the treadmill, trying to get out of the house once in awhile! Somehow, the mundane seems to fill the day.

We have been venturing out to a lot of nearby parks. Walking, exploring, last night we even picnic[ed]. The weather has been glorious the last week or so and I am doing my best to take full advantage while the option still exists. The nights are getting longer, but darkness at eight doesn’t phase me much when we move into the bedroom about that time anyway. Now, when that becomes six, five, and (ugghhhhhh) four-thirty it will be a completely different story. And now……PICTURES.

Um, just kidding. It seems some TDs remain and, as you can tell by Tony’s post, we tend to keep different hours. I’ll wait for him to awake. Stay tuned…..