All things Spring......

I am getting hit hard this year with the whole spring cleaning bug. I am in a declutter and throw out kinda mood. I am a bit overwhelmed by the task I am about to take on. My house is much bigger than me and I have two little babies to take care of and try to keep clean too.
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So my first goal in spring cleaning is to declutter.

My plan of action is to get a box and put things inside it that I never really use. Put it in my attic and if I do not touch them or go looking for them in the next 6 months, I will toss the box.

I will do this room by room. The first room I am starting with is the Family/Playroom.
We've accumulated way too many toys over the last few years. I've already packed a box up and it is now in the attic. The room looks better, and I feel better!



My heart is set on this bad boy. I hate the sight of looking at all the toys, I do not want the toys being the "focus" when you walk into our family room. This piece of furniture will not only help me stay organized, it also keeps the toys out of view.

My second plan for a less clutterred life is learning how to organize better. I got all these great ideas from my sister Shoe Gypsy last night.

Wish me Luck!

School Time: Wind

After watching Sid The Science Kid one afternoon. We had to try out the fun water boats they made. Click here for instructions. Little Man loved to hear all about wind and then he got to be the wind and move the boat around. Super easy and cost you nothing!!

30 Days Of Truth......day 3

Day 3: something you have to forgive yourself for.

(picture taken by Little Man himself)

I think in in the midst of adjusting to taking care of and running around for this little one, I sometimes take my frustration out on this little guy. I suppose acknowledging it helps right?


For example. I am constantly complaining to my husband how Little Man makes me late to any place I go. Just two days ago I realized it wasn't even Little Man's fault. It's my fault for not letting the baby cry more.
.
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I am getting LM dressed when the baby starts to cry. I stop what I am doing and go to get the baby. Once I settle him, I start to dress LM again. Then the baby cries some more and I move him to a different location for some change of scenery. By time I finish dressing LM I feel like it has taken 45 minutes.....when really I was running around doing other things. I shouldn't get mad at that sweet kid. Did you see his face?
So this is a shout out to Little Man....I'm sorry you sweet kissable little boy. I love you...
Don't worry he hears that from me all the time.
Kids are forgiving people. Thank goodness.

I love my boys.

Rain rain go away....School Time

We were stuck in doors for a week and were going a bit crazy. I was trying to clean my kitchen for the 65748Th time and LM wanted something fun to do. As I was putting food away I saw my sugar and BAM it hit me. Lets make a indoor sandbox. However ours would have no sand and all sugar. With rice thrown into the mix at some point during the fun.Little Man enjoyed feeling the different textures and we were doing all kinds of scooping and pouring into containers. It was a good time to go over how our hands are for touching and feeling different things.
We found a nice container to store it in so we can play with it again on a day where we are going stir crazy.Just know it WILL get messy. There is no doubt about it. I forgot to pull out my spare shower curtain I use for projects like this, so you might want to try and remember. Please don't let the mess scare you because we had a lot of fun doing this until the baby woke from his nap.

Pink Nothings

From the mouth of babes......

I was trying to be sweet and give Little Man a treat the other day. So since Valentines is around the corner I thought he would like some conversation heart candy. I gave it to him and he refused to eat it.

Why?

Because it looked like chalk!!!

I tried to convince him that it tasted yummy and his daddy (who walks on water) loved these and I bet he would too....

NO mom, it's chalk.

I really don't blame him. I don't much care for them.

My Toddler Won't Eat!!

How often do you hear other parents or even yourself utter that sentence? I am guessing if you have a toddler, you have at some point wanted to hold their mouths open and shove healthy food down their throats. Although the thought of it sounds nice, you must be willing to have a toddler (try to) beat you up afterwards. So if you experience what I do, here are some creative ways that have helped my sweet LM to eat his veggies and fruit.

First weapon of choice. Cookie cutters. THEY. SAVE. ME. Simple, easy, and you can guarantee that 99.9% of the time your child will eat whatever is placed in front of him for meals. The trick is, you must first cut it into something your child recognizes. For LM, he is into trees ever since Christmas. We always decorate with raisins.
Sidenote: I have also found if I get food coloring and add a smile to the shape he will be extra excited to eat it.

LM is very into birthdays currently. He loves to sing the birthday song all the time (and loves to eat the cake even more). We have started to add "birthday cakes" to our lunches. We sing and pretend to blow out the candles (pretzels) and then eat our "cake".
Side note: Just be willing to sing this for almost every apple slice.

Some suggestions for the "icing" are just plain peanut butter for your apples or you could puree some carrots, add some chocolate syrup to your peanut butter for some added fun.

Geez who knew feeding a toddler could be liberating and ?!!

Feel free to leave some of your own parenting secrets in getting a toddler.

Does he love laundry?

Don't let this picture fool you......... he was waiting very patiently for the dryer to stop. Well not because he needed a new shirt, well I suppose he sorta does. Forget about that. Stay with me guys. He was waiting for his best pal. His dog he calls Pluto. He just adores him. It's moments like this I could repeat every day.

Whew, Christmas is over.

We had a fun little visitor come to our grandparents house this Christmas season. To be honest LM didn't really care. It could be the fact we had another fat man with a fake beard show up to the church Christmas party. When he saw this unbelievable santa with a real beard, a red velvet suit and bells on his boots, he knew he must be a fraud.
Christmas Eve I walked a plate of cookies over to my friendly elderly neighbor who has mailed me 3 cards since baby Daniel was born. I felt awful because I have not had a chance to talk to her. So I surprised her and she talked to me for about two hours. It was sweet. She gave me a tour of her house and made me jealous when I saw just how big her kitchen was. Since we both live in really old houses I was shocked when I walked in there. As a matter of fact the tour started in the kitchen. She knew it was unbelievable. She was so friendly and today I received the 4Th card from her thanking me for the visit.
Christmas day started off with LM running to the Christmas tree. He stood in front of it and farted then fell into the tree backwards. Right then and there I knew this was going to be a awesome Christmas.
It was crazy and hectic.
It was great.

Merry Christmas to all, and all a goodnight.

What should be on your Christmas List?

Well a craft should be on your list!!

Little Man and I have been very busy doing all kinds of fun crafts. Our favorite one so far would be the Christmas tree ornament.

Here is what you will need:

Glass ornament (the paint will fall off of plastic ones....learned that one myself)

White paint

Black paint

Orange paint

One little adorable hand to make a hand print

You paint the little hand and place it on the ornament. Next after it dries you make a snowman face on each finger tip. Put the date and let your little one hang it on the tree.

You will enjoy this for years to come.

12 Days Of Recipes: Two

This past weekend I went to a cookie exchange party and saw the cutest reindeer cookies. They look pretty easy to make too. I cannot wait to make these with the man before Christmas. We have been doing all kinds of fun crafts and now we have a craft that he will really enjoy because he gets a great treat out of it.

Lets make this easy folks.

What you need :

any sugar cookie dough

pretzels

chocolate chips

any red candy for the nose.

Black Friday won me over..

I think I might be in love with Black Friday. I didn't even do any shopping. I got to go to bed last night around 11 and wake every few hours to nurse. Whenever I woke up I glanced at my husbands side of the bed and notice, yup, he is still out standing in line for me. Seriously what a sweet guy. He didn't make it home until 7:30 this morning but when he did he told me he got what we wanted....a new washer and dryer.

They will arrive in a week and I cannot wait!!!!! I will upload pictures of my new and improved laundry room. Laundry never sounded so good to me.

Happy Late Turkey day!!

Mentor Mom

I was reading a blog called Rookie Moms (check it out!) I came across a post that said you should find you a mentor mom. They said “the most experienced mom is the one who is six to eight months ahead of you in parenthood; any bigger gap than that and they’ve forgotten what you’re going through.”
They go on to say how that mother has all the best advice for what your going through because she was just there. She has done all the research that you are about to do to solve all your problems. She is understanding because she remembers far to well the late nights or teething pains you are going through. I loved this idea and then when I thought about when Little Man was a baby I realized that I had a mentor mom and didn't even know it. I was living far away from my family in a new state and she was the only mother I felt comfortable being around because she never made me feel bad when my son wouldn't stop crying. She gave me great ideas to help me get through the day.(prepare dinner during naps so you don't have to during the dreaded witching hour, and the moby wrap...) Best of all she knew that it was never too early to eat chocolate. So thanks Hannah you were totally my mentor mom for Little Man and I wish we still lived close enough so you could be my mentor mom for Baby Man.

honestly i don't know how they do it.

Really how do those mothers blog and raise their children all at the same time. I find that when I have free time I am trying to feed myself and then clean my house and somehow manage to cook dinner and feed it to my toddler. Why can't I find the time to blog and just chill like all the other moms who blog all the time? Blogging seems to be the last thing that comes to mind these days. There are so many times I think, oh I need to blog about this. The time just never comes to actually write the post. Gee you are lucky to have this one. To the few who really read my blog these days. I really want to start posting more just so I have time to sit down and think. Two children are great. They keep me busy and I like that. Little Man has completely shocked me. I tried and tried and tried to potty train him before the baby came and he was so good at it for a week and then he just decided he wasn't going to do it any longer. For months, almost the entire pregnancy I tried to convince him it would be a great idea to use the potty. I finally came to a understanding with him....that he just wasn't going to do it.
Well he started telling us he wanted to go after the baby came home. It wasn't every time or even every day. That is until Halloween came. He loaded up his pumpkin basket and I saw a great bribe. I told him when he pees on the potty he could get a piece of candy and wouldn't you know it that did the trick. He is now staying dry at night and during his naps. I am soo happy to have a child who is using the potty and not so many of those dang expensive pull ups.


I never like to read blogs who don't put up a picture with the post. So sorry to all those who love visuals like me. I really don't feel like asking my friend google for a picture to relate to this post. If I were not so sleepy right now I would upload some pictures of the boy and baby. Maybe next time............

C-Section Post: LOVED it

I must admit I loved my decision to have another c-section this time around. With Little Man I tried to have him the good ol' fashion way but it just didn't work out for us. This time I walked right into the OR and I swear Dr. Burke from Grey's was standing in front of me. That was pretty comforting to see a familiar face, it kinda lighten the mood. Well for me it did. Ha ha. I got up on the table and before I knew it my Doctor was telling me he saw black hair. I heard his sweet cry and then after they cleaned him off and wrapped him up and brought him to me.

The best part was that he was allowed to go into recovery with me. Little Man didn't get to join me and I didn't get to see him for hours after his birth. This time was so enjoyable because my son was able to stay with me for so long. I never felt like I missed him. I was able to start breastfeeding right away. It was while I was breastfeeding that I realized what I was going to name my son. We had been trying to decide for a while, well 9 months what we should name our baby and even on the way to the hospital we didn't know. It's amazing how you just know when you are holding your baby what you should call them.

I loved not having to labor this time and the bonding I felt with my baby this time.
It all felt pretty perfect for a while.

Wordless Wednesday.

And so life begins........

Tooth Fairy Idea.

I was reading through some of my favorite blogs today and came across one of the cutest things I have ever seen. My son will not be ready to loose a tooth for a very long time, but when the time comes I just might have to add a Fairy door to my house too! Go on over to see how it's made and just how easy it is to do. Click HERE

Little things make me happy.

Like when Little Man asks me for pretzels then promptly shares them with his cars.

Playdough Tips and Tricks

Recently I got a new kitchen table. I am just in love with it. I have only used hand-me-down tables my entire marriage. I was thrilled to get my own style and size table I wanted. I have never been to picky with what Little Man did at my tables, that is until I got one I wanted to stay nice. I was worried about doing Playdough with him once I got it. The new table has ridges and I didn't want Playdough to get stuck in them. I didn't want him to play on my floors because of the same problem. With older wood floors you can find gaps and it's hard to get stuff out of them. I have some pink sprinkles still stuck in my wood floors from a while back. My solution was to buy a cheap shower curtain and use it like a table cloth while we play with the Playdough. It comes off soo easily and it's great when you have several children playing together because you can make it really big. I use it for paint time too. I have loved this and think you might too!