One Quarter of a Century!

Kinda scary picture, but oh well!

I turned 25! It was such a fantastic day! Jeff let me sleep in until he HAD to go (he got the kids dressed and even did Mckenna's hair). Then that morning my mother in law kept the kids while I got to go shopping BY MYSELF! It has been awhile since I just walked around the mall with no one else. It was kind of refreshing! After I got home, Jeff had a surprise lunch (NYPD Pizza- one of my FAVORITE places) delivered. It was DELISH! While the kids were asleep I just did nothing- fantastic. I am sure I played around on the internet and wasted time, but I also laid down and had a little nap. That evening my mother in law made one of my favorite homemade meals and a YUMMMY chocolate cake! After dinnner we got to leave the kids with my in-laws and Jeff and I headed out on a date. It was a big surprise, but we went to a Diamondbacks game. It was so fun! Fun fact: 9 years ago on my birthday was my FIRST date to a Diamondbacks game. Of course, that night, I completely "forgot" about healthy eating and order nachos- I LOVE baseball game nachos...yum! And THEN after the game (which the Diamondbacks won) we went to cheesecake factory and got some yummy appetizers and diet coke :-)

I ate WAY too much, but it was SUCH a fun birthday! My husband is the best (and the rest of my family, too)

OH YEAH...my gifts.... all I wanted for my Bday and Mothers Day (which are WAY too close together, in my opinion) was a weekend away with just Jeff and I- no kids! I want to sleep in and read and swim and do anything I want without having to worry about kiddos, just for a day or two. SO, we get to go next weekend to a fun resort in Scottsdale. I am beyond excited. Saturday-Monday with no kiddos. What am I going to do with myself? I will miss the munchkins, but this will be FABULOUS!!! Thanks Mom and Dad Jones for keeping the kids for us :-)!!!!! I got some fun extra surprises from Jeff too. A new pair of sandals, a few house decorations and for Mother's Day a PEDICURE while we are on our "weekend away". YAY! SUPER excited. Next weekend can't come soon enough :-)

Andrew Turns One

and we celebrated with a "Puppy Party".

When Andrew was about 6 months old, Mckenna and I were talking about birthday parties. When I asked her what kind of birthday party Andrew should have she said "A Puppy Party!!!", so the theme stuck!

His Cake
it was chocolate cake covered in chocolate cereal to look like puppy chow

The Favors
Puppy Chow in a bag

Eating his cake! I made him his own little dog bowl of puppy chow with yellow cake.
He loved it!

We are so happy to have our little Drew boy in our family. He is such a goof ball. He can say a few words now (Mom, Dad, a word for Mckenna, tweet tweet, ball, cheeeeeese- like to take a picture, ha- and there are probably a few more, but those are the only ones I could think of right now). He just started taking a few steps here or there. He definitely isn't a walker yet, but he is on his way. He LOVES to eat! When he gets put in his booster at meal time he "flaps" his arms and screams until food is on his tray. He knows just what he wants. He absolutely LOVES strawberries and bananas and anything with LOADS of carbohydrates (such as bread, pancakes, etc etc). He is a little lactose intolerant. He has been on sensitive formula for a long time and when I moved him to whole milk we had a MISERABLE week. He was fussy ALL the time. I wanted to die. I wasn't sure where my pleasant little baby had gone. Then we figured it out because he started spitting up a lot after string cheese or another dairy snack. So, we have switched to lactose free milk and voila! he is happy again! Yay for expensive milk :-) Andrew LOVES his Daddy. His face lights up whenever Jeff gets home from work/school. He has learned how to crawl up and down the stairs- woohoo no more baby gates! Andrew is super cheesy sometimes. When he wants your attention he will stare and you with these cute little eyes and a HUGE grin. He knows his way into his mamma's heart!

ANDREWS OTHER LOVES:
Playing with toys
Playing outside with Mckenna
Eating rocks and dirt
Crawling away from mommy and hiding from her


And some other fun first birthday pictures!

Eating his birthday breakfast (donuts) and opening his presents from mom and dad!

Beyond Excited!!!

I have been eyeing this Anthropologie bedding for YEARS...literally at least 2 years! I really like the purple (but would love it even better in white...love, love, love me some simple clean white bedding). Of course, at this point in our lives we can't really afford to spend $300+ on bedding.

WELLL... today I happened upon a tutorial from Kojo Designs. I am beyond excited. This will probably become one of my most time consuming projects, but it will be SOOO worth it. Our bed will be gorgeous :-)

I am really loving the white, but what do you think about a silver-y grey or maybe even a light robins egg blue? Oh the possibilities!!!

Shabby Apple Amalfi Coast Swimsuit Giveaway

Shabby Apple Amalfi Coast Swimsuit Giveaway

I am SUPER in love with Shabby Apple. I know lots of giveaway posts lately. I guess there is just a lot that I want and not a lot of funds to buy them :-)

Oh Mckenna

So, these pictures are old, but I thought they would be great for us to remember!

The night before we moved out of our house in Texas we had my SIL and BIL over helping us clean. We were pretty close to being done when I saw Andrew crawl out of Mckenna's room looking like this


At first I thought he had thrown up all over himself. Then I realized that Mckenna poured baby food ALL over Andrew, herself and her carpet. AHHHH!
Jana (my SIL) was impressed that I pulled out the camera and laughed. I was actually surprised that I didn't just cry. That was such a stressful day, but I decided it would be better just to laugh. I definitely made a good choice because these pictures crack me up now :-) What silly kids!!!

A bowl full of lemons.: Silhouette GIVEAWAY!!!!

I hope that I win :-)

A bowl full of lemons.: Silhouette GIVEAWAY!!!!: "My new Silhouette SD machine finally arrived and I'm dedicating this week to my Silhouette creations. I'm also giving away a Silhouett..."

Crazy Me

Isn't he irresistible?

I know a lot of people will think I am crazy, but I am 100 million percent in LOVE with cloth diapering. Seriously it is AWESOME. I wish we would have started with Mckenna and saved like $3,000 by now (grr!) I was so clueless about how modern cloth diapers work. Gone are the days of diaper pins and swirling the diapers in a toilet (well, I mean those thing still happen, but it isn't the "norm" anymore. There seriously are toilet sprayers to spray them off, how sweet it that?). These BumGenius (that Drew is so kindly modeling for us...) are all-in-ones. Basically it goes on and off like a disposable. You just toss it in a wet bag and wash it later instead of tossing it in the trash. I do laundry at least every other day (I didn't always do that, this is a new trend that I am finding I like MUCH more. It makes putting clothes away easier and then it isn't as much of a CHORE as it used to be. I just toss a load into the washer in the morning and that is it- so nice and so much easier...anyway...) and I just make one of those loads a diaper load. The other type we got are the Flip System. Basically it is just a PUL (type of fabric) outer layer and then you lay inserts into it. Then you can reuse the same outer layer until it gets dirty and just keep changing the soaker. PLUS this system has disposable inserts you can put in. That is so enticing to me for when we are gone a long time in the day or traveling, etc. There are so many cool options now :-)

We have been using them for two weeks now and they are fresh, clean and going strong. I love it! PLUS they are unbelievably SOFT! My kids prefer them. Mckenna told me today, when I put our last disposable diaper on her because well it was more convenient at the time ( ...the cloth diapers were upstairs, I was downstairs, you get the point) that she wanted a soft diaper!! I would totally agree with her. After feeling these new diapers my kiddos old disposables feel like an itchy paper towel! Poor things.

I am not like super "Earthy", but if I can help out here or there I think it is better. Like using reusable zipper snack bags instead of disposable ziplocks- so easy. Or buying rBST free milk from Bashas' instead of not rBST free from Fry's (I may be wrong, Fry's may be rBST free, but it isn't clearly marked)--and they are the same price. You get the point :-). So I might as well not contribute to a landfill full of yucky diapers that aren't degrading in my lifetime. SIDE NOTE- do you know that on disposable diaper direction it tells you to dump out any solid stuff before throwing it away. I had no idea. I can guarantee that like none of my friends do that, haha!

We were 99% motivated by the money aspects of cloth diapers, the earth benefits are just icing on the cake :-) If you are at all chemical conscious with your kids you should read what they make disposable diapers out of. I am not particularly into all of that, but some may be.

Anyway, I am not trying to convert anyone to using them. But, I do think that some people may be more willing to do it if they knew more about it. So if you are interested at all I can give you the websites I used to decide what kind of diapers I like, etc (or just Google how to cloth diaper and there is a really good blog with tons of information- NOT the Diaper Pin, I didn't like that site at all)

I am just dreaming about what I can spend all the extra money on, haha... Oh wait...we have student loans to pay, boo :-)