Slowing Down For A Change

Yesterday was one of those days that i slowed down alittle in life and just went at my childrens speed. If you have never done this you should try it sometime. You'll find that your day will be much more relaxing and fun!

We went to 3 different parks! Everytime i asked Caiden what he wanted to do he said "go to the park" we started at the rec center, then to a little one down by where we used to live and ended up by coming home cooking food and taking it to last park to have a picinic. Once we were fininshed eating the ice cream truck came by and we all got ice cream. I haven't seen ice cream trucks since i was little. The kids had so much fun and were exhausted by the time bedtime came around (and filthy not just dirty...filthy!!!)

Caiden has become my little monkey, he can climb up anything and isn't afraid of anything!

Here's Hailey still holding onto her popcicle stick, i think she thought if she sucked on it hard enough more would come out of it. She has just started standing herself up on her own.

We played in the dirt at one of the ball parks, they had a blast (what kid doesn't love dirt) and i have to admit i was sitting down there playing in it with them. Me and Caiden were playing imaginary baseball, somehow he kept getting homeruns and i kept striking out. I think he was cheating:-)

Don't they look adorable even covered with dirt?!! Okay i have to leave you with this...

*Mom, I swear i wasn't eating the dirt!!!*

Monday Memories

We took the kids over to my aunts house this evening to go swimming. The heat has been unbearable!!! It's been around 90-95 degrees but with no breeze or anything, just really humid. So we do whatever we can to get out of our unairconditioned house.
I love taking the kids here to swim because usually it's just us there so we don't have to worry about watching our children with 50 other kids around. I take the kids to the rec center pool here in town and it's no big deal i can handle both of them but it gets tough at times trying to make sure Hailey isn't putting her face in the water and making sure caiden isn't running out the kiddy pool gate or jumping on other kids heads (he had a tendancy to be kinda rough when he plays, i blame brad for that)
While we were there this evening we taught caiden how to dive. He loves jumping off the diving board and can kinda swim now (which is scary because he's fearless) He caught on so quick. By his 3rd try he was diving in better than me!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Although his second dive needs alittle work:-)

I have a feeling that Hailey will be walking by her first birthday, which is here in like 2 1/2 weeks. She walks along the furniture and really anything else pretty fast now. She lets go and will stand on her own for about 10 seconds, but now with this toy she is realizing that she can really move. I guess i need to get more gates up in my house now. Brad has suggested the kind that they use on the cartoon rugrats:-) She gets away from us too fast!!!

Well the kids are getting restless, unless i stay up late at night i don't have alot of time anymore to get on here and do anything (incase you haven't noticed my blog entries getting further apart:)

Fireworks

Every year this weekend our town has it's annual community days festival. It's not much but the kids love it! They have a whole kid zone set up for them where they have big jumpy things, obstacle courses , face paintings and more.

We took the kids there this weekend and of course i forgot to charge the battery for my camera so i don't have any pictures to show of it, but it was fun! It went on friday and saturday and then saturday night at 10:00pm they had the fireworks. We always have them this weekend instead of July 4th (which is kinda nice cause then we get to take the kids somewhere else on the 4th to see them, they like that they get to watch them twice)

We had all planned on going to them but at about 9:20 Hailey fell asleep and was out! So Brad stayed home with her and i took Caiden by myself. He did some sparklers before the fireworks started. I have different setting on my camera and one of them is for fireworks so the pictures turned out so cool...

This one is caiden swinging his sparkler around and around.

This was the finale. Caiden's favorite part!!!

Brad called me right after they were over and told me that they scared the crap out of Hailey. We live right down the block from where these were set off and she woke up SCREAMING!! Poor thing, she had no idea what was going on, but we got her settled down and she's back to sleep now.

HairClip/Boob-aholic

I recieved Hailey's new hairclip that i won from Elizabeths contest last week from Lil' SugarPlum. It's so cute! It came wrapped in a little pink box with a bow on top!

It's fits perfect in Hailey's hair. Now hopefully I won't still have people asking me how old my little boy is:-)

Well Hailey is now 11 months old and I have started trying to wean her from brestfeeding...yeah not working. I never had this problem with my first, i nursed him for 4 months and he actually preferred the bottle. But with Hailey being almost one i don't want to start her on a bottle. She is VERY attached to me and to nursing, it's going to be almost impossible to get her away from the before bed feeding and the middle of the night feeding. The only thing that i've started trying is taking away the least important feeding, like one in the middle of the day.

If anyone has any good tips or advice let me know!!!

Wordless Wednesday

PLAYING IN THE PUDDLES!!!

Catching up/Monday Memories

Well it's been almost a week since I last wrote on here so i guess i have alot of catching up to do!

I'll start by telling every dad out there Happy Fathers Day! I know it's a little late but it still counts.

I also wanted to say thanks to elizabeth for having such a cute contest last week for a chance to win a hairclip...I won, i'll let everyone know what kind I got when i recieve it and i'll post pictures of it in Haileys hair! I can't wait!!

Here is my Monday Memories

Today was SOOO hot. It got to be 96 degrees and there was no wind. We spent most of the day at the pool at the rec center here in town. I got a membership for me and the kids this summer to give us something to do while Brad is at work all day, and we still don't have an air conditioner in our house (i broke ours last summer, i didn't know how heavy they were and tried to take it out of the window myself and it fell out the window onto the ground) so is theres anywhere we can go thats air conditioned or with a pool, we're there!

Caiden has gotten so much better in the water, he can't swim yet above water but he can kinda swim under the water. He doesn't even have to plug his nose.

Hailey loves the water too. She sits in the pool with me and crawls around and plays the whole time. We got the cutest float for her...

I couldn't get Caiden to stand still long enough for me to get a good picture of him but you can tell how much fun he's having!

He was finally brave enough this year to jump off the diving board. It took him a couple trys to get the courage to jump but once he did he loved it and wanted to do it again!

Later that night while Brad cooked out on the grill Caiden, Hailey and I went looking to lighting bugs to smush, oops i mean catch (caidens way of catching them is to clap his hands together, and then he wonders why they don't light up anymore:)

Caiden looks so skinny here jumping to catch the lighting bugs. We really do feed him!

Lil' SugarPlum Contest!

Elizabeth is having the cutest contest! It's to win a Lil' SugarPlum hair clip for your little girl. They are no slip hairclips and you can get them for infants, toddlers or girls.

All you have to do to enter is head over to Elizabeth's blog to sign up, and you also have to pick your 3 favorite hair clips from Lil' SugarPlum, which doesn't sound that hard to do but once you see all they have it will be hard to choose just 3.

I think I have mine narrowed down though...

The Lil' ButterFly Hairclip

The Lil' Star Babies Hairclip

The Periwinkles Hairclip.

Aren't these all so adorable?!! Whether i win or not I may just have to head on over to Lil' SugarPlum and order some of these. They would look so cute in all the hair that has jsut started coming in on Hailey head:)

Wordless Wednesday

This is what happens when we leave the fridge open...late night snack!!!

Enjoying The Weather

We went over to my grandparents for a cookout and to let all the kids play together in the nice weather. It has been perfect here the last couple days, around 80 degrees, not too hot like it was all last week.
Caiden has so much fun playing with his cousins. They went fishing, swimming jumped on the trampoline (which i am not a big fan of those things, too many injuries) but the kids love them.
I got alot of good pictures of Caiden just being himself and having fun!

We all thought Caiden might have a heart attack when he caught this fish! He was jumping up and down throwing his arms up just yelling to everyine that he caught a fish. He is so funny!

He was jumping all around in the pool trying to splash me and my camera, he got me a couple times!

Hailey, who NEVER naps, took a 2 1/2 hour nap so she missed out on all the fun. But i did get one good picture of her with her aunt Holly. Holly is my older sister who lives a couple hours away so whenever she comes home for the weekend we always try to make it over there to see her. In march we went and stayed the weekend with her and her husband Sean and ever since then Caiden asks at least once a week when we are going to stay with them again. He loves seeing them (and there dogs!!!)

Trip to the Zoo

We took the kids to the zoo for the first time this year. Caiden has always loved going and Hailey seemed to do pretty good too. It was kinda crowded that day, of course we had to go on the same day as all the schools and very hot around 90 degrees.
We stayed there most of the day and let the kids see everything. All the animals were very active which Caiden loved. Usually when we go all they do is lay there. Caiden had alot of favorites, the rhino, the seals, the giraffe and i think a couple more but i'll just stop there. Hailey seemed very amazed by everything and almost emotionless, she just starred!


I finally figured out how to put my slide show together (thanks drea!) so here it is...

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

MamaKanga Contest!

Steph over at adventures in babywearing is having another contest, this time giving away a $75.00 gift certificate from MamaKanga. For anyone who doesn't know MamaKanga specializes in the comfort and beauty of babywearing.

I've always wanted to get a really cute sling but they are so expensive, with this gift certificate you could get almost anything. I've heard so many good things about so many different types of slings, that it was hard for me to pick just one.

I decided on the Catbird Baby Bijoux Mei Tai. I've heard that these are the best, the most comfortable for the baby and the mom and I love this design. It's very expensive though-$98.00, so with the gift certificate i would only spend 23.00.

I also love the brown/pink babylegs. I think they are adorable and would look so cute on Hailey.

So get over there and sign up for this chance to win a really great contest. You must sign up by friday morning. Good Luck!!!

Tee-ball/Growing up

We are definately staying busy around here this summer. We have storytime, caiden's tee-ball, i play on 2 softball teams and we might be putting caiden in gymnastics again. It makes our weeks go by so fast but it's fun to be out and doing something other than just going to the park everyday.

Tonight was caidens first tee-ball game. The first week they have the kids play kickball just to get them used to running the bases (i really cant believe how many children have absolutely no idea how to play kickball or run bases. Are parents really not going out and playing and teaching there children these things anymore?) Caiden had fun but was a little upset because he really wanted to play baseball instead of kickball. He is so good at hitting. We go out in the yard alot and play with him, he actually does better when we pitch to him than hitting off a tee.

He was so funny, the first time the ball came to him, he tried to kick it so hard he missed!

But he got it the next time :-)

After his game we went strait to my game. We won. So far we haven't lost any. I play either short stop or second base. It's fun playing, i get to get out and be with all women my age and have normal adult conversations for a whole hour. I love every minute i spend with my children but sometimes i need a break, and this is my way to get one but to still have my kids right there with me. (by the way i hit a home run tonight!)

On another note... I have started planning for Hailey 1st birthday! I can't believe that it is already next month. She is growing up way too fast. It's kinda sad to think that i will never go through this baby stage again. Brad and I are almost positive that we do not want anymore children, i know that we are still young but we feel that we can do more and better provide for our two children. Caiden has already decided for us that Hailey is having a princess birthday party! Isn't that cute, he wants to help with everything! Well i'm off to bed Hailey has finally fallin back to sleep so now i can too!

Look at how old Hailey looks in this picture! We bought this chair for Caiden on his first birthday and now Hailey is already big enough for it!!

She learned to play patty-cake!

Wordless Wednesday

CAIDEN LOVES HIS SISSY!

Photo Contest For 10,000!!!

I recieved an e-mail earlier this week about an international open amateur photo contest. The grand prize winner will recieve 10,000!!!

All you have to do is take an original photo of anything but it cannot be offensive, artificially enhanced or a studio image or it will be disqualified. To enter this contest just click here.

I wanted to let everyone know about this because I know some of you have your own photography buisnesses and some of you just take really good pictures! This is a great chance to gain international exposure. Good luck to everyone who enters!

Still Up!!!

It is almost 1:00am and i'm still waiting for Hailey to fall back asleep. I have taken everyones advice and have (kinda) started letting her cry when she wakes up in the middle of the night.Much to my surprise, she has done pretty good. I decided I won't let her go past 20 minutes and so far I haven't had to worry about that. The first night she cried about 5 minutes, the second night about 2 minutes and then she slept all through the third night...and then she got sick, so here we are now starting all over!She doesn't really cry bad, she more whines. She stands up and sits down over and over for about 20 minutes and then falls asleep sitting up. After she's been asleep for awhile, i go in and lay her down. The whole thing takes about 1 hour. Not at all what i was imaging!Me and her both need a FULL night of uninterrupted sleep! She is already growing up so fast so I know that day will come before long. I guess until then I have some extra time to blog at night:-)
*I just went in to check on her and this is how I found her...



so I layed her down and i am off to bed, hopefully she stays asleep!

SHOES!!!

Steph over at adventures in babywearing is having an awsome contest giving away a $50.00 gift certificate for vincent shoes. All you need to do is get over to steph's blog, sign Mr. linky and then let everyone else know about these shoes and what your favorite styles are. I saw so many cute ones it was hard to choose, but a couple of my favorites were..



The Lilly Shoes!

Lilly sparkles her way into your closet!

Sequins and embroidery abound on this dressy Mary Jane. It is an all leather shoe with rubber soles

*Little divas who love glitter adore Lilly!*

and i know this is all about shoes but this Lilly purse (sold seperatley) is just adorable. I can just image my little girl playing dress up with these shoes and purse!

I also found a style for my son that I know he would be so comfortable in. There the Vidar sandals

• Vidar is a classic open-toe sandal.

-All-leather upper and inner
-Distinctive “V” symbol on top
-Fun, bug-like pattern on the sole

So what are you waiting for? Get over there and sign up for this contest! You have until Thursday June 7th at 9:00am. GOOD LUCK!!!