Monday, May 26, 2014

Gearing up for Summer!









We have had a fun and bust start to summer. We celebrated my nephew, Jackson's 5th birthday recently at a bounce house. The kids had a blast in the inflatables...even little Hensley had a good time!







We have attended the annual Ostrich Egg breakfast at our local zoo for the past 10 years. I was sad that this year it was on the same day as the commencement ceremony at the university I work at so I was unable to go. Aaron took the girls and met up with my parents and my sister and her family. They had a great time eating breakfast and seeing all the animals. Hopefully next year I will be able to go with them!








We took a recent trip up to Stillwater to go to a children's museum. We found this cute little local coffee shop called Aspen Coffee Company. Aaron and I got the mocha's and Tae and Hensley shared a fruit smoothie. It was delicious! The children's museum we went to is called the Wondertorium. It was set up with a whole lot of different sections. They had a farm, country store, Dr.'s office, art and craft area, building area, baby room, among other fun things. Tae and Hensley had such a great time, it was definitely worth the hour drive! We then decided to get a late lunch at Eskimo Joe's. We didn't know at the time that the Special Olympics were in town and we ended up having to wait over an hour for a table. The girls were pretty patient, but we were all very hungry by the time we got our table!









I've been doing a lot of cooking and experimenting with new recipes. One of our new favorites is black bean, sweet potato, and corn enchiladas. I even made this for a recent family night we had and everybody loved it. Another of our favorites is stuffed peppers and I made a updated version that has Quinoa instead of the rice and is topped with roasted red pepper soup instead of tomato sauce. Yum!








This last week has included dog sitting for my sister, preparing for Hensley's 1st birthday party, and also preparing for a trip to our lake house. I'm so excited about Hensley's party. We are going with a vintage shabby chic theme and I've been hand making all of the decorations (with the help of my sister Leslie and her fancy cutting machine). I will be posting with all the details after her party!


Saturday, May 10, 2014

Hensley: 11 months!

Weight: I'm not sure if I've noticed any growth changes in the last month. She feels heavy to me and still looks short. She has the cutes rolly dimply thighs. I think that makes her look even shorter!

Food: Eating has to be one of Hensley's favorite thing to do. She loves to "nak" (snack) and she always wants "ma" (more). She is learning to feed herself with a spoon as is pretty good at it. She loves grapes, strawberries, cheese, carrots, peas, broccoli, toast (especially with peanut butter) and so much more. She is still nursing every 4 hours (can go 6 sometimes) and usually nurses before and after eating! She now has 5 teeth and one almost here.
Clothes: The JBF sale came and went and I stocked up on clothes for both the girls. I bought all 18 month clothes for Hensley. They fit her perfectly and I think they will last us the summer. She absolutely hates clothes, so I got away without buying pajamas. She sleeps in just a diaper at night. I'm glad it is getting warmer outside and the outfits have become a little less bothersome for her.
Sleep: Sleep is going pretty good. She takes two naps during the day. She wakes up about 9am, takes her first nap at 1pm, second nap is usually between 6-7pm and then she goes to bed about 10pm. She has cut back to nursing one or two times at night and has even started sleeping in her crib for some of the night (side car). For the most part she is pretty easy to get to sleep. She doesn't nurse to sleep often, but she rocks well. Aaron is the best rocker and she us usually out within 10-15 minutes when he does it!
Movement: Hensley is such a little dare devil. She loves to climb and get into things she isn't supposed to. She loves to stand on the arm of the couch and get at the stuff on our desk. She climbs onto the dish washer door and messes with the dishes. I've caught her climbing over the baby gate that blocks the stairs. She has fallen off the couch several times and even busted her lip. She doesn't seem to have much fear and she wants to get into everything. She likes to get at our water glasses and scoop the ice out of them to eat. She also is an avid toilet paper unroller and still tries to get the cat bowls on occasion.
 
 
Talking: Hensley has really started talking! We tried to do sign language like we did with Tae (Tae new over 20 signs when she was a baby), but the only one she does consistently is "all done". She would much rather talk than mess with signing! So far she can say mama, dada, kitty, meow, no, sissy, what, ow, whoa, more, snack, bye, hi, that, baby, ball, and uh-oh.
Highlight: Hensley has a great personality. She is so silly and even laughs at herself. She has really started to love books and will sit and look through a book all by herself. She will even point to the things in the pages and talk gibberish. She also LOVES to brush her teeth. We got her a little toothbrush and she sits there and brushes her teeth like a pro.
Taelyn: Taelyn loves that she can make Hensley laugh. We will be driving in the car and Tae will just do silly things and they both will be belly laughing. It is so funny. Hensley has also learned that she wants to be doing whatever sister is doing. Whether that means painting or eating chocolate. She thinks she is big enough to do it all. Tae has figured out that she can feed Hensley things that she doesn't want to eat, like her vegetables at dinner! I've caught onto that though.....
 

Blessing: I feel that even when things seem stressful, like Aaron working a lot, Tae being moody, or Hensley having sleeping issues, I can look at this time and know that tomorrow will be different. I know in a few months, weeks, years, I will miss these little girls that they are today. I choose to treasure every minute.
 

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Frontier Order: April!


Frontier Organic All-Purpose Seasoning Blend: Herby $2.80
Aura Cacia Refreshing Lime & Grapefruit Aromatherapy Air Freshener $7.19
Aura Cacia Refreshing Lime & Grapefruit Aromatherapy Air Freshener Refill $3.35
Nutrition Now Children's C Plus Echinacia Gummies $4.49
Dr. Bronner's Soap Almond $3.41
Dr. Bronner's Soap Citrus Orange $3.41
American Health Enzymes Chewable Super Papaya Enzyme Plus $3.99
Ecover 0% Dishwasher Powder $5.72
Giovanni 2chic Collection Ultra-Sleek Body Lotion $4.04
Giovanni 2chic Collection Ultra-Sleek Conditioner $4.04
Giovanni 2chic Collection Ultra-Sleek Shampoo $4.04
Frontier Organic Vanilla Extract $3.59

Catching up!

It has been a crazy few months! It seems like our days are so packed and the calendar is filled to the brim. Tae just had her last PE class before summer break and the university I work at is having their commencement ceremony next weekend. I think after these last few things wrap up, it will start to settle down.

Aaron had a birthday recently and we had a good time celebrating with family. My folks watched the girls and Aaron and I went to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. We celebrated my birthday next...a little bit early since it actually fell on Easter this year. We had a yummy dinner with family (minus a sister who was on a cruise with her family!). We got to go visit Aaron's grandpa in the hospital along with his aunt and uncle. The girls stayed with my sister and had fun with their cousins.

Easter weekend we spent doing some shopping, celebrating my uncle's 60th birthday, and preparing our Easter eggs. Here are some pictures of the fun times.










Easter day (my 30th birthday!), the girls woke up early and dove into their baskets and had a little Easter egg hunt. My mom made a huge feast and we spent the afternoon over there enjoying family and good food.


 
 

This year, I participated in our city's Great Cloth Diaper Change. It's a world record event to try and get the most cloth diapers changed at the same time. This year it was held at the Natural Parenting Expo. I also participated in the Babywearing fashion show with my sister. We had so much fun!


After Easter, I had to hurry and get my things together for the Just Between Friends sale that was coming up. I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to get all the toys together to sell, but I did manage to get all the clothes together in time. I've been participating in our local JBF sale for about 6 years now. Besides a few things here and there, I buy all my kids clothes at this sale which is held twice a year. I try and stay around the $200-$300 mark, but that is super cheap figuring I buy mostly name brand, not to mention A LOT of clothes. Shopping is my absolute favorite part of course! I volunteered for an 8 hour shift so I could shop early at the pre-sale. I think this ensures you get the best pick of the stuff. I'm pretty picky when it comes to kids clothes. I don't like characters on clothes and for babies I can't stand the little things with teddy bears or cutesy things like that. I think it is way easier to shop for girls than it would be for boys! I ended up with a great haul that included a $5 pair of Nike's for Tae, a nice wooden toy for Hensley for $5, among other things.


I got this for $3 and it's a $40 Boutique brand with tags!
It seems like everything has been go, go, go. It also stinks when you and your husband work so much (opposite shifts at that) and you are focusing on school work, cleaning, keeping the kids entertained, cooking, and so on. We got a little behind on our school work this year, so *if* we take a summer break, it might only be for a few weeks. But (I hope), here in a few weeks, our lives will settle down a little bit. We do have some big things coming up. Mother's day, going down for a weekend with family to work on our lake property, Hensley's 1st birthday, Aaron and I's 9th wedding anniversary, among other things. I guess if our lives were dull, we would be really bored :) I'm glad I have such a great family and that we get to spend so much time enjoying life together!