Ruffles

If I haven't mentioned it before, I am now.....I love making little girl things. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love our first born. He is all boy and so much fun. He makes us laugh daily just by being his crazy little self. But, it's just not as fun to make things for him. Flowers, ruffles and bows aren't acceptable for our little man, but they sure are cute on our little girl! I stumbled across a tutorial on how to add ruffles to a onesie here. So of course I had to give it a try. I had some extra plain white onesies laying around from some other projects and I got out some scrap material. This didn't take too long at all, and I love the way it turned out. I've had to stop myself from putting ruffles on everything:).

Just had to put this picture in. Eli kept laying on top of Kamdyn when I was trying to get pictures of her. He hates to miss out on any of the action and just loves to "love" on his sister. I would lay down by her then pat her back and then lay right on top of her. I'm not sure she thinks this is really very "loving" yet, but it's the best he can do and it's his way of showing his love.

I think it's time to start using the straps

The other night I was feeding Kamdyn her rice cereal in her bouncy chair on the table. The bouncy chair has been a permanent "centerpiece" on our table since we brought Kamdyn home. It started out on the floor, but darling big brother Eli likes to climb in and out of it too much. I didn't know if the chair could handle his 28 pound little body pushing all over it, and I was not about to give up my bouncy chair. That thing was a lifesaver with Eli, and Kamdyn seems to enjoy it too. Anyways, I finished feeding her and cleaned up and went to the bedroom to put some things away and just left her there on the table. This is what I walked out to a few minutes later....

This little wiggle worm has scooted herself to the bottom and edge of the chair. YIKES! I may not be nominated for poor mommy of the year award for not putting sunscreen on my kids when we go to the park, but I might be a runner up if I allow my four month old to launch herself off the kitchen table. Needless to say, she is always buckled up now. This is new territory for me, Eli wasn't much of a wiggler. I would put him anywhere until he was about 9 months old and know he wasn't going to go anywhere. Not so with this little one; our little wiggle worm.

Girls Day Out

This past weekend Kamdyn and I went to Hutchinson for a little bit of a girls day. One of my besties, Heather, lives there. She and her husband Andy moved to Hutch just a few days after Eli was born. Life got busy, and we both got horrible about ever getting together after she moved. So, we decided to just make it a monthly ritual to get together. We alternate months, she comes to us one month, we go to her the next. We've been doing this since Kamdyn was born, and I know Kamdyn and I enjoy our girl time with Heather:) Anyways, this month was our turn to go to Heather. So, we left Eli and Brian to have a "boys day" and headed to Hutch. We met at Carriage Crossing for lunch. I have always wanted to eat there because I've heard it is really good but have never gone there. It was pretty yummy, we both refrained from dessert, but I think next time I go I will have to cave. FYI, I found out that any whole pies still left by 6 pm go on sale for $6 (this info is especially for you Mary, I know how you love their chocolate pie:)). After lunch we went back to Heather's place to hang out and catch up. Kamdyn took a little snooze, and we headed home.

(Yes I'm a dork, but I took pictures of the sign. Just wanted to document this moment:). I've been wanting to eat here for a long time)
Heather and Kamdyn cuddling

Kamdyn and I are already looking forward to next month:)

Cereal Time

I finally got off my lazy butt and started Kamdyn on rice cereal. I've had the stuff for several weeks, and could have probably started her on it at any time, but I just kept forgetting. So...... I finally remembered! Eli hated this stuff at first (can't say I blamed him because it tastes like cardboard).So I wasn't real sure what to expect with Kamdyn. So far she doesn't seem to love it or hate it, she's just very curious about it. And she's stinkin' halarious to watch try to eat this stuff. You put the spoon in her mouth and she starts eating it fine, but he idea of eating still involves the tongue very much. She sticks her tongue in and out of her mouth and basically unintentionally spits almost all of the cereal back out. Funny stuff to watch, especially since she thinks the whole thing is pretty entertaining too. She smiles and spits and just has a good old time. What a goof ball!



P.S. Can I just say that I love this little girl's blue eyes?!?!?! So beautiful.

Oh, and just for fun, I went back and looked to see how much Eli weighed at 4 months old. That little chunker was just shy of 18 pounds (Kamdyn wasn't quite 13). Crazy!

Eli, where's your nose?

This kid spends a good portion of his day with his finger up his nose. Totally disgusting, I know. I guess I should just be happy that he's not content with boogers hanging out of his nose all the time, he always finds them. Hunting for hidden treasure:). I think the worst part is that whenever he finds a little "treasure" from his nose, he likes to give it to me (or Brian, whoever is closest really:)). Again, I guess I should be thankful that I don't find dried up boogers all over our furniture, but I don't really like booger fingers in my face. Enough said!

P.S. This fascination with boogers and his finger up his nose is probably partially my fault since I'm always picking at my kids. He's just learning from the best:) (and no, I don't sit around with my finger up my nose all day!!). I just don't like boogers hanging from ones nose.

4 months!

Can't really believe my baby girl is 4 months old. Where oh where did the time go?! We had her 4 month check up this morning. It went pretty well. She was ticked when she got her shots (didn't really surprise me after the last time:)), but she calmed down much much faster this time. Good thing sweet pea, cause this isn't the last time you are gonna get picked on at the doctor's office. We are going to have her hearing retested. She passed the test at the hospital, but at 4 months, she doesn't turn her head to look at what is making the sound when you shake a toy or something by her head (this is something they should definitely be doing). I know she hears so stuff because she gets the pee scared out of her when you catch her off guard. Maybe she's just so used to noise around this place that she just ignores it all:) Dr. Morrow said she does have a lot of earwax build up, so maybe that's part of it? Either way, we are gonna get it checked out. Other than that, she looks fantastic. Here are her stats):

Weight: 12 lbs 13 oz. (just under the 50th percentile)

Length: 23 1/4 in ( 25th percentile): we might have a shorty on our hands:)

Head Circ: 16 1/4 in ( 50th percentile) (definitely going to surpass Eli in this area)

Very first tutu

I have been wanting a tutu for Kamdyn pretty much since the minute we found out we were having a girl. Mainly because I think they are so darn adorable, but also because I secretly (well probably isn't really a secret) hope that Kamdyn will love dance as much as I do. I have been keeping my eyes whenever I'm in the baby clothes section. The problem is, I have a hard time finding one in a size that will fit her. She's a petite little thing, and most of the tutus I see in the stores start at the 6 or 9 month mark (she still fits into 0-3 months). So I just decided to do a little google search and see how hard it would be to make it myself. You can find directions for anything on the internet these days. I love it!!!! Turns out, making a tutu is not hard at all. I found several different sites with directions, but I settled for the one that didn't require any sewing. Even though I know how to sew and actually enjoy it, I was going for as simple as possible:). I got my tulle picked out and finished her first tutu in just a few hours (the tutorial said it only takes about 30 minutes, but I was a bit slow:)). Still, a couple of hours isn't bad. And the best part is, she should be able to wear this tutu for a while because it held together with a ribbon that you tie, so it can expand:). I could have easily made a ton of different colored ones for her because she looks so darn cute, but I stopped at one for now. Maybe I will make one with some new colors in a few years:)

Ok, this picture is obviously not of Kamdyn in her tutu, but I had to put one of Eli in here too. I made the mistake of putting Eli in Kamdyn's crib the other day when she was laying in there watching her mobile. Eli LOVED it. I took him out after a few minutes, but he wasn't real pleased with me for that. So he decided to take matters into his own hands. He discovered he could stand on the side of the crib so he was trying to climb in. Thankfully, he hasn't mastered that yet. Don't know what I will do when that happens! Gotta give him points for trying:)
Gosh I love this girl! She is such a happy little girl. She is full of smiles for anyone and just lights up whenever we talk to her. Plus, so looks so stinkin' cute in her tutu. I was pretty proud of myself. I may have a ballerina on my hands yet:)

I hope someone finds this amusing

Oh, sweet Eli, you are one crazy toddler. I've decided that I apparently can't let you out of my sight for even one minute. Whenever I do, you are off getting yourself into some kind of mischief.

I was talking to Brian this morning on the phone. Eli had just gotten down from breakfast and was sitting on our ottoman in the living room reading a book. So I decided to go and get his room dusted while he was happy and Kamdyn was snoozing. Checked on him once(from a distance) and saw he had moved to the floor by the back door. I remember saying to Brian, "How cute, Eli is sitting in the sun by the door just like Jake does, reading a book." I went about my business finishing dusting. I didn't think anything about it until Eli comes wandering in his room to find me with a crayon in his hand and remains of it in his mouth. Reading a book like a good little boy, yeah right, Eli was eating his crayons. It's not like I just had them sitting in his arms reach either, they were one top of the table. That kid is getting quite the reach. Good thing they are non-toxic. I guess he didn't get enough at breakfast.

Later discovered that he also decided to be a little Picasso on the floor. He thought the floor was too boring, so he decided to add splash of color before he had a late morning snack of crayon.

He was such a big help tonight as well when he decided to pull out half of our wipes from their container.

As you know, I've got both kids in cloth diapers now. I've handled several of Kamdyn's poopy diapers since she's been in them for a few weeks, but I've never had to deal with Eli. Kamdyn is easy, all I have to do is throw it in the wash. Eli's poopy diapers actually have to be rinsed before they go in the wash. Well, he broke me in big time today. He didn't poop yesterday (his first day in the diapers), but he made up for it today. I can handle poop. I see a lot of it everyday, but I have to say, it was totally disgusting! I think this poopy diaper goes in Eli's top 10 grossest poops ever. Needless to say, I'm investing in a diaper sprayer ASAP (this is a sprayer that attaches to the toilet and you can spray the diapers directly in the toilet without having to touch or swirl it around in the water). I survived, but I hope Eli is a little bit nicer to mommy in the poop department until we get our sprayer and get it installed:)

Let's just say, I was glad when 8:30 and bedtime rolled around! Eli wears me out and down some days. Today was one of those days. If he survives his toddler years (or if I do might be more accurate) it might be a miracle.

Mom, if I was ever this ornery and into everything my little hands could reach, I apologize. And thanks for putting up with me!!

A few pictures for your viewing pleasure:

I don't know what it is about this laundry basket that Eli likes so much, but it keeps him entertained so I'm happy.

Love this girl. She always gives us the best smiles. She loves and soaks up any undivided attention she gets.

Does this diaper make my butt look big?

We have officially entered the world of cloth diapering in our house. I've actually had Kamdyn in them for a couple of weeks; I finally got the rest of the diapers I ordered so I finally put Eli in them too. I still put the kids in disposable diapers at night so I can wash the cloth ones. We have 18 total, so 9 for each kid. I'm not necessarily looking forward to always having a load of laundry to do every night, but I am very excited about using/buying less diapers. We've already cut back big time, and I've only had Kamdyn in them until 2 days ago. Hopefully we can get Eli potty trained before he outgrows the cloth ones. They are supposed to fit kids from 7-35 pounds. He's not there yet, but he's a beefy little boy, so he won't be able to wear them for too much longer. It's his gut that gets him:); he's still got room to grow in them though. I was curious to see how Eli would react to them. He's only ever know disposable diapers, so I wondered if he would notice the difference. He kind of walked around like he had something stuck up his butt when I first put it on, but he got used to it pretty fast. Now he likes them because they are fun colors.

The diapers have all these snaps on the front to adjust to fit the size of the kid. Kamdyn's are still on the smallest setting, but Eli's are on the biggest like the picture below.



Check out this little lady's rolls! Love those thighs. They are great to tickle:)

Keeper of the Plains

Last Sunday I talked Brian into going down to the river for a walk. It was crazy windy, but he unexpectedly didn't have to do security at church, and I had been wanting to go for a walk by the river for a long time. Every time Eli and I go to Exploration Place, he goes nuts over the water and ducks he sees on the river, so I had been promising him we would come back sometime and go for a walk. Because of the nutso wind, we didn't get to do a whole lot of walking, but we did get walk around a bit and see the keeper of the plains. I just think this is about the coolest thing ever. And they did an awesome job when they raised the keeper up so you could actually see it from the road. I want to go back sometime at night when they have the fire lit up around it.

Brian and I also think this is a really cool bridge. We aren't really sure why they picked this particular design, but it sure looks pretty cool.

Morning at the Park

Here Kamdyn is on our time at the park in the baby bijorn. We went for a short walk before we let Eli down to play; I carried her around on our walk and Brian took over at the park so I could chase Eli around.

Since it is such a beautiful day outside, we decide to take the kids to the park this morning. Eli would probably live outside if I let him, so I try take him outside to play whenever I get the chance (or maybe just when I really feel like being out there(poor kid!)). It was also our maiden voyage trail for our baby bijorn that we got when Eli was born. Sadly we never used it with him, and by the time I even considered it, that kid was such a chunker I had no desire to haul his chunky monkey body around for more than I possibly needed to:). But Kamdyn is much more petite, so we gave a it a whirl. She seemed to like it pretty well. She was able to face out and see what was going on and it was like she was being held the whole time to. Double win for Kamdyn; two of her favorite things! Eli of course had a blast. He was movin' it all over the park. He loves going to slides. Once he discovered them, he was pretty content to go up and down. An added bonus was that he only had a minor meltdown when we left:). We've been working hard on controlling that little temper of his a getting him to listen (this is definitely still a major work in progress, but I will take any small improvements I can get!).