Welcome our new addition...

Natalie

Great Deals

Well on Thursday I started preparing our house for the upcoming summer weather. It was cold and rainy at the beginning of the week and then by this weekend it was in the 80's. So all the winter clothes have been packed away and I started to get those out. On Thursday Nathan and I went to our local Goodwill store to see what goodies they had and we ended up buying 23 pieces of clothing for only 44 dollars. They were all great clothes. Most of the clothes were either from Old Navy, Gymboree, or the Children's Place. I mostly got Julianne some summer clothes, I got Mallory a few cute skirts, Nathan got three shorts and a shirt and I even bought myself 2 shirts. All the clothes were in great condition and I only had to sew one of Mallory's adjustable waist bands since it was fraying. I should have taken a picture of all the clothes but I forgot to. I also went back to the Goodwill store today after having gone through last years summer clothes and sorted them out for the girls as to what fit and did not fit. The girls have plenty of clothes but I noticed that Nathan did not very many shorts so I bought him 4 new pairs today.

I love shopping at these stores. Like I have said before, it is more about reusing these perfectly conditioned clothes than about the money. Sure it is nice to get great deals but I feel great knowing that I am not buying unnecessary clothes from a department store. If the clothes at the Goodwill/Thrift stores were not good quality or they were all over used I would not buy them but there are great gems in those stores and it is fun to find them and it is even better that they are priced inexpensively and I am not over consuming on new items.

The weekend was great. It was actually too hot and I was getting tired of it by Sunday. I refused to turn the air conditioner on so we suffered through the hot air and it finally cooled off today. This weekend I bought 10 more bags of mulch this weekend and spread that behind our shed. I could have probably used about 2 to 3 more bags to place in the corner but it will have to do for now. I also fixed the screen door on our screened in porch. I bought one of those screen door kits, cut the pieces to length, put them together, put the screen in and it fit perfectly. I love those 1 to 2 hour projects that are challenging, but not too challenging and can be finished in a day. I think the new screen fits tighter and will hopefully not blow off when the wind comes in (that is how the old one broke, it fell out of the door too many times). It will also keep the bugs out and I will not have to keep re catching bees and putting them back outside because the kids are scared of them.

I don't have any pictures today. I know that my camera has some pictures but I can't remember what they are now. I will get them off tomorrow and load them on within the next few days.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-spring temperatures
-D going to yoga with me today
-my lovely kids
-seeing my extended family this weekend

Happy Earth Day

Well we celebrated Earth Day by not doing as much stuff as we wanted to do. We planted some apple seeds, the kids made art out of our recycling bin and we meant to go on a walk and pick up litter. We did not make it on our walk today but we will do it tomorrow. The kids like picking up litter so we will make a point out of doing it tomorrow.


Julianne made the earth

Mallory made a bird

I did not have as much time to do Earth Day activities with the kids since the Red Cross Humanitarian of the Year Award luncheon was today. It was a luncheon honoring my my dad and my aunts. It was a great luncheon and it was nice to see everyone and to see all the activities that the Red Cross participates in and to learn about our foundation and what organization it gives money and time to. I was also involved in videotaping my thoughts and ideas about giving back to our community and how this family tradition was passed onto me. They played this video which also had my cousins taped on it and others who have been helped by my family's giving. There was also a representative from Columbus City Council presenting a proclamation thanking our family for their giving and help within the community. So it was a nice event. I took Julianne with me and I think she enjoyed it.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-that our family is able to help many other individuals and organizations
-spending time with Julianne
-Jessica and Jill for helping me out with Mallory and Nathan
-my lovely stressed out husband

Some goodies I bought

Well I have been meaning to get to this local Generation Green store by our Trader Joe's store for some time. So today Mallory and Nathan and I went in there and for me going there is like going to a fabric store. Now I am not a clothes, shoes, housewares, furniture shopper. My Achilles heal in shopping is fabric stores and green living/organic stores. There is always something that I want or do not have in those stores and if I don't watch myself I could spend a lot of money. Well so we visited today and they have so many cool things in the store. They have tons of lunch packing stuff from Tiffin tins to metal lunch boxes with little compartments for different foods, they have recycles toys, tons of baby stuff (like usable sized saddle blankets) and lots of other cool stuff.

Well I was in this store because we have been having issues with Julianne and her lunch likes and dislikes. We started out the school year with packing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That lasted for about a month and then she decided that she did not like my bread (it was whole wheat bread) because it was not soft enough. I tried different breads (I refuse to buy white bread so she had little alternatives) and it still did not work. So we switched to ham and cheese but she did not like the cheese because it got too warm and she did not like that. Since Christmas we have been making roll ups which consist of tortilla with cream cheese and ham. This was a favorite when she was in preschool in Tennessee so we went back to that. Well that worked for a few months and now she is tired of that. So I went back to packing peanut butter and jelly. Well the lunches have not been eaten and she comes home grumpy and continually has a headaches. So that means that I have to deal with the wrath of Julianne after having not eaten or drunken enough all day. Additionally she does not like the juice box (what kid does not like juice boxes) that I pack she just wants water. Well we don't have a container small enough to fit into her lunch box. So for the past month I have been thinking about getting a smaller container and this was my day.

This is what we bought:

It is a small drinking cup and container to store hot/cold food. So we are going to start packing water and warm food so that she actually eats something. She wants me to pack a hard boiled egg for tomorrow, which is a strange requests but hey we will try anything. But I think that putting pasta in the container will be a good idea.


This is an adorable alternative to plastic bags that I could not pass up. It is called Snacktaxi. I hate using plastic bags for all the lunches that I have to pack her so when I saw this I thought it was genius. I was actually mad that I did not think of this idea. It is such a waste of landfill space and resources to make plastic bags so I was thrilled to see this idea. What it basically is a layer of cotton sew to a layer of nylon/polyurethane with a Velcro closure. You use it and then wash it in the dishwasher/hand wash or even throw it into the washing machine. They have different sizes for sandwiches or smaller ones for snacks. So I bought one and may make a few of my own that meet our needs.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-ingenuous ideas such as this cute plastic bag alternative
-shopping at stores that value organic/chemical free/recycled/fair trade practices
-our newly spread mulch

Mulch, mulch and more mulch

We just finished spreading 6 cubic yards of mulch this weekend. We ordered it on Wednesday and it was suppose to come on Friday but it never showed up. So I called and they rescheduled for Saturday morning. Well we came back from Yoga at 11:00 and we had not mulch. So I called again and the people said that the truck that was caring our mulch broke down so they would call another store and have them deliver it. So around 1 o'clock a truck came with our mulch. We were excited but it did not look like very much mulch. So we figured that we would have to order more later. Well about ten minutes later another truck came with our order of mulch. I told them that we had already gotten what we ordered but I said that we wanted more and if they dropped the delivery charge that we would take that mulch. So we ended up getting 6 cubic yards of mulch and it pretty much was enough. We did not have enough to cover behind our shed but that is alright we may run over and get some bags at a later date. So the yard looks great and it took two long days of spreading mulch. D was in charge of putting the mulch in the wheelbarrow and I was in charge of spreading it.

Our next door neighbor helped a lot with Nathan on Saturday and then on Sunday our other neighbor boy helped for a little while before Nathan took his nap. It was a nice weekend so the kids just mostly played outside by themselves or with the neighbors so we mostly worked on the mulch with a little kid distractions thrown in the once in awhile.


Before (you can't really see the beds because of the shadow)

After

Another part

On Wednesday we went to D's basketball recreational league game. The kids were really excited and it was fun to see them enjoy watching their dad play ball. Nathan really liked it and for the first half was pretty content just watching the game but the second half was a little restless so they played ball with some other kids.

There he is taking a shot. Look at his form. Good form D.


Here is the beginning of a fit


Here is Nathan watching the game. Too cute.

We had a ton of rain on Monday and Tuesday of this weekend so everything was wet and the Mallory and Nathan decided to go and play in the puddles and get into the dirt. They had fun and I was glad that Nathan got dirty since he is very particular about some things. He enjoyed it and I am glad he was not screaming at me every time he got a piece of dirt on him.

Here is the mud hole that they were occupying. It now has mulch in it so it will not longer be a mud hole.




I bribed Mallory to pose for me and Nathan came along and started asking her questions.


Mallory also went worm hunting and found lots of worms and let Nathan play with them. He was a little scared but he soon liked touching them which was also another big step for him. He is always scared of bugs/spiders and other moving creatures so it was good to see him interested in touching them. Mallory was sweet because she was acting like the worms mother and would take care of them. We finally had to put them away so that they would not get too hot on the picnic table.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-the mulch incident working out in our benefit
-having great neighbors
-a nicely mulched yard
-good weather weekend

Nathan is driving me nuts...

Well he is in and has been in his terrible twos for awhile now but sometimes I feel like it is getting worse each day. (However, today he has been pretty well behaved.) But I have been meaning to vent for sometime. He is very stubborn and strong willed. Those are my biggest complaints. He loves to do everything by himself from getting into the car, walking in the parking lot, changing his diaper or clothes, playing with every toy the girls have or had and eating what he wants to eat. It takes him forever to get into the car and to walk in the parking lot especially when I am in a hurry, which I usually am since it takes us forever to get into the car in the first place. I always set aside 10 extra minutes than when I really want to leave the house since I know that it will be that much more time to get out of the house. There is always someone who is in a mood or forgets something or needs water or whatever the need is. Nathan favorite thing to do lately is run away from us if we tell him to come here. So this usually happens outside when I am trying to leave and I tell them to go outside and get into the car. He goes outside and then stays in the driveway and when I come out and say, "Nathan it is time to get into the car" he runs around the house. So I usually say "Nathan you need to come here right now or I will give you a time-out". So I start counting and he usually ends up coming around 5 counts with a mischievous smile on his face. When I am in a hurry I just go and grab him which makes him very unhappy. What makes him the most unhappy is when he does not get to do something that he wants to do like get into the car himself or stay outside, etc. He is only happy when it is under his control and his efforts. Which I usually let him do but sometimes I don't have the patients or I am in a hurry. I had to slap his hand twice yesterday because he ran away from me in a parking lot. He was not happy with that and neither was Julianne but I told her that I would rather slap his hand than have him get hit by a car. She understood and told him he should not run in a parking lot. Our discipline techniques usually work but he is always getting disciplined so maybe they are not working. I just think he is in that phase and nothing will work right now. As long as I am consistent with what we are doing and know that he is not in any danger than he will grow out of it and then we will be dealing with a different issue.

I think he is more difficult than the girls were at this age. I don't remember them being so strong willed and difficult. We did not have the terrible twos with the girls and I think that the threes were a little worse than the twos but not this worse. I don't know if it is a boy thing, a third child thing or just a Nathan thing. Maybe I don't have enough patience to deal with him during this time since I have so much other stuff going on. I don't know but sometimes he drives me nuts!!! I love him to death and I am so glad that his is so strong willed and likes to do stuff by himself and it is fun to see how upset he gets over certain things. I know this will pass and I will be a more patient and stronger mother and women because of him but he is sure getting the best of me some days.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-My sweet Nathan
-getting into spinning class today
-my loving husband

Easter week

We had a great Easter weekend. The week before Easter was busy with us trying to complete all our Easter crafts and the girls' dresses. I completed both the girls dresses on time and they were not as hard and I thought they would be. They actually turned out very cute and I really liked the way Julianne's dress turned out. The girls also both liked their dresses which is also nice so that I did not have to force them to wear them.
Here are some pictures from the Easter Egg hunt in our yard and the girls dresses.

The kids are waiting downstairs while we hide the eggs.




Detail of Julianne's dress.


Mallory insisted on wearing her black tights and I let her since she thought it looked good. Sweet Mallory.


We finally finished our paper mache eggs which took about two weeks to complete since we had put on several layers of the paper mache. The kids had fun making the eggs and it was nice because they were basically free to make so that is nice. Since the girls enjoyed making the paper mache eggs and we used all recycled materials I will try to incorporate more paper mache projects into our craft schedule. It is amazing how many different shapes, animals, etc you can make from paper mache. The options are limitless and allows for lots of creativity.




I had a great idea, I read an idea of shredding colored paper for the Easter baskets grass, but my dilemma was that I did not have any colored paper and I did not want to buy colored paper for this occasion. So I reached into our recycling box and grabbed a some paper and put it in water with food coloring. Ta..da. Colored paper!! I was excited about the idea and the idea of reusing something. The kids did not care and did not even notice the paper and we did not have thrown always any silly Easter egg paper.

Here is the colored paper. I also used blue KUB envelopes so the kids had a good mix of colors in their baskets.

No a side note, Nathan thinks that Mallory's name is "Girls". We have been calling Julianne and Mallory the "girls" ever since Mallory was born. Well we continued that tradition after we had Nathan. After Nathan it was "the girls and Nathan" or "our children". We when would address the girls in front of Nathan we would say, "Nathan why don't you play with the girls", or "Where are the girls", etc. So this past month and as his language has developed I have noticed that when Mallory is just home or we are in the car he will look over at her and say "girls". It is really funny. He can say "Julianne" but he rarely says "Mallory." So we keep trying to talk to him about it but it sure is cute, even though Mallory does not like it.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Graters Ice Cream. Do I need to say more.
-Having a great Easter with the family.
-Almost fixing our patio door
-Completing the girls dresses on time and feeling happy with how they turned out