Spring Time

Spring is by far my favorite season! Somehow turning off the heat, and opening all my windows and doors to let the fresh air and sunlight in is almost healing. I am not a fan of gym shoes, boots, or really any shoes that I have to wear socks with (neither is Chloie), so the second it starts warming up I bring out the flip flops and sandals.

We love spending time outside as a family. What is it about Spring that immediately makes me desire long walks, and fresh healthy foods? Can't complain about it though, I certainly need it after a winter of being couped in the house, and lots of yummy holiday foods.

Chloie has a new obsession with dogs. She runs around yelling "DOG" and "WOOF" every time she sees or hears one. But, get her close enough to one (without a fence as a barrier) and she turns shy and wants to be held.

Another new thing she has picked up is smelling everything. She smells all flowers, bushes, leaves, you name it.

Enjoying some light reading... (yes, that is a phone book)



And sweeping up the chalk off the sidewalk...

Here are some more of my favorite shots of the day (Be happy I didn't post them all, I took over 200 shots today alone!)

I am so happy I finally started playing around with the manual settings on my Nikon. Up until recently I was just using "auto". I was really unhappy with the manual settings at first, but after today I've realized that indoor shots really are that much worse then using natural light.



Now I just need to get some filters, because as you can see sometimes too much light is not always a good thing. I ended up with a lot of washed out looking pictures from too much sun.

I've been trying to think of more outdoor activities for us. We have plenty of "buh-boles", sidewalk chalk, the cozy coupe car, a plastic slide, a soccer ball, but I have a feeling some of that will get old after awhile. I'm really looking forward to more sun and warm weather, I need to shed this baby weight before the much less loved "bikini season"! Stay tuned for my weight loss journey, I'm trying SparkPeople now, but I would really like to try Weight Watchers.

The joys of having a girl

I love having a girl. Chloie is a total Momma's girl.. I guess that's what I get for being home with her all day. She cuddles, blows kisses, and mimicks just about everything I do.


This just melts my heart. And when she has been bad, and goes to timeout, she knows all she has to do is run to me while making the kissy face, give me a big hug, and I cave. Can you blame me? She's just too darn cute!

And who doesnt love buying cute little purses, and filling it with a real (broken) cell phone, expired shoppers cards, a little mirror, and fake keys. And then watching your little one carry it around like such a big girl!

Our newest adventure? Lipgloss! I know I'll be kicking myself in the butt later on when she's constantly wanting me to let her put lipgloss all over the both of us. But it was too funny not to!


How could it get any better you ask? Well after spending all day shopping for the cutest outfits, Chloie actually WANTS to play dress up!

Keep in mind, it was way past her bedtime. But I just couldnt help myself!

This shirt must be itchy or something. Im not really sure what to do for it, but this is her outfit for her pictures so, she better get use to it ;)

What else did you get me Mom?



I absolutely love this outfit. And at $8 a piece, I think we might need a few different colors!

And Chloie's newest "thing" while were shopping is to pick clothes off the rack, look at them, and then throw them behind her in the cart. Oh and then she gets mad if I take it out and put it back. I thought I would have some time before the "you never buy me anything" fights would start? Guess not! Even so, I love having a little girl!

What a day!

Today was interesting..to say the least. Chloie and I had a rough night sleeping (I had about 2 1/2 hours of sleep), then woke up early for a Dr's appointment. Then my day care kiddo Grant came over for the day. We had to leave right at naptime to go downtown, so both of them missed their naps, which made for some very cranky babies. And somehow taking a late nap meant cutting naptime in half. *sigh*. So most of the day was spent crying and yawning.

Then Robin came home, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I finally had some help. As the end of the day neared Grant went home to his Momma & Daddy, and Chloie went to spend some time with her Grandma. Robin and I ventured to Best Buy to go laptop shopping. Which even though I did all the research, and decided exactly what laptop we wanted before we got there, we still spent 20 min searching for someone to actually get it for us. We decided to go with the Toshiba Satellite A505. So far I really like it, it has the new i3-330m processor, 4gb ddr3 ram, a 500gb hard drive, a 12 cell lithium ion battery, a 16in screen, hdmi outputs, and much more. It fits everything we need for only $679. Not a bad price since this will be our main computer (our desktop..from Walmart, worst idea EVER...is barely holding together). But as we were checking out I was quickly disappointed. The 2 year warranty for $149 is only available online, and its $199 in stores, for the EXACT same thing, AND only in our district. So my options were: drive a few hours away and pay $149 in stores; go home, order the laptop online, pay for it, and have it picked up in store and only pay the $149; or bite the bullet and pay the $199 in a monthly plan of $14 a month for the duration of the warranty. Since we were already in a rush to get home, we took one for the team. I'm not very happy about it, but it seemed like such a hassle to leave, and then still have to come back the next day.

One our way home to pick up Chloie, my brother (who is living in our basement) calls to say my house is FLOODED!!! Are you kidding me? Seriously??? He flushed the toilet, didn't check to make sure it actually went down (we live in a rental with slum lords who have yet to actually fix the toilet with multiple service calls over the last 6 months we've been here), and it sat and ran over. Since he stays in the basement, the water filled the bathroom, then the kitchen right below it, and then finally into the basement on my washer & dryer (which he had better PRAY my dryer still works) before he realized it. So he and Robin spent the night shop-vacuuming the water up, laying all my important papers out to dry so that I can make copies of them, and throwing away everything ruined. I now have a hole in my kitchen ceiling, lord knows how much of the drywall, carpet, or vinyl flooring is damaged, a non-working ceiling fan, and a better be working dryer. Fortunately our main electronics were spared, but we lost a Garmin gps, and Ipod shuffle. They will be missed. Robin now gets to use my hot pink Ipod until we can find a reasonably priced replacement. However, my orchid plant that I got for V-Day doesn't have to be watered! I guess that's one good thing that came out of it all!

And I am finally playing with my new laptop! Now I just need to find a messenger style bag, that has a pocket for my laptop, but can also carry some small books, papers, etc, for school. Best Buy had a really cute one, but I'm not about to pay $56 for a bag. I'm too cheap for all that.

I guess you can only have so much good happen, before the bad starts setting in. Lets just hope flooding my house is the end of it!!!

Daddy's home!

We love when Daddy gets home from work!

I get some much needed adult conversation, and Chloie gets to run around like a mad person trying to show Daddy everything he missed that day.

Daddy gets lots of hugs and kisses

dont forget the toys...

Uh oh, Daddy must feel left out...

Whatcha doing Daddy?

Now that your finally done, let me show you all the messes I've made today...

I love watching my 2 sweethearts together!

Lil' Organics baby wash & shampoo

Love it! I was a little skeptical about how well it would actually work, but thankfully I was wrong!

Chloie has struggled with "cradle crap" (as we like to call it) since she was born. We always did the baby oil on the scalp for about 30 min, wash, and use a fine tooth comb. Well it never fully got rid of it, and within a few days it looked the same as before. Well I am pleased to say that after ONE wash, her "crap" is almost completley GONE!!!! Hallelujah! And not only that, but her hair still smells SO good. Her hair lays so much nicer, its softer, and just looks overall healthier.

In addition to the "crap", she also has eczema on the back of her arms, and calfs. Well after using the baby wash, her skin is so much softer. Its not entirely gone, so Im curious to see after a few more uses if it completley goes away or not.

So far I am very pleased with this product, despite the extra cost. I use to spend about $3 on a large bottle of generic Johnson's all over baby wash, and now spend $6 each for separate bottles of baby wash and shampoo. But, it is totally worth it. Now on to find a good organic baby lotion!

Thank you Johnson & Johnson's

After reading about the lawsuit online, and doing some research of my own, we have decided to go even more organic. We already cloth diaper, recycle, and have switched to organic eggs, dairy and meat. I was so appalled by the number of chemicals the FDA allows into our everyday items. Call me stupid (I already have) but for some odd reason I had blinders on that told me that "if the government allows it, it must be safe" HAHAHAHA, boy was I wrong! I'm seriously considering moving to Europe!! So I bought some organic baby wash and shampoo, and will be working on switching out our household cleaners this week. Thanks to a friend of mine, Tara, I was able to check out the hazard level of most of our cosmetics at http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/. What an awesome site! I'm already feeling crunchier! Luckily, my husband agrees with most of the changes (we'll see how he likes the organic milk tomorrow, *crossing my fingers*). My only hope is that we somehow find a way to make organics more cost effective. While I would love to totally change everything in my household, its just not do-able with as expensive as most of the products are. Fortunately, cloth diapering has saved us money, which allows for some wiggle room in our grocery/non-grocery budget! And, Chloie's bum is so much cutier!

College...

I finally took my placement test today! I didnt do as well as I hoped, but considering its been almost 6 years since Ive been in school, I did pretty good. Now I wish I would have jumped in right after high school, instead of putting it off as long as I have. I registered for classes, and start March 29th! Yikes! Im seriously nervous about everything. I *hate* new situations, new places, new people, etc. And to add, its downtown, which means lots of traffic, one way streets, etc. But....I just keep telling myself "Its for my baby".