Our weekend

Greetings! We began our weekend with a surprise visit to Grandma Locke's house on Friday afternoon. Maddy was able to spend some time with Grandma and her cousin Aaron.

Maddy loves to drive the tractor.

Almost a collision!

Maddy loves to swing! Thanks for pushing Grandma!

Love this face she is making!

Ethan, all bundled up, took a quick snooze. :)

There is always time for bubbles!

My little sunshine in a field of yellow. <3

The rest of the weekend was spent working in the yard and just spending some QT with our little family. Jeff cut down quite a large tree in the backyard all by himself. I should have taken before and after pictures.  He is very proud of himself... and he should be! No injuries for Jeff or damages to the house or property! :) Good job honey! 
The flowers are just beautiful this time of year. I love to see when my plants actually return the following year! :)

Sunday afternoon was spent taking a nice walk and then spending some time on the deck with the kiddos (human and furry). :)

Maddy was determined to catch the squirrel!

Sweet Ethan.

And of course... always time for bubbles!!

Moose, waiting to catch bubbles.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Always have a Plan B...

and C, D and E! Especially when it comes to having kids! :) Today, for instance, I planned to take the kids somewhere new and exciting as it was supposed to be a beautiful day! That was Plan A... 

No one slept well last night. My 2.5 year old woke up extremely grumpy and my 7 month old's second tooth is about to burst any second. Time for Plan B... stick close to home. We ended up going to the park that adjoins our neighborhood for a picnic and play time.

Ethan loves to swing!

Maddy pushing her baby brother. <3

Maddy telling Ethan "I love you Ethan. You are my best friend." I'm not even kidding. Definitely one of those moments that your heart swells and tears start flowing.

It turned out perfectly. Everyone had a great time. We then came home to take very long naps! :) (Sorry about the quality of pictures. Forgot my cameras so I only had my cell phone camera.)
Obviously I am still a novice at parenting. My oldest child is only 2.5 years old. However, I have found that it is always important to have a plan B... and C, D and even an E every now and then. Children can be completely unpredictable beings. On mornings like today, its better to resort to a different plan rather than to force an activity that would end up with lots of meltdowns and a frustrated mommy. Isn't this the truth in life though too??   I function with the motto: "Hope for the best, but plan for the worst. Maybe you will be pleasantly surprised." Some may say this is pessimistic. I say I'm more of a realist. More often than not, things don't always go exactly as planned. This is life. Rather than be disappointed and let it ruin your day (or outing), accept that things don't always go the way you want. Move on and make the best of the situation anyway! Often times the "Plan B's" or even the spontaneous, "on a whim" adventures turn out to be the most memorable anyway. :) 
Happy Wednesday! 

The sun is out!

After several days of much needed rain, the sun is out!! Time to get the kiddos out of the house and take advantage of this beautiful weather! We decided to go on a nature walk today. Luckily, our neighborhood has wonderful trails with lots of opportunities to witness mother nature at its best! Actually, in the past, our neighborhood watch has reported bear sitings on the paths.  No worries though... between the sounds of the stroller, Ethan's "talking" and Maddy's beautiful singing, I think we pretty much scare any bears, skunks, or the like, away. :)

And we're off!!

Maddy found a caterpillar

Checking for any signs of creek life.

Ethan is almost asleep in the stroller.

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Picking flowers along the way.

Maddy walking along, singing to herself. :)

Found a dogwood tree.

My babies!

I love them so much!

Rainy Day Fun

 We had a very rainy day here yesterday.  I had a great babysitter while I was cleaning up the breakfast mess. 

Moose being a fabulous babysitter.

Moose and Ethan are best buddies!

Then we decided to have some fun and paint!! 

The finished product. (Before she added tons of sticker jewels!)

More painting fun!

 

We ended the day with "loaded" apple nachos!!
 These are really good for you in theory, until you add all of the junk on top! :) I melt either peanut butter (or sometimes Nutella) and then add sliced almonds, coconut, craisins and maybe chocolate chips or a few mini marshmallows if Maddy has had a good day! :)

                   

                 Hope everyone had some fun in the rain!

My favorite "Green" products

I have been in the process of "going green" for some time now. As I have mentioned before, creating a better world for my children is very important to me. I can honestly say, as a family, we are eating better, recycling 99% of the time and using more "green" products. I have to say that my favorite cleaning products (so far) come from Method. I adore them! I've tried the kitchen cleaning sprays, hand soaps and bathroom cleaners so far and they are fabulous! I have a white sink that tends to absorb anything with color that you dump in it. The regular Method all purpose spray gets even coffee stains out of my sink! I feel like I'm in my sink washing dishes most of the day. During the winter months, it was REALLY doing a number on my hands. I've tried a ton of different dish soaps and the Method dish soap really prevents my hands from getting so dry. And did I mention how WONDERFUL they smell?? I especially LOVE their new, limited edition scent, Sea Salt and Lime!!! Now if only they would create lotions and personal care products! :)

Going "green"

I often wonder if I drive my husband crazy with all of the facts I spurt out about pesticides, recycling, eating less processed foods, etc.  Ever since I had children, all of these things suddenly became extremely important to me. I care more about the lotions and personal care products i use because of the chemicals that are put into them. I care more about what is in our food and what is in the cleaning products we use every day. I became extremely aware and cautious when I was pregnant with my daughter. I am happy to say that we have come a very long way in our "green" life since 2009! 

Am I being paranoid? I know some people roll their eyes at my efforts. (Because it truly is an effort to research all of the things that your lotions, deodorants, make ups, detergents and soaps contain!) All I know is that the cancer rates continue to rise and no one can give me a cure.  Scientists have connected certain chemicals in our personal care products, foods, cleaners (etc) that INCREASE the chance of getting cancer. Therefore... I will not use those products or expose my babies to these things if I can help it!  I feel like its almost a given, or even an accepted fact that you will most likely get some kind of cancer in today's world. Well I don't have to accept that fact and I sure don't have to increase the chance of my babies having an early exposure to things that they have even remotely linked to a chance of getting cancer or any other illnesses! 

I am hoping that my efforts will pay off in the long run.  I am so proud when I watch my 2.5 year old wash her hands or brush her teeth on her own. She wets her hands or toothbrush and immediately turns the water off until she needs to rinse the soap or toothpaste off. If she feels the water has been on too long she says, "Fishies need water mom."  I feel like I am making a difference, not only in the lives of my children, but on future generations. I hope if I can continue to leave a good example for my kids, raise them in a house with "green" values or expectations, they will be more likely to pass it on to their children and so on and so forth. Imagine what a difference we could make if everyone did this?? 

And it all started with turning off the water...

Baby food

I am very passionate about creating a healthier world for my kiddos. It disturbs me to read about all of the "extras" in foods that are so readily available. Especially all of those "extras" in baby food!! The food that we give to such innocent little beings! On that note, I decided to make my son's baby food. We started right around 4 months and its been going really well!! I have done a lot of research on appropriate foods, recipes, and times to introduce foods and based my menus around this research (and past experiences with my daughter!)

At 4 months we tried rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, bananas, avocado, apples, pears and peas. By 5-6 months we were on to green beans, peaches, carrots and butternut squash.  (A note on the butternut squash... Wegmans had the fresh squash all cut up in pieces in a nice container for me!! How thoughtful!!)
At 7 months, we tried blueberries, which he absolutely loved!! We are now mixing blueberries with bananas and/or apples. The combinations are really endless! Pears+Apples, Pears+bananas, Blueberries + Apples, Blueberries + Bananas,  Carrots+Peas, Carrots+Bananas, Avacado+bananas or pears, Apples +sweet potatoes ... like I said, endless possibilities and we are only at 7 months!! I'm so glad I made the decision to make Ethan's food.  Its super easy and definitely cost effective. 

I started making the food in my little chopper because breaking out the giant food processor left me with a huge mess to clean up.  My husband surprised me and bought a Baby Bullet. I have to say, it makes the process even easier!! 

                                  

Easter cake!

As most people today, I am LOVING Pinterest!! I have found so many great recipes and fun activities. One of the easiest, yet most awesome things I have found so far was an idea for this Easter cake! Found the idea from here. Instead of cupcakes, I obviously used a bundt cake pan. I also added some lemon juice for flavoring in both the cake and icing. My daughter and I had a lot of fun making this one!  I'm definitely going to do one of these for the 4th of July (using red and blue of course). Or maybe even for the big Memorial Day bash at the lake!! Such an easy way to add fun color to any event!!

Here we go!

Welcome, welcome!

 I have had this blog for 2 years now but am finally getting around to updating it! So sad! I have decided to use this blog as a way to document my adventures with my children. Maddy will be 3 in July and Ethan is currently 7 months old. Time is literally flying by and I am hoping to capture as much of it as possible and record it on this blog.  (I do keep a hand written journal with thoughts/ notes for my children to read at a later date.)  Our blog can be a way to share our family adventures and will hopefully be a way for my children to look back on this type of "live journal" and remember our fun times! I'll probably throw in a few fun recipes or crafting projects too!

So here we go!