Our Ducks

We have ducks that come back each spring and visit our neighborhood. This year I feel like the girl duck is a different one. She just doesn't look the same. The last time I saw the "old" girl duck was last year. She was flying around the neighborhood squawking her head off. It seemed that she was searching for Mr. Duck. Maybe she never found him, so he got himself a new Mrs?

There is a lot of excitement in our house when the ducks show up. We threw out some dried oatmeal for them to munch on. As you can see they aren't scared to come right up and eat it. 

The excitement is from the dogs as well. Especially Sadie. Here she is staring down the ducks through the window.

I'm pretty sure she would do just about anything to get out the front door and have her way with those ducks!

Wordless Wednesday -- Baseball

Menu Monday

I had a long weekend off of cooking! Loved it. There were quite a few meals we didn't get to from our menu last week, so we'll be eating them this week. Makes for easy meal planning now.

Monday -- Baked Chicken and rice

Tuesday -- leftovers

Wednesday -- One pot Black Beans and Rice

Thursday -- French Dips Crock Pot Style

Friday -- leftovers

Saturday -- Broccoli and White Cheddar Mac and Cheese

Sunday -- leftovers

Sleep, Sunshine and More

Adalyn hit the ferry this weekend and headed to my parents for a little get away. She had a blast hanging out with Mema and Papa. While the three of us had a nice little weekend with out the toddler in our family. We got so much done!! It is truly amazing how much can be completed when you don't have a little mess maker toddler running around asking up all day long. Here is a little recap of our weekend.

Friday evening we took Shane to the movies to see The Lorax. Shane is very hesitate about movies and generally doesn't enjoy them, but we thought this one would be okay and with both Mommy and Daddy there he would do fine. Nope, he did not enjoy it one bit. The emotional ups and downs, along with some minor "fighting" had him in cries on and off the whole time and while he wasn't crying he was stiff and prepared for something bad to happen. Poor kiddo didn't even want to talk about it after we left. It will be awhile before we hit the movies again.

Saturday we had sunshine! It was a gorgeous spring day, that was jammed packed. Shane had baseball practice in the morning. It was the first one that I was able to go see. I loved watching all the kids practicing. They were so darn cute and silly out on the baseball field.  When I showed up Shane was up to bat.

More baseball pictures to come in a future post!

After baseball practice we took the dogs on a hike. Shane loved hiking and has already asked to go back to the "forest".

After the hike we did some cleaning around the house and front yard while enjoying the AWESOME sunshine. Then we headed out to a yummy dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory.

Sunday we spent all day catching up on more house cleaning and random jobs around the house. This house has seriously been cleaned top to bottom...windows, baseboards, bathrooms, bedrooms, vacuuming under the beds, clean sheets, toys are organized, closets are organized, the deck has been swept, the cars were vacuumed and even the garage is cleaned and organized.

It feels really really really good to have gotten two full nights worth of sleep with out getting up to help Adalyn. It also feels great to have the house clean and that long list to-do shortened. THANKS, Mema and Papa for watching the little bugger while we played, slept and worked.

Conversations With Adalyn

Yesterday evening before Adalyn's bed time:

Me: Kenny, do you want me to give Adalyn's M-I-L-K to her.

Kenny: Nope, I don't think she is ready for it yet

Adalyn: Ahhh, Ahhhhhh!!!! (as she comes running into the kitchen where I am at)

Me: She doesn't know what I just said does she?? 

Adalyn: signing "milk" over and over again.

Me: (I hand it to her)

Kenny: Adalyn where is your M-I-L-K?

Adalyn: (She pulls it out of her mouth and shows it to him)

Me: Wow, guess she can spell now. Time to come up with a new code word for milk!

Box of Sunshine

I have a friend that has colon cancer and is in the middle of chemo. I have been racking my brain on a special way to show her that we were thinking about her. I stumbled upon this "box of sunshine" idea on pinterest and knew it was just perfect.

Adalyn and I hit Fred Meyer last week and filled up our cart with yellow items. It was so fun finding things to put in the "box". Then I found the yellow container and fell in love with it. Isn't it perfect!?! With spring here I found tons of fun items to fill the sweet container up with. All the bright yellow is so uplifting.

I think this would be a great gift for just about any one....Mother's Day, Teacher Appreciation, birthdays, etc.

This is what was in the box of sunshine:

• 2 hand towels
• tea light candles
• bath sponge
• lemonheads
• jelly beans
• pin wheel pin
• vitamin water
• fruit roll up
• banana
• peeps
• juicy fruit gum
• post it notes
• sunflowers seed packet
• another yellow flower seed packet
• honey granola bar (in a yellow wrapper)
• sponge bob bandaids
• lemonade powder drink mixes

Wordless Wednesday

Randomness

• Shane started baseball practice a couple weeks ago. He seems to be really enjoying it. Gosh, he looks so big in this picture! I really can't believe how tall he has gotten. His 5th birthday is right around the corner.

• The same day he started baseball he had his last basketball practice. He warmed up to that as well, but of course had his moments. And as the trend continues he does a lot better if Mommy stays away from practice.

They played their first game on his last day of practice...hilarious to watch! As you can see Shane sorta thought it was a dance/twirl class. He was in love with the yellow jersey he was wearing.

•  My Horses were sold a couple weeks ago. Pure devastation in our household over that. I miss seeing them as we drive and walk by.

• I have two weeks left of my 8 week Close To My Heart Challenge. I'm on my way to my goal of "winning" a little weekend retreat away. The challenge has been keeping me busy in all my extra time. I've enjoyed putting my mind to work and learning new things about the direct sales industry as well as trying to boost my little business at the same time. 

• Adalyn just turned 16 months old. She loves sitting up at the bar playing. Sorting, mixing, stirring and dumping is the name of the game. Here she is playing with one of our "busy bags". I hope to post more about those soon.

 

 

•  Adalyn and Arli have reached a new level of their toddlerhood friendship...sharing isn't fun. But we are working on that skill and I'm sure they'll emerge from this very normal stage well prepared for sharing with others.

Menu Monday

I haven't had much of an appetite lately so making dinner just hasn't been appealing to me. I am not feeling much inspiration because nothing really sounds good. I am working on a new meal planner so that others can participate in the meal picking process. I hope to have that completed soon.

I need to go to the store in order to have most of these meals. So things might just change on the menu this week.

Adalyn is also going to my Mom and Dads for the weekend. I just need a break from our non-sleeping teething child. She is so happy during the day, but her sleeping at night has hit rock bottom and I am just plain TIRED.  I hope to get a lot of sleeping in while she is gone and maybe we'll have a dinner out, too. Shane is a great restaurant diner.

Monday -- Grilled Cheese and Tater Tots. (we have an abundance of bread in the house right now)

Tuesday -- Taco Pasta Toss (I need to get to the grocery store though....)

Wednesday -- leftovers

Thursday -- Broccoli and White Cheddar Mac and Cheese

Friday -- leftovers

Saturday -- Slow Cooker French Dip Sandwiches

Sunday -- leftovers

Creative Night

Join me for an evening of creating. Bring on over your unfinished projects like scrapbook pages, cards, knitting, sewing, jewelry, etc. What ever project you have sitting around that you just haven't had the time to finish. Come complete it with the girls.

Saturday, March 31st at 7:30 -- Kirkland, WA

I'll also have a wood blocks (see pictures below) available for those who don't have any unfinished items to work on, but want to come and be creative. Each block is $1. You'll need to bring your coordinating paper, paint, embellishments, etc.

Potential + New Website

Close To My Heart's March Stamp of the Month is called Potential

I made this cute little card using this stamp set.

You can see what else the Potential stamp set has to offer over at my NEW Close To My Heart website! Swing by and take a peek at it....pretty cute, huh?!

Wordless Wednesday Video Addition -- More Tomatoes

Almost Wordless Wednesday

One morning when Adalyn wasn't feeling good and I couldn't find anything she would eat, she asked for this tomato. If you look on her tray you can see I tried cutting it up into pieces for her, but nope, she wanted the WHOLE thing.

Children's Hospital Sleep Clinic Visit

Adalyn had her Children's Hospital Sleep Clinic visit this afternoon. I really wasn't sure what to expect or what sort of answers we were going to get. But I feel at the end of my rope with the night wakings, so we figured why not give it a try and see what happens.

We had a nice Doctor that talked with us about her sleeping. Adalyn didn't want anything to do with any one. This included people in the elevator (small closed rooms have started to freak her out) and even the receptionist at the check-in made her antsy and worried. The Medical Assistant got to see her throw up when she tried to see how tall she was. The Doctor witnessed her gagging skills and found them to be quite impressive, though he missed the full on throw up portion of Addie's act.

Step one appears to be to rule out any physical issues. It was tough for the Doctor to exam her, but she has no signs of sleep apnea and she is to young to discuss if tonsils or adenoids are a concern. Step two would be to make sure her sleep habits are good. Which they are. That portion we have down. She has a great sleep routine and goes to sleep with out any problems. If you think your child has poor sleeping habits, better consult with your doctor or medical assistant from this site to find out what’s causing it and to find if it’s somehow related to sleep apnea.

He prescribed reflux medicine (she took this when she was an infant) to see if that could still be an issue. The Doctor seemed to feel the gagging could be related to reflux, which could be waking her up at night. He also prescribed zyrtec for her dry skin. Though at this point we won't be giving that to her since I can control her dry skin with Aquaphor. He felt that she could be ichy at night and waking up for that reason. We'll work with the Aquaphor before we attempt any medication for dry skin  issues. 

Finally, he said after trying the above things that in 3-4 weeks we could try melatonin. We've done some research on that and I'm hopeful that may be the answer. I'd almost like to start there, but feel that we best rule out the reflux (since she is so darn gaggy) and then move to the melatonin.

The Doctor said that it is harder to "fix" kids that wake up versus kids that can't fall asleep. Fortunately (or unfortunately), the falling asleep isn't our issue.

Adalyn is still a super happy kiddo, too. This whole sleep stuff really doesn't seem to bother her. Just Mommy and Daddy are the ones who need more sleep because we can't take 2-3 naps a day as needed like our Daughter can.

We go back for a follow-up in 3 months. Fingers crossed we won't need to because she'll magically start sleeping through the night before then!! One should always have hopes and dreams, right?!

These are rare pictures of Adalyn sleeping. I am usually scared that I'll wake her up. Baby Girl and her darn Bunny sleeping happily.

Menu Monday

Sometimes it blows me away how fast Monday comes back around. Here we go again....another week of meal planning:

Meatless Monday -- Lemon Garlic Spaghetti

Tuesday -- Baked Halibut and rice

Wednesday -- Homemade Hamburger Helper

Thursday -- leftovers

Friday -- Melt in your Mouth Chicken

Saturday -- leftovers

Sunday -- Raid the 'Frig Night

I need to make some bread/bread sticks with our new bread machine, too this week. Mmmmm!

February Project: Treat Stands

At the beginning of this year I made a list of 12 projects I wanted to complete in 2012. One for each month. I saw something similar to this on Rachel Ray one afternoon and fell in love. These darling treat stands couldn't be any easier to make.

I went to Value Village one afternoon with the kids to find some items to re-purpose, I was hoping to make an up-cycled treat stand. I found the white vase and cute little flower bowl, but there weren't any plates that did it for me.

A couple weeks later we took a trip to Target where I had my fingers crossed they would have their acrylic plates out for spring time. I was SO excited to see their long aisle full of gorgeous plates and knew the moment I saw these they would be perfect. I had to hold myself back from getting a whole cart load to make a million different treat stands.

After a some gluing with Kenny's help and a night of dying we have a cute treat stand. We used Gorilla Glue. Note: that is expands greatly as it is drying, just a little goes a long way.

I tried putting treats in it, but the kiddos wouldn't stop asking for them. For now it will be a fruit stand at our house. Wouldn't these just be adorable at a baby shower or for a special event you are hosting. The total cost was under $10!

The Philosophy of Fun

Have you ever thought about becoming a Close To My Heart Consultant?

Have you been eying the awesome CTMH Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge?

Why did I ask you those questions....because when you sign up as a new Consultant between March 1–31, you'll receive a FREE Cricut Art Philosophy collection!

The collection's retail price of $99 adds incredible value to your New Consultant Kit ($99) and will give you hours of creative fun with the included exclusive Cricut cartridge, three coordinating My Acrylix D-size stamp sets, and three sheets of matching Dimensional Elements shapes. Already own the collection? You can always give your free one as a gift or choose to receive $100 in select product credit instead. Now is the time to embrace the philosophy of fun—Consultant and Cricut fun!

CTMH Cricut Collection

Got questions? Email me at jessicadbooth @ hotmail (dot) com

15 Months

This funny little girl turned 15 months old recently. 

She is an independent, snuggly, happy, smart, busy, adorable little person. Who still IS NOT sleeping through the night. She is also a milk addict, just like her Big Brother. Though she may be worse, who knew that would be possible.

Since getting sick almost 2 weeks ago she just won't eat. Miss Adalyn is completely happy surviving on milk. That milk also HAS to come from a bottle. Water may come from a cup of any kind, but milk is only drank from a bottle. We could just take away the milk, thus the bottle, too. But at this point milk, bottle, bunny and blanket are all needed to make this girl sleep.

Just recently I have been able to put her in hair in a pony tail to the side. I use to only be able to use barrettes, but now I can pretty much only get away with a rubber band. We are both getting the hang of the "pony tail". She won't pull it out until the end of the day when she is ornery and tired.

She follows directions amazingly. It blows us away what she understands. You can ask her to go get something and she will, or to take something to someone and she will. If you tell her that we are about to do she'll head in the direction of that activity (kitchen, downstairs, bedroom, bathroom, etc). She even helps to clean up on her own terms of course.

Her only word is pretty much "hi", but as of yesterday she walked around say "mama" all day (not to me directly though) and I think I even heard "mil" for milk twice yesterday as well.

Adalyn is weighing in at 21 pounds dropping her down to the 25%. It's hard to grow when you just want to live off milk. Her milk amounts are very controlled and even "scheduled" around naps and bedtime. It's just been 2-3 weeks of this non-eating stuff. Funny that lots of these pictures are of her eating, they were taken before the food strike started.  The Doctor said last week at her well-baby check up that this is all normal and that she is doing great.

She LOVES her brother. What he does she must do. Monkey See, Monkey Do is often the theme at our house all day long. Except it works both ways...Shane copies her just as much as she copies him. Adalyn eggs Shane on and gets him all wired up. She wants him to chase her up and down the hallway or wrestle with her. She is one tough kiddo. She just picked up how to spin in circles from him yesterday.

Watching Addie with her bestie, Arli is hilarious.  One moment they are getting into trouble together or doing each others hair and the next moment they are fighting over a necklace. The ups and downs of a friendship as a toddler.

It is a zoo at our house most days. Watching Addie grow and the relationship between the two of them grow is fun, amazing and tiring all at the same time.