Wordless Wednesday the Video Edition

Withdrawl

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. A few months ago I actually logged out of FB so that I couldn't just click the little button on the top of my computer every hour or so for a "quick" FB update. My computer turned into this magnet. The pull towards it to take a peek at FB was just too much for me. My few moments of down time or time I could accomplish something was being eaten up by checking in to see what all my "friends" were up to.

I can honestly say the first week or so of not looking at FB was torturous. I did sneak a peek here and there on my I-Pod. After a couple more weeks, checking into FB or putting up a status never even crossed my mind. I realized my habit had been completely broken when I was on vacation for a week with WiFi and I-Pod in hand. I didn't even think of checking FB with some down time I had until about day four!

I do miss it and now that I feel like I have gotten my FB habit under control I do check it every now and then. I miss seeing what my "friends" are up to. Who had a baby, who is pregnant, pictures of kids growing and just knowing a little bit more about what every one is doing on a daily basis. When you don't get to interact with adults during the day, seeing what others are doing out there is certainly nice. On the flip side though my feelings have been hurt more then once when I may feel left out when I see what others are doing or by a comment posted by someone.

Facebook has been a blessing in some ways and a curse in others. I love keeping in touch with friends that over time I would have lost touch with. But in other ways it doesn't make up for the true human contact of a friendship. It makes it easier to stay in touch with people a far, but most days I would pick to just have a friend right here in person to talk to and hang out with.

What are your thoughts on Facebook??

Menu Monday

We are back to a "normal" week. Shane has another session of swimming lessons. Dinner will be pushed back later. His lessons are from 5:35-6:05. We normally eat around 5ish. I don't think I'll be able to get to the store in the next few days. I am going to work from our full freezer, but we are short on fresh veggies and fruit.

Monday -- Crock pot peppercorn steak over rice

Tuesday -- leftovers

Wednesday -- I have some meat sauce in the freezer. I'll make something with that.

Thursday -- leftovers

Friday -- Something with chicken

Saturday -- leftovers

Sunday -- ??

Donner Lake, Truckee, California

Definition of VACATION (source Merriam-Webster)

1: a respite or a time of respite from something : intermission

2: a scheduled period during which activity (as of a court or school) is suspended b : a period of exemption from work granted to an employee

3: a period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation vacation at the beach>

We returned home yesterday from our vacation. I needed to look up the actual definition of vacation to see if that was really what we had. It turns out we did. Though it may not have been a vacation that most people picture, we did have a "time of respite from something" (ie: the dogs, daily chores, etc). Kenny had a "period of exemption from work". We also had "a period spent away from home" (10 days to be exact). 

We were vacationing at Donner Lake with Kenny's family in celebration of his parents 40th wedding anniversary. We decided to drive there instead of fly. (It is still up in the air if this was a good idea or not). It took us two days/14 hours to get there and the same for coming back. Shane did very well in the car. He doesn't seem to mind just sitting there and looking out the window. Adalyn on the other hand wanted constant contact with me when she was awake. Meaning that I spent a LARGE portion of the time in the backseat. Her sleeping schedule went out the window and continued to be a problem the whole time we were gone. She was up often every hour or every two hours at night and napped very poorly during the day. She wouldn't let Kenny feed her or put her down for a nap. Making me the primary caregiver the WHOLE time for Baby Girl. Between the traveling, teething, missing her crib to roll around in and possibly even night terrors, Adalyn made our vacation seem very long and trying. 

Along with dealing with Addie all day long, I seemed to have a touch of bad luck while we were gone. One day I started off by getting pooped on, later in the day I was stung by a bee and had a minor reaction to it. The day was finished off by having Adalyn throw up on me. I woke up the next morning with a head cold. Awesome!

Okay, so that was the tough portion of our vacation. Here are some of the better highlights.

On the way there we stopped at a place called the Subway Cave. We only went in the front of it, but it was pretty cool, literally. Shane talked about it for days.

 We saw lots of these little guys on our stop.

Here we are at the lake. Adalyn and Shane both LOVED the water. Since I wasn't around most of the time they were at the beach I don't have very many pictures of Shane having fun in the water. But he did great. Even jumping off the little dock/swim float out in the water.

 All the cousins: Carolyn, Meredith, Shane, Grant and Adalyn

Shane and Kenny out in the Kayak together. They got to do this twice. Shane really loved it. I was so proud of him for going out with Kenny. He also went out on the sail boat, but I wasn't there for that either. (This is where the new camera lens I need comes into play!!)

Little Girl just loved the sand and water. Very happy to eat all of it and make a mess. She didn't like the clean up after wards so much.

 The WHOLE gang.

Two buddies. Turns out Shane will do anything Carolyn does. She seems to be one of the few people he doesn't care if Mommy or Daddy are around. He would run off with her, which is so unlike him. He usually has to have one of us in his sight. But Carolyn seemed to be like a make shift parent/play mate for him.

 Man, is it hard to get a good picture of us with two wiggly kiddos.

Overall, we all had a nice time on our vacation to the lake. Donner Lake is really pretty and has all the makings as a very relaxing place to be. We look forward to more summer trips there (probably by plane and with a much older Adalyn)! It was awesome to wake up to blue skies every morning and to have warm temperatures daily. It was also great to see the Cousins hang out and play together (big ones and little ones). Many memories were made by all.

Quote for the Day

Thanks, Money Saving Mom

Wordless Wednesday

Re-Staining the Deck

After the stain went on and what it looked like before (all in one picture).

I looked at our deck one afternoon and thought it sure is looking kinda sad. This thought then became another item on the house to do list. Re-stain the deck. We finally got a stretch of sunshine one weekend. We were able to get it completed in about 3 days. Sadly, it rained on the 4th day. Making us super nervous the rain would ruin the stain we had completed the day before. I think it ended up being okay. Re-staining a deck is a WHOLE lot of work. Are we ever glad that job is over with. The deck does look a whole of a lot nicer though. Worth the manual labor for sure. Now I just need to find that perfect bistro set for it.

Seriously Sweet

This little girl is so so sweet. Even teething and grouchy she is sweet. Here she is with bunny lovey and her blanket all ready for bed. She sucks on the ears of her bunny lovey as she falls asleep or cuddling. It's this weird cute and gross thing all at once. I have to wash that thing at least once a week. We really need to invest in another one.

On a side note. Can you see the little scab under her eye? Well, she has taken to pulling on her eyelashes while falling asleep. So far I don't think she has pulled them out. But she keeps scratching up underneath her eyes. I feel like I have to explain it to everyone who sees her because it looks pretty goofy those scabs and scratches on her face. 

So onto my problem right now....all I want to do is play with little Adalyn. She is so much fun to make laugh and giggle. Really it's just so easy. Make a silly sound and it has her cracking up. She is the best cuddlier, too. She snuggles her head into your neck. So sweet. She is starting to wave and even pick up on a few signs I've been teaching her. All her problems are solved with food/bottle, a diaper change, a nap or a snuggle. Her little world is just so simple. Have fun, eat and sleep.

Then there is my son. A 4 year old ball of emotions. He has huge highs and super low lows (even as a baby he was like this). It's like riding an intense roller coaster ALL day long. One moment he is happy and we are playing or cuddling. The next he is pissed off and stomping down the hallway slamming his door like a teenager. His problems really most often are unsolvable or so complicated in his mind that I can't help make things right. I don't me wrong. I love him to pieces. He is so smart and has the best stories and ideas. When he is on an up swing time with him can be really fun and nice. When he is in a helping mood he is the best helper ever. It's just those lows that get me by the end of the day.

So you see my dilemma right now!?! Though I love them both....my little baby girl just takes the prize at this moment. I work hard every day to make sure I give my undivided attention to Shane. I think so far I am hiding my secret well. I got to snuggle in bed with Shane tonight. We had a nice quiet talk together. Those are the moments that make the roller coaster ride not so bad in the end.

Six Years

Did you know the traditional gift for your 6th wedding anniversary is iron? I found this list of ideas:


- Weight set
- Boxset of Robert Downey Jr. movies (you know, because he's Ironman)
- A set of cookbooks from Food Networks Iron Chefs
- New gate to spruce up your home
- Cast iron skillet
- Football tickets to watch the battle on the gridiron
-Gold Club

The whole thing sorta made me chuckle. After more research I found out that the modern gift is wood. As Kenny and I are celebrating are 6th year of marriage today, we will be purchasing ourselves some trees for the back yard. Now doesn't that sound oh so romantic.

Car Seat Strap Pads

Adalyn recently moved into her convertible car seat. I really don't care for the infant carrier, at least in the sense it is so awkward for me to carry. I am just too short and having it bang against my legs just isn't fun. Even when she was smaller I would just take her out of it and carry her in my arms most of the time.

My point is that her new car seat doesn't have pads on the straps. There have been enough times in the last couples weeks that I have pulled her out and found red marks on her neck. OUCH! Plus, she has been getting fussy in her seat, so I am hoping pads will make it more comfortable. Since we will be in the car 12+ hours in a couple days, I thought it would be best I stopped thinking about making those pads and just do it.

Twenty minutes later (including clean-up and answering 100+ questions from Shane) voila, I have car seat strap pads.

I had all the materials I needed at home already so they were free basically. It looks like on Amazon they run $4-$10. I choose not to buy mine for two reasons. I kept putting it off and didn't have enough time before our trip. Secondly, I feel like a bunch of the store bought ones are to long. They make you have to put the chest piece lower then I think it is should to be for safety reasons. I found this tutorial online, but found it to be slightly more complicated then I had in mind.

This is a quick little walk through on what I did, just in case you want to whip up some for your kiddo. Oh, and I am NOT a sewer. Straight lines are all I can do. Also, on my side for time...the sewing machine was all ready to go. No re-threading, etc. That part always sets me back way to long.

I used a piece of fabric for the outside cover and two pieces of felt for the inside padding.  I made the felt slightly smaller inside the fabric. I used my strap as a basic guide in width and length.

 Then I sewed both sides shut. I just folded over the fabric ends onto the felt. Super easy!

 Then I finished it off with two strips of Velcro on the opposite ends.

 Viola! Super quick and easy. No were near perfect either. But for free and only 20 minutes, I don't think you can beat that!

Garden 2011

Our garden this year is fully under way. Here is a little tour of what we have going on.

Here we have a dill plant and 3 rhubarb plants. The first one on the left you can't see since it doesn't have any leaves yet. I can't wait to use the rhubarb next year!

The back box has 5 pumpkin plants. I wasn't going to do pumpkin again this year. But the cul-de-sac we used to live in is having a pumpkin growing contest. How could I turn down that challenge. Thanks, Julie. Now we MUST produce a pumpkin this year!!

The front box has carrots and lettuce. This was the first year I tried lettuce by the seed. Seems to have done fine.

 The back box here has miniature sunflowers. They are growing REALLY slow.

The front box has strawberries. We started last year with 5 or 6 plants. They have just gone crazy in a year. The big problem this year is the dogs have discovered a taste for strawberries. Too many times we've found them in the middle of the strawberry patch eating every single beautiful ripe strawberry. Dang, Dogs!!! We've gotten our hands on a few of them.

Finally, we have two tomato plants up on our deck. They started in the garden, but were doing really poor there. I transferred them into pots. They have taken off since then. We've had two ripe cherry tomatoes so far. 

Wordless Wednesday

One More Reason

There is a long list of reasons that we won't be adding an additional baby to this family ever, but the one screaming in my head the most right now is TEETHING! We are in the midst of teething with Adalyn and it is not fun AT ALL. Her bottom two teeth came in with some fussiness on and off. Along with some extra wake-ups in the middle of the night. But all in all it wasn't too bad. Now her top two teeth are coming in and it is UGLY. Our even tempered baby is a hot mess on and off all day long. I can't wait for those two little suckers to pop through her gum. We can see them sitting right there just causing a ruckus. Big white bumps sitting underneath her gum line. I can only imagine that it is so uncomfortable. Thank goodness for this: Borion Camilia. It really appears to help keep her irritability down to a level we can deal with. I went to get more of it at the store a few days ago, so we'd be stocked up for our road trip/vacation coming up soon. They were out!!!! I freaked. Luckily, I was able to track some down at another store. Please, baby teeth come through before we are in the car with Miss Adalyn for 14 hours!!!!!

If you have a teething kiddo this is also a great resource: Ten Natural Teething Remedies.

Flashback Friday

Shane and Adalyn at 8 months:

 

Kids Were Here Week 4

This is the last week of my photography challenge. I really enjoyed doing it. I certainly found a new appreciation for the little beings in our house. Their messes can actually be kinda cool when you look at them through the lens of a camera. It also made me want to learn a bunch more about lighting, because it is so key to taking good pictures. I have a photography class I will be taking soon...maybe those questions will get answered.