goodbye purple van

Last night during dinner this big truck pulled up in front of our house with a “new” car on it.  No, not for us. . .but for my mom. She’s coming this weekend for my cousin’s shower and will drive home in a 2008 Toyota Highlander.  After I told Owen it was Grandma’s new car, with NO prompting from me he said “goodbye purple van.” I was floored. I had no idea he remembered that my mom drove a purple van.  Let along that he could put that together in a sentence.  That van has been in our family a long time, 15 years to be exact.   But you've never seen a more clean mini van.  I still remember sitting in the garage in the van when they first came home with it.  It has carted my stuff to move into my dorm at ISU, and then into my apartment in Normal, and then my apartment in Champaign, and then my house in Indiana.  It will be sad to say goodbye to the van that our family has taken on many vacations to Michigan.  I also hope we can take care of our van as long as my parents took care of theirs.  And if anyone needs a purple mini van, let me know.  They're selling it! It has 185,000 miles on it and has a "modest" oil leak. :)

Happy Birthday Angie

Last Friday, Ellie and I headed to Peoria for a surprise birthday party for my friend Angie!  I miss seeing her more regularly for our knitting lessons and Bachelorette watching. 

Ellison and I drove to my parents and had dinner with them and then headed out to the party.  Angie was turning the big 4-0 but she really doesn’t look a day over 29. :)  It was fun to watch her come in a be surprised.  And the cake was amazing!!  Happy birthday friend.  I hope this year is full of some awesome surprises God has in store for you!  

Tosha’s Baby Sprinkle

We had so much fun tonight blessing our friend Tosha and her sweet little girl that’s due in a month.  For baby’s #2, 3, etc we always call them sprinkles.  Smaller versions of full blown showers to just help the momma restock on diapers and such.  So I tried not to go too overboard with the crafting.  But pink is quite fun to decorate with. :)  I’ll try to give you links if possible to some of the ideas I used. 

Decor
My goal was cute, pink, and cheap!  I started with making a little flag bunting for the fireplace.  I just grabbed a few different pink papers at 50% at Hobby Lobby and cut triangles out.  I sewed (yes, you can sew paper) them onto bias tape, but you could easily glue them onto a ribbon of some sort.Then I made a small diaper cake.  I’ll have a great link to a diaper cake after the shower I have on Friday.  For this one, I took a large bottle of Johnson’s baby lotion and basically wrapped a few diapers around it and tied it tight with string.  Then I covered the string with ribbon and made a little pom pom flower for the top.These little guys were the favors for the ladies.  I got a ton of different pink nail polishes and just added a simple thank you tag to them.Next up was getting a few pink plastic table cloths.  I did sew up the sides of a few of them to make them look a little more fancy.   But the only picture I have of this has 2 ladies in it who would not like the faces they’re making in the picture. :)  I also raided the Walmart paint section.  I grabbed a couple of each pink paint chips and cut them up to use for “confetti” on the tables.  Free and they come in every color under the sun!  The flowers were from my yard! I borrowed the hanging lanterns from a friend so those were free too! Food
Melissa did most of the food for which I’m super thankful.  My 3 contributions were cake pops, kettle corn, and the punch.  The cake pops turned out awesome.  I followed Bakerella’s instructions.  I got a foam wreath at the dollar store and spray painted it pink to hold the cake pops and made a tissue paper flower to go in the middle.   I didn’t get a picture of the punch, but it was fabulous.  Get the recipe here. I made my cousin’s awesome kettle corn recipe and just added a little food coloring to make it pink.  Delish and adorable! Game
We just played one short little game that I got here.  Basically, there are 12 ultrasound pictures that they had to guess which part the picture was of.  A nice change of pace from eating and guessing baby food flavors.  We had a 3 way tie for the winners! Then it was onto gifts.  Doesn’t she just look so graceful in the picture.  Only Tosha can pull that off at t-minus 4 weeks until baby.I crocheted this adorable little number for her girly.  She requested a “rose” colored hat.  Not sure this is exactly the color she had in mind, but I loved it!  The pattern can be found here for the hat and here for attached flower. Then at the close of the shower, we just gathered around and prayed for Tosha, the baby, the delivery, her hubby, and her other 2 little people and their transition to a family of 5! All in all, a great evening with the ladies.  We cannot wait to meet the little miss and hear what name you guys have settled on. :)

Pinned It, Did It Monday! {bathroom edition}

Welcome to Pinned It, Did It Monday!  Each week I try to look through my pins on Pinterest and actually DO a few of them.  This week has been filled with tons of cute crafting for 2 baby showers I have this week, but those pictures will have to wait!  So this week is my “bathroom edition.”  I’ve wanted to try these 2 pins for awhile!Thanks to my mom and genetics, I have terribly dry heels.  It doesn’t matter if it’s winter or summer, they are always dry!  So I was excited to see if this pin worked. 
Picture I pinned:

Source: How to Get Dry Skin Off the Bottom of Your Feet from eHow
My Pictures: 

this was the same price as the regular epsom salt - be warned it smells strong (like peppermint)

enjoying soaking my feet while crocheting

the feet file and "lotion" I used

my ugly, hot socks

before and after feet

before and after close up of heels

My review:  I do a lot of these steps normally, but had never added the epson salt to the equation!  For only a one time shot, I would say my feet look pretty good from there they started!  I think if I did this more regularly, my feet would be in great shape.  The only thing I HATED was sleeping in socks.  I really dislike having my feet covered up while sleeping.  But I guess we women do lots of sacrifices for beauty, right? :) For the next one, I saw this picture and the caption said cheap teeth whitening.  I’ve definitely bought commercial teeth whiteners in the past, so I wanted to try this.  The short version is that you gargle with 1/2 mouthwash, 1/2 hydrogen peroxide.  Then you brush with a toothpaste, baking soda, and water combo.
Picture I pinned:

Source: Easy At Home Teeth Whitening from The Budget Diet
My Pictures:

not so sure about the peroxide

My Review:  I forgot to take a before and after of my teeth.  But William said even he thought they looked a bit whiter.  The swishing with the mouthwash/peroxide wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it’d be.  My teeth felt like they had been to the dentist. The pin says to do this once a week until your teeth are as white as you want them too.  I wouldn’t maybe do it that often for fear of breaking down the enamel on your teeth.  But I’d say it was a success!

Thursday with Sam

Hi C, R, and Sam!  :)  Here’s a recap of what we did on Thursday when Sam came to play with us.  As always, the day begins with playing cars, airplanes, trucks, trains, and all things GO!  These two are definitely all boy!  Sam liked Cranky the Crane for awhile.When that got boring, we got out a “new” toy that Sam hadn’t seen and Owen hasn’t played with in a long time.  This brought quite a long time of chasing each other through the tunnel.  They were pretty hilarious to watch! Then we took a break for some music styling's by Owen and Sam on the piano:I think it was safe to say I wore both boys out. (Notice the helicopter in his hand.  “UP” is one of his favorite words!)Since we had made quite the mess, after naptime we did a few “games” to try and teach these boys about cleaning up.  At this rate, they’ll be dusting and vacuuming for me in a few weeks. ;)  Here they are cleaning the table:Another great with Sambo, Sammy boy, Super Sam.  C&R – any other fun nicknames you have for him? :)  See you next week!

Happy 4 Months!

My sweet little girl is 4 months old. 1/3 of her first year is done. How in world did that happen?  This month is one of my favorites!  She’s still little, but is not just watching the world anymore, she wants to participate! 

my that's a nice head

The Stats
Her 4 month appointment went well and she took her 2 shots like a champ.  We go every month to spread out the shots she gets so Owen knows the drill now.  He even held her hand while she got her first shot.  Adorable.  She is 15 lbs, 7 oz (85th percentile) and 25.25” (84th percentile).  So in other words – big girl!  But her head is exactly in the 5oth percentile.  Know what that means?  She is the perfect head model for all these cute fall hats I’m making. :) 
Sleeping and Eating
She’s pretty much a textbook baby right now which I love.  So different than Owen was.  We were doing the eat, play, sleep (per Babywise) but we’ve fallen into a routine of play, eat, sleep which just seems to work for us right now.  So that’s what we’re doing.  She still gets put in her crib awake and I love that (for the most part) she' can put herself to sleep.  She’s going to bed anywhere from 8-9 and this time is slowly creeping up.  Can’t wait until it’s 6:30/7!  She gets up around 10 or 11 to eat again, and then usually again at 4 and is up for the day between 6:30 and 7:30.  So not bad to say the least!  She loves her crib, but still ends up in bed with us in the wee hours of the morning. :)She nurses about 6-8 times throughout a 24 hour period, which again is textbook.  She’s usually a one side nurser, so we just switch back and forth for each feeding.  She’s definitely nursing less since she started taking a paci!  Yay for my boob not being used her only soothing tool.  The nurse prac we saw at her 4 month well baby didn’t even mention food yet and I’m not in any hurry to start like I was with Owen.  I’m just enjoying breastfeeding and not thinking about which fruit/veggie she needs to be eating.  Maybe in month 5 or 6 we’ll start thinking about this. 

are you sure I can't eat something new?

Other fun things and milestones

• She rolled over!  Now if you remember, she rolled over from belly to back at 5 weeks old.  But this was several times from back to belly.  I only saw one of these on the video monitor but the other day at nap time, I went in and she was on her belly.  Big girl!  She enjoys tummy time so she didn’t seem to mind being on her belly.
• She loves to hold toys now and is starting to put everything in her mouth!
• We put away the swing and got out her jumperoo.  She loves it.  She has already figured out how to turn a little in it. Owen loves to help her “jump.”
• She has found her toes and loves to grab them and try to get them to her mouth.  
• She has started shrieking.  Wow for finding her LOUD voice.
• She is constantly aware of where her brother is.  She follows him with her eyes everywhere and I think is totally smitten with him. 
• Ellie is becoming a bigger fan of dad.  She wasn’t so sure about him for the first couple months but now will give him lots of smiles and giggles.
• She loves bath time by herself in her baby tub.  She’s still not so sure about sharing bath time with her older brother.  Maybe it’s because he likes to pour water on her.

Ok I know I’ll think of tons more I want to say after I publish this.  But overall, I couldn’t love this girl any more!   And no, I’m not tired of making all her hair cuties.  It just gets more and more fun!  Happy 4 Months Ellison.  We love you!