Up and running

After what to me seems like forever I have finally opened my new etsy store!!! I have posted some fun vinyl graphics and hope you stop by if you get a minute. Right now I am offering free shipping to the first 10 sales!! Come check us out, just click HERE

Austin

I've taken a lot of pictures lately but haven't been so good at posting. Here are some pictures of Austin having fun with friends. Hopefully more will come as the weather keeps getting warmer.

Easter

Easter this year was great! It was fun because Austin was so excited to find Easter eggs. I think this was the first holiday he kind of understood...or at least understood that there was something fun to get all excited about. He even go so excited and caught up in the fun that he had his first accident in his pants in public....oops! Good thing it was at the end of the activity and we were outside!
Saturday morning we had a fun ward activity at a ward members home. We had strawberry and whipped cream topped pancakes YUM! Then the kids had a fun Easter egg hunt with more Easter eggs than I have ever seen in person. The kids had a blast, the weather was nice and everyone seemed to have a great time. It was nice to be able to sit and chat with friends and let the kids go play.
Sunday we had Easter baskets for the kids and had a few treats hidden around the living room. Church was at 9:00 so we did a quick "Easter morning" then headed off to church where we had a truly wonderful Easter Sunday. The speakers were amazing and the spirit was very strong in all our meetings. It was perfect. After we got home everyone took a nap while dinner was cooking then at 4:00 we packed up dinner and took it over to a friends house. We currently don't have a real dinning room table so we couldn't do dinner at our house so we brought dinner to theirs, it worked out wonderful. It was full Easter meal with a spiral honey roasted ham, corn, green beans, a wonderful potato dish, Rhodes rolls, and of course Jello. For dessert we had raspberry pie and I think we were all so stuffed we couldn't move. We had so much fun with our friends and the kids were being so good playing with each other we even had time to learn and play a new game. We may have even had time to play it twice but Devon was getting ready to go to Portland, Oregon on Monday and he still had to get some things together so we had to go. It was a wonderful evening and I'm glad that we got a "real" Easter dinner and had friends to share it with. Oh yeah, and on Sunday afternoon it was such a beautiful day that I took Kate outside and we had a mini photo shoot. It was a lot of fun.
Here are pictures from our wonderful weekend....oh and some of the play date we had with our friends making Easter Eggs.

Photo shoot gone photo shop!

Kate's Easter Basket

Austin's Easter Basket

This is how Kate usually is if I am not holding her. I seriously have to hold her all the time....oh to be so loved.

Just Kate

Kate and her rediculous front teeth LOL Austin "hunting" for eggs

I think the strawberries must have been sour. LOL

Our Friends Rachelle, Katie and Maddox

Austin was such a good helper.

Things That Make Me Happy

Austin and Kate laughing at each other in the back seat of the car.
Austin saying his own prayer (the other day I gave him some crackers for a snack. I saw him walk into the kitchen put them down on his little table then fold his arms and bless them before he ate them LOL)
Austin and Kate playing together in the tub.
Devon getting busy with work.
Family
Sisters
MSN
Cheap Airline Flights
The fact that any time we drive anywhere we can see: cows, sheep, horses, chickens, a llama, a buffalo, swans, ducks and goats.
Driving in the car and having Austin telling me everything that we pass...mommy bus, mommy tractor, mommy truck, mommy sheep....
Kate and Austin both sleeping through the night.
My calling
Being able to stay at home
Warm and Sunny spring days
Baby animals
Austin singing

There are many other things that I am grateful for, but these are the things that at the thought of them bring a smile to my face.

Create

I hope that this is able to uplift, inspire and give hope to you like it has to me.

Check it Out

Hey all! I finally and officially have my Vinyl Blog up and running. The name I decided on was Chickadee Vinyl. But Love Letters, submitted by Jill, was a close second. To check things out on my blog visit me at my Chickadee site. I don't have my new Etsy store up yet but it will be up by the end of the week. Wish me luck.

Check up Time.

On Thursday we went to the doctor for Kate's 9 month (9 months...really, already?!!) check up. It was good for the most part. The doctor said that she looks and sounds great. She really is just a healthy chubby baby. Her stats came in at 28 inches 50%tile, 17lbs 14oz don't know what %tile, and her head was in the 25-50%tile. Well, that was all the good news lol as for the rest of the news...Kate is still not crawling as of yet, and really not doing much of anything. The doctor recommended that we start taking her to physical therapy. He said that he isn't SUPER worried that she's not crawling...but he is concerned that she's not actively rolling, isn't getting to a sitting position by herself and WILL NOT put ANY weight on her legs. He said that he's checked her out and everything in her legs feels fine and working but it's not normal for you to try to stand a baby up and instead of standing as you hold them to instead totally draw up their legs and not even attempt to stand on them. SO, that being said we will work on getting her into physical therapy this week and at least getting her tested. On the food front, she is still having issues with dairy and soy and it seems like a million other things. Unless I feed her sweet potatoes, pears or baby cereal with apple juice she seems to get clogged up for 3 days! During which time she can be cranky during the days, ALWAYS want MOM (and no one else), and wakes up about 3x a night....all of which quickly drain me. So, I was telling this to the doc. and he suggested that I start putting 1TBS of Karo syrup in every meal....odd huh. He said that it should help loosen things up. I guess we'll wait and see. I've been doing it but so far it hasn't been much help but that could be because I've been sneaking in some dairy....sometime I just can't resist. (side note we had a YW leader and spouse party and one of these ladies brought these pickled asparagus wrapped in ham with laughing cow cheese....oh my, those we the best things ever!!! I should have just stayed away, but I wanted to try just a bite. They were so good I couldn't stop, after 4 I knew I was in trouble and had to just leave the room. ) Hopefully they Karo will help or that she will just grow out of it (soon!) because the tummy troubles are really...well just annoying. It's hard enough to watch what a baby eats but she makes it really hard.



Austin, what's new with Austin. TONS!! He is getting so big so fast. Here is a little info on what he's up to:



Austin loves to: ride his bike (even if he still can't reach the pedals), play with friends especially Maddex, play with Dave and toys in nursery, run in circles....literally, read, be outside, bubbles, go anywhere in the Do Do (Devon's Truck)



Loves to watch: Trucks (anything that has trucks in it...he prefers them not to be animated), Thomas the Tank Engine, ELMO, Bob the Builder, the movie Cars, "Animals" which is the movie Madagascar, George (curious George) and Doggie (Clifford the Big Red Dog) and Babies (which is ANY Baby Einstein). He really doesn't watch that much tv...but when he gets the change he knows just what he wants.



Loves to eat: EVERYTHING lol. He really is a good eater. Some of his favorites are PASTA, pasta and pasta. He would eat is all day everyday with anything on it. Yogurt, applesauce, pepperoni, cheese - cheddar or Parmesan but not cheese sticks - weird, ANYTHING with cream cheese, juice, green beans, broccoli and cauliflower especially with cheese sauce, and crackers.



He is starting to talk like crazy and makes Devon and I laugh daily. Sometimes he says the funniest stuff. I would post things he likes to say but we would be here all day. Some of my favoirtes are....ood norning mom...hi...ood norning. norning Tate, norning Hausin...and he will keep saying norning until you answer him and say Good Mornign Austin. Another thing that makes me laugh is now when I take him to the bathroom, once I get his pants down he yells at me Go Way...no elp...go way and he waits until I leave the bathroom before he will pee. It's too early for me to think of any more but he's fun. I love finally being able to understand what he's jibbering about. One thing that he says that I HATE is MINE! So, that's a no no word at our house now. So instead of mine he yells Hausin's. I usually over hear something like this.....EEEKKK no Tate! Hausins truck, Hausins! or if I take a drink of his juice before I give the cup to him he says...no mom, hausin's juice! Which isn't much better, but I do prefer it to NO MINE!!!

Okay well the kids are up and it's time to get crackalacking for the day.