ONE!

My baby turned ONE!(well about 2 weeks ago she did, I'm a bit slow per usual) I cannot believe it.  The joy that we feel for her and the love that we have for her is so overwhelming.  She is the perfect little addition to our family.

 When she "arrived" a year ago!

 Birthday Cupcakes!

 First Taste-not quite sure

I'd say she LOVED them! The whole time she said "yum"

What is she:

She is our little, chunky pumpkin! The shortest in the bunch-also having her weigh the least at one(who would have thought my heaviest baby would be my tiniest one year old!) 29" and 20.8#

She has always been our serious child-NOT any more.  She is developing such a funny little personality.

She loves to giggle, and make other people giggle at/with her! And oh the faces she will make to get you to laugh at her! HA, I wish I had some pictures, but they change so fast you have to be careful not to miss them!

She loves to dance-oh man does she love to dance.  You turn on the music and her whole body rocks out!

She is opinionated! Yep.so.very.much. She may not be able to "Speak" but she will let you know what she wants, and what she wants she wants NOW!

She loves her siblings, and they love her.  There is nothing like some good sibling lovin' in this family!

She is determined!  She is determined to learn how to walk-currently she cruises around the furniture, the walls, ANYTHING that can help her walk, she will find it and she will use it!

She is starting to talk! Words she can say: mama, dada, dede(Decafe), kitty, yum, we are still working on getting the siblings names down but if you ask her to look for one of them specifically-she will point to the correct one!  She can sign: milk, thank you, eat, and more (we are working hard on please, she loves to just yell!)

She is our baby with the most hair! I love it! I'm not always sure what to do with it, since we have always had bald, blonde babies. BUT we love it!

She LOVES her daddy!  She is the 1st baby in this family to LOVE their daddy SOOO much.  He comes home and she squeals and runs to the door, if she isn't the first one kissed on and picked up oh man watch out-daddy gets a good scolding.  She loves mommy too, but she is the first one to truly be all about daddy!

She makes our lives complete.  I think we would be so lost without this wonderful, chunky, bundle of love! The one who makes us giggle, and sit down to snuggle! Our little pumpkin!

Happy Birthday Pumpkin! We love you soooo much!

Baby Shampoo/Soap-Homemade

1/3 c Dr Bronner's Baby Mild Castile Soap
1 tsp coconut oil(melted)
water
a few drops of your favorite essential oil(if you wish)
Old Shampoo Container(I just like to use what I already have in the house)

Take your old shampoo or soap container and fill it half way up with water.  Melt your coconut oil and add it to the container.  Add the essential oil(if you wish), and the soap(you can buy this soap on Amazon!)! Mix it in, and add enough water to fill the rest of the container up.  This is what I used to fill up my 15oz container-so feel free to add/subtract based on the size of your container. Super quick, super easy, and super cheap to make! Right up my alley!

*We have used this for a month now on our babies and I will never go back to any other soap.  It leaves their skin so silky smooth! My husband and I love to rub their backs and bellies when they get out because they are so smooth! (Confession-I have even used it a couple times myself and my skin felt the same way)

Homemade Baby Wipes

One of the easiest things to make that will save you a little bit of money here and there.  Homemade baby wipes!  I just started making these since having baby #3.  Mainly I started making them because I couldn't keep them in the house.  With 3 kiddos needing diaper changes and bums wiped, we went through a lot of wipes, and I mean a LOT of wipes.  I also feel better knowing their little bums are taken care of with homemade wipes because there is not a lot of chemicals in them!  A great benefit to making things for yourself-you know what is in it. I also want to say that baby #3 has yet to have a diaper rash-since this is the only thing different with this baby, I'm blaming that totally on the wipes!

What you need:
1 Roll Paper Towels(you must you bounty-cheap brands just don't work for these they will shred)
2 c warm water
1 Tbsp Coconut oil(melted)
2 Tbsp Baby soap(my favorite is Dr Bronner's baby mild castile soap)
Container to put it in.  I have use old wipes containers, although it will take a bit longer to do it that way.  I have also used a Tupperware and that goes significantly faster, but use whatever suits your lifestyle better or whatever you happen to have on hand.

Cut your paper towel roll in half, and take the cardboard middle out.  If you are using a Tupperware just pull part of the middle paper towel up a bit and place in the paper towel in the container.  The container does need to be pretty air tight.  If you are using a wipes container see below!  Mix all the wet ingredients together.  Now pour over top of the paper towels.  Close up your container and you are done.  You should be able to use half of this mixture over one half of the paper towels and the other half of the mixture on the other half of paper towels that way you use the whole roll and all of the mix.  If you only have room to do a half roll start with that and only use half the amount of wet supplies!

*Note for using old wipes containers: I am a bit OCD so when doing it this way I wanted to make sure I could pull them out the little hole and the next one would follow, just like the store bought kind.  If you have a couple extra minutes go ahead and do it this way.  I have 3 extra wipes containers that I keep around the house, when I make them I make all 3 containers that way I don't have to make them as often.  So to get them to come out of the container correctly you will need to tear all of the paper towels apart.  Now you stack/layer them.  Put one on the bottom, and then about 2" from the right end place the next paper towel on top. That way they overlap by about 2", now put the next paper towel on top of that one but overlapping on the opposite side.  Then fold it over so they are the same length.  Keep going in this pattern until they are all folded up.  You fold them right after the 2" together, this way when you pull up on one paper towel the next one will follow in line.  It sounds a bit confusing but it does work and isn't as hard as it seems.  Again the container is a faster less confusing way, but I'm a bit OCD and like things in correct containers!

*Update: Since I made this mistake last time I made them-we had bought those select a size paper towels-DON'T cut those ones in half.  Just tear off each piece and make that one wipe! Otherwise you will end up with these little tiny squares.  If you are wiping a newborn hinny than that might work-but on bigger bums not so much!

Good luck!  Have fun saving yourself some money.  This really is a fast project, it smells good, and feels good on baby's bottom ,as coconut oil has healing properties for diaper rash and is very soothing.

Turning 2!

Happy 2nd Birthday to our wild, sweet, little peanut!  You have brought us so much joy and we cannot imagine life without your constant energy and chatter!  Athaiah you are a bundle of energy, constantly on the move!  You speak so well it is unbelievable.  In fact, you have been known to speak for your brother at times, and you know no stranger.  You are a mommy's girl still-but love your daddy and get so excited when he comes home or walks into the room! You LOVE shoes and that is probably an understatement, you walk around all day putting on new shoes, and it doesn't matter who's shoes they are, so long as they are shoes! You are a blessing to our family. We love you to the moon and back!

We were blessed to be able to go home for Athaiah's 2nd birthday and spend it with family and friends! Thank you to every one who came out.  These are just a few pictures from the party!

 Cake Time!

Pretending like she won't make a mess!

 Thankful we removed the shirt! My messy girl!

  This is my favorite picture of the afternoon.  This is our family with all of our grandparents-so the kids great grandparents! They are all still living and we are blessed beyond belief that they have been able to share in our children's lives.  This picture will forever be a treasure around here!  Thank you to all of you for making such an impact on our lives, we are blessed to call you our grandparents!

 The birthday girls! My baby sister's birthday is the day after Athaiah's. Very glad we got to see her that close to her birthday this year! No matter how old you get and how many children I have-Alyssa you will always be my "baby." I can't believe what an incredible woman you have turned into.  I love being able to call you my sister!

This is the birthday girl the next day in one of her new outfits.  She was so excited to get so many wonderful presents.  She spent the next day looking through them all again and playing with them all! Thank you again to everyone that came out.  It was GREAT to see everyone of you and to be able to catch up a little.

Happy Birthday Peanut!

Big Bed-Big Kids

We decided it was finally time to get the 2 older ones a big bed! Athaiah has still been sleeping in the crib and Elijah has been in a toddler bed. After looking through all of our options we decided on a mini loft bed with an extra mattress on the floor, that way they could have a "bunk bed" but we would be able to better reach the child on top!

They are so excited about their new bed they play in it at every opportunity that they can get.  We are beyond pleased with it.  It took some rearranging to make everything fit for 3 kiddos in one room! But I think we finally accomplished it with it not looking too terrible cluttered!

This was them on St. Patty's day(the only recent one I could find of all 3 of them)

The dressers/changing table! They love the set up-Athaiah loves having access to all the shoes. We may need to rethink that option LOL! But it is nice because they can help themselves now when we ask them to find their shoes!

They are looking forward to many fun nights in their new beds.  We still have yet to officially move Avery up-hopefully this weekend we will start with that process!  Then we will have no babies in our room(at least for now!)

Plastic Bags

I have an abundance of plastic bags. Ok, not any more, I tackled this problem and thank goodness! I wish I had a before picture to show you how awful my broom closet looked.  Just try to picture no room for anything, and a ton(about a million) plastic bags all crumpled up everywhere, and you are maybe close to how it looked!

This is what I have after the fact.  I have one big container for the broom closet, a glass jar for under the bathroom counter, and I have an old Lysol wipes container for down in the laundry room.  Looks great right!

Now to show you how I did it! It is super easy.  Remember making paper footballs in high school?  Well that is all we are going to do, just out of plastic bags instead of paper.  This took me quite a while to tackle them all the first time, but since has been so much easier for our busy life and really helps me feel less cluttered.  Way worth it in my opinion!!

 Lay your bag out flat, and push out all the air.

 Now fold it in half. Pushing the air out again.(when you do this by moving from the bottom towards the top, you don't want to pop a hole in your bag). I typically use them for garbage bags, holes make them unusable.

 Tuck the handles in!

 Fold in half once more!

 Start by turning one corner over, to make a triangle, keep going in the pattern until you get to the top of the bag.

 Now that you are almost to the top, you are going to fold the last part into the top of the triangle.  Make sure you stop when one of your triangles bottoms is up that way you have something to tuck the end into!

All done!  Now just put in some wonderful Tupperware containers and you have them all nice and neat for much easier storage!

 I can now enjoy my nice clean broom closet!

The Little Things

Some days, OK most days, it is all about the little things.  All too often we get caught up in the bad that has happened that day or that moment, and we let it ruin our day, and our lives.  Am I looking at the little things? We have been sick quite a bit this winter.  With sick little ones that require extra attention, and with a sick mommy running low on energy it seems to not take much to "ruin" my day.  My motto for today specifically, but all from now on will be: What are the little things?

When I say What are the little things, I am NOT talking about the little things that can seem to ruin my whole day or run my patience dry. But rather, what are the little things that I love, what are the little things that make(made) me smile, what are the little things my children have accomplished or done today.  What are all THESE little things, all these wonderful little things given to me each and every day, and often several times a day.

So, what are my little things?  Today they are many and I'm sure I cannot list them all but it has done wonders for my attitude to remember them through out the morning.

My little things are:
The way my snuggle bug(Athaiah) climbs up into my lap asking to just be rocked.
Elijah calling his sister his sweet girl and asking if she needs anything.
Sharing and playing so nice with their barn and the animals that go with.
Their energy level, even while sick.
The baby's love of snuggle time, and her new interest in big girl food.
When Elijah hurt Athaiah(partially an accident) Athaiah pulls out her Bible and tell him "see brother, be kind to one another" -Makes my mommy heart melt that they are learning, especially when they are disciplined.
Athaiah putting her bunny and baby on the couch and covering them up, kissing them, and telling them goodnight.  It makes me think of her a long way down the road and what a wonderful little mommy she will make!
Them running through the house singing songs. I love the sound of their voices singing in unison.
Playing basketball together-the whole time saying please and thank you while taking turns shooting baskets. And being great encouragers: when they miss they let the other sibling try again,and when they make a basket they break out in applause!

This is by no means a complete list, but it is some of the little things that have made my mommy heart smile this morning.  And with a night when I was up more than I was a sleep this is what I needed today.  I needed God's gentle reminder that even when my day may "seem" bad, He is there and His love is shinning through. He is with us and guiding us.  He is helping us grow up our children according to His word, and most of all HE is there helping me make it through the day-carrying me when necessary, and reminding me of all the little things!

Take the time today to look for your little things.  All those little blessings you have been given.

Remember: "This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it." Psalms 118:24

(I know it isn't the best quality-it was taken via skype) But I love this picture of my family!