Shake it girl!

What's up with my kids and the word 'No'?  Kaleb loves to constantly say it, even to things that he actually likes....for example, a typical conversation goes like this:

Me: kk's, do you want a snack?

Kaleb: NO! no no no no no no....

Me: Are you sure buddy?  

Kaleb: NO NO NO!

-I start walking away with his snack-

Kaleb: (runs after me) No no no no (points to snack) Please?!

So really it should be no surprise to me that his sister is following suit.  Although she cannot say the word yet, she has still found a way to express how much she loves to use the word  'no'...enjoy her in all her cuteness!

Finished!

So I finished my little 4th of July project that I mentioned here earlier, and I finished WAY faster than I thought I would, woohoo!  I love what Pinterest does for me, because there was no way I could have come up with something that cute on my own.  In fact I always laugh pretty hard when someone who doesn't know me very well says 'wow, you are so creative!' :)  Oh how completely off they really are!  I just have the 'i could make that' mentality.  

It was a super easy project, and really cheap...especially if you already have the yarn on hand!  I do feel like I used more of the off-white yarn just because you could see through it easier.  I did the stars in felt, and I knew I wanted them cut at different sizes, so i was thrilled when I found a pack of felt sticker stars in different sizes at Michaels that saved me a ton of time and annoyance! Now i'm thinking that star shaped buttons would have been really cute, oh well.  Seriously though, if you want quick and inexpensive decor for the holiday, I would highly recommend this one!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!

silly girl

what is it about those door stops that makes this little girl go nuts?  I don't know, but she loves them...she seriously played there with that thing for a good 30 minutes or more!

you gotta love how easily kids are entertained, that's for sure!!  Oh and if you look real close in the picture below you can see her top middle teeth peeking through! She finally cut the tooth a couple days ago, poor thing had issues with it for a few days.  Yay for more chompers :)

currently working on

So I found this amazing patriotic wreath on pinterest from Nap Time Crafts; super fun ideas on that blog by the way! Anyways, I love all the decorations for the Fourth of July and this one looked like it was something I could actually finish in time :)  Plus living in an apartment kind of limits my home decoration and DIY needs, so this project was perfect.

Here I am about 2 naps into the wreath and already 1/4 of the way done with the yarn!  Can't wait to finish it and hang it up!

I really should be further along, but I was sitting on the couch watching Cake Boss at the same time, so yah I got distracted a few times :)

Arizona Printable

No matter where our family moves to, Arizona will always be HOME. 

I created this printable based off a few similar prints I have found on Etsy, using good ole picmonkey(love that site).  I just didn't want to spend a bunch of money on something I knew I could make myself, so here we are about 30 minutes later.  I probably could have done it a lot faster, but I kept getting pulled away from the computer to fish toy cars out from under the fridge.  

Now, I'm all about freebies, so if you want a copy, here is a link to the download via MediaFire.  I created it to be an 8x10 print, so anything larger will look funky. 

cheap entertainment

Kaleb absolutely loves 'helping' mommy with the laundry!  And by helping, I mean pulling out all the clothes so he can pile pillows and blankets into the laundry basket and play around in it :)  He especially loves when I push him around in it, and lately he throws a fit until I put his sister in with him.  It's pretty cute actually, if I go really fast he wraps his arms around her and screams 'weeeeeeeeee'.  I just love watching them play together more and more each day!

Miss Independent

Tenley REALLY loves to feed herself, but she certainly doesn't has the skills to do it very well with many of the foods she eats.   Her favorites are finger foods of course, because she can actually get it into her mouth!  She gets so mad at the stuff she can't handle so you would think she would just cave and let me feed her....nope!  I was trying to spoon feed her some oatmeal this morning but she just kept screaming at me for the spoon.  I finally gave up and just decided to let her go for it, and oh the sticky mess she made!  

This is what happens when you let an 8 month old feed themselves oatmeal :)

The pictures don't really do it justice!  There were little bits of oatmeal everywhere!!  I did my best to clean her up with some paper towels and baby wipes but it just wasn't hacking it.  I really didn't want to have to throw her in the bath; I mean most the time the kids don't get a bath before dinner unless there is an extreme mess emergency.  I guess the sticky oatmeal version of my cute daughter qualified, so she got a very early bath today :)

She is finally to the point where she enjoys tub time, she used to hate baths so much that i just took her in the shower with me all the time.  Now that she sits up really well and crawls around she loves splashing around in the tub.  I bathe the kids together a lot but Kaleb ends up splashing her too much or she just messes up his  toy arrangements on the side of the tub....

problem solved!

Lookie what I made yesterday :) 

Seriously they were super easy to make, just used some scrap fabric i already had and it took me like 20 minutes total to complete, why hadn't I done it sooner?!  and what are they for, you ask.......

They turned this......

 Into this!!

I love these Melissa and Doug puzzles and so does Kaleb, but they are so annoying to store!  Some are flat, some have pegs, and some are really chunky so they never stack well, and when he wants to play with one he ends up dumping ALL of them to get to the one he wants (usually the vehicle puzzle, big surprise i know).  They sell these metal or wood storage racks made for these, but 

1) I didn't want to spend money and 

2) I like my drawstring bags better!  

I've never considered myself to be an organization freak, but i think my kids are slowly turning me into one!

a happy father's day indeed

I had so much fun pampering Jared for Father's Day yesterday!  He really is an amazing dad, and husband so he deserved it!  He helps around the house without me ever having to ask, he doesn't complain about changing stinky diapers, he treats me like one special lady, and he loves spending time with his kids!!! I really am lucky to have him and I really wanted him to know how much I appreciate him every single day so I had a great Fathers Day planned for him!

I found some awesome printables online that I used for the banner and some extra to put on all his presents.  I made a super yummy breakfast for him to eat in bed....even though he ended up eating it on the couch :)  I made him stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer, and we had the most delicious Pork Chops and Garlic Mashed Potatoes for Dinner.  If that wasn't enough, the day was finished off by the most ridiculous dessert ever! (don't worry I will include a link to the recipe)

Here are all the presents he got, including an adorable little card craft I found on Pinterest :)

his favorite: super soft Chocolate Chips Cookies in a big ol jar!

I didn't get a picture of him holding them unwrapped :(  But he got his fav root beer soda, a big pack of Reeses, some bags of beef jerky, the movie: Coming to America, and a picture frame(see below)

here is a close up of the card craft i mentioned...and yes those are cutouts of Kalebs hand prints, which were VERY difficult to get!

Pictures of the kids with a cute quote i found online...thanks for the input on the quote.  I actually ended up printing all 3, but this one just looked best with this frame and the 2 pictures that i picked out.

and the pièce de résistance, the dessert that took like 2 days to make :)  108 Oreo Cake, yes there are 108 oreos used to make this cake, 3 packages to be exact! It was as good as it looks, and extremely rich!!!

I got the recipe here, at Something Swanky, and her pictures are much prettier than mine...it's a super fun blog and there are a million other recipes I would love to try from there, but I think i need a good month to work off the calories from this one before I try any more :)

It was a really fun and busy father's day for the best guy around, we LOVE you Jared!!

Sandia Peak

Saturday afternoon we decided to finally go up the Sandia Peak.  We've been wanting to go for a while, but just wanted to wait until the weather wasn't going to be too cold up on the mountain.  At the base of the mountain in ABQ is the Sandia Peak Tramway, which is supposedly one of the world's longest passenger tramways...I thought this bit of info was odd considering it was only about 3 miles one way and a 15 minute ride.  I really had been looking forward to going up there because there is a nice ski resort at the top.  I always had a hard time believing there would be a nice ski resort up there considering that the view of the mountain from where we are is pretty rocky and doesn't look like there would be skiing at all.  

I was pleased to discover when we got to the 10,378 foot peak that it was quite beautiful on the side of the mountain that you cannot see from ABQ (figures).  There were some cool observation points and a nice restaurant up there as well.  If you ever get the chance to visit get the Zucchini Wheels, so good!  Kaleb had a really good time running around on all the wood decking, so needless to say I didn't take very many pictures since I was chasing him down most of the time! We had a nice time, it really was very pretty up there, super cool views and the weather was a perfect 65 degrees!  

Kaleb stopped running for a millisecond because it got pretty breezy :)

if i had a nice camera and could zoom in you would be able to see the tiny stone house on the peak that workers stayed in during construction so they didn't have to go back down the mountain each night.

Tenley didn't enjoy the wind much, or having to be stuck in the stroller!

So far this is the best thing I have found in good ole ABQ, and it's not really in the city at all :)

Kaleb's birthday fun - Part 2

Part 2 - The Partay!

Kaleb's 2nd birthday party was waaaaaay different than the norm for us.  Usually there are tons of family and friends around, lots of food, crazy kids, and it gets really really loud! This year it was just us four, but we still had alot of fun...and Tenley made sure it was still really really loud :)

We started by letting him open all his presents, and as you can tell it was a Cars themed b-day.  Kaleb is obsessed with cars, both the toy and the movie :)

We have Cars 2, but never bought the first one, so when he unwrapped the movie he was SO excited!!

The first couple presents he unwrapped were toy cars and he was very happy to be getting more toys.  However, when he opened up the present with his white church shirt in it he got pretty mad.  It was hilarious, he even tried closing the wrapping paper back up!  I'm sure christmas will be pretty fun this year!!

He LOVED all his new cars and played with them ALL night, we had to drag him away from them so we could do the cake

The cake was a JOKE!  We ordered a really cool Cars cake from Smiths, but when Jared went to pick it up, they told him that the decorator just forgot to make it! BOO!  So they gave him the only buttercream cake out of their display case for free...but when we got it out to do candles I discovered it wasn't buttercream after all :(  Nasty whip cream frosting!  I put some cars on there and threw on the candle so we could at least sing to him.  He wasn't a big fan, but I think he was just mad that we made him stop playing because he was the only one that enjoyed eating the cake :)

Kaleb was the only turd who wouldn't wear a birthday hat :)

After Tenley was in bed, we busted out the 1$ glow sticks that he got and had some fun.  Whats a party without a sweet rave right?  Kaleb loved them, and he was a very happy little guy on his birthday...mission accomplished!

kalebs birthday fun - Part 1

Part 1 - The Picnic

So for Kaleb's birthday I decided we would go to the park...we go to parks alot, so I thought it would be fun to have lunch there, and invite Dad to come for a surprise.  Jared met us there during his lunch and Kaleb was thrilled to have dad to play with :)

See he LOVES his daddy!

Us girlies hung out while the boys played :)

I packed all sorts of yummy goodies, but all Kaleb really ate were the Cheetos...Gotta love those orange lips  :)

Tenley was her adorable hilarious little self, and she kept jacking Kaleb's sippy cup too...i guess she liked it better than her bottle.

Kaleb is 2!

Kaleb turned 2 years old yesterday!  Crazy how fast 2 years can go, it really doesn't seem that long ago that I was in forever labor trying to get this little man here.  And oh how he has changed our lives for the best!!  We love you Kaleb, kakers, k.k.s, bubba, boo bear, kakeroo, bubba k, kakes, bubbies :) 

a mash of videos

Tenley is a super squealer and this is how she communicates all the time, she is a nutso!

Finally got Kaleb to say 'where is he' on camera...he doesn't really start saying it until about 2 minutes in if you want to skip ahead

Kaleb loves to play with his sister now, although he can be a little rough at times.  She seems to love the attention either way :)

Here is one of Tenley crawling around like a pro.  She has started pulling herself up onto pretty much everything, but the couch is usually her favorite place.  She is getting so big so fast!

a little project...

So I'm working on a little project for Father's Day and I would pretty much bet anyone money that Jared won't see this so I'm not worried about it.  I made a few different styles and would love some opinions on which ones ya'll like better.  This was like 20mins of work, so I'll probably make more too, which is bad because then I'll never be able to decide which to go with.....

not again

:X the devil has returned...at least I had a longer spree of freedom this time!!  If you have no idea what i'm talking about, here's a refresher of when it happened after having Kaleb.... 'back with a vengeance'  and yes it's just as bad :(....oh and sorry if you feel like this is too much information, but I like keeping of record of stuff, even like this :)

Caught Sugar Handed

So I love watching my kids grow and discover new things, you know gain their independence etc etc.  However I can't say I was very excited when I saw Kaleb's newest abilities. He definitely didn't receive any praise from me either!  I really shouldn't be surprised though, he has been dragging his little stool around a lot lately, and he does love cinnamon sugar...put the two together and what do you get?

 I don't know what is more frightening...the fact that there was a pot of boiling noodles on the stove, or the fact that the knives are less than 2 feet away from his sneaky little hands!  Needless to say, I think I'll be moving the cinnamon and keeping a better eye on where that stool is at! It's amazing what i'll find after being in the bathroom for a couple of minutes!

Bathing Beauty

I just couldn't help but snap a few pictures of this silly girl after her bath yesterday, she is too cute to resist!  She is just so funny and so silly all the time, and I can't get enough of her big personality!  She is still quite the ball of fire at times, but generally she is a very happy little girl, especially when she is playing with her brother.  They crack each other up all the time, it's adorable.  I love watching them play together so much!  I swear I have the most high energy wild children around, but they sure do keep me uber entertained!