Yesterday was Johns 26th birthday and since he has been wanting to go to Clarks Fish Camp thats where we went for dinner. It was John, Kaylee, Kyle and I and his parents and brother and Mamie and Papa. Its been a long time since we had been there and neither of the kids have ever gone. I forgot how much I love that resturant. Its a really cool place. They have just added on to the building and have added a lot more animals since I had left been there. There is also a new turtle and alligator exhibit that they are working on right now. Kaylee loves animals so she was in heaven looking at everything. The food was delicious and after we ate we all stood around on the dock for a while feeding the fish, alligators and turtles!! We all had such a great time. I am so blessed to have such an amazing husband that works so hard for me and our family. Happy Birthday Babe...WE LOVE YOU!!
I have started working on preschool at home with Kaylee. I really want to homeschool and I thought it wouldnt hurt us to get started now. We both LOVE it!! I have been printing out tons of worksheets for her to do and made us a schedule of what we are going to work on. Each week we will focus on a letter and a number and also try to memorize a bible verse. We already learned the fruits of the spirit but I found cute little worksheets to go along with that so we are going over one again each week!! I love teaching her new things and she really loves to learn. She begs every day to do school and always wants to do more than I have planned for her. I am trying to cherish this time that she begs to do schoolwork because i know it wont last forever.
About the time I started making my own baby wipes I also found a recipe for homemade laundry soap. If your anything like our family then you know how expensive laundry soap is. Especially when you leave the clothes in the washer for to long and have to re-wash them like I am known for doing lol. Anyways there are a lot of laundry soap recipes online but I chose to use the one that the Duggar family uses. I figured they probably wash nore clothes than any other family so they should have a pretty good recipe lol. I was a little hesitant at first that the clothes wouldnt get clean, or wouldnt smell good but they really do. John has very sensitive skin so he was worried that he may break out or something but we have been using it for about 2 months now and its going great. When I calculated how much we were saving in one year just from making it ourself I was shocked. You can buy all the stuff you need at walmart for under $7.00 and if my calculations are correct then you should have enough to make soap for one whole year before you need to buy the supplies again. $7 per year as opposed to $12 every 2 weeks....can't beat that!! I had to make my second batch of soap yesterday so I thought I would document it for anyone who wants to save money and make their own soap.
I love the Duggar family and a few months ago I was reading on there website that they make their own baby wipes to save money. I figured I would give them a shot and I ended up LOVING them. There are much cheaper than store bought baby wipes and in my opinion they work better. I thought I would post the recipe for those of you who wanted to try!!
You cut one roll of papertowels in half so that you have two toilet paper sized rolls. I have tried a couple different brands of pepertowels but found that Bounty works best.
Mix 2 cups of water, 1 tablespoon of rubbing alcohol and 2 tablespoons of baby oil together
Put 1 of the papertowel halves in a large bowl and drizzle the mixture over them.
Let them soak for 30 minutes then remove cardboard from the center
After the 30 minutes I go ahead and tear them all apart and put them in an old baby wipe case so they will stay moist.
They smell and work great and I LOVE that I made them myself. I no longer have to rush to the store to get wipes before the next dirty diaper lol..I can just make some more :)
Can you believe this precious boy is 22 months old today?? I know I sure can't!! How in the world is my BABY going to be 2 in just 2 short months??? Time is flying!! This sweet boy brings us so much joy. He is his daddys boy, his mommys baby, and his sisters best friend. He is just such a happy kid. He loves life and is always in a good mood. We are so happy God chose us to be his parents!!
I don't know how in all my catching up I forgot to mention our rabbit thumper...or "Thumpter" as Kaylee calls her. Kaylee really loves animals and we wanted to get her something that wouldnt be too much work (although the rabbit is a little more work than I would have liked). We got her about a month ago from a lady on craigslist who was giving her away. She came with a nice big cage and everything she needed to get her started at her new home. We decided that we would give it a trial run and if it just didnt work out we could give her away and we wouldnt be out any money. The kids both adore her so much that even if I wanted to I wouldnt be able to give her away lol. I dont absolutly love having her around...but its not that bad. The first night we got her I didnt realize just how fast they are and I let her down in the living room and Kyle scared her and she ran up under the couch LOL. So now we only let her run around on the porch so that there is nothing she can get into. She loves Kaylee and will let her pick her up and hold her and she loves John and will cuddle up in his lap. Kyle and I on the other hand she is not so crazy about. She is terrified of Kyle and runs from him and she always seems so uneasy when I am handeling her. It usually takes me about 15 minutes to catch her to get her back into her cage every time we take her out which is SUPER annoying haha....Oh the things we do for our kids :)www.pinterest.com I strongly suggest everyone go and check out this website. I saw a few people talking about it on facebook but had no clue what it was so I decided last night to check it out and I am obsessed. Basically people go on and "pin" different things they like, pictures, quotes, articles, products, tutorials and all kinds of other stuff and when you click on the pictures it will take you to a website that goes more into detail about that "pin". Like if someone pinned a picture of a cake, you can click on the picture of the cake and it will take you to the website that will show you the recipe of the cake. You can then "re-pin" different things you like and save them into categories so you can go back to them later. I found so many recipes, crafts, and kids activities that I can't wait to try.
When Kyle got his new Thomas bed we realized that Kaylee didnt really need her big full size bed and that it was just taking up extra space in there room so we decided to move her back to a toddler bed. She really wanted a small bed like Kyles so it worked out perfectly. A few days ago Mamie and Pa got Kaylee a new Dora toddler bed and she LOVES it. I put it together in the living room as soon as we brought it home and she laid in it until John came home because she was so excited to show him lol. We decided to leave her "Big Bed" in her room for the first night just in case she didnt like it as much as we thought but she begged us to move it out. We moved it out the next day and she was so excited. She loves the dora bed and sleeps great in it. I'm so glad we moved her back because now there room is so much more open and we don't have to worry about Kyle jumping on her big bed anymore haha!!
Isn't he so adorable in his little undies??? We got him the smallest size they had and they still are huge on him lol. I can't believe he is even old enough to begin potty training. We started a few weeks ago just introducing the potty and he is doing great. I usually keep him in underwear throughout the day if we are going to be home and he hasnt had any accidents yet. I wouldnt have started potty training him yet but he was getting to the point where every time he would pee in his diaper he would take it off..so I thought he might be getting ready!! He still doesnt talk much so I wasn't sure how he was going to tell me he needed to go but I have just just been setting a timer for every 30 minutes and as soon as I take his undies off he knows to go sit on the potty and he will clap whenever he goes pee lol. I can't believe that we will only be buying diapers for just a little while longer. I thought we would never get past diapers haha. My babies are growing up so fast!!!CRAB!!! Yep, thats what my sweet little angel told some old lady today in the walmart bathroom. She waited until the last minute to tell me that she needed to go to the bathroom and she was about to go in her pants so off we went running. Of course when we get in there all the stalls are full and there is a line. An older lady came out of a stall and it was finally out turn so we ran in behind her...before I could get the door closed Kaylee says (in her extremly loud voice) "ewww mom that lady smells like a crab!!" I was so embarassed and everyone in the bathroom laughed. I quietly asked her to hush and do her buisness but of course she kept elaborating and saying "did you smell that mom", "she did smell like a crab didn't she" lol...Thats the innocence of a child for ya haha!!
Today we had a beach day...the kids and I LOVE the beach but John really isnt a huge fan. Whenever he comes to the beach with us he usually takes a lot of time to prepare and pack stuff to make the trip as fun as possible. We loaded up and headed out thismorning hoping to beat the crowd and the rain and we ended up getting a perfect spot. We found a spot where we could park right close to the beach and there was no one around. The kids had such a good time. Mamie and Pa got them new fishing poles so they had a great time fishing. Kaylee assumed that every time she reeled in her pole she would have a fish on it so she was a little dissapointed. Kyle has a great time whenever he is outside, it doesn't matter what we are doing. He is such a daredevil and is not afraid to get in the water and will try to catch crabs and anything else he sees. Kaylee is much more cautious and although she likes the water she would prefer to be holding someones hand or at least be close. She is terrified of the little crabs and doesnt even want to walk if she sees one in her path lol. Kyle is a little sand MONSTER he is covered from head to toe within 5 minutes of getting to the beach. Kaylee hates the sand and is constantly carrying around a water bottle so she can rinse herself off. Its funny to see how different they are. 
I cant believe how fast our sweet boy is growing up. We just made the switch to a big boy bed and he is doing great. My sweet friend Brandy gave us the toddler bed her little boy just got done using and it is so adorable. I thought he may not sleep as well while he was first adjusting to it but he really has done great. He gets out a few times when we first put him to bed but never comes out of his room. All we have to do is tell him to get back in the bed and he will. I figured he would probably fall out at first since he wasnt used to sleeping without rails and he is such a wild sleeper but he hasnt yet. Of course its less than a foot off the floor so if he did fall out he wouldnt be hurt :) The first night I went in to check on him before I went to bed and he looked so grown up laying there in his big bed...Im so happy for all these big milestones but at the same time sad that my baby is growing up!!!
I am finally able to post pictures so I can get back to updating my blog more often. I have wanted to update so many times but I feel like a post with no pictures is BORNIG!! So I have lots of catching up to do. I didnt re-read my last few posts so I am not sure what I have already talked about but I just wanted to go back in and add pictures so I would have them here for my own future reference :)
Kaylee turned 3 back in March and I know I already posted about that but here are the pictures to go along with it. John and I took her to Chuck E Cheese and then my Nana and papa also had a little party for her at a park but I didnt get any pictures of that :( Here are the Chuck E Cheese pictures. 
For Easter we went to my mom and dads and had a pool party..the kids LOVED their easter baskets that my nana made for them and had a great time hunting easter eggs that Pappy and Uncle Jordan did for them. They also got to spend some time in the pool with is one of their favorite things to do :) 
In May Kaylee was the flower girl in Katelyns wedding and she was the most beautiful little flower girl I have ever seen :) She did a great job (despite the way she acted at the rehersal) and she has been asked to be a flower girl in my other cousin Farryns wedding at the beginning of next year!! Hopefully she will do as great of a job :) 
A few days after the wedding Kyle had his surgery for his ear tubes. I know I posted details about that in a previous post so I won't explain the whole ordeal again but I will say what a HUGE difference the tubes have made. Before the surgery he was ALWAYS sick and he hasnt been sick once since he got them put in. His balance is also a lot better. He used to fall all the time and no he runs around with no problems and we are always commenting on how fast he is!! We were hoping that the tubes would help improve his speech but that really hasnt changed much. We will more than likely be starting him in speedch therapy very soon!! 
