The Maiden Voyage

Thursday, June 30, 2011



We took the boat out today (in the rain) and we didn't sink! Wahoooo!

Lunch

Another use for cloth diapers

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

CLEAN cloth diapers also work great as a knee ice pack!

Random Tuesday Night Thoughts...

- Living back on the Indian Reservation has made me a fireworks HATER. Seriously people, the 4th of July is in 6 days. Please wait until then to go crazy with your fireworks.

- I made it through my first Zumba class tonight! It made me thankful that my life is not a reality tv show because I am so uncoordinated and no one needs to see the extent of that!

- We finally got a Phil & Teds double jogging stroller! I love it! I am so glad that I won't have to wear Claire when I go walking now!

- I walked into a door today and now my knee is swollen. I wasn't kidding about the coordination thing.

- I got my hair cut this past Thursday and I still can't decide if I love it or hate it. I ended up seeing a "new" girl this time. I will definitely go back to my "old" girl next time!

- Kenley's new favorite word is No. That is fun...

- My husband is hunky!

Happy Thursday!

Look what we got!

Caesar Salad Dressing

Thursday, June 23, 2011

I have Caesar salads to thank for turning my husband into a lettuce eater. Back in the day Brian was a total green food hater. Sometime during his time in Pensacola he became a salad convert and now he would happily eat Caesar salads every day! I used to just buy the Caesar salad in a bag kits but I am not too crazy about the ingredients in those ready made dressings so I decided to make my own. I have finally tweaked my homemade Caesar dressing recipe so that it is just right! I typically have all of these ingredients on hand so it is super easy to just throw this together any night of the week!

Caesar Salad Dressing

6 Tbsp Mayonnaise
Juice of 1 Lemon
4 Cloves of Garlic
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1 t Worcestershire sauce
S & P

-Place the 4 peeled cloves of garlic and the 1/4 cup of oil into your food processor or blender and process for a minute or two until the garlic is finely minced.

-Place a strainer over a bowl and pour the garlic oil through the strainer. Push the drained garlic around with a spoon so that most of the oil is drained. Reserve the oil for another use such as sauteing veggies or making garlic bread.

-In a bowl combine half of the reserved garlic with the lemon juice, mayo, and Worcestershire. Whisk until completely combined.

-Add salt and pepper and taste to see if it needs more of the garlic or more Worcestershire.

Throw a bunch of romaine lettuce, croutons, Parmesan cheese, and this dressing into a big bowl, mix together, and bam! awesome caesar salad perfect for any night of the week!

*This dressing will keep for up to 1 week if kept in a small lidded container in the fridge*


Summer

Tuesday, June 21, 2011




I love this picture of Tyson mid air!



I named the chickens! This one is named Feisty because she always tries to escape and the other one is Ruby.


Her swimsuit is a bit big dontcha think? :) Its a 2t.

Dance Dance!


Special thanks to Auntie Kimbe for taking most of these pictures!

6 Months Old!

Monday, June 20, 2011

Has it really been half a year? I can not imagine our lives without Claire! Its hard to even remember what it was like to have just 1 baby!

Sometimes I think back to how "easy" I had it when it was just Kenley and I... 1 kid is so much easier that 2 but I wouldn't have it any other way! Claire is so sweet! She is usually just content to chill wherever we go.

She has the sweetest little giggle and laughs pretty much every time anyone talks to her.

On Kenley's 6 month birthday we started her on solids because she was READY! I just don't feel like Claire is really ready for that step yet. She doesn't really show any interest in what we are eating and I would rather wait until she is better at sitting up anyway.

She is sleeping from about 9:30 pm to about 7:30 am.

She still eats about every 3ish hours during the day. We aren't really on a schedule because I am just too flakey and go with the flow for that kind of thing but its usually about every few hours. :)

I love snuggling her! She fell asleep in my arms yesterday and that was just the thing I needed to comfort me! (I had an aweful stomach bug)

I am very excited that I finally get a cuddler!

She is really starting to fill out! She has the sweetest chubby cheeks and she is also starting to get some chub on her thighs! I feel a little bit bad for her that she will probably always have to be the "bigger" sister, but she has such a sweet disposition that I don't think it will bother her too much!

Kenley and Claire are now officially roommates! Claire has done great sleeping in the crib and to the best of my knowledge Kenley hasn't tried to poke her or pull on her through the slats of the crib. :)

I love you sweet Claire! You bring such a joy to Mommy and Daddy!

Happy Father's Day!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Happy Father's Day to the great Dad's in my life!

Finally!

Friday, June 17, 2011

Kenley finally gets to play in the baby pool she got for her first birthday from Lily Kate! Thanks Lily Kate!

random bits and pieces

Thursday, June 16, 2011

The past few days have flown by! Brian has been home with us and it has been so wonderful! We love getting extra Daddy time!

Saturday we did the adoption run 10k! Brian ran it, Terri walk/ran it, and Fred and I walked and talked while we pushed the littles in their strollers.

Kimberly is home for the summer now too! We have really been enjoying all of our extra time with Daddy and Auntie!



Kenley likes to steal Aunties "eyes"... Kimberly is nearly blind though so I try to not let Kenley wear the glasses for too long in fear that she will ruin her own eyesight by looking through that thick prescription. She sure does look cute when she wears them though!
Blanket and Giraffe have had to let Baby Maria in on the night/nap time cuddling. Maria was my baby doll when I was little! I really wanted a Mexican baby doll, probably because we ate a lot of Las Margaritas... Now I like to think that even when I was little I knew I wanted to adopt! :)
Wednesday I went to work! I worked at Anthropologie to help count inventory. It was pretty fun but I missed my babies! It worked out that Claire only had to have 1 bottle from Daddy. I think that he really enjoyed getting to spend the morning flying solo with his girls.

I am so thankful that Brian desires for me to be a stay at home Mom! I am also so thankful to him for getting up so early for school everyday! He typically has to wake up @ 4:45! That is so early! I had to wake up @ 4:00 for inventory and it was rough!
I am attempting homemade vanilla extract! It seems to be a pretty simple method. 3 split vanilla beans per 1 cup of vodka. Place in a bottle and shake every once and a while for 2 months. I will let you know if it ends up working! Someone gave my mom that pretty bottle and I promptly stole it to house my soon-to-be-vanilla. :)
I found tons of oranges on sale for 50% off today at the co-op! I am going to crank up the juicer and make fresh orange juice for breakfast tomorrow!

Hairbows {A Tutorial}

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Kenley's first word was bow, as in hair bow.

She has probably worn a bow in her hair everyday since she was about seven months old. Now that she is getting older and her hair is getting longer she usually picks out which bows she wants to wear as well as asking for a bow on each side of her head to keep the hair out of her face.

Boutique bows can be ridiculously expensive! Save yourself some money and make a few hair bows for that little girlie girl in your life!

{Please bear with me for this tutorial, it is so easy to show you visually how to make the bow but not so easy to explain it in words! Please feel free to ask questions if I confuse you!}

Here is what you need:
Ribbon- Grosgrain is best. {Target sells spools of 6 ribbons in their dollar spot. Each ribbon is exactly enough to make one hair bow! Some of the ribbon on the spools is more suited for plain clips than bows though.}
Pliers
Wire
Hot Glue Gun
Hot Glue Sticks
A Piece of Wax Paper
Metal Prong Hair Clips {Available @ Sally Beauty Supply}

To start, clip a few 1 inch pieces of wire. You will need 1 piece of wire for each hair bow so cut accordingly.
Take a long piece of ribbon and form a loop so that the short end of the ribbon is on top of the middle and going off toward your right.
Take the long part of the ribbon and loop it over the middle going up toward the right.
Loop the long part of the ribbon behind itself going toward the bottom right.
Bring the long part of your ribbon over the middle so that the excess ribbon goes toward the top left part of your looped bow.
Pinch the middle of your loops and tie with the wire. I usually start from the back and twist in the front and turn my twisted part toward the back of the bow.
Clip the excess ribbon so that the tail is about the same length as your loops. To prevent fraying you can heat seal the ends of your ribbon by getting the end close to an open flame. Watch carefully as the ribbon should melt together quickly when it nears the flame.
Now that your basic bow shape is made you can begin to cover your hair clip. Starting with the inside bottom apply a little hot glue and attach your ribbon
Turn clip over, apply more glue to the underside of the clip, and pull ribbon to cover the prongs.
Turn clip back over and add a dot of glue to the edge of clip and bring ribbon in and up over the larger end of the clip.
Clip the clip onto some wax paper, apply glue to the top side of the clip and attach ribbon. {Try to keep the glue onto just the clips prongs if you can, too much glue will create a bumpy clip. The wax paper serves as a back-up}
Glue ribbon to top of clip. Before you finish attaching your ribbon to the remaining underside of the clip, you will attach the bow.
Glue bow directly to ribbon covered clip
Cut a small piece of ribbon to be your middle piece
Apply a dot of glue to middle of bow and attach your small piece of ribbon
Turn bow over and glue excess middle ribbon to the clip
Once your middle ribbon is glued down you can glue down the remaining clip cover ribbon over the glued down middle ribbon.
Congratulations! Your first finished hair bow!
While you have all of the supplies out you might as well make a bunch!
These specific ribbons were for a baby shower gift so I whipped up a simple little shape with my silhouette machine so I would have a little something to present the hair bows on!

{I have read a few tutorials online for how to make hair bows and my friend Lauren also showed me how she makes bows. I took bits and pieces of a few different ways to make bows and this is the way that I have found I like them best. If you make these bows please link up in the comments so we can all see your creations!}

 
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