Anyone do this?

Have any of you used cloth diapers? I am seriously thinking about it. I would love to hear if any of you have done it and your advice .. and what we would need to do it successfully.

Monkey-ing around

With cabin fever in full swing again, the girls and I headed out to Monkey Joes yesterday. It's a new place around her full of big bouncy toys. We had never been so we made plans to meet my friend Taylor there. We got there a few hours earlier because I wanted to get the most for my money. I had the girls in their new outfits from our good mail package... you can't see Maddy's shirt but you can see her pants and that she wore real shoes for the first time!
Abi loving that pink shirt...
It was pretty fun at first. Abi played hard and this morning she told Doug that her cheeks were as "rosy as a pink flower petal" when he asked her how it was.

She was brave and did everything and had a great time. Maddy didn't like it very much because it is noisy.


When Taylor got there with the kids Abi had a great time playing with Jake and Samantha but it didn't last much longer. She suffered a pretty horrible fall off of one of the slides where she landed on her face and her body flipped up over her. It was terrible and still gives me a yucky feeling when I think about it. I was afraid she'd paralyzed herself or something.

At this point she was pretty tired already and so the fall kind of took it out of her and we only stayed a little longer.


Overall, it was a fun place for a while but not somewhere we will frequent.

Good Mail

This was SO unexpected. We recieved a package from Brent and Karen on Monday. It was so wonderful. There was a dance video for me that she doesn't use as much which Abi and I then did together .. it was pretty fun and a good workout. Then she included gifts for the girls. For Maddy was a cute new outfit and a rattle frog toy and for Abi was a new shirt, crayons, a coloring book, and some hershey kisses in a sheep egg. Abi was so excited. She immediately tried on her shirt (she had been pretending to be Princess Aurora all morning so it was perfect timing to get a pink shirt) and colored. Thanks guys. That was so much fun and so nice of you!

Princess school day fifteen

This was Monday. We played out in the snow for awhile and then Abi got a bath so school was held late. While I got dinner ready she was making this princess headdress. The table was a mess because she was painting glue on and then ripping up tissue paper to put on it. I will show the finished product later.

princess school days thirteen and fourteen

On day thirteen we made caterpillers...

On day fourteen we made butterfly cupcakes. These were really fun and easy.. it was a small batch of six.. and very tasty.

Princess school day twelve and pancakes

Abi made some cute fairy puppets and we made up a puppet show to show Daddy that night. This was the night I posted about the other day when we were "making her drive nuts!"

Saturday morning I always make pancakes. That morning she requested Minnie Mouse pancakes. She wanted her to have a polka dotted bow.. this was the best I could do.

Cabin Fever solutions

Last week cabin fever was hitting us bad so I asked Abi what she wanted to do. She decided she wanted to go down to the mall that has a carousel. We had to stop in at the disney store while there. We were having so much fun looking at all the cute things. She had brought her piggy bank money and was able to get a pair of Tinkerbell sunglasses for 97 cents. While I was talking to the saleslady Abi went around a corner and when she came back she looked like this...
She loved that Minnie dress. I may have to get one someday because I thought she looked so cute.

She decided she wanted to ride the bunny when we got to the carousel.
We then stopped in at the hunting/fishing store (shocker I know) to watch the fish swimming around. As we left Abi was asking me if this bear was real. I told her it used to be. That confused her. This was followed by a talk about why animals get stuffed and how some people hunt animals. I think in hindsight it was an unnecessary conversation.. but she is my kid so she'll hear my opinions on it eventually.. might as well start now.
When we got home she decided to try the sunglasses on Maddy. I thought it was funny that they were upside down because Abi usually wears them the right way on herself now.

A day of Love

Since having children Valentines day has become a really fun holiday for all of us. I love the idea of taking one day to celebrate love in a cute way. We woke up and made heart shaped pancakes and hot chocolate for me and Doug and strawberry milk for Abi and shared our gifts with each other. Last year I made our chair backers and need to make one for Maddy... but just didn't get around to it.. so she got her little gifts in her lap. Originally I had just bought the teether but one day after Abi asking for one of these dollar dolls from Target for the millionth time I said, "Okay. We'll get it if it's for Maddy's Valentine gift from you." Abi liked that idea.
Abi with her pancakes being camera shy for once.
Usually we just get one $10 or less gift and a candy of some kind but I forgot I had already bought those suckers when I got her the ladybug chocolate box so she got two treats. Then I found the Pinkalicious box set on sale at Target (Yay! She has been asking for this for months!) but I threw in the bracelets from Walmarts $1 section for fun. I was as surprised as Abi by the ginormous box of Airheads that Doug got for Abi. I usually do all the shopping for gifts so it was a fun surprise to see he thought of getting her something on his own.
Also, since I bought my own treat I got New Moon chocolates. I didn't expect any gifts and, like I said, just hoped for a card. I didn't have a card in my backer that morning but it was so sweet that when I went in to Maddy's room at 3am to feed her (technically the 15th)that Doug had stuck my card on the computer keyboard in there because he knows I check my email while I nurse to keep myself awake. The surprise for me was that I did have a gift in my chair backer. Doug had bought me the New Moon movie poster which I thought was just hilarious. I don't know how Valentines turned into a New Moon theme but it was pretty funny.

Doug's favorite chocolates are Ferraro Rocher so this year I got him those and we surprised him by getting the girls pictures taken and framing one for his desk at work. Abi is so good at keeping surprises like this. She never even hints at them.
It was a really fun and relaxing day and we all enjoyed our gifts and treats very much.... even little Madeline...

princess school day eleven

This was over a week ago and I don't remember all of what we did but we ended it with making this 'funky fairy'. Abi loved flying it around.

Catching up

No, not with this post. I just thought I'd mention that I will be playing catch up as soon as I can!

Some weekend music for the weekend

Love Vampire Weekend... enjoy two of their songs for this weekend..

Vampire Weekend - New Music - More Music Videos

The other song in my head right now is this one by Owl City. As a child of the eighties I LOVE this video.

Owl City - New Music - More Music Videos

Driving Nuts

Abi was just doing a puppet show for us when she asked me to read a story out loud while she did it. Apparently I was reading too loud because she got frustrated and said,

"You're making me drive nuts!!"

I busted up laughing and Doug did as well.

She thought about it for a few seconds and then rephrased.

"You're driving me nuts!!!"

I wonder where she has heard that?! ( I ask as I whistle and look around)

Three months Old

Good Mail

Friday we got a fun package from Doug's parents that included sweaters for the girls, a cute Valentines garland, and yummy See's toffee-ettes.

Smiley Maddy

I won!

I rarely win anything so when a few weeks ago Jill at Creativity, Musings, and Such (also known as the Good Mail Queen!) had a giveaway I was so surprised when I was actually one of the winners. We got our choice of a few of her homemade items. I LOVE her good mail labels but since I had ordered them a while back and still have quite a few I chose some Birthday cards. They came wrapped up so cute in pretty green ribbon! I love them. They are so bright and cheerful! Thanks Jill!

Storytelling

Princess School day Ten

Today Abi got to use watercolor paint for the first time and she loved it. Funny thing is when I told her that we were going to paint with watercolors, she went and put on a swimsuit.
Later, after the paper had dried, we made it into a princess fan. You can see Abi is in another outfit.
Then we made Heart shaped Confetti Cookies.

Good Mail

You know we love some good mail! We got a Valentines package from my mom and dad with some Valentines goody bags. Abi got candy and a Chipmunk toy in hers and we got candy and a cool heart cookie cutter. Maddy got a fun new rattle. Also in the package were a Noah's ark coloring sheet, a Noah's ark puzzle, some Christmas crafts, and two Berenstain Bear movies. Abi was thrilled.
Maddy playing with her new rattle...
Later that same night Abi came down in her millionth outfit of the day. I told her to strike a pose and these are what I got...

Princess School day Nine

This day we read some princess stories, made Valentines cupcakes, and Abi painted a self portrait! She explained that in the picture she has long hair and a top knot.

Movie Review Monday

The last few movies I watched over Netflix on the tv (through the playstation.. love that!) were of the most recent books I've read for the Book Club.

I've been watching them over the last few weeks but this week I finally finished...

Little Lord Fauntleroy:

This was cute. It was really cheesy and I'm sure they could have done a better version of it but they did stay pretty close to the book. The little boy was really cheesy but did look a lot like the illustrations in the book.

This is a story of a little boy who is going to be the heir to his grandfather.. an earl. He is a sweet little boy from America that has never met his grandfather because his father was disowned when he married an American. His mother whom he calls 'dearest' and he are brought over to England (his father has long been deceased) and while his mother is not allowed to the castle and lives close by, he moves in with his Grandfather.

I think the book and movie hold a good message of treating someone the way they could be and they may try to become that person.

It's heartwarming and sweet but very saccharine.

Jane Eyre:

This is the other one I have been watching over the last weeks and finally finished. It is February's book club book and I LOVED the book so quickly began watching this version of the movie. Loved it too.

It follows the book very closely. Mr. Rochester is much more handsome than he is in the book (I mean, a Timothy Dalton was BOND) but he played the part very well.

I think this is such a fabulous story. It has all the fun of the classic stories but with mystery and twists thrown in.

Terminator Salvation:

We actually had this one sitting around the house for close to two weeks because although Doug originally asked me to get it, once we had it we weren't motivated to watch it. So, finally on Sunday we put it in so we could send it back the next day.

I am not a huge fan of the Terminator fan but I am a Christian Bale fan so....

I actually liked it a lot. Doug did too although we both had a good laugh talking about the few things in it that didn't make sense or add up.

Overall it was a very exciting action movie and Christian Bale was great as always.