Baby Food Eater

Riley has had rice cereal here and there when I have felt like giving it to him since he was about 4 1/2 months old. I really don't like to feed babies babyfood so I wasn't really looking forward to this next step in his development. We let Mckenzee give him his first bite of cereal. That was cute. When he turned 6 months his doctor said he was ready for fruits and veggies and we ordered the Beaba Babycook. It's awesome, so awesome that I'm not sure how much credit we should get for making his food. All you do is dice the fruit or vegetable and put it in. It steams it and purees it. Okay, maybe there are a few more tiny steps in there, but not much. Riley's first food was sweet potatoes and he seemed to like them. Since then he's had pears, apples, squash, bananas, avacadoes and carrots. He prefers most of his food to be mixed with a little rice cereal or oatmeal and when we do it that way he eats every bit of it. He is a good eater. When I start making his oatmeal in the mornings he starts yelling and flapping his arms. We are still breastfeeding and will continue until he is one, although he is really becoming increasingly frustrating to feed during the day. I think he would like to play toys and eat at the same time and it just doesn't work out that way.  He is weighing in around 19 pounds now. Big boy, big boy.

Sweet Potatoes

Haircuts

Mckenzee and her sweet friend Sarah got haircuts together. These girls were born just 6 weeks apart and have been friends for 3 years now. They are so cute together!

Riley-man got his first haircut

I had wanted to wait until he was one, but accepted that it was time. Daddy and I did our best at home. It's not perfect, but he was pretty squirmy.

Before

Before

After

Riley Can Clap!

This was the highlight of my week. He says Momma too! I will try and get a video of that.

New Car Seats!

Everyone knows I love car seats. Riley was ready to move to a big boy car seat and so I started looking for the best deal on my favorite Britax Boulevard. Well, I found them on sale at Albee Baby. We ended up getting a new car seat for Mckenzee too. We saved over $200 with the sale and because there was no tax or shipping, plus my parents gave us some money too. We had a car seat and my parents had a car seat so by getting two new ones we would have two and they would have two in their car. Mckenzee's was the one that was on sale the most because it was a 2008 model. She is so happy to have a pink car seat. She just kept saying "Ohhhh, Ohhhh" when I took it out of the box. I sat it on the ground and she said "Put me in it!" Riley seems to like his too.

The Winners are......

Kari and Kim!!!
Way to go ladies, you both got a lot done! I wish I could say the same for myself. I did this giveaway to motivate myself and did nothing.Thanks for playing and I'm glad you both got so much done!!!

Please excuse Mckenzee picking her nose in this video. I didn't realize until it was over and could have retaped, but I chose not to. Side note: The tank top she is wearing was mine when I was her age. It is her favorite thing to wear and the only thing she gets happy about putting on. She did however, cut a hole in it recently, but that's okay. It's been around 25+ years.

Kim's cute daughter in her big girl room with all it's finishing touches!

Kari's husband.... organizing and labeling over 600 pictures from his childhood and putting them in albums. No matter how many times I tried I couldn't get these pictures any bigger or make the words go down above the kitchen pictures. It looks fine in my compose mode, but jacks up when I publish and I gave up.

Kari's kitchen before and after

:)

Thank you everyone for those encouraging words! I will say I have had a great week. I have gotten out of the house twice by myself with both kids and once ALL by myself. Riley can sit in the front of the buggy now so going to the store is so much easier and even enjoyable. Mckenzee had a giant fit this morning because she wanted to watch tv and her mean mommy said no. So, I decided it was time for some new projects. We met Daddy for lunch at Chick-fil-a and then spent an hour and a half at Michaels stocking up. So far this afternoon she has already colored her own wooden puzzle, paint by numbered and she is fingerpainting as we speak.

Your funny for the day:

This week we painted a bird house (large milk carton) and this morning Mckenzee was outside and a bird flew by and she yelled at it, "Hey come back here, I made a house you!"

Overwhelmed

Recently, I have felt like I am just at my limit. I am really only six months into this mom of two thing and a lot of the time I feel pretty good about myself, but here lately I can't seem to keep my head above water. I can't do all the things I want to do as a mother. I can't keep up with my house. I certainly am not able to do any of the things I want to do just for me, like craft projects, making laminated charts with velcro, organizing the bottom shelf in my laundry room, blogging family events, planning a date with my husband, lesson planning for Mckenzee's at home preschool. When I get to this point of being overwhelmed I become paralyzed and do nothing. So, all of my free moments lately, (which come late at night when I should be sleeping and make sure and suck out all of the energy I should be storing up for the next day) are spent on my virtual farm on facebook. Seriously??? Yes, that's what I do. It is mindless entertainment and I allow myself to completely veg out (hate the word veg) in front of the computer. I am currently saving for a barn and tomorrow I will harvest roughly 120 plots cotton.