Balancing Act

Parenting is definitely a balancing act!

Xander and daddy at 5 months!

Gabriella and daddy at 6 months!

Fun with Grandparents

We've been trying to spend as much time with my grandparents as we can lately. Yesterday we hung out for awhile while the kiddos played. Gabriella likes to take knick-knacks off my gramma's shelf and show them to everyone.

Great Grampa holding Xander for the first time.

Gabriella having some snuggles with Great Gramma. 

I love that my kids love to spend time with a couple of my favorite people to be around! 

I love my grandparents!

Eclipse!

On last Sunday we wanted to watch the solar eclipse. I was super excited about it!

I looked online and found directions for how to make a safe viewer using a box, some aluminum foil and a piece of paper.

Xander and I viewing the eclipse. 

It was super fun to watch the sun and moon lighting up from inside the box. I'm sure the neighbors thought we were crazy, but it happens. 

Here is a picture of the eclipse one of my friends took. The sun looks so cool up at the top! 

I love when nature does cool things!

Swimming with James

Our dryer died (again) last night and we were blessed with being able to find one quickly for $50 so Matt and Gabriella loaded up in his truck (that we also just got fixed) and headed out to pick it up. It was Gabriella's first time riding in daddy's truck and she was super excited about it!

They made it back in time to hop in the car with me and Xander and head up to the gym to go swimming with Uncle Jonny and cousin James. 

Hanging onto the side of the pool was one of her favorite things to do.

Trying out the kickboard. 

The kids had great fun using the water weights as floaties. James was swimming all around with his but Gabriella preferred  to be held still with hers. 

They also wanted to try out the life jackets. Here she is again, hanging onto the side of the pool. 

James was fearless in the water. He jumped right in and paddled all around with his life jacket on. He also drug Jonathan into the bigger (and colder) pool several times. It was super fun to go and spend the morning getting some fun exercise and watching the kids have so much fun together!

Springtime Fun

We've been having some fun playing outside the last few days. The sun has been out and the weather warm so we are sporting shorts and our white legs!

For Mother's Day Gabriella and I picked out some plants to plant in the yard. Here she is helping daddy dig holes for them. 

We took Xander's saucer outside and he was loving it. In this picture he is watching me run the lawnmower. He was fascinated by it and wasn't scared at all. 

My rose bushes!!

(I know I need to weed)

Watering the grass. 

Watching Gabriella water the grass. 

April's Bridal Shower

April Nolan is my soon to be sister in law. We had her bridal shower yesterday at a friend's house. It was super fun!

It was a fancy affair and we all got dressed up fancy, including nice clothes, jewelry and head wear. I made my clip and I LOVE it! Super elegant and fun!

This was like the third picture we took and my mom was laughing her head off. 

We even managed to talk Gramma into putting a hair clippie in her hair. She also got complimented a bunch of times on her outfit (a nice shirt, skirt and heels).

Here we are at our table. From the far right, going counter-clockwise is Gramma, mom, Amy (my sister), me, Paula (a hygienist at April's office, and the wife of the dentist April works for. 

April opening her gifts..... Ha ha! I don't think there is much else to say about this picture. 

Her bridal shower was fun. She got a lot of very thoughtful gifts and had only family and close friends/co-workers there. We had great snacks (including a sprouts,avocado and smoked salmon tea sandwich, cheesecake and some gourmet cheeses), and great laughs. 

I'm so excited for my new sister in law!

Feeding the Ducks

When Matt brought home a 3 foot sandwich leftover from work a couple nights ago I was excited that I didn't have to cook dinner! We ate the insides out (meat, cheese and veggies) and were left with a pile of white bread. It felt wasteful just to throw it away, so I stuffed it in a grocery bag in the fridge and we waited for Saturday to arrive.

We headed to the park after a trip to the Grower's Market with Uncle Jonny, Auntie April and cousin James.

Here we are waiting for Uncle Jonny to arrive. He had to run to Safeway to buy a $1 loaf of bread to feed with

Gabriella had never been that close to a duck before (and the Canadian geese were her size!) so she approached them cautiously at first. But pretty soon she was an old pro at throwing them pieces of bread. 

Jonathan was trying to lure one in to get it to eat out of his hand.

James mostly enjoyed chasing the ducks, geese and pigeons. He was being a little boy doing little boy things. It was so cute! He was running around laughing his head off chasing them!

There were a TON of babies there. The kids loved seeing them and they made the cutest little peeping sounds. They spent a lot of time feeding the babies. 

"Come to eat it out of my hand!" She kept saying to them. It was so cute!

April was the only one successful at getting them to eat out of her hand. She did it repeatedly. Here Gabriella is assisting her. 

We had a lot of fun at the park and the weather was beautiful. Xander and I hung out in the sunshine (getting some natural Vitamin D) and staying away from all the ducks and geese (yes, I have a terrible fear of fowl of any kind!). 

Best Coupon & Freebie Deals of April

Well, April ended and so did my first month of couponing and freebie hunting. Below are what I think are the best deals that I got!

Here are all the non-food freebies that I received in the mail during the month of April. Included are magazine subscriptions to Martha Stewart Living and Ebony; two Sierra Nevada Brewing Co t-shirts, 4 Tully's K-cups, and full sized bottles of Suave dry shampoo and Bayer aspirin. 

I paid $0.73 for all of this at Rite-Aid just a couple days ago. 

After my total came up the cashier called me a "coupon mom". That made my day!

This was ordered online from Vitacost.com and I only paid $4.00 for it to be shipped to my door.

Paid $7.64 for all of this. I had enough coupons that I was able to get the cleaning supplies twice. 

After the month of April and some awesome deals; we are officially stocked up for a year on shampoo for me; body wash, deodorant and shampoo for Matt; dish soap; toothpaste for the kids; toothpaste for us and cleaning supplies. I am having so much fun couponing and getting duplicate deals so I can hook other people up too! 

If you haven't checked out this website, do so asap! http://hip2save.com/ is awesome! They post deals and coupon links to help you get started saving money for your family!

Carrots!

Xander had his 4 month check-up on Monday. 

He weighs 16 pounds 13 ounces (90th%), is 25 inches long (50th%) and his head is 17 inches (90th%). He is right on track developmentally (a HUGE relief to hear since developmental delays are a common problem with tracheomalacia cases). We got the "go ahead" to start feeding him food besides just rice cereal and breast-milk.

Here he is after eating carrots. Apparently they taste better when you try and ingest them with your whole body.....

Last Saturday was the Central Point city-wide yard sale. All in all the yard sales were kind of lame, I think we spent $5 total all day. So that was disappointing. Until my sister-in-law and I went out later in the afternoon. We scored these AWESOME Captain America costumes at a yard sale!