Jingle Bells!

I know this video is sideways and a bit blurry, but it's too cute not to post!!

Mailey's First Haircut

We finally cut little misses hair- more like a trim! Her bangs were really long in the middle, so we decided it was time to trim them. :( We also made the back as even as possible (without cutting it all off). We saved her little tuft of hair! She hated it and kept jerking and saying "ouch that hurts me!" I'm crossing my fingers she won't get any ideas about cutting her hair.

She was not happy we cut her hair...

Her little tuft of hair.

Daddy trimming the back

We had to bribe her with M&M's for her to sit still.

Raptor Center

 Daniel and Mailey got to go to the Raptor Center in Eugene for Ivy's birthday with Ivy, Tanner, Aunt Sheri and Geeg! They had a lot of fun. Mailey still carries around the owl lip gloss she got there (I took all the lip gloss out asap). I met them after work at Sheri's house and had dinner and played. What a fun night, seems like Ivy was just Mailey's age. How time flies!

 The Birthday girl!



Bucket List..

This is my entry in the Just Ask Bucket List Getaway Giveaway. Just Ask offers a breast and ovarian cancer screening and is encouraging people to share 15 things that they want to enjoy in their lifetime as a reminder to be aware of your health. Below is my bucket list. Want to enter? Head on over to TodaysMama.com to get all the details.

1. Travel to Europe with the hubs

2. Have a yard that could be in a magazine

3. Run a half marathon

4. Visit the US National Parks

5. College fund for kids

6. Be Debt Free

7. Get into photography

8. Write a children’s book

9. Create a craft room and actually craft :)

10. Own an Airstream trailer

11. Take a cruise

12. Go on some type of service mission

13. Organize my home… Ugh

14. Go back to school

15. (Last but not least) Open sort of like a half-way house for needy children and their mothers.

Best friends

You would never know that Duke wasn't raised around kids. He loves his girl and puts up with lots of friendly torture from her. She loves to lay with 'Doo' as she calls him and watch movies.

Pumpkin patch bound.. scratch that McDonalds

We decided to take the kids to the pumpkin patch after work yesterday. What turned out to be a great idea, didn't really go as planned. A late start ended up with a closed sign at the pumpkin patch and several crying kids. (Mostly miss Mailey).

So we settled for a trip to McDonalds for the kids to play and eat. The kids had a blast running and screaming. They had fun going up and down the stairs, playing hide and seek and tag. 5 kids months apart is a crazy but fun time! We managed to get a group pic which was quite the task.

The Small Things Blog: La Posh Style Giveaway

Check out The Small Things Blog: La Posh Style Giveaway: Leave her a comment about what your favorite color to wear in the Fall and you will be entered to win a $50 gift card from La Posh Style! It's a lovely online store filled with beautiful, and perfectly on trend, clothes...

A girl after my own heart!

While shopping at Costco Mailey spotted these adorable boxes of shoes. She quickly grabbed 3 boxes looked at us and said "Thanks for the shoes" and walked off.  If they weren't too small she may have talked us into one pair. I've got a small shoe problem as Daniel says. :)

Big girl bed

We decided it was time to make Mailley's crib into a toddler bed.. Mailey was really excited and instantly started jumping on the bed.
At bedtime we read a story, said our prayers and went to get into bed. She asked for her 'piece' back and Daniel and I couldn't firgure out what she wanted. So she got up and grabbed the crib side and said "My piece. I need it." We laughed and then told her she was a big girl now.
She got out of bed once and came in our room sad, we cuddled for a minute and back to bed with as many stuffed animals as possible. She slept until 6 and has only gotten up twice since Monday. Of course I cried about my little miss growing up the first night.

Growing up too fast!

This picture makes me really happy and sad at the same time! I want my girl to grow and be independent. But that means she'll need me less and less... :( This momma isn't ready to have a big girl yet!!

Working on her balance skills

Chickens I don't see any eggs here..

Sorry the video is sideways, not sure why my phone does that... We've been busy around our house, cleaning up the yard, replacing siding, and taking care of the chickens and Duke. Mailey loves the chickens, she wants to go check for eggs first thing in the morning and then she refuses to eat unless the chickens can have some of her food. So we have to set aside a few things for the chickens to eat and then she usually eats her food.

Morning jaunt to get the chicken eggs.

On rainy weekends we..

Head out for errands with our "coffee" (apple juice for Mailey) and purse 

We paint a million blank sheets of copy paper

We bake cookies.. Mailey mostly eats the dough.

Make breakfast for all our stuffed animals

Strawberry jam

A couple weekends ago I picked 13lbs of strawberries.. they went bad in less than 24 hours. Long story short, I got more strawberries and made freezer jam tonight! I'm going to make strawberry/raspberry when I can get raspberries. Daniel thought that combination sounded good. (I froze the other half of the strawberries this time.)

Lumpy cushion..

I sat down on the end of our sectional by Mailey's toy box, and it felt a bit lumpy.. so I picked up the cushion and found ALL this! I also found Daniel's gift card under the next cushion. It's been missing for a week.

Swim, swim, swim!

We had dinner out at the lake the other night. Duke loves the water and so did Mailey. We couldn't keep her from getting in, and "swimming" around. She's going to need a life jacket, because she is fearless. She said "I wike the ocean!" and rolled around in the muddy water.

Baby Daddy... Naa the BEST daddy!!

This girl has one special daddy!!! Not only does he work weekends, but he stays home during the week to watch this little whipper snapper while I'm working. I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am for Daniel!!! Daniel takes on way more than any ordinary dad would, and never complains! Mailey sure loves the time she spends with her dad, and has him wrapped around her finger. :) Thank you for all you do for your girls babe, we love you!!

Happy Father's Day to these two special dads too! We love you two and are so grateful for such wonderful dads/grandpa's to have in our lives!! Happy Father's Day to all the other dad's in our families too!

Nightly watering chore.

Mailey loves to help water the plants! She usually runs around trying to get into as much mud and water before we catch her.

Strawberry festival

We took Mailey to the strawberry festival Saturday after Daniel got off work. It was fun, but there were a lot of weirdos out that night.. Mailey loved the big slide and the stuffed bear Daniel won here. She said to a lady at church the next day "daddy shoot gun and win a prize!"

My try at couponing..

I was able to get all this for $19.35 today at Safeway! I also got two gallons of milk and eggs at Thriftway for $5.49. I only had 3 coupons today, safeway had a mix and match sale, so I thought I would stock up on a few things we use a lot. It's not the best deal I'm sure, but not bad for me. I usually shop two or three days a week for random things after I'm off work. So I'm working on saving coupons and shopping with a list and only getting those things!

Baa, Baa Black Sheep

Mailey's new favorite songs right now are Baa Baa Black sheep and Old McDonald had a farm. She loves to sing songs and will tell you which one exactly to sing and if you don't... Well she usually says "NO Stop singing!" She's a bit of a naughty character.. Her new thing is to say "Hey guys what's going on here" if we are talking or anyone else is. This video is from my phone and I can't turn it..

Hair flowers for my miss!

I decided I would try my hand at making Mailey some hair flowers! I went to the Dollar Store and picked up all of these things (minus the scissors & glue gun) for $6.00. That's less than you can buy one for online!

First you turn the flower over and take out the plastic part. It just pops off after a few twists

Then separated all three pieces and put glue around the center of the first one, put the middle one on top, glue on the center and then placed the little piece on top. Having the hole in the center was nice for lining them up.

I found a couple pearls in my scrapbook stuff and glued them on the center. I then put a generous dollop of glue on the black clip and centered the flower on it (hold for a few seconds and your done).

As you can see this one isn't exactly center... I was trying to take a drink of Diet Pepsi while holding the glue to dry... You can't really tell once it's in Mailey's hair.

The headband ones I just glued them right on the headband. If these get destroyed by my miss, I'm not going to worry because they didn't cost me a lot and I can just make some more with my leftover supplies! I follow a long list of craft blogs and always think the ideas are so cute! When I go to try them... well they never quiet turn out right. I'm more the glue gun, fast and simple crafter! :-)