Bailey's First Birthday

Happy Birthday Sweet Love

What a mess!!

Spaghetti was Dad's idea.

Hitting mom with the fork is HILARIOUS!!

Favorite spot in the house to read, or just hang out.

Woo Hoo!!

Alex being a clown.

Double yolker

So that one egg that was bigger than all the rest, Alex picked it for this mornings breakfast and guess what! It had TWO yolks....lucky boy.

Eggs!

Just in time for the all across America recall for salmonella outbreak, we have filled our first eighteen pack of eggs as of a few minutes ago. Alex wouldn't let us eat any more until the pack was filled.

We have blue, green, brown, and red spotted eggs. They taste GREAT! The yolks are darker than the store bought eggs. That is because the longer they sit on the shelf the lighter the yolks get. They are a bit smaller than the store bought eggs but thats okay. There is only one egg the size of the regular eggs. I am conviced that our chickens are the happiest. Free ranging and playing with the dogs in the backyard. Yes, they free range WITH the dogs.

The Transition ~ a.k.a "Bailey's new room"

Well, it's done. With the next 5 days off I finally cleared out Bai's room and moved her crib from our room to hers. Ahhhhh!!! What a relief.


In addition, I picked up a few colors at the hardware store for $4 a quart (sample paint). It's perfect. We have a beautiful turqouise (The color that I want to paint the kitchen cupboards), yellow, red, brown, black, white and green. I drew a huge tree in the corner of the room. Shanon painted it brown and we will add details later. Shanon painted a funny looking bird on the door, and I painted a couple of crazy different birds, and three flowers one of which Shanon added a toothy smile too, I painted a couple of bubble bees, Shanon added the wings. It was so much fun working with Shan. It's really fun for me to be reminded of all the things I love to do, like paint, and watch how he goes with it. We really enjoyed it.

ME!!!

The Honey and his amazing critter - he is a fantastic artist

Bailey is such a helpful person.

Notice the sunflower smile - thank you honey for your help on that guy. He's wonderful.

Here are some close ups of the paintings.

My birdie

Shanons birdie

Our bee

The Bailey Cake with wild wet hair

It took her almost an hour yesterday to fall asleep in her crib. Tonight, less than three minutes.....if I only would have known it would be that simple I probably still would have waited until now to do it because this is the longest stretch of time off of work I've had in several months.

Colton comes home tomorrow, YAY! I'm excited to see my boy. It's been almost four weeks. I hope he is happy to see us. I'm going to pick him up in Wellington as usual.

Projects coming up;
A Closet for the Mamma (this week - double yay)
A Loft bed for the boys (before school starts.....must get organized! Small spaces = extra difficult to put two boys in one room)
Chainsaw for wood - priority prior to winter
School shopping
Travel down the West Coast, Ocean trip (this fall)
Write a novel in 30 days - this I am excited about. I can tell because my stomach jumps when I think about it.

Hmmmm. That seems like a lot of change still coming up - keep it coming, I am LOVING it.

Nighty Night

Weigh Down

So, my friend Jenny let me borrow this book called "The Weigh Down Diet" and I'm contemplating it. I have this goal to get to my ideal weight. I even bought a treadmill for $30 at the thrift store. I've run on it once. The kids have ran on it more than me.

This Weigh Down book talks about being your 'meant to be, ideal weight'. It talks about eating smaller portions. It talks about the size of the stomach (a closed fist), the "gift" of hunger (that can happen anywhere from 45 minutes to 36 hours after you eat), and eating what you really want - but only until your stomach is full. It also talks about how the stomach has to reach a acidic ph balance of 1.5 ( I think) which is pretty acidic, in order for the digested food to move out of the stomach and into the bloodstream. Interesting. Oh! And when your stomach is full, the taste of the food changes too. The tongues taste bugs (As Colton calls them) actually close down and the food doesn't taste as good. It also changed my perspective on the surplus of food and the idea that I am 'wasting' it. There is ALWAYS enough food. I only require a little bit. The size of my stomach organ, and then I can wait until later and eat whatever it is I want.

The book itself has a lot of God reference but I am reading between the lines. What I am getting out of it is how my body works. That's the goal. I really want to know what it is my body organs need and require to function at their optimal performance.

Now that I have these words in my head I can't eat like I use to. Bummer. Now that I'm aware of my stomach filling up I am noticing that I really like to eat food. More than I thought I did. I now notice that I eat for whatever reason - even when the "gift of hunger" hasn't presented it's lovely face.

I want to give my organs a break - not overwork them like I have been. It's almost like I've been cursed with this knowledge overnight. I was asleep before and now that I get how my body works, I can't do anything but obey it. I don't obey the food. I don't want to anyway. I need it to work for me, not me work for it. That's just stupid.

When I eat now, I am communicating with my stomach organ. I am noticing that it needs just a little more, and then stop. It's topped. But there is so much more food left!! It's been challenging stopping when I'm full. Similar to quitting smoking. Even harder. I've been eating like this for years. It's an authentic addiction. I wonder if it will truly change the way I live, and eat.

Summer oh fun... Family Reunions, Backpacking, Surprise visits, Friends,Teeth, Crawling, the Works.

So many things have happened this summer it's hard to keep this updated. It seems like every weekend we are off doing something somewhere, or someone is visiting us. It's been a whirwind kind of a year.

On our way home from Kingston we pulled over on this rest stop. I love the way Shanon took this picture. It's picture perfect!


Shanon and his favorite little girl.

Next....ROAD TRIP!!!

Kids crashed out on the way to Trenton, Nebraska - one of Shanon's home towns. This was taken on the river road in Moab, right after they both puked.

Potty Break....A park on our Road Trip to Nebraska.

The house that Shanon grew up in until he was about five. When we went inside there were still his parents cancelled checks lying on the kitchen counter!! The house was definitely haunted. In this picture there is a scary face in the window between Shanon and Colton. I wish this picture was bigger so you could see it. Maybe I can blow it up somehow.

But when Colton turned around, the ghost was gone!!

Okay, so we found this boot in Shanon's old house. It is EXACTLY like the boot he wears today although he insists this was not his, I have my suspicions.

Grandma Janousek turned 94 this year! May be the last time we get to see her. She had her entire family history sitting on that table. That baby picture on the left is her mother at 13 months of age!!

Here they are! All 13 brothers and sisters of my mother in-law. Unfortunately I don't know everyone's name and the one full day in Trenton didn't leave us enough time to really get to chat with everyone. Bummer :( But we did make the most out of our twelve hour trip out there in our new Astro Van. Everyone was very comfortable.

Bailey cakes with Grandma Janousek.

Shanon and his sissy's Shandra and Shena.

One more goofy one.

Playing in the sand at the Lake by the Girlscout lodge.
Dangit! I was working the camera instead of paying attention to her eating the sand!! The next few days worth of poop should be a lot of fun coming out.

At the lake, crashed out.

Next day....headed home.
On our way home we had to stop in a little town Leadville, Colorado to see where my mom grew up and Shanon spent the rest of his childhood. What a cute little place.

A House that my mom lived in. Check out the stain glass eye in the rafters....


This is the other side of Shanon's family. Shanon's dad's cousins still live in Leadville. We made a surprise stop to say hi on our way out of Leadville.

Shanon's dad's gravesite. I wish I could have known him. Shanon thinks he would have like me. But not as much as he liked Lori. Shanon's first girlfriend..

The following events are in no particular order but gives you an idea of what we have been up to this summer.

I loved showing Alex how to make shrinky dinks. He wanted to keep going....that's kids though. You give them a little and they wants more and more. Fun stuff.

Little octopus.

Shanon took the boys backpacking on the 4th of July weekend. Alex got to go this time and they had a blast! It's amazing what a little sweat and fresh air will do for a person.
Look how BEAUTIFUL!!

Bailey trying on moms glasses.
It's been a few days now since Bai's top teeth came in AND she is now crawling all over the place. Look out!

The kids in the hood at Kens lake from left to right, Josh, Clancey, Colton, and Summer (Colt's first girlfriend).

Alex and Tacia at the Lake. Eek on Alex's face.....

Our magpie, Punkin, hanging with Ben.

I didn't want to put this one in here because I of my gut. But I can't be selfish. This is the family on the surprise 4th of July visit. It was such a surprise to see them knocking on my door that afternoon. Loved it!


Whew! That was a lot. And all the while Bai has been tired and my awesome boys have been taking care of her. (Poor babies) Now I'm off to put her to sleep and start the never ending laundry. Loves to all!!

Alex....Alex Bo Balex....

I have to apologize that my posts are so short and to the point. I really have had to allot my time well. It's an art, really. Anyway - here it goes.

Alex and I went down the river on my Uncle Raymonds property in Kingston this year. We had to duck just in time before the bridge hit our noggins and knocked us out. What a little trooper.

We went to the creamery to see where milk comes from. Very eye opening to realize what all goes into the process. We thought we were going to a mom and pop milking the cows by hand sort of place. But no. There were 150,000 cows being milked every day at this Farmers of America facility.

He decided that he wanted a mohawk for the summer. It fits his personality a little too much. This is Alex with my favorite cousins youngest son.

The next three pictures were taken by Alex. These are flowers from our front yard. I have blown them up to 5X7's and will frame them in 8X10" black frames. They will go somewhere on our walls. Maybe the bathroom. It needs a little brightening up in there. He did a pretty good job, huh!

I was proud.