These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things...

1.) Baby Ka'Tan Sling...

is Awesome! I've tried several and I absolutely L.O.V.E. Baby Ka'Tan! It's the best! I borrowed my friends Moby and hated it! TOO MUCH WORK! not to mention TOO HOT, and drags the ground as your trying to get the dumb thing on! It's forever long! (imagine doing this in a parking lot! Nope...not for me!)

The Ka' Tan is SO much easier and not hot at all!

2.)Sophie the Giraffe
If your baby doesn't own one, they are missing out! They are BPA Free and can hold on to them easily! Murphy loves his!

3.) Seven Sling
Okay...So I'm a sucker for a deal. I got my seven sling for $11.00...(I had a coupon code)
You can't beat that. I got it thinking that because it's so cheap that I would try it out...Well... I love it! Murphy especially loves it! It is too easy and not hot. The ONLY thing is that it does not do well with little babies. We really started using it when Murphy turned 5 months old. I cook, clean and shop with him on me! Murphy even nurses in it! (O how I love this!)

4.) g diapers
We waited until Murphy got out of Pampers swaddlers to try out g diapers and boy do we love them! They are not true cloth diapers although they have the option that they can be. I Do NOT wish to do cloth diapers but wanted to be more environmentally friendly. The insert looks like a, for lack of a better word, pad. :0 After baby has dirtied them up we simply flush the entire thing down or toss it into the garbage. It fully decomposes by 2 rains! Not to mention that they breath really well and are not big and bulky like cloth diapers!
and they're just too cute!

(here is our little guy showing off his new diapers!)

5.) Baby Trend Expedition Jogging Stroller
My absolute FAVORITE thing is our double stroller! I hated shopping for a double stroller! Every one that I found weighed a ton, would not fit in the trunk of a car, would not fit through a normal door way etc. This one is perfect. It fits nicely into our trunk with extra room for whatever. Madelyn and Murphy love to sit beside each other and entertain each other. It has plenty of room for shopping bags. It is extremely light weight. It allows the two children to recline at different levels. I've not found a doorway that it does not easily go through, Its canopy can be easily adjusted for the sun. It is easy to push and has bike tires for an smooth ride and one of our favorite things is it has a hook up for our iphone or ipod! The kids love listening to sweet Norah Jones sing while we walk;) I can't say enough about it!

6.) Cloud B Giraffe
This little guy lulls Murphy to sleep every night! It has 4 playing options. One includes moms heartbeat. It is so incredibly soothing!

7.)Mum 2 Mum
DO NOT DIRTY UP PRETTY BIBS! BUY THESE!
The BEST bib ever! My sister let me borrow three of them. I have since bought two more! They are perfect for a baby who is learning to use a sippy cup, a baby who drools a lot or just a messy child! The nylon back keeps the child dry. They have 11 different colors to pick from! It also has an adjustable neckline. It can hold up to 1/4 cup of liquid! Holy Cow!

Here is Murphy wearing his bib!

~7 Months Old~

BOY, we are having SO much fun with our "Muffin Man"!!
Here are a few fun things about Murphy at 7 months old:
~Is crawling EVERYWHERE! (No rest mommy!)
~He has started eating food!
~Says Dada and Mama!
~Is quite the billygoat...Just when I think I have my house totally picked up , Murphy manages to find paper somewhere on the floor. I have to go digging it out of his mouth! I've even found it in his poopy diaper...So YES, he ate some!
~Has started wearing g-diapers
~Murphy has the funniest crawl. He uses his left knee and the bottom of his right foot...(I'll have to get video to show ya)
~Loves the stroller!
~Loves being in his sling on his mama!
~Started using a sippy cup and begs for it if it is in sight!
~Crawls to Maddie's room an chance he gets! Then I hear:
"NO MURPHY! Don't eat MY_____!"-Mott
~Finally sleeps through the night! (I tank him up one last time around 11:00 and he
sleep until 8ish!)
~The sound of his Laryngo is almost gone. You only really hear it when he's excited.
~L.O.V.E.S. Patty-Cake!
~Says "ne eh ne"! When he wants to nurse! So cute!
~He also pulls on my shirt when he's hungry and wants to nurse....Not so cute!
~Gets mad if he hears water running and can't get in the tub!
~Likes watching Sesame Street with Maddie!
~Murphy loves to be outside!
~Squeals at Miles (our cat) and Elsie (our dog)!
~Growls at us if we are not feeding him fast enough! (such a male...)
~ALWAYS on the move! If we get ONE good picture of him, it's a miracle!
~He is still a Mama's Boy!
~He has found his "tackle" which makes cleaning a dirty diaper MUCH harder!
~He is still such a cuddle bug when I hold him!
~ He holds his hands up at us when he wants to be picked up!

~Going Green~

I'm SO excited that we finally did it! I was talking to my sweet friend, Colleen, about using cloth diapers. She is using REAL cloth diapers with wool covers. (I'm not as brave as she is!) But we are using the best of both worlds! G diapers have an insert pad that fits inside the g pants. The pad can be flushed, thrown away, or thrown in the compost pile(only if its tee tee). If you throw them away, after siting outside in a landfill, it will completely break down after just two rains! Pretty amazing right?!
The other wonderful thing is that the diaper is very breathable and your child is less likely to get a diaper rash!

Not to mention that the are so cute on baby's bum!!!

Just fyi....the inserts cost $.35 a piece! I'd say that it's totally worth at least giving them a try!

~What Says LOVE More than this Verse?!~

February's Verse for Mrs. Mellisa Roe. (our children's worship leader)
To be able to say this at 3 1/2 years old is pretty impressive! We are SO proud of Madelyn!!!

John 3:16-17 "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him."

Go back to the last day of January to hear Maddie say the Old Testament;)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Mommy's Makin Baby Food!

Yep, ahem, that's right! I decided that I'm going to make most of Murphy's baby food. Baby food is kinda expensive and I like to know what I'm putting into my child's food. Little man still does not like a lot of baby food. I'm thinking that it's because of its consistency. He still gags at it. So I started giving him some of the foods that we were having for dinner. For example, we ate butter beans a week ago. I smooshed them between my fingers and put it in his mouth...He LOVED them and begged for more! We've done this with several other things and noticed that he simply hated the food to be pureed!
Funny thing I found out with our little man is that he loves bananas when I dice them but when they've been pureed he gags so much that he literally throws up!
So this is why I am using the baby mill and not puree it.

So far we have found that he likes:
~turkey~chicken~butter beans~black beans(his fav.)~cheese~carrots
~sweet potatoes~mac and cheese~sweet peas~peaches~bananas~squash
~zucchini~and mashed potatoes

His absolute favorite food is still nursing;) so I always nurse him before he eats real food.
I do this also to keep my production up and because my milk provides so much more than any foods can.

According to the Iowa Extension Service, every teaspoon of breast milk has 3,000,000 germ killing cells in it; so if a baby gets even one tsp. a day, it is very valuable!

Steam your veggies

Run them through the baby mill (I give some foods a little seasonings)

put in containers and label

When I warm it back up sometimes there just isn't enough liquid in it so I add a little breast milk from the reserves that I have;)

All eighty-something bags of them;) This is not even all, There are four more huge bags of this good stuff at my in-laws house;) (Thank You Nino!)

No wonder Shane called me the Dairy Queen!

I have yet to try to make fruit baby food...any comments or suggestions...
Also want to Thank Meaghan Payne for encouraging me to do this!

Snow Good!

The wonderful Paula Deen has a recipe for snow ice cream so we tried it out this time! It was SO yummy! Maddie gave it 2 thumbs up!

• 8 cups snow, or shaved ice
• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk (we used very little)
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• and of course Madelyn wanted to make it a fun color so we added blue food coloring!
  

Sorry Murphy, none for you...maybe next year;)

~Sweetness~

Rub-A-Dub-Dub...

2 Cuties in the tub!

Funny children! Gosh I adore these two!

I LOVE THIS PHOTO!
It looks like Madelyn is saying "I have the duck and you can't have it!
LOOK at this booty! Isn't it the chubbiest thing you've ever seen?!
I just love it and squish it all day long!
(oops, I think I got his goodies in the picture too! HA!)

Sweet Treat

Our friends, the Hudson's, came over for dinner on Saturday night. The girls had the best time playing dress-up. We had three very pretty princesses running around our house and our little man was crawling right behind trying to keep up;)

After dinner we took the kidos to Sweet CeCe's for frozen yogurt. All I can say is O-MY-Goodness!! It was SO yummy! I thought to myself that we would be the only ones there that wanted frozen yogurt when it's below freezing out...nope...I was wrong... There was not one single place to sit down so we went over next door at the Starbucks to sit;)

sweet Claire

Audrey was very serious about her ice cream!

We'll have to do that again!

~Chubba Wubba~