Irina is crazy

Every Tuesday for the past 3months my sister has been babysitting Irina, Craig and I have been taking a parenting bible study. When my sister or my mother watch her I know that all bets are off, they let Irina pretty much do whatever she wants. This is a video of Irina using her outside voice-inside. My sister took it with her phone so the quality isn't great. We thought it was hilarious!!





You can hear my cousin say "oh, they're wrong", meaning her sunglasses are upside down.
I think she looks like that blue character from Lilo & Stitch, I'm not sure who is Lilo or Stitch.

Playgroup off the playground

Left side top to bottom: Janet B, Laura R, Tida M
Center: Laura H
Right side top to bottom: Vanessa O, Jeanine F, Laura M

It is so nice to get out of the house and take a break minus the kids every now and then! No one, I mean no one, understands that more than stay-at-home-moms!! This week we got a chance to put the diapers down and leave the hubby's at home with the kiddos, it was long overdue. We met up to eat, drink and of course talk. We went on and on about houses being on the market, our husbands (all good), the school system, jewelry, handbags, and of yes our kids (SAHM, remember). I am so glad we got together, I love all my girls! Next time: Dancing!

Bedford Splash

This week we went to Bedford Splash with our DFW MOMMAS group. All the kiddos and mommas have a blast. The water park has safe toddler areas, lazy river sections and too much to mention. Irina LOVES the water, some of the stuff she learned in swim class came in quite handy. She got a bit darker despite the 2 coats of SPF 70, but what else is expected? She has skin than bronzes easily. She had so much fun going on the slides!! I have to admit I had fun too!

Irina's half birthday

Her baby carrier, she loves it!


Her first putter, watch out Tiger! Or Tiger's kids...


My baby was exactly 1 1/2 on Sun, Aug 16! I was so glad that I read my friend Laura's blog talking about her sons "half birthday", I read it just in time to borrow the idea and give Irina her first 1/2 b-day bash. I think she got the idea from our other friend Chrissy, thanks to you both for a super cute idea! On Sunday's after church we always go to my parents house for lunch, sometimes we go out but we are without fail at my parents house. We didn't want to do anything big but we did want to do something a little special for her, she is half way to 3 already! We had a delicious lunch followed by lots of treats continuing with our "half" theme. My sis took pics with her camera but she hasn't gotten those to me yet, sorry. We had half a birthday cake topped with 1 1/2 candles, sang the birthday song half way and she opened a few gifts that were half wrapped. She had woken up from her nap so she looks a bit cranky, opening the gifts cheered her right up. Craig bought Irina her very first "real" putter, I gave her some wooden blocks and we both picked out a mini baby carrier. Half a birthday celebration = 1 full day of fun!

5 YEARS

5 years ago today I married a wonderful man, he is now an amazing father and an even better husband. I love him more now than the first time I said those words to him. God has blessed our marriage and I pray that He will continue to do so.

Car Seat Safety

Well, lately I have been looking for an extra car seat for Craig's car, we have an extra seat that is in my sister's car since she is our only babysitter and picks up Irina frequently. So just for convenience purposes we would like to have one in both our cars. Craig is very particular about buying used things and isn't afraid to tell me, so he was very against buying a car seat on craigslist. I bought a used car seat at a resale shop when Irina outgrew the length limit on her infant carrier and he only agreed to use it b/c it was in the box with the manual. After reading this I have checked the date and it has 4yrs of life left but not sure I will use it again after all the new details I learned. I called the local fire department to back-up all the information I read on the internet, I never know what I can or can't believe. They all agreed and wished more parents knew about this, here is the info I found useful. Car seats have expiration dates! Did you guys know about this?? I sure didn't! Most car seats expire 6 years after the MFG date (listed on the side of car seats) after reading this I did even more research and learned that plastic becomes brittle, and starts to break down -that can be very dangerous when the car seat is stressed (in car accident). You can't tell if seats have been damaged or cracked so even if a seller says "never been in car accident", who can say if that's the truth?- they just want to sell it and make some cash. Many of these problems can't be seen by the naked eye, so be careful! Also many websites stated that crash tests and data are constantly being updated and used to make changes to car seats so they can do a better job protecting our kids. Using a car seat that is several years old could mean your baby's car seat isn't utilizing newer technologies that could be lifesaving in a crash, or it could be out of date in terms of safety standards. After all this information we are getting a new car seat for Irina, the money will be well spent. Also I attached a video that talks about rear-facing longer and why it's safer. Irina is rear facing and doesn't know any different but I know the difference is for her safety. This is not to make anyone feel bad about buying used stuff, I LOVE yard sales and resale shops and find tons of great deals but I am going to resarch before I buy. I just learned SO much info that I had to share it with yall!!

Dare Devil Birds

The other day I went to Braums to get the family a special after dinner treat. From where I live it takes me about 5mins to get there, one would think- not much time or distance to get into to trouble. One would be wrong. We have killer, kamakazi dare devil birds around here! Here's how it went down: I'm driving on western center going under hwy35 when this duo set of birds come hurling at my windshield! I am not kidding or exaggerating! I thought a huge rock had fallen off a truck from off the bridge or something, it was that loud! After I saw a feather I knew what had happened...did I mention I hate birds? The thing is, these birds were playing with fire; I mean come on this is a busy intersection- and I know that they know it's full of traffic. I'm almost certain these birds are local, I see them all the time at Kroger and Albertsons, they fly out out the trees in flocks after they hear a loud Harley drive near by; creeps me out every time! Ugh! Anyway, back to this pair of birds that nearly caused me to say bad words; after they grazed my glass I looked around for them. I thought they would be on the ground in my rear view mirror flapping their injured wings for help but nothing. The light was red so I had a chance to really search for these crazy air missiles and I think I spotted them on a land line wire/cable thing...I swear to you they were looking right at me! I saw them with their pointy heads staring in my direction, the windex commercial came to mind. The one where the crows laugh at the humans for running into a clean glass door...yeah that one. They must do this all day, look for a target and then attack..I'm telling you-it really shook me up. darn birds..

A special Bond

Many of you have heard me talk about nursing Irina and how much I enjoyed bonding with her, months a go I asked a friend to capture that special moment on canvas.

Rose is a good friend that I used to work with at Unity 1 FCU, we became fast friends and even took a ceramics class together. She is so talented, she has taken our family photos in the past and gave us an amazing painting for our house warming gift. Here is the newest piece she created. I love it! I'd say "thank you" again but she doesnt have a blog to see it on here.

Irina's 1st movie...well second

When Irina was still a newborn some friends and I went to watch "Baby Momma", it was 3 moms with 3 newborn babies. We watched the entire movie and the kids did pretty well for the most part, Irina nursed and slept through the whole thing-what else does a newborn do? This past Thursday we had an impromptu movie playdate with Chrissy and Maria, they both brought their girls and I brought mine. Now that I think about it, it was a girls movie afternoon-except I brought Craig since we already had planned a family movie day that week. Anyway, it turns out that Fossil Creek shows free kids movies on certain days so we decided to take a gamble with our 1 1/2yr olds; the movie of the day was Curious George. Elliott did a great job and the rest of the girls-Irina, Claire and Berkley did the best they could too. We brought the girls booster seats and I think that helped, Irina ate her popcorn and fruit snacks next to her Daddy for a whole 30mins. We all sat at the very top next to some stairs and an exit so we wouldn't be a bother to the other movie goers. They all got distracted around the same time and headed for the stairs. Claire was ready for a nap so they left a bit early. Berkley was super sweet and shared a "dum-dum" with Irina that kept her preoccupied for about 45mins longer. Overall I think the girls did a great job!!

They all got distracted around the same time and headed for the stairs.

Berkley Mae, Evelyn Irina and Claire-Bear

Irina with her "Datty",..she sits still for him (i surprised craig with the flash..hehe)Mommy and Irina, she's actually watching the movie!!

Shoes

I was just telling a friend how much Irina has changed and grown up over the past couple of months. She heard Irina talking in the background and was excited to hear actual words. I guess it has become normal to hear her repeat words that I say or that her Daddy says. With this new found interest in mimicking what we do, I decided to play new games with her. We have been playing dress up together and she absolutely loves it! Her specialty is putting on her Daddy's shoes, they are only 10 sizes too big for her. I think she likes to do things that she sees us do, like putting on our own shoes with out any help. She has been working on it and actually put her crocs on by herself, they were each on the wrong foot but she felt so big! She was so excited, she did not want me to take them off and fix them. I like that she knows where the velcro is and that is needs to be pulled apart. I only hope that she loves shoe shopping the way that I do.

Here is a short clip of her putting on her new pair of back mary janes that eemaw gave her.