4th anniversary!!!!

What a weekend! Adam and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. 

4 years together and 2 kids later, we still feel like newly weds. 

We spent our actually anniversary preparing for our weekend in Bountiful so we could have lots of fun.

Adam got off work early so we could celebrate something else very exciting...

My baby sister graduated high school!!

Here we all are together rejoicing in her accomplishment. Its funny how as all the kids become adults we seem to get as close as when we were kids. 

Age doesn't matter again. She plans to attend USU so she will be up in our neck of the woods. 

Speaking of woods... 

That is where we decided to spend our anniversary. 

We actually ran into a neighbor on our way out and she had to make sure that 

we were going camping for fun. 

I guess we are crazy. We usually do a hike to celebrate things. There is just something rewarding to us

about conquering a mountain or in this case getting to see some beautiful lakes.

Here we are at the beginning of the trail, all nice and pretty.

This is the Lake Blanche trail we did this hike last year as a day hike with Thayne. 

This year we thought we would try backpacking. Please check out my beautiful backpack...

I don't know why but i always love buying backpacks.

This trail isn't long mileage wise but holy smokes it is steep!

Here I am trying to use Adam to show how steep the trail is. Yes, its pretty much like this the whole way.

But its so worth it! Look at those mountains!

This is my favorite stopping point to take a picture because you can start to see your destination. If you look closely there is a waterfall behind us and it is actually the one we used to get our water from. 

Here is Lake Blanche we actually camped about 1/4 mile away from this point towards the 3rd lake.

Adam setting up camp. I picked the spot so I got to snap some shots.

Well... I may or may not have had some sweet fire pictures... 

We found out the hard way that fires are NOT allowed up there... EVER. 

So please ignore our fire pictures don't plan on having one up there.

Can I brag about my amazing husband for a minute? So I tend to get upset and can't think straight if

things don't go according to plan... my husband on the other hand doesn't freak out and quickly comes up 

with a solution. 

Somehow silverware did not make it into our backpacks.

Needless to say I was pretty upset complaining about how we had beef stew and no spoons.

Adam calmly found some wood and began carving spoons for us. 

I love him.

After I ate my food with my new cool wooden spoon I was very happy...

Making both of us very happy...

 

Here is Adam getting pics of our campsite... again ignore the fire. DON'T have fires up there. 

$250 fine... not worth it!

Ya I engulfed my food... never has freeze dried food tasted so good!

remember that waterfall? Here it is! Adam wanted me to get the water but I told him I was better 

at taking pictures.

Ah I just can't get over that view! Great way to start a morning!

Although we had loads of fun, we needed to get back to our kiddos! 

Thanks honey for a great anniversary!

And making me fall back in love with the outdoors. Everyday I grow closer and closer to you. I will never tire of your unfailing love for me. I don't know what I would do without you. Lets never find out ok? 

Toddler and nursery decor

I have a great spacious room for the kids. We moved into a 3 bedroom right before Joslyn was born to give us 300 more square feet for only 100 bucks more a month. Now people can really come and visit and I don't have to have our desk in our room. Needless to say our apartment isn't all put together yet but I am trying to figure out the kids room at this time. Here is what thayne and I have been working on...

This is a cross stitch growth chart. It took me about six months to do. I went to Michaels and had it framed. I plan on measuring the kids with a measuring tape and then marking with a dry erase how tall they are. Thayne already loves it. 

So for Thayne's name in his room I did this...

It takes up a TON of room and I never want to hang it. And now I have two names to have in the room I wanted to keep it simple. I found inspiration from none other than Pinterest.

Under the J and the T it reads J is for Joslyn and T is for Thayne. I want to make their names bigger so I might redo it but for now I'm loving it. I think thayne and I will paint the letters from his name and do another project from it. What do you think? The colors I'm loving to tie both genders are blue green and pink. 

Apparently blogger doesn't like iPhone pictures so I'll have to take some better ones when the room is all put together. 

How is everything going?

"So how is everything going?" Is a question I get A LOT! Haha this question should really be... "How is life with a toddler and a newborn?" Well, it's not easy but it's never dull.

I get all sorts of "help" sometimes resulting in injuries.

I get excited about gear like this...

I'm able to still do the things I love with the babies I love. 

I do lots of this...

Sometimes even ending with surprise packages mom gets to clean up. 

I feed A LOT!

I get to bake and create a lot...

...and clean messes. 

I find things like this going on while I'm feeding...

(He ate the cardboard of this cereal box) even though one was already open. 

Needless to say its so fun with two. Crazy... But fun! I need to get a picture of both kids crying at the same time,.. There is also lots of that. There are also lots of laughs and smiles to go around. So to answer your question everything is fabulously insanely great with a toddler and a baby! 

All about... Nursing pads

I know, I know it's been a while. I've been  a little busy.. Maybe even barely keeping my head above water kind of busy.

But I've been dying to do a post on this because I had a hard time finding info about it when I was looking so I hope this helps someone else. I do cloth diapers and love to save money by using reusable things. My quest was to find a cloth nursing pad. I bought two different kinds and wanted to see the difference.  Here is a picture of two reusable kids and one disposable. These are the fronts of the nursing pads (or sides that will be touching your breast)

We will start left to right. 

The first one is a pink daisy nursing pad (bamboo). This one had a lot of bad reviews and I had to see for myself. Comes in a pack of six. 

Cost:$12

Pros

It's washable and soft.  Yup that's about it. 

Cons

It's huge. The sides have ruffled after washing. And it's noticeable even under a looser shirt. It actually is pretty easy to leak through. Is the same on the front back and moves around like crazy even with a sports bra on. 

Bottom line:Don't recommend this one at all!!!

The middle one is a bravado moisture wick. This one also had some bad reviews. But had more positive ones than the pink daisy. Comes in a pack of six. 

Cost: $13.60

Pros: works great, feels great. Has a seam on the back to help stay in place. I didn't feel like it showed anymore than a disposable would. 

Cons: for long stretches(like 6 hours) or early in breast feeding can leak. But at that point even the disposables can leak. Other than that I love them! 

Bottom line: I recommend these for cloth nursing pads!

This is a picture of what I recommend. The bravado ones act most like the disposables and I have been happy with them. I think two packs would be perfect if you don't do laundry everyday. But with two kids and two adults I'm doing laundry everyday. So just one pack works good for me.

The back side of the cloth and disposable the seam helps it stay and flow more with your bod. 

Oh and it is thicker on one half than the other. Which is desirable... Trust me. 

Breast feeding saves money why not try to save more money? Would you consider cloth nursing pads? 

Easter

Easter morning was pretty crazy as you can imagine with a brand new 

baby at home. But Adam... I mean the Easter bunny still was very diligent in making 

sure Thayne got an Easter basket and eggs.

He did not know what to think when he found an egg trail. (The Easter bunny thought maybe we should wait till next year to hide the eggs)

He found his basket and was very excited to find toys 

once he figured out what was in the eggs he couldn't wait to collect them all!

After church we were able to visit with our cousins Stacey, Kiah, and Ramon! Stacey grew up in 

Logan and know all the secrets. She told us about this super cool tradition that people

do every year on Easter. Everyone goes to "Old Main" which is a hill by the USU campus,

they decorate their eggs and then roll them down the hill.

We were a little busy so we didn't decorate any eggs but...

we found this egg down the hill still intact. 

So we rolled it down the hill. That is about all the attention span Thayne had so 

its probably good that we didn't decorate a bunch of eggs. 

These are the seagulls flying in to eat all the eggs. 

Thayne loved picking up all the broken eggs. 

He would not let go of these two pieces. He checked the ground over and over again to make sure he 

had the best pieces around.

Adam got Joslyn and I hanging out watching the boys run around.

Thayne smelling his egg. He kept saying MHHHHMMMM! We tried to tell him eggs don't actually

smell good they just smell. But he just kept going on MHHHHHMMMMing. 

What traditions did you find this year? 

Joslyn

I've been a horrible blogger... but I figured this post will make up for anything not written in the last little 

while. 

We had our sweet baby Joslyn born. 

The doctor stripped my membranes on wednesday and gave us a 50/50 chance that we would have her that night. Sure enough it worked and after a 4 hour labor (so much better than 23) we 

have our healthy, beautiful, little girl. 

Here is right after she is born. 

While in the hospital (Ugh was so nice to leave I hate being trapped) 

I wrote these texts to Adam...

Apparently I couldn't even think straight. Sleep deprivation will be a common occurrence in the

next few weeks, months, ok possibly even years.  

But look at this little cutie. How can you say its not worth it?

Grandma rocking her babies to sleep. So grateful to have my Mum to help. 

She is singing all the songs she sang to us as kids. 

So far Adam is still the only parent who has gotten kisses from the kids. 

Joslyn was kissing him back. I tried it and she just stares at me. hehe I don't mind. 

I love looking into her eyes.

Thayne is handling her arrival like a champ. He likes to come up to her and whisper "baby". 

He has already tried to get her to play with him. He also always has to know where she is.

If she is in a different room he will ask where she is.