Monday, March 30, 2009

Box of Crap Exchange

What a fun idea! Our Moms Club did a box of crap exhange. Basically, you just fill a box with crap that you do not want anymore. I got my box of crap today and man, did we score!!


We got lots of great clothes for the summer, a brush (we really needed) and several other things. Thanks, Angie and jake!



Tippy Toes Pottery

My VERY talented friend, Amanda, started her own business.
Here are the pottery pieces we printed of Cannon last month.

This is his little foot.

The bunny's butt is Cannon's little booty. How cute!

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Happy Birthday to Me!

Our Moms Club hosted a 1st Quarter Birthday Party.
Cannon liked this this "cake" better than his first birthday cake.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Early Easter Bunny Visit

I got a visit from the Easter Bunny yesterday, he was disguised as my Grandpa!
I had not seen my Grandpa since my birthday but I remembered him.

I have so much fun with my Grandpa.


He always reads to me and I like that a lot. He always brings me books. Yesterday, I got three Eric Carle board books. I love the vivid colors. I really love it when he reads to me.

This is one of my old books. It has a crazy Alien DJ that plays music.

I got a Bunny cookie from my Grandpa too and it mysteriously disappeared seconds after I saw it. I wonder if my Cookie Monster Daddy ate it!????

I got a new fork and spoon with a BIG FAT Horse on each one. Grandpa said that Gigi had been feeding these horses, because she likes to overfeed the horses at her house. Ha.

I really LOVE this new Dinosaur! Tonight, I wrestled him down because he was trying to eat my bedtime treat!





Thank you Grandpa and Gigi. I love my presents but I love you more.

Kisses for my Grandpa.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Go Green. Just Do It!

Go GREEN!
Do it for yourself, your family, the earth, your future, or just do it for Cannon!

When I became pregnant, Brett and I became more conscious the things we could do to be more earth friendly.

We recycle! This is an EASY thing to do to make a difference. This doesn't take much effort. In Savannah we bought 3 white trash cans, put them in our storage room outside and loaded them with our sorted recycleables and Brett took them to be recycled twice a month. Once we moved here it got easier. Now, we just fill up a bin with everything (glass, plastics, tin and aluminum) and the city picks it up for us. They do not pick up our cardboard which we have a lot of but we have not let that stop us! For a while Brett would take it to work and put it in a recycling bin that was near his office, they have since moved it. On Sunday, he loaded up our cardboard that we have been saving since January and decided we would find a place to take it. Even though the recycling places were closed. We ended up taking it to a school and placing it in their recycling bin. I was a little nervous about this. Among our cereal boxes were mailing boxes with our names and address. Would they notice on Monday that the container was full and report us for illegal "recycling". There were no signs posted that said, "Private Use", etc. We assured ourselves that we could not possibly get in trouble for recycling! Could we?

Okay, back to the subject at hand.

We use cloth diapers most of the time (there are occasions like outings, trips, etc. when disposables are just a little easier). I mop my floor with vinegar and water. (Smile, Cheryl). We use reusable shopping bags and if we forget them, we recycle the plastic ones! Although, you should see the amount of bags in my garage right now, just waiting to be recycled. I have a hard time remembering my shopping bags. We stopped buying bottled water and use a Brita (this was a big thing). we used to buy sooooooo much bottled water.

Amendment: I forgot to mention a very important thing: Compact FLUORESCENT LIGHT BULBS! We use them in EVERY light in our house and convinced it lowers our bill tremendously! (FYI: every American home replaced just one light bulb with a qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars).

Anyway, we do a few things to help reduce our carbon footprint. We could definitely do more (like get rid of our SUV).

Basically, the reason for this post is to 1) encourage you to think about how you could be a little more green and 2)to tell you about my new friend and this new challenge.

I use waaaay to many paper towels. I have been thinking a lot about how I use cloth diapers and then use an entire roll of paper towels preparing one meal. Hum. Should I do something about this? This has been a thought that I mentioned to Brett, but never did anything about.

Well, my friend decided to challenge herself to see if she could stop her obsession with paper towels and Clorox wipes. She succeeded...and she is trying to encourage me to do the same.

Can I do it? I am not so sure. I read her blog challenge and still went out and bought a huge pack of Bounty Select-a-Size to replenish my stock. Should I finish this pack before I begin the challenge?

I am not convinced yet, but I am really excited to have a new friend to challenge me to be more green.

Do you think she will have me giving up toilet paper next? (Do not get any ideas, Joy!)

To be continued...

Monday, March 23, 2009

Art Update

I am currently experimenting with different mediums, crayons for the bath & finger paints too.




I really like the effects I can get by mixing these finger paints. Did you know that yellow and blue make GREEN?? Well, they do! My Mom taught me this.

This might be some of my best work yet.

Buggy!

Cannon LOVES this buggy. On Saturday, when we got home I took him for a ride around the neighborhood. When we came home he sat on it for 30 minutes. Finally, when I realized I was not going to push him anymore, he began to scream and grunt. So you guessed it, I had to hide it.Yesterday, we had the same problem again. He likes it so much that I have to distract him, remove him from it and get rid of it! This might be the best and worse thing we have ever got for him.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

A Deal of a Weekend.

I love "saving" money. I CANNOT resist a clearance rack, a sale, a discount, craigslist! Brett jokes that I am going to SAVE us to the poorhouse.

Well, I am so excited about my deal at Target on Friday. They have a great clearance on crayola markers and a few of the color wonder items too!

This is what I got:
5 packs of Crayola WASHABLE Bold Markers. Reg Price $2.84. I paid $.71.
3 packs of Colorwonder 1-15 page notebook with 3 colorwonder crayons in each! Reg Price $4.99. I paid $1.24. These are great on-the-go items because they can only mark on the paper.
1 pack True Life Markers. Reg Price $4.29. I paid $1.07.




Basically I got $33.37 in art supplies for $8.34 plus tax. Since my little artist in residence is loving some markers, I thought we could use the extras at this price.

Friday night, I went to our Moms Club First Birthday Celebration. I won a cute diaper bag and an Annual Family Membership to the Children's Museum of the Lowcountry at a Silent Auction. If you have not been to this museum you MUST go. It is so much fun. I went when Cannon was much younger and have been planning to go back. I have a feeling we will be visiting a lot now!!!

On Saturday, I went to a consignment sale. To be honest, it was EXTREMELY disappointing. Most items were overpriced!

But this is what I got:
1 GAP Jacket for $3.00--An awesome lightweight tan jacket for next Spring.
2 Children's Place Polo Shirts $1/$2
1 Hip tshirt $1.00
5 Books $7 (2 of these have music/sound)

Then I went to pick up a Little Tykes TURTLE sandbox from a lady on Craigslist. I have been looking for one for Cannon and I have not been able to find them in the stores. Online it costs $39.95 PLUS $25.00 shipping! I paid $10!!!

While I was there she was discussing all the things she needed to put online and I asked if she had more outdoor stuff. She did! She had this Step 2 Push Around Buggy. I gave her $10 for it! Yippee!! I almost bought it from another person last week for $20 but they sold it because I could not get over there quick enough!

Well, I am proud of my bargains. I SAVED so much! Brett would say, I would have saved more if I had stayed home!

Celebration Town

Our Moms Club celebrated it's 1st Birthday this week.
We had a celebration at CELEBRATION Town.


Cannon is not crazy about these jump castle places. He HATES not being "steady" on his feet. He clings to me for dear life. For the most part, he spent his evening pressing buttons on the games.
Normally, Cannon is such a Mommy's Boy. I cannot get out of his sight when we are at functions like this. Well, tonight I LOST him TWICE. I am so used to him staying right by me. I was to busy "bidding" on silent auction items and lost him. Even though our group were the only people there I completely freaked out. When I found him he was just doing his own thing and did not care where I was.
At the end of the night I decided to climb the slide and see if he liked it. The first time, he laughed the whole way down. We probably did this about 10 times. I was so tired from "climbing". Finally, I started sending him down on his own. He loved it.





Getting ready to go down by himself.


This is Michele and her GORGEOUS Lucy.
She is the founder of our AWESOME moms group, Summerville Moms.
Amanda's daughter Taylor. She was only a few weeks old when I first met her. Crazy. Seems like we just moved here.


McKenna! She was a JUMPING machine!


Melinda and McKenzy. Melinda was the FIRST mom in this group that I met. I do not get to see her often because she works part-time during the week. She is opening a Stroller Strides in Summerville and I am SUPER excited. I wanted to do this when I moved here but the only one was in Mt. Pleasant.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Tiger Who?

One night this week after dinner we walked Cannon over to one of the holes on the golf course and he and Dad played. It was so much fun watching the two of them together. THIS is one of the reasons why I always wanted to boy. I love watching him do "boy stuff".I love to watch a father with his son, especially my husband and my son.




They are both putting. How cute!

Chalk Art, No Thanks.

Since Cannon LOVES crayons and markers I thought we would try sidewalk chalk. He prefers markers. Maybe the colors were not vivid enough for him.






He decided that it would be more fun to eat it.






Chalk is messy!


Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Our St. Patrick's Day

Today we were supposed to have our own little parade with Moms group today but due to the crazy weather only one mom showed up. So we decided to take the kids to the mall. They played in the play area until Cannon noticed the merry-go-round "type" ride. He kept walking out of the play area and got mad at me everytime I took him back. So I finally gave in and let him sit on it. Anne had quarters so she put them in and let the boys ride. When the ride was over and I tried to remove him, he performed his new "trick" which consists of screaming and arching his back. He is quite good at it too. I was able to distract him for a little while but then he spotted it again. I think that it is incrediabley rude and smart of the mall to put this stupid ride right next to the play area.

After the mall, we headed over to Mt. Pleasant for Cannon's SECOND haircut!

Everyone thought he was really cute in his little shirt and beads today!

Monday, March 16, 2009

Blocks!

My Mimi's favorite thing to do with me is "play blocks".
She is ALWAYS asking me if I want to play with blocks.
Sometimes I do not want to play blocks, but Mimi still plays.
I think my Mimi plays with my blocks even when I am not there.


My Mimi is an excellent builder. She builds these REALLY tall towers.

This time I sat right next to her and actually handed her one blocked at a time.
She thought I was a good helper.

Then I did my signature move and knocked Mimi's blocks over.
She doesn't like it when I do this.
At Christmas, she pushed me down to keep me away from her blocks.
My Mimi is serious about her blocks.



I love my Mimi and her block building skills (even if she is a bully)!!

First Ice Cream

My Nana was feeding me yummy cake and decided she would give me ice cream too.

I did not like it at all!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Peyton's Birthday Party

My little niece, Peyton Brooke turns ONE!










You try it first, Dad.






How did my horse get here?

Please get away from me, Uncle Chad.


My beautiful boy.







Let me feed you, Nana.