All in Kids
I recently hosted a Baby Sprinkle for my sister in law. Since she already has one daughter, she has lots of things already that she can use of Caroline's. However, the big thing she really needed was diapers and wipes. So I decided that one way to make sure she received a lot of diapers was to do a diaper raffle.
For my sister in law's baby sprinkle, I bought a large box of diapers to make a diaper cake. I had so many left over, I decided to use them to make something else. I opted for a diaper wreath. I had never made one, so I thought I would give it a try.
For my sister in law's baby sprinkle, I really wanted to play on the sprinkle theme. This included the invitation. I decided I wanted the background of the invitation to be covered in sprinkles. I went back and forth about how many sprinkles to put on it, but I opted for the most amount of sprinkles I could fit! I printed them on white cardstock and cut the page in half.
Just like last year, we decided to do family costumes for Halloween. One day we put Melody's hair in pigtails, and that is when it hit Brad...let's dress her up as Boo from Monsters Inc. Brad and I planned to dress as Mike and Sulley. I bought our shirts from Hobby Lobby. We decide who would be who based on the fact they did not have my size in the blue shirt, ha! I bought purple heat transfer vinyl, and I had blue, white and black HTV at home. I used the Silhouette Cameo to make our shirts.
My sister in law is due with her second little girl at the end of November. I know it is not customary to through a huge baby shower for the second baby, but I still wanted to do something for her. I decided to throw her a sprinkle. She just invited family, and we kept it small and simple. I will post links to a few posts later going into the details of how I did a few things, but overall you can check out the Baby Sprinkle below!
A few weeks ago we visited Lyons Family Farms to see their Pumpkin Patch. We went last year, so I suppose we have started a yearly tradition. This year the girls were obviously older, so they were able to do a lot more. The other big difference was the temperature. Last year we were super cold, especially that morning. This year we were burning up. I had to go out the day before and get short sleeve dresses for the girls since their long sleeves wouldn't work!
We recently went to the beach for a wedding. We decided to make Melody a little "happy" for the beach. It was fairly inexpensive (minus the Bitty Baby clothes), and it is super cute.
In early September, we went to Destin, FL for a family beach trip with my in-laws. Brad's cousin was getting married there, so we decided to make it a full vacation. Melody's first beach trip was August 2016 when she was about 3 months old. She didn't get to spend too much time on the actual beach on that trip though. This would be the first trip where she was mobile and would get to experience the ocean and sand.
So I have been meaning to write about the Baby Care Centers at Walt Disney World for quite a while. I mean we last visited them in February! However, it has been falling on the back burner. With us planning another trip at Christmas, I decided I probably need to look back at the Baby Care Centers for myself for some planning purposes. So why not write about them now?!
Emily and I decided to take our girls to a splash pad for the first time recently. We waited until school was back in session so that the crowds would be fairly small. Our local outdoor mall has a fun splash pad that is free that we used.
Our summer vacation this year was a trip back to the Opryland Resort. Brad and I have been a handful of times, and we even went last year at Christmas with Melody. Our experience this visit was much different than our trip at Christmas for a number of reasons. Melody is older and mobile; she eats more than baby food now; she doesn't have a cold; it was much warmer; the resort was far less crowded; and there was construction going on at the resort. We opted to go mid-August to avoid any of the out-of-school crowds that may also use this as a vacation resort. And to also help with the crowds, we decided to go in the middle of the week (Wednesday-Friday).
Greeting cards are so expensive to buy these days. We usually buy a large box set from Costco containing a large variety of greeting cards to always have on hand. However, I like to give Brad something more personal. For his birthday, I decided to make cards for him from both Melody and me. See them both below.
Weekends have always been busy for Brad and me, even before Melody. We were constantly traveling somewhere or doing something locally. Well much hasn't changed since having Melody in that regard. We are constantly doing something or going somewhere. We do not travel as long distance as we once did, but we still travel to see our families frequently and spend time with my best friend here. With that said, it is exceptionally rare to get a lazy weekend day. On a typical Friday-Sunday, one day/evening is spent with Emily, Justin, and Lydia; one day is spent with my parents for at least a portion of said day; then the other day is usually a prep day of some sort [groceries, lunches, meals, etc.]. Well my parents recently went on a cruise, so we had an extra day at home alone. We decided to just have a fun lazy Sunday just the three of us.
A new indoor playground opened in Huntsville recently called Let's Play. My best friend, Emily, and I decided to try it out on a whim a few weeks ago. It isn't exactly right down the street from us. It is actually about 15-20 minutes drive from where we live. That doesn't seem too far, but it does usually require a little more planning when you have cranky one year olds! Anyhow, we happened to be near it one day visiting a consignment shop, and we decided to just try it and see if it was really fun for our aged kids.
So I recently read in a parenting magazine that by age 15 months, a child should start attempting to color with crayons. By two, they should be able to use crayons on their own. Well it never truly crossed my mind to let my almost 15 month old use crayons. Mainly because she still puts most things in her mouth that she picks up. Well the other day I went to Target and decided to get some jumbo crayons and a cute coloring book. I have regular crayons at home, but I know she will break those quickly, so I wanted some larger, more durable ones. I sat her down at her picnic table [yep we still have this table in our house!], and I let her color. It went much better than I expected, and the crayon only made it in her mouth twice! Success!
I have contemplated making posts about things such as this one. I am always afraid of the criticism that may come with it. For whatever reason, many parents feel the need to criticize one another. I don't think I ever truly realized that until I became a parent myself. [I mentioned mom shaming in a previous post about my first year as a mother.]
I wanted the invitations for Melody's first birthday to be super cute. The theme was ice cream, so I had to incorporate that for sure. I designed an ice cream cone using my Silhouette Cameo and used it throughout the party. I thought using it on the invitation would be perfect.
This is the first summer where Melody is actually able to go outside and play. Last summer, she was too young for sunscreen, and I didn't really want to risk a sunburn on a three month old! So this summer we have tried to take advantage of my parent's pool. They live about 45 minutes away, but I was able to go stay with them for a week or so earlier this summer while Brad was on a work trip. We have also went and visited a few other times. Melody is definitely a water baby. She loves to just kick back and relax in her floats. When you just hold her in the water, she enjoys getting to splash you and herself. We have even enjoyed the pool with her best friend a few times. I am sure we will spend a few more times at their pool this summer, and we also plan to buy a small pool for a weekend of fun later this summer when it cools off a bit. See all of her fun below!
We go to Costco about once every eight weeks or so. Surviving any trip to a store these days requires some sort of bribe for Melody to keep her quiet throughout our visit. Typically I bribe her with puffs or some other snack along with water. On occasion, I will bring her a toy of some sort to keep her entertained. However, Costco can be a much longer trip than our average grocery run. We spend at least two hours a visit most of the time. We walk up and down every aisle to see what's new and what we think we need [we always walk out with at least one thing we didn't plan to buy].
For Father's Day, I wanted to do something special for Brad from Melody. I wanted to incorporate her footprint in some sort of way. I saw online where someone made superhero cape from a baby's foot.
