Roadrash

Quinn was chasing some pigeons after Matt's race and her feet got going faster than the rest of her. She got two big patches of road rash on her sweet little head. When she got up she was yelling at the pigeons. :) She liked for us to ask "Where's your road rash?" and she would point it out. The cure for road rash? Why, a bubble bath, of course!

It's Ava!

Here's the REAL reason we went to OKC. :)

Baby Ava was born last week and we appreciated her good timing so we could meet her while we were in town. She is seriously one of the most beautiful newborns I have ever seen! Her Momma was one of my roomies in college and of course Baby Ava already has a special place in my heart because her Momma's such a dear friend.

(me, Quinn, Aunt Amy, Mommy Heather, Ava)

Getting my cuddles on! Quinn LOVES Amy, so pretty much every picture we took all weekend has Quinn and Amy together. She asks for "more AMY!" all the time and asks to go to "Amy's Houssssse."


This is my favorite Ava picture so far--getting some love from Aunt Amy. Ava--Quinn already tried out Amy's "Aunty Skills" and Amy performed like a champ! You are very lucky to have such a fun, patient and sweet Aunt! And don't worry, if you poop in her bathtub she won't even get mad! :)
Leo braved two babies at once--I was quite impressed. Quinn renamed him "Mike" while we were in OKC.

My little bed buddy.....

Matt stayed with Leo the last couple nights and us girls have been staying at Amy's house (Q loves saying, "Amy's houssssse!") Quinn has ended up in bed with me both nights. Doesn't she look like such a big girl?!

He did it!!!!!

My baby's Daddy just kicked the OKC Memorial Marathon's butt!!!!

He did it! 4:03! We are so proud of him!

I have a ton more pics that I'll post when we get home. Just wanted to share the news that he finished!

Saving some $$$$

Matt and I (with the help of our fabulous personal accountant/uncle) have been working really hard at tightening up our budget so that I can continue to stay home with Q while at the same time pay our mortgage, student loans, etc.
One thing we finally broke down and instituted was a monthly grocery shopping trip. We have limited ourselves to 1 walmart trip where we get everything we'll need for the month to cut out the $20 here, $15 here trips that really add up over time. This takes a lot more planning than I had thought. I have to know all my meals for the month, plan lunches and snacks and breakfasts, inventory all our cleaning supplies and toiletries and paper goods....and be pretty accurate about it so we can stick to our 1 trip.
We do have to go back for milk during that month because we don't have space in our freezer or fridge for extra gallons, but we really try to make that our only extra purchase.
This is our second month to shop monthly and I am getting better at it. I have learned a little more how to make fruit stretch farther and how long it takes us to go through paper towels, toilet paper, cleaners, etc. I hope each time I get a little better. I have a giant list on the computer I update through the month.
We have learned that Monday evenings are the slowest night at Walmart, so that's when we go. We make it a family event and eat out at Schlotsky's first, and then trek to Walmart for about 2 hours. I am so proud of my little family. Quinn has done fabulously both times and Matt, who hates grocery shopping, has remained patient and has done an amazing job of involving Quinn in the shopping process by talking with her about what we are buying, showing her things in the store, etc. I would almost go so far as to call the trips enjoyable. One of the biggest blessings was that both times we had a kind cashier that didn't mind our overflowing carts, whiney baby (after 2 hours in the baby seat of the cart), and my mishmash of reusable shopping bags. matt has promised to go over our purchases for the past several months to determine how much money we are saving by shopping only once a month. I can already tell that it has made me more mindful of what we eat and less wasteful. I also feel like we are all more aware of God's blessing upon us that we have food to eat whenever we want it.
Check out this receipt:

So in conjunction with once a month shopping, we have also stopped eating out as much as possible. One thing that has helped with this--my Freezer Cooking Group. My smart friend Erin
organizes our freezer group. Typically 10 families participate, which means I cook 10 copies of my meal. This round I made chicken and black bean burritos, so I made 80 burritos! We get together on a Saturday afternoon to exchange our delicacies and I love coming home with 10 ready-made meals to stock my freezer. We use these a lot on the weekends when we are busy and I don't have time to cook, and it totally helps us reduce our eating out. Yea for freezer cooking!!! We also did a breakfast freezer exchange in March, and we had some happy Saturday and Sunday mornings with pancakes and quiches, etc. all ready for us in the freezer!

Mailbox score!

She loves checking that mailbox....and even more so when it contains a little somethin' for her! Thanks!

Our bug-catcher

Q has discovered bugs recently. We've even gotten out one of the empty PB jars I've saved and filled it with roly-polys and snails and june bugs. She carries it around and says, "Muh BUGS!" (my bugs!)

Today she found this june bug outside. This is the conversation she had with the bug.

"Hi, bug!" (notice she is mid-wave--she definitely waved hello to the bug.)

"Bug's shoes?" She kept looking at his feet for his shoes.

The bug was missing part of a leg and kept falling over on his back. Every time he did, Q would turn him back over and say, "Uh-oh, Bug!" Same thing when he crawled off the edge of the porch.

When it was time to go inside and Daddy helped her release the bug back to the wild she fussed for "more bug" for quite some time.

The artist and her audience

Drawing with Daddy and Alie and her "marmers" (markers). Like the marker holder Daddy made her out of a log? Click on picture to see the big version and the look on her face. Adorable, if I do say so myself! :)

The verdict on the blackberries???

She was a little unsure of what I was putting in her mouth at first....

But after a taste she said, "More black babies, Momma!" It's hard to explain to a 19-month old that we can only eat the ripe ones and can't pick the green ones. We only found about a dozen ready for eating today, but we'll be checking back in the woods every day this week for a handful or two more!

Leftover fun from the thunderstorm!

I took Quinn out to splash in the remaining puddles from Sunday's storm. We are working to teach her she can only stomp in water and mud when she's wearing her boots, otherwise she'd be a muddy mess all the time. So I look for opportunities where she can put on the boots and have a grand ole time splashing away. Sad note, I had to wedge those little boots on her feet today. I think she may just be starting to outgrown them. I love that they velcro and stay on her feet so well. It will be a sad day when she can't sport her beloved boots.
I have some tubs set out behind our back fence along the edge of my garden. The assisted living center behind us has their sprinklers run every day, and I catch the water that comes onto our part of the yard to pour on my plants. The rain filled the tubs to the brim, and when Q noticed this she squealed with delight. Then tried to drink some. Then had to stand in it.....I taught her how to pour it on the plants, which might be dangerous because I have a feeling this is going to be her new favorite activity outside. Let's just say that not much water got onto the plants but the baby should be growing like crazy, because she was definitely well-watered. :)

What a big girl!

When Quinn drinks her milk she knows she has to sit in her chair at her little table. Today I handed her some milk, said, "Get in your chair and drink your milk!" After I made my coffee I turned around and saw this! She sat herself at the kitchen table and was drinking her milk like nothing was out of the ordinary and she always sat here!

Letters....

Today as we left Bible Study Quinn ran over and pointed to an "S" and said, "Sue!" I got my camera from my purse and asked her to show me again. She did, and then also showed me "Oma!" She is a letter fool. Colors--they don't interest her a bit. Everything is black to her. But she does love some letters!

SPLASH!!

Sunday we had some wicked downpours and a river running through our backyard! It was crazy. Of course we put Q in her boots and went out to splash in it. She LOVED it and kept asking for "more splash!" because she wanted me to jump in the big puddles and spray her with water. As we were taking a nice warm bath to get rid of our shivers from the cold rain, a bolt of lightning hit the power pole and fried the GFI in our bathroom and our cable modem for Internet. Daddy got to play electrician and switch out the GFI last night and the cable box outside was replaced today.

My home-grown lettuce

Yum!

How does my garden grow?

Thanks for asking! It's doing great!
These photos were actually taken last weekend and it's grown so much in even the last week!
I have 3 little tomatoes--still green. My potatoes have grown tall enough to add another tire to each stack. The peas are all flowering, the peppers are flowering, and so is the squash. They are ready for some hotter weather...not me, I have been loving the mild days! I need to take some updates, but here's something to give you an idea!

On our way home from Austin we stopped by a nursery called The Arbor Gate in Tomball that I'd been wanting to visit forever. It was amazing and totally lived up to any expectations I had for it! Quinn loved running around to look for fountains and any form of "abu." She even drank out of the rain barrels they use to water the plants. Don't worry, I made her stop. :)

And Matt was proud of me--I spent less than $5 total! That is so tough for me. I LOVE plants and every time I go to a nursery I am sad because I see cool plants and think, "I used to have that at the old house." :(

Notice Q's new hairdo? Piggies!! Carly shared some little-girl hair tips and tiny rubberbands with me. The cashier at the nursery told me Q looked like a pixie. Not sure how that looks, but must have piggies!

So precious

Q and her little friend that we visited in Austin brushing their teeth...actually just playing in the water, but brushes were involved. :)

The escaping continues...

Thursday Q and I drove to Austin to visit some of our favorite friends who had recently moved. I put her down for her nap in a pack and play, and she promptly climbed the side and let herself out....So there go the days of the pack and play!

I ended up just shutting the door and she finally crashed on the floor a while later.

This made me really start stressing, because we are going out of town for almost a week and I didn't know what I would do if Q wouldn't sleep in a pack and play while we were traveling. She is definitely not a "put her to sleep" baby--she won't go to sleep with someone else around. She'll talk, ask for books, locate every body feature she knows, demonstrated her repoitoire of animal sounds, etc. She has to be by herself to sleep. So Thursday night was really rough without the use of the pack and play, and she didn't go to sleep until after midnight that night.

So back to our traveling. Matt suggested we practice whatever method we were going to use while we're in Oklahoma. So we took her mattress out of her crib and she slept on that last night for the first time. She had a bit of a hard time falling asleep and cried on and off for about 30 minutes, but finally went to sleep on her mattress. We just closed her in by shutting her door so she'd be safe since her room is baby-proofed but the rest of the house isn't. This morning when I woke up I opened her door a crack so she could open it when she woke up. A little bit later she came toddling down to my bathroom, her pillow and "blank" in her arms, happy as a lark! Naptime went okay, too, other than the fact that she spread every book in her room (which is a LOT!) all around. I am okay with that, though. When she fell asleep, it was on her mattress again.
Tonight I went out with some of my friends and Matt did bedtime and said she cried for about 20 minutes on and off. She fell asleep in the middle of about 30 books and 15 baby wipes on her mattress. We are learning a few more items we need to put up higher. :)
I am a little sad to think that the crib days just might be over for our baby!

This morning........

the signs of a good day......

Her clenched baby fist still indicates extreme exhaustion....hasn't changed since day one!

Dirty feet after Tevas are removed--indicates time spent playing in the dirt. Her favorite!