Fun Fact and Crafty Weekends!

Did you know... 

As of this year, the space satellite "Voyager", is the farthest reaching man-made object from earth!? 

It is now more than 11 billion miles from the sun! 

Read more here: 

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/news/voyager_final_frontier.html

Enjoy sharing some space facts with your kiddos while you make some 

galaxy playdough! It's so easy!

We all hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend! 

Also... If you want to enjoy some star gazing with your older littles, 

follow the instructions 

of this link to learn how you can make your own telescope with old 

paper towel rolls! 

http://www.ehow.com/how_4854445_make-telescope-paper-towel-roll.html

Until Monday, 

Zebra hugs and love... Ashley :)

Ooo... Pinteresting!

Hello, everyone! Ashley, here... Not Shannon. She will be posting tomorrow with a bumpdate for you all. But since I never did get to share my quick post with you all yesterday, I thought I would share a quick little blurb about what I've been up to, and what I'm working on in the weeks to come! 

As you may have alluded to, thanks to the title of this post, I have been "pinning" like nuts on Pinterest this week! I figured I have the extra time here and there, and I need a hobby. Also, last week, a girl on one of my mommy forums posted, asking us all how frequently we actually accomplish the things that we pin on Pinterest. I realized that I had only ever done one thing! So, my response was "ummm... once every 3 years!" Haha! So, I decided that I really needed to rectify the situation or delete my Pinterest account. So I started looking at DIY stuff for home decor, little boy's rooms, and just cool DIY projects in general. 

One project I'm working on, which is not quite complete yet, is turning a pair of ripped jeans into cute shorts. I'm not going to share them yet because they aren't cute at this point. However, I will share them once I've completed them. 

One project that I did complete within just minutes of deciding to do it and running to the dollar store, is actually one that I stole from our very own miss Shannon. I'm not sure if she got it from Pinterest or not, but here it is! 

I realize that these aren't the best pictures, but I did take them on my iPad. Anyway, they are picture frame message boards! I picked up the picture frames for $3 each, grabbed a pack of multicolored paper for $1, and a package of magnetic dry erase markers for $1.50. (The magnetic part is on the caps, so I can keep them on the refrigerator, since these are hanged on the wall in my kitchen.)  The frame with pink paper, is my daily chore and to-do list; the one with blue has my shopping list as it builds. This is super simple and much cuter than a white board or cork board in the kitchen!

Here is my next project:

I made my own "clorox" wipes! I took a few old rags and cut them into small rectangles, and recycled an old wipes container. I made the solution from a recipe on Pinterest, which I modified a tad for my own use. I filled the container half way with hot water; added two caps full of rubbing alcohol; a teaspoon of dish soap (recipe calls for Dawn brand soap, specifically); and a few drops of tea tree oil, though in my next batch, I think I'm going to use lemon juice instead. Let your rags soak in the solution, squeeze out a little before using and you can even rinse one during a use, so that you don't go through all of your rags. One thing that I didn't really think about, was a container specifically for the used rags, since I was feeling like I did when I made my cloth baby wipes. But in this case, I don't already have a bucket for them. I'm going to go on the hunt back at the dollar store - I love that place. ~teehee~ 

Alright... my last two things to share in this post, are quite simple, but still fu, though you may find it boring. 

Simply this:

I looked at some of the really fun manis and pedis that people post on Pinterest and decided to try them for myself! One idea that I thought looked really clean and crisp for Summer, was the white toes. I just added a dot of glitter polish on each big toe for a little dimension. 

Last, I saw a black french manicure, with a v-shape. I thought it looked really nice with the  v-shape, but personally prefer a white french manicure. So, I used the shape, but did white tips. i think it turned out pretty well! It feels like I came from the nail salon, but I only spent $3! $1 on the white ( thank you again, dollar store) and $2 on the base/top coat. 

Well, that's all I have for you for today! I want to know what kind of crafty and fun things you have found on Pinterest, which you completed. How did it turn out compared to what you saw? Have a lovely Wednesday evening! 

Zebra Hugs and Love,

Ashley

Oh... and here is Baby C: 

My girly fear

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend celebrating the Daddies in your lives! :) We had a great day of family time together, MH got some new video games, and we ended the day with a really great dinner with the in-laws. 

Today I'm going to write about something that I have been really considering, as it gets kinda personal for me, but I decided it's time. I'm going to talk about why I'm afraid of ever having a daughter. 

Growing up, I was a very awkward, insecure girl. Sure, sure... I know what you're thinking. Weren't we all? But my insecurity was honestly and truly debilitating. I was always really skinny. No, not good. I mean scrawny... Allow me to paint the picture: my knees were the biggest part of my leg for a good majority of my life. I weighed 58 pounds in 7th grade! No... There wasn't anything wrong with me. I was just knobby knees and elbows on a 4 foot 11 inch frame. And I remember that I always ate like crazy, so I guess you could say I had a super fast metabolism. I was always going, going, going, too, so I'm sure that helped. In any case, I had an awkward body. I was (and am) short, yes, but I have always had more leg than torso. Since most kids my weight at the time, were probably 5 or 6 year olds, this meant that I almost always wore jeans that looked like I was ready for a flood. As you can imagine, middle school was rough. But high school - at least the beginning - was brutal. As a freshman in high school, I entered weighing in at a grand total of 86 pounds, measuring a whole 5 feet tall. I definitely got asked several times throughout the day if I was lost and told that the elementary school was across town. Yeah... It was a ball. My parents made the decision when my sisters and I were younger, that we could wear makeup when we turned 16. Now, I respected that decision, though I resented it up and down; but until the day I turned 16, I walked the halls feeling as though I looked like an ugly boy with crooked teeth. My body "blossomed" suddenly and completely out of the blue, and this almost made things even worse! Here I was... Still wearing my high water jeans, no make up, crooked teeth, weighing 96 pounds, with a chest that did not match the body. I felt like I had no idea how to dress myself, and can't remember really feeling all that comfortable in my skin. With a sister two grades ahead of me, with straight teeth, gorgeous hair, and knowing who she was, I felt like the ugly sister. So I made up for it all by using my volume. If boys weren't gonna think I was pretty, I was going to make as many friends as I could! 

Suddenly, my Junior year of high school, braces, my teeth, makeup on my face, and having broken 100 pounds, I finally felt a slight surge of confidence. It was short lived when I realized that my thighs would look wider when my legs were flat on a seat. I swear to you, I never noticed this before that moment. I also started noticing that my stomach was no longer concave! I was finding myself in the body of a woman, but had been in the body of a girl for 15 years! I thought I was getting chunky. I just didn't understand. I started to believe that people had certain expectations of my appearance and began stressing about meeting those expectations that NO ONE had ever communicated with me. Still... I felt a little more confident with some makeup on my face and not feeling like I looked like a boy anymore. In fact, I thought I might be a little pretty. My Senior year, I felt pretty good about myself. Still awkward, and not completely sure how to dress myself, but I was alright, I thought. Certainly, I figured, I wasn't ugly anymore! Though I had had a few boyfriends, it wasn't until College, braces free, when I felt like I could truly be seen as attractive, and I met MH. But I still carried that "expectation" of myself that I needed to be thin and that being thin would mean that I was pretty. I even stooped to drastic levels of losing weight... It's something I'm still not proud of, but it all makes me... Well, me. I was unhealthy; I was insecure. Through my 20s, I though that I had experienced some confidence here and there as I got older and started to understand what was important in life; but it hasn't been even until having baby C that I have been able to feel any true confidence in my body. I now find my body beautiful, strong, and am proud of where it has been and what it has done. 

So why am I afraid of having a daughter? I still look back on my middle school and high school self with regret and resentment for not having taken hold of my youth and control of my confidence. I watched my younger sister have some bright, bold confidence in high school... Knowing who she was and her sense of style. I scold my past self for not forgetting about what others might think of me and just being who I was. This makes me so nervous to ever have a daughter, because I fear that I might project my past fears onto her. I worry that I may even attempt to live vicariously through her in some way, to make up for what I feel like I missed out on. The whole time I was pregnant, I thought I might be having a girl, because my family has girls! We just do! But I had always secretly hoped for a boy. And even from the day I found out I was pregnant, I could only imagine myself carrying around a baby boy in the future. So when we found out we were having a boy, I was shocked! I didn't know what to do with a boy!  But I was relieved... I wouldn't have to worry about trying to keep myself from molding him into the teenage girl I wish I was. Don't get me wrong, if I ever end up with a daughter in some way, so be it. And I will love her just as much as baby C, and I will face my fears head on. But I don't ever want my future daughter to feel the way that I felt; I would do anything to protect her from that, and that scares me. 

Zebra love and hugs! 

Ashley 

A Scentsational Summer of Travel and Play!

Hey y'all Shannon here :-) Not really sure where this blog post is going to go, I seem to be functioning on a mere fraction of the brain power I used to claim .... So this could be interesting :-) Let's see where to start .... 

We've been busy bees here lately with Scentsy (yes, we, my boys go with me on deliveries and to some parties they pretty much rock! Love my kiddos!) I've been having a blast with my Scentsy business! I love it and I love that it doesn't even feel like a job! I literally "party" for a living and it's AWESOME!! Speaking of Scentsy I do want to let all of you our readers know I am doing a summer fun giveaway that is for kiddos Shannon's Little Buddy Giveaway is super easy to enter and all the kiddos have to do is color a buddy page! 

Official Rules:
 1. Parents go 'Like' my Shannon Daniels Independent Scentsy Consultant Page on Facebook. 

                      https://www.facebook.com/ShannonDanielsIndependentScentsyConsultant

 2. Go to this website http://scentsybuddy.com/Home/GamesIndex and print out a Scentsy Buddy coloring page. 
 3. Let your little one enjoy coloring their buddy anyway they want. Creativity is always welcome! 
4. Take a picture of your little one's colored Buddy and post it on my Scentsy Facebook Page make sure to include your little artists name and the reason why they like the buddy they chose to color. 

  That's it. Easy Peasy. The winner will be chosen at random and announced July 31st so we can get as many little buddies to participate as we can!  :) 
PLEASE only 1 entry per child (If you have more than one child they can each submit only one entry thank you) 

Thanks for your interest! Happy coloring and good luck little buddies! :)  







 
  We've also been even busier trying to keep up with our normal summer day to day routine (which never seems to be normal... or much of a routine ...it seems we never do the same thing twice in a row haha) But we've been keeping busy with walks to the park, play dates, re-organizing projects (because let's face it at some point it probably WAS somewhat organized) We've been very thankful to have Daddy home more often since he got back from the last field exercise!! So Yay for having Hubbers around! (Especially because he is extremely helpful and basically the best!)

In addition to all that summer craziness we are getting ready, planning, and packing for our upcoming vacation!! Yay for a very welcome change of scenery! I mean I enjoy the desert landscape as much as the next girl but ummm... some green grass would be nice please ooh and water.... YES water would be amazing to look at, play in, and jump and splash in, and overall act like an extremely enthusiastic sea otter splashing about and making a fool of myself in! Beware any fountains in my near future I may have to appreciate you more closely from now on!! :) Vacations are so fun but sometimes the planning of said adventures is exhausting haha! If you've ever traveled with toddlers or small children you know what packing for the littles entails and you've heard that infamous age old question "Are we there yet?" too many times to keep count... but me, I'm a crazy person and I LOVE road trips and I especially LOVE long road trips WITH my MnMs!

My MnMs playing with Superman and a Tiger named Kitty haha

 Again, I'm a crazy and I relish the moments that we spend altogether as a family in the car for hours and hours ... and hours (haha) I absolutely love spending time listening to my kiddos sing along with our 'travel CDs' They seriously jam out hardcore! haha. I love playing silly travel games and asking the boys "What do you see?" over and over and chatting with my Hubs while the littles occasionally nap along the journey. I love the feeling of getting out of the car after awhile on the road and having my feet on solid not moving ground :) I enjoy everything about traveling and family road trips. (except for packing I'm pretty much a neurotic mess when it comes to packing but armed with my latest Pinterest finds I hope to simplify the amount and the bulkiness of our packing this trip here's hopin...) Hopefully each of you get the opportunity to have a summer road trip even if it's just a short weekend fishing/camping trip. Get out in the fresh air, catch some rays, and a nice tan in the process ;) but most importantly spend some quality 'unplugged' time with your family away from all the electronics that somehow eat up so much of our time! Go make those super fun childhood memories that your children will treasure for years to come!!

Pregnant Pause...
(   ) Get it? hehe 


Bumpdate!

goodbye toes I'll see you in approximately 27 weeks ;)

We are officially 13 weeks and a day Yay! I'm so excited I'm still just in shock trying to convince myself "it's not a dream" then I crave spaghetti in the morning for breakfast and it's much more real. Other current cravings include: fruit namely cherry and strawberry and salt and vinegar chips and potato salad! I can't wait for the little thumps and kicks to come and we are going to try and get an ultrasound sometime toward the beginning of July so we can officially end the debate .... Little Sea Monkey... boy? or girl? :-) Can't wait to find out!! I don't have the patience to wait and be surprised (I NEVER would have survived back in the day before ultrasounds) Kuddos to you mamas that can surprise yourselves! :) Wish I had the patience... 

Anyhow I really hope at least some of this post update was vaguely coherent! :-) If not, well, welcome to my brain or lack thereof haha. Hope y'all enjoy your summer days and vacations! If you have any questions about the Little Buddy Giveaway email me @ mrsarmypolkadotmommy@gmail.com I would be thrilled to answer any questions y'all might have :) Best of luck to the participants too. Hope to hear from y'all soon.  Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday :) 

...and please do keep my home state Colorado in your prayers pray for rain and a special prayer of protection and comfort for all of the families affected by the fires. Thanks y'all!

Big ol' preggo hugs and some extra summer polka dot flip flop wearin' love.... Shannon :)

The Summer adventures continue!

Happy Monday, everyone! 

Ashley comin' at ya after yet another weekend full of adventures! This past weekend was FULL of fun and learning! MH and I took Baby C to the Zoo for the first time and it had probably been at least 15 years since I had been, and MH was pretty sure it had been closer to 20 for him! I, for one, could not believe how much the Zoo had changed. All for good, but still, it was like a place I had never seen before! Baby C did love it though! Well... the parts he was awake for. Hehe... Babies still have to nap and it is very difficult to break this kid of his schedule - not that I'm complaining - even though he seems to be pretty flexible most of the time. Moving on... C got to feed the Giraffes and that was honestly what I was looking forward to the most! When I was little, I remember going and being able to get these weird, super fat cracker things and trying to reach up to them. Now, you walk down to this area, where you are completely surrounded by the Giraffes and are just about at eye level! This definitely made things easier. In the center of everything was the line where you could buy some lettuce to feed the Giraffes. I should have just brought a bag with me, but I was still not convinced there wouldn't be the cracker things, even though my sister had already told me! lol That was another really fun thing, by the way... my sister brought all three of her kids, and my parents even came along! It was exhausting but oh, so fun, and we even got to meet up with Kailly and Princess N a few times throughout the day! Okay... sorry, my brain is all over the place tonight. Back to the Giraffes. C didn't notice them right away, but instead thought that the wood fencing was pretty fascinating. Haha! So... desperate for him to touch, feel, see, smell and experience everything possible (notice I did not say taste) at the Zoo, I grabbed a piece of lettuce, stuck it in his hand, and let nature take its course! 

I just realized I may not have warned you, so allow me to do so now... prepare for an overload of pictures coming up! ;) 

As you can see above, C was pretty fascinated and really enjoyed the feel of the Giraffes' tongues. This same situation repeated a few times throughout the course of the feeding area, but it was so funny! Don't worry though! I had lots of hand sanitizer and baby wipes standing by before any fingers went back into any mouths. After the Giraffes, C wasn't TOO into a whole lot else. He is a very tactile kid, but didn't really get to touch a whole lot more. We did get to feed birds though! 

My little man was more than happy to stare at all of the birds and was completely in awe of all of the sounds, but he was even happier to not touch the bird, thank you very much. I can't even explain how much fun it was to watch him discover and explore everything! More than that, it was so special to experience that with my nieces and nephew. There is one niece who is a year older than C at 1 1/2, my nephew is 2 1/2 and my oldest niece is 5. Having, the three youngest cousins so close together is so much fun and hearing my oldest niece retaining and repeating all of the information just warms my heart! That girl loves learning! My nephew had a blast with these guys:

He just wanted to know everything! He was first absolutely amazed by them (as well as just about everything else in the Zoo), but also wanted to know "where go?" and why "dirt on him"? and "what's that?" By the time we hit the Elephants, Baby C was ready for his first nap but fought and fought and fought, and actually fell asleep after the birds. However, he was awake again by the Hippos, Rhinos and Monkeys. He was pretty into the Monkeys! He just kept staring at them and craning his neck to keep staring at certain ones as we continued along. Personally, I found this guy to be a lot of fun:

And now here is an obligatory photo of a Hippo, because Shannon loves them so much! 

So the Zoo was awesome and we were all absolutely wiped afterward! MH and I took C to the gift shop to pick something out to remember his first Zoo trip. There was a sale on the medium sized stuffed animals, so we quite literally took each one down from the walls and shelves and picked the two that C reacted to the most. In the end, we walked out with a Tree Frog and a Rhinoceros. :)

The next day, we met some friends from out of state and went to breakfast together and then headed over to the Museum of Nature and Science. I had never been before, so I was pretty excited! I didn't take my camera in, as I thought it might be a bit disrespectful, so I only have one picture on my phone of MH and C in the prehistoric exhibit. C loved this exhibit - especially the dinosaurs- and enjoyed touching everything he was allowed to. :) He also seemed to enjoy the space center. We got to go to a planetarium show about black holes, narrated by Liam Neesen (sp?) and it was pretty awesome! C sat in there pretty well for a good chunk but then decided he was done. I didn't let him face the screen, since I thought he might get dizzy. I knew the volume wouldn't bother him because his father and I are incredibly loud people, but in the end, he was sleepy and a really bright flash of light made him uneasy... can't blame him! So MH graciously took baby C out into the rest of the Space exhibit while I finished the show. It was really awesome, but my personal favorite was the Egypt and Mummies exhibit, and oddly, this was probably the smallest exhibit of them all! I would still like to go back just so I could spend more time in this exhibit. I also really enjoyed the Prehistoric exhibit, but we kinda had to rush through the end of it because C was just done and hungry and we had to make it to the planetarium. All in all, we had an incredible weekend! We did, once again, take C by the gift shop, but felt it necessary to buy him something more educational. So, he has a poster of the Period Table, which will be hanged in his room as soon as we get a frame for it. :) 

Today, I started my game of catch up and unpacking again. However, I also had to run errands, so it ended up being a packed, busy day and I got a lot of things half way done. But it still wasn't bad! I finally bit the bullet and started making the cloth wipes for Baby C. I came to the final decision that it was necessary when I forgot my makeup remover wipes and tried to use a baby wipe. When something that is supposed to be gentle on baby skin burned the dickens out of my eye, I decided I wasn't okay with it being used on my child, who already has super sensitive skin! So... I got advice from a few credible sources on CDing (cloth diapering) and combined their suggestions for a wipe solution, using a mixture of water, coconut oil, baby wash, and tea tree oil. I'll let you all know how it goes! I sewed close to 20 wipes today, which I cut from old receiving blankets. Thankfully C doesn't need them anymore. If he did though, I would probably go pick up some of the cheaper CD liners that Walmart carries and cut those up and stitch them. So, here is what I've got! 

I have four of these containers to keep the wipes in and I have decided to go ahead and store them already soaked in the solution... At least for now. We'll see how it goes! I'm sure I'll end up changing things several times until I figure out what works absolutely best for us, but for now I'm excited! :) 

C also started purees today! His first one is mashed bananas. The initial reaction was funny... he sorta gave me a face that said "what did you let me do!?" After that, he was really excited about the spoon, but not so much all that stuff that was on it. This evening, however, he was much more into eating the bananas. :) In fact, he kept opening his mouth for more! 

Okay, I know this has been a pretty long post, just full of info... I have just two more things to share. First... I am proud because my flowers in front of my house are blooming and are terribly pretty, I think! 

Last... I completely forgot to do a quick fun fact on Friday, so I decided to do two of them today! In sticking with the fun we had at the Zoo:

Did you know that there are three species of Zebra? They are the Plain's Zebra, Grevy's Zebra, and the Mountain Zebra. There are subspecies within the Plain's Zebra and the Mountain Zebra, but the Grevy's Zebra is the one we most commonly see or see pictures of.

Did you know that scientists still have not figured out why Giraffes have such long necks? At least... Not for sure. We used to be told that it was so that they could reach the tops of the trees, but this has never been an absolutely necessary function. They are cousin to the Roller, which is short with a short neck, and most resembles a Zebra in pattern. Take this one back to your littles! I want to hear what they have to say! - Why do YOU think a Giraffe has such a long neck!?

Alright... well, that's enough for me! I hope you all had a spectacular weekend and that your week is truly beautiful! 

From my family to yours... Zebra love and hugs! 

Until next time

Ashley ;)