Special Birthday Girl

Happy 4th Birthday, Lilly Bell!!! You are a very special little niece and we love you so much!! We cannot believe how much you have grown in just four short years.

We loved you from the start...

And we continue to love you more and more each day!

Happy Birthday sweet Lilly!!

Roses, Snow Cream, and Diapers

My Valentine hand delivered these the other day. He broke the rules. We agreed that the concert and dinner were our gifts to each other for Valentine's Day. He said he got these for me to enjoy before we leave for the weekend. I love them!

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After our chili and bread tonight, we had brownies and snow cream for dessert. I've never had snow cream before. I had read about it on a few other blogs and thought we should give it a try. You know, since we have feet of snow on the ground and tons more yet to come! It tastes a lot like homemade ice cream and it only takes 5 minutes to make. Ryan collected the snow and we mixed it up together. It was fun! And tasted great with our brownies!

Snow Cream
1/2 gallon snow
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 TBS vanilla
1 cup milk

The original recipe called for a gallon of snow, so we halved the recipe. We ended up having to add more milk than it called for. Next time, we won't be adding quite as much milk so it doesn't get watery. It was really good...you should try it!!

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And finally, I took the diaper plunge. I went to diapers.com and bought a HUGE box of size 4 diapers and a HUGE box of size 5 diapers. Bigger boxes than I've ever seen in the stores. And they ship fast! I placed my order on Wednesday and received them today in the mail. And my shipping was free because I spent over $49.

Here's the deal:
Go to diapers.com and place a $49 order. You'll get free shipping. If you enter this referral code KDXU8026 you get $10 off your first order. I will also get a referral credit too when you use my code.

Then, you can go to http://www.diapers.com/helpcenter/parenting.htm and get a $14.97 rebate. You can get a full rebate instead of the magazine subscription.

You can even mail in your coupons and they will credit your account. Great way to save some money when buying diapers!

1st Official Haircut

Orin had his first official haircut tonight at the salon. He did great for being almost one year old. Ryan came with and had Orin sit on his lap during the haircut. At first he wanted to grab the scissors and comb. And then he was occupied with his pacifier, a few toys and the spray bottle. He also enjoyed looking around at the other ladies everytime he heard them talking. The hairstylist did a great job of cutting whichever side of hair was facing her regardless of how much Orin squirmed and wiggled around. At one point, he was standing up and trying to jump on Ryan's lap. Of course, he couldn't make it too easy for her! He needed a trim, but I also wanted his hair to be able to be gelled and spiked. At the end, she put gel in his hair and it made him look a lot like his daddy. My baby boy looks so grown up now. So sad!

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

My Friend, Hazel

Hazel came to play for the day on Monday. The two babes had a great time! It was so fun to see them interact and play together. I love that they are such good playmates and so close in age. I had to capture some pictures of Orin and his little girlfriend. :)

Checking out the TV buttons. Too cute!

Trying to give Hazel a nice hug from behind

Getting a little rough and aggressive

Mom told me to be nice. Maybe I should give Hazel a backrub?

Our moms better watch us in the future!

What's that in your hair?

I've never seen anything like it.

Uh Oh! Don't mess with a girl's hair unless you want to see her come unglued!

He's All BOY!

How come I have a feeling I'm going to be experiencing several more Orin destructions in my lifetime?? I can hardly wait to see what he comes up with next!

This...

is
what
happens
when
Mama
leaves
the
room.

Orin opened the drawer that stored some of my teaching stuff and found an overhead transparency. There was something written on it about favorite pizza toppings and creating graphs. All the talk about pizza made Orin hungry! Can you blame him??

Orin Update

An update on Orin:

He’s almost one! I can hardly believe that it has almost been a year since we were in the hospital meeting him for the first time. We’ve been busy planning and preparing for his construction-themed birthday party. I think it will be a good time!

When he turned 11 months, I substituted his 4:00 bottle with 6 ounces of whole milk and a snack. He took a while adjusting and accepting the fact that he was never getting formula at that time again. I changed it up trying to get a good feel for things. Like sometimes I would put the milk in a bottle and other times I would put it straight in the sippy. Sometimes I would try to rock him with the bottle or sippy and other times I would put him in the highchair to drink and eat a snack. He didn’t really do well with either option for a while. Then about a week and a half after that, once he had gotten the hang of it, I switched his 11:30 bottle to whole milk and lunch. It took him a good week to adjust, in fact he has only had two days now where he finished the whole sippy of milk. I fill the sippy with 10 oz of milk. I give him that milk during breakfast, lunch, snack, and supper. For the first few days, he was only drinking about half of the milk. But the last few days, he has done super and finished all 10 ounces. Success! I haven't decided when to switch the other two feedings.

Here’s his current schedule:

7:30- 6 oz bottle and breakfast
9:30-11:30- Nap
11:30- Sippy of whole milk and lunch
1:30-4:00- Nap
4:00- Sippy of whole milk and snack (cheerios, puffs, raisins, crackers, cheese, etc.)
6:00- Sippy of whole milk and supper
7:30- 7 oz bottle

I also found another tooth last night! He decided to go out of order and pop the top tooth right above his other tooth. Ryan said, “Well, I hope that doesn’t mean he’s missing that bottom tooth!” Haha! Orin hasn’t really showed signs of teething other than being really clingy and cuddly. He did wake up last night before we had gone to bed, so I gave him some Tylenol and that was good enough to get him through the night. I’m thankful that he doesn’t get too crabby when he’s teething!

Here's a few pictures of the little man. He’s been helping me prepare for my photo shoot I have tomorrow morning.

I think he’s pretty sick of mama always taking pictures. Look at that serious face!