The Thing That Makes Me Laugh Every Wednesday.

We don't watch tv.

We don't even have tv.

We have A tv, but it's only to watch movies on.

But there is ONE show that I watch online.

The Bachelor.

I know.

I know.

It's a terrible show.

Skyler says when we have a daughter, I can't watch it anymore.

I totally get it, it's an awful show.

But I'm addicted.

Anyone else?

I think part of why I love it so much is that I got in a habit of watching it every Monday night with my mom about 5 years ago when I was living at home.

It was our "girl's night".

We'd snuggle up on the couch (often with ice cream) and watch the trashy show together.

It's super "dramatic".

It's so NOT reality.

It's trashy.

It's really a terrible show, when it boils down to it.

Yet, I can't help but love watching it.

But, you guys.

I found something EVEN better than watching it.

It's a blog.

A GUY who watches the show and does recaps every week.

And this guy is HYSTERICAL.

I'm not even kidding a little bit.

I am always busting a gut while reading his blog (every Wednesday).

Enough that Skyler always knows and asks "that guy's blog?"

Uh huh.

Seriously.

I used to read Ashley Spivey's blog recaps every week.

Remember her from Brad's season?

 

She's cute and spunky and always had really funny blog posts.

This season she decided to take a break from recaps and she pointed all of us readers in the direction of several other bloggers that do recaps.

One of them being this guy.

I didn't even bother to check out the others'.

This one was satisfying enough.

Check it out.

Rocket-Shoes.

He makes me laugh because he says things like this:

"Tierra says, “my heart is racing that I’m with Sean,” and that’s not a complete sentence."

And this:

"Sean talks about how AshLee, the girl who was adopted (and we are supposed to talk about it), has said a lot of times that she loves him, followed by her saying that she is on an island with the love of her life within 45 seconds of the beginning of her segment.

I finally realize that she’s basically just Stacey from Wayne’s World."

Read it.

Read back through Sean's entire season.

And then go back and read through Emily's.

And then come back and thank me for showing you the best treasure ever.

I'll warn you - the guy is a little crude.

But, when you're recapping a trashy show, you can't NOT be crude, really.

Happy reading, happy laughing.  :)

Someone else please tell me you watch this trashy show?

I just can't seem to turn away from it.

 

Love,

K

G is for...

7 Weeks

• Had your 6 week check up and you are.... 11 lb 9 oz already!  Yowza!  Not only that, but you are 23 3/4 inches.  That's 4 inches you have grown in SIX WEEKS.  What the heck, little dude?  Slow down a little, eh?
• We have joked (but we're pretty serious) that you are going to be just like daddy and his "little" brother Logan...that you will be the younger but bigger brother.  :)  I have a feeling you will outgrow Ezekiel before too long.
• Your midwife, Susie, noted that you have a very strong neck for being so young!  I told her, both my boys have freakish Anderson strength and have held up their heads within a couple days of birth.  
• At 6 weeks, mommy checked in at 130 lbs.  5-6 more pounds to go to pre-pregnancy weight!  BUT... lots of toning.  Oh boy, lots of toning.  And also.  I think my hips have permanently spread.  Or got stuck.  :(  Even with losing almost all the weight, I STILL cannot get back into about 5 pairs of jeans.  So I did some retail therapy this week to remedy that.
• Your daddy was really happy for mommy to hit the 6 week mark.  For.  Well.  He just was.  :)
• You seem to like when I tickle your chin in my fingers.  You smile almost every time.
• Mommy pinched your finger in the car seat buckle this week. :(  I have NEVER heard you wail like you did then.  Pure pain.  Broke my heart.  :(
• I put you in some 3 month clothes to "see"... and they FIT!  GAH!  Stop.  Just stop.
• You had your first stomach bug this weekend and threw up. :( Also broke mommy's heart (right after I threw up, too, that is.). 
• At 7 weeks, you STILL don't like and won't take a binky.  We are quite sad about this.  We feel you'd be a lot happier if you just took it!  But you have a really bad gag.  Plus, every time we try to give it to you, you just look at us like we're all crazy making you put some useless piece of plastic in your mouth that doesn't even produce milk.  Not worth your time!
• You are sleeping so much better than Ezekiel ever did, in some ways.  Ezekiel really had to be coddled to fall asleep.   Lots of cuddling and nursing to really put him in a good sleep to where I could lay him down.  You like to be nursed when you're tired, but then you like to be laid down still awake and you put yourself to sleep.  At night, Ezekiel would wake up every hour - 2 hours (up through 17 months!) to nurse.  You are fairly regularly sleeping from about 8:30 or 9 until about 3 or 3:30 for the first chunk.  You are sleeping in your cradle right next to mom's side of the bed during this time.  Then you wake up for your first feeding and stay in bed with us.  Then sleep another 2-3 hours and then wake for another nurse.  So you usually only nurse 2-3 times at night, instead of like 6-8!  It feels insane.  :)  We're so thankful for this difference and your ability to put yourself to sleep!  
• Every morning you take a good long (2.5-3 hour) nap on the window seat.  You love it.  And so do I.  You put yourself to sleep at this point too.  I lay you on your tummy to look out the window and you drift off to sleep within 20-30 minutes.

Love you, my Chubby Bunny.
Mom

Calling All REAL Moms!

Since this post, I have received several comments and emails from other mom's thanking me for taking the time to be REAL and letting them know that they're not all alone and I do NOT have it all together either!  (Cause really?  Who does?)

The gears turned in my brain as I heard mom after mom chuckle at my "mom fails" and thank me for the little bit of humor in their day.  (Even though I wasn't intending to be humorous... Isn't it great how someone else's failures and misery's are someone else's humor?! ;)  Totally kidding.  You can laugh at my life.  No biggie.)

And I thought... I would love to read some of YOUR  

REAL LIFE, 

REAL MOM,

REAL KIDS,

humor!!

If you have them and are willing to share them, will you?

Will you comment or send me an email with your "real mom" moments and realities in life?

Do you also live in your yoga pants?  Or do anything in desperation to get your kid to sleep a few more moments?  Anyone else have dirty diapers tucked into their side pocket of their car door?  

(No? Just me?....I swear I'm not "dirty".  All the time.)

Then I'll gather and post them so we can all get a chuckle in our day and be reassured that we're not alone in this crazy adventure of motherhood?  

If you have some real mom moments to share, email me at kayladanelle@gmail.com. 

Thanks for being real and for laughing with me (and sometimes at me), friends.

Love,

K

{A Year of Dates} February

Whelp, we thoroughly enjoyed our February date last week from our "Year of Dates" book that I made for Skyler for Christmas.  (You can see what it's about and January's date here.)

Long story short, we decided not to do what I had planned for in the book because of Asher's colicky-ness - especially with evening's being his worst time.  (Thankfully now, at almost 7 weeks old, he's much much better and I think we'll be just fine and back on track with next month's date!).  It was no problem and I just shuffled the date that was planned for February to another time!

The whole reason behind the book was to make a POINT of dating each other still, at least once a month, so it didn't really matter to us what the particular date was.  SO, we made it a family date this month.  (We just made a point of excessive hand holding and hugging to make it more "date-like" ;)  Someday, this will gross our kids out.  It will be a good thing.)

Ezekiel has been obsessed with animals (especially giraffe's and zebra's) and getting really good at naming all the animals (instead of just making the sound they make) so we opted for a family day at the zoo!  It was a decent day out (cloudy, but upper 50's and NOT raining) and Skyler had a short day at school.  It was also "Second Tuesday" at the zoo, which meant each adult ticket was $4 instead of almost $12.  Zeek and Asher were free, making our date a total of a whopping $8.  A nice fee for a family on a budget.  :)

I wasn't sure how busy the zoo would be on "Second Tuesday" since I'd never been there on that day before.  I was surprised at how UN-busy it was.  Of course, it could have been that it was February and not too many people are anxious to get to the zoo in the winter but we loved it!  Not only was it not busy, but there were several animals that were much more active in the winter than they usually are in the summer!  We decided we needed to go twice a year - once in the winter and once in the summer - to see all the animals at their peak at least once.  :)

I packed up the boys and when Skyler got home, we hit the road for Portland.  I wore Asher in the Boba carrier and he slept most of the afternoon.  Zeek walked around our (giant and AWESOME!) zoo most of the day, to our surprise!  He didn't want to be in the stroller hardly at all - in fact, he wanted to push it himself most of the time.  Double bonus. ;)

Here are some photo's from our day:

Watching the eagles

Skyler says, "At least I'm taller than the sun bear!" ... but now looking at this, I had to laugh.  This shows that he is barely 5 foot tall.  He is a LITTLE taller than that.   He's 5'8" ... so he's ALMOST as tall as the black bear.  ;)

This guy was more active (and fun to watch!) than I had ever seen before!

She came right up to the window, plopped down and just stared and stared at Zeek. 

Watchin' the hippo's.  After watching this video a few days before, we were hoping to see something similar:

Ezekiel, looking so handsome and GROWN UP!

And to top off the date (and make it a little more "date-like" perhaps), we ended the day feasting at one of our favorites: Claim Jumper!

We were reminded why we don't often eat out at nicer places with our tot...

After a long, tiring day (and on only a 1/2 hour nap!), he was a little hard to keep wrangled at the table.

But he found a few ways to amuse himself.  :)

Even though our February date wasn't quite as planned, we had a great time.  :)

Looking forward to our March date!  I especially can't wait for March 1st to be able to open the date package with Skyler and see his face.  His birthday is March 12th, so I planned a special date for this month.  :)

Happy dating, everyone!
K

F is for...

You sure have your daddy's feet!

Hello, Big Blue's!

6 Weeks

• You started cooing and talking frequently.
• Overall, you're finally seeming to be happier and more content.
• We started giving you probiotics a couple weeks ago, and added slippery elm to the list this week. They have seemed to help you tremendously.  You aren't screaming all evening night after night.  Some nights you still do.  But most you don't anymore.
• You love to be swaddled up in your blankets and laid on your tummy to fall asleep.  It's a "no no", I know.  But whatever works.
• We've seen a huge difference in how much you sleep during the day - you nap most of the morning long, with your best nap being around 11:00 - 2 or so.  
• You are now content to just lay by yourself for a while, kicking and talking, on either your little play mat or up on the window seat by the light.  You never used to be content by yourself, up until this week.  
• We started you in your little GDiapers last week.  They are SO cute on you!!  Little G Bum. :)
• Your hair seems to be falling out already and you are looking more and more bald!  It's so weird for me to be having such a bald baby, when your big brother had such thick hair!
• Your eyes are turning bluer and bluer.  I keep wondering if you're going to have bright blue's like Ezekiel!
• You are smiling so much more easily now.  Just seeing me walk over to you sometimes makes you grin at me.  I'm so glad you love your mama.
• We go in for your 6 week check up appointment tomorrow!  Can't wait to see how big you've gotten.  :)

Your mama loves you, you big boy!
Love,
Mom

A Love Story on Love Day

Hi Love Bugs!

I hope you guys are all having a great day today. :)
We woke up, made a quick breakfast (heart shaped Paleo pancakes, of course) and kissed daddy goodbye as he left for school.

I had wrapped just a small little present for Zeek - a couple of new Sesame Street books and a Sesame Street brush and comb of his own! (LOVE the dollar section of Target! Zeek has several of those Sesame Street books from there now. They are some of his favorite ones!) He is currently obsessed with Sesame Street and also brushing his hair, since he discovered the same brush at his grandma's house. He also got a little mailbox stuffed with Valentine's cards made by me, his two cousins and his aunt. The kid loves mail. He is always finding scraps of paper and walking around the house saying, "I got mail!" Needless to say, the gift was a hit. :)

Otherwise, Skyler and I have never really celebrated Valentine's... Just not really our thing. Really, I've never done much to celebrate any holiday, which is why you never see me posting holiday crafts on this blog, like every other blogger does. However, having a toddler totally into these things now, it's making it a little more fun. :) We did do a craft the other day and made Valentine's for his grandma's and daddy with cardstock, crayons, stickers and stamps. :) I think I may be finding myself getting more into the holiday craft/decor sooner than later. Which is okay... If Zeek loves it, I love it. :)

ANYWAY. If you love bugs need some more lovin' in your day, you can read

Our Love Story.

Or a couple of my favorite love stories of my friends:

Sarah's


Tanya's

And how about a couple of cool dating idea's blogs? These are my favorites and I got a couple of idea's for our Year of Monthly Date's book from these!





Hopefully those satisfy your mushy gushy LOVE needs for the day. ;)

Happy Valentine's Day!
LOVE,
K

The Most Amazing Grain-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Well, you know we eat a mostly Paleo diet.  When I found this chocolate chip cookie recipe from the Gutsy blog, I was excited and also skeptical of how these would taste and hold up after baked.  Chocolate Chip Cookies are my favorite and I don't settle for just any kind.

I'll tell you now that since we discovered this recipe a couple of months ago, we have probably baked about 47 batches of them.  Not kidding.  Zeek learned to say the word "cookie" because of these bad boys.

These are the bomb.

Not only do they taste AMAZING (as dough and as baked cookies!), they are also really pretty healthy for you!  If you know us, you know we don't give Zeek "treats" or any baked goods at all.  No cheerios, no graham crackers, no cookies.  Not even birthday cake on his own birthday.

These were the ONE exception to that rule because we didn't mind giving him the ingredients that were in it!  Ready for it?

All that is in these tasty treats are: almond flour, honey, coconut oil, sea salt, baking soda and chocolate chips (or raisins!).

This recipe makes the perfect amount of cookies.  It doesn't make 500 dozen like so many other cookie recipes make.  It's built-in perfect portion control! ;) ... because if it made any more, I'd eat them too.  (And all in the same night.)

To make these even healthier for Zeek, we opted to trade out the chocolate chips for raisins.  These are a fantastic boost of protein if Zeek needs a little snack while we're out an about.  I put a few in my purse in a little snack cup or zip lock bag and they hold up great!  I never was really a fan of raisin cookies but wow.  The way the coconut oil flavors these cookies and the raisin stays soft and almost melts right into the cookie... *sigh*  I'm getting hungry for some right now.  And I've already eaten about 10 today.

Look at these beauties:

This recipe comes from Caroline at My Gutsy and was shared at one of my favorite blogs Mommypotamus.  I really didn't change anything to this recipe (so rare of me!) but I do have a specific way I make them.  Here's how we make them in our house:

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup almond flour
• 1/4 cup of honey
• 1/4 cup of melted (not just softened) coconut oil
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• A generous heap of chocolate chips or raisins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all the ingredients together, scoop with a cookie scoop (at least that works best for me!), plop on a cookie tray and bake for 6 minutes.

The hardest part of this recipe is letting these cookies cool for about 10 minutes before you eat them because they fall apart easily when too warm.  This will test your self-control.

Then EAT!  And feel almost completely guiltless about them.  I tell myself it's like I'm just eating a healthy nut bar... ;)

MmmmMM.  Beautiful and tasty wheat-free chocolate chip cookies.

Heaven.

Make a batch.

Your toddler (and husband) will thank you.

Love,
K

P.S. Happy birthday to my big bro!! Love you, Jer!

E is for... (and 1 Month!)

Asher turned one month old on February 2nd!

We've had mixed reviews of if people think Asher looks like Zeek did as a baby.  Looking down at Asher in real life, I feel like he looks just like Ezekiel did (with a few obvious differences - smaller forehead, less hair and no butt chin).  In pictures, I can see more of their differences but boy oh boy.  They certainly look enough alike that you can tell they are brother's! 

I did some side by side comparison's for fun. :)

(Even wearing the same onesie for both of their 1 month photo's!)

You can also see in the above comparison that Asher is definitely chunkier than Zeek was!  Zeek still had skinny legs and was still wearing almost only newborn clothes at 4 weeks.  Asher has a chunkier face and legs and seems like he is longer than Zeek was at this age (even though they were both born the exact same length!).

5 Week Stats

• You have still been very colicky.  We are really trying to help you feel better and this week we tried some infant probiotics for you.  It's a powder that you mix with breastmilk and we feed to you from a bottle 2-3 times a day.  You've been on it for 4 days now and are sort of getting the hang of the bottle.  It already has made a tremendous difference!! The first day you were on it, you took the FIRST 2.5 hour nap (without being held) of your entire life.  Seems crazy to say about a newborn.  But you had seriously never slept that long before without someone holding you.  I probably checked on you 8 times during that nap.
• You have since taken about two 2-3 hour naps a day.  HUGE improvement already.
• We have learned that you LOVE tummy time!!  In fact, so much so, that it puts you to sleep almost immediately.  (Check the above photo's on the brown blanket.  That was literally a few minutes into my photo taking that he fell asleep.).  This was a great little tip to learn!
• You had your first trip up to the snow!  And your first time going down on the sled (in the Boba on mom).
• We don't have a scale at home, so I haven't weighed myself since your one week appointment.  I'm pretty sure I began pregnancy at 124-125 lbs, was around 162 lb at my last pregnancy appt, around 145 at your one week check up and was SO happy to see the scale read only 134 this week (when I weighed myself at grandma and grandpa's).  Only 9-10 lbs to go till I'm back to pre pregnancy weight!  And I get to really exercise this coming week after your 6 week check up.  I did take Zeek on a bike ride - just me and him - last week.  It was so nice to get outside and back on the bike after about 3 months off of it.  Plus, to have a bit of just mommy and Zeek time was awesome.  :)
• Your "SwaddleMe" blanket has been awesome.  You, like Ezekiel, are Houdini when it comes to being regularly swaddled in a receiving blanket.  You have your hands out and flapping around within a few minutes.  So far, you haven't broken out of your straight jacket "SwaddleMe" blanket.  You sleep so much better in it.
• You started talking and cooing a lot this week.  Overall, you just seem like a happier baby.  Which makes me a happier mommy.  Oh boy.  What a crazy 5 weeks we've had together so far, little guy!
• You've also been smiling a lot more easily!  It is the most precious thing. :)
• Your big bro just LOVES you.  Any time I lay you down on the floor, he immediately lays down right next to you, put his face right up against your head and drapes his arm over you.  He'd lay there forever next to you.  Or he brings you toys.  He just stacks them up right by your head, just so that if you ever decide you want to play with a toy, you'll have several handy.  :)
• He also has been loving having you lay on his tummy, just like daddy does with Zeek and you.  He is so in love with his baby brother!

Love,
K