10 Months

One thing is for sure, I will not use blocks for the monthly photos for our next baby! Although it is pretty cute. This month he decided the fun thing to do was to throw the blocks off of the chair and then lean over and see where they went. We had more than a few close calls, because really, standing up in a rocker probably isn't the best idea ;-)

A few highlights

- He hit the 9 month "stranger danger" phase with gusto! He's getting a little better, but he will cling to Jeff or me when we come in contact with someone he doesn't know.

- Still pulling up on everything, walking with his walking toys, or anything else that could be turned into a walking toy

- He loves, loves to be outside. We spend a lot of time outdoors now. I figure we need to get our outside time in now, because soon it will be super hot!

- He is more interested in anything that is not his toy that his actual toys. We recently did a toy swap with our friend, Jackson, and that has helped a lot. So hopefully when we swap back he'll be interested in his "old" toys again!

- He is eating finger foods all the time now. He loves bananas, carrots, tortilla, cheese, peas, broccoli, pinto beans, scrambled eggs, and much more. I still haven't found much that he doesn't like, there are things that he will eat last...when there is nothing else left on his tray...ha!

- The other day we were at the grocery, I was looking at the sippy cups and I look over at MD and he's pointing at something. I look up to what he's pointing at and he's pointing at an Elmo sippy! He had a HUGE smile on his face, so I handed the sippy to him and he smiled and pointed at Elmo's face. I had to buy them, he POINTED at them! Jeff informed me that it was ok for the first time, but I can't buy everything he points at :-)

- He's "talking" a lot now. He "reads" to me from his books. Still a lot of Dada's in there, I've heard a few Mama's, but nothing to tell us that he's actually talking about either one of us.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but on to the photos.....

Children's Museum with Dad!

For those of you that do not know, Jeff got a promotion at work! I'm so proud of him and I'm so happy that he loves his new job, but MD and I sure do miss him being at home during the day. So he took his lunch break one day a couple weeks ago and met us at the Children's Museum. Jeff wanted to see it, and I've heard that the weekends are a nightmare, so this worked out perfectly!

Maddox and I stayed and played after Daddy had to leave. He got his toys stolen a lot and I just kept thinking that soon he's going to be the one stealing toys and I'll be the Mom apologizing to everyone :-)

How cute are those shorts? I'm loving the plaid so much!

I can't quite seem to reach this toy for some reason?

Holy crap that baby is adorable!

I can't get enough of this baby....

Mom, can you give me a minute please

I'm so cute, I can't stand it!

Until we meet again my friend!

Pinterest!!

If you're not on Pinterest, just think about it before you join, because you will waste so much time on that site its not funny. BUT, I've already gotten so many great ideas on saving money, new recipes, ways to make your own products. Its pretty awesome.

My first Pinterest project was making laundry detergent with my friend Darci. Then I decided I would make my own hand soap, because we go through so much liquid hand soap at this house.

I found a few different blogs where the ladies make their own soap. Everyone was using Mrs Meyers soap so I wanted to see how it would turn out using a different soap. I bought Dial bar soap, pomegranate scented. On sale at HEB 3 bars for $1.92! It took me a while to find the glycerine. I finally found it in the bandaid section, it cost a little over $3.

First you grate your bars of soap. The recipe that I was going by used a 8oz bar of soap and the bars that I bought were 4oz each so I used 2 of them.

I went ahead and heated my gallon of water while I was grating my soap so it was close to boiling by the time I was done. Add in your soap shavings and 2 Tbs of glycerine. Keep stirring while all the soap dissolves.

It took about 5 minutes for it all to melt. Then you just let it sit! Make sure you tell your husband not to "help" you out by out of the blue washing the pot thats on the counter ;-)

Mine set for about 6 hours and Jeff noticed that it was solid. It wasn't hard, it was more like a hard gel. So I took my hand blender, blended it and added probably about 1-2 cups of water. I wasn't paying attention how much I added, I just kept adding until it looked more like soap. The next morning it was a little on the gel side again so I blended some more and added 1/4 cup of water. I let that sit some more to make sure it wouldn't harden back up and it was good. I ended up with 1 gallon and 1 quart of liquid soap! 

The best part of making my own soap besides the fact that over a gallon of soap cost me about a $1 was that it made our house smell so delicious during the whole process. I will definitely be repeating this project!

Liquid Hand Soap

1 gallon of water (plus some)

8 oz of shaved bar soap

2 Tbs glycerine

Camera dump!

Picking out dinner!

 The cool kids play on the OUTSIDE of their excersaucer!