Free Range Family

Happy Halloween! I wanted to give a shout out to one of my mama friends Chelsea- Monday she shared a link of my Color me Rad post on her Facebook page! Love it, thanks girl! I love when my readers share my blog! We are mid move and busy with Healthy Halloween and the Candy Run today, so I will not be posting much. I will post about our many Hallween events on Friday! And hopefully after the weekend, our new place will be mostly unpacked so I can do a post on it! Yay! i also have yet to post about Cordelia's birthday party too! Ahhhh, I am getting so behind! Bare with me, beloved readers, I will be back after the move! It just feels close to impossible moving with two children- one a nursing newborn- and in this weather. Gah! We are getting there though! Here is the final clue for Alan and Anna's costumes this year. For the first four clues, check here, here, here and here! Comment on this post on any of the others what your guess is! The contest ends tonight at midnight! I

I have had my internet turned off for a week and we are preparing to move today hopefully. Not too much happened last week except for Anna's friend Cordelia's first birthday party on Thursday and Color me Rad on Saturday. I will post about Cordelia's party later this week when I get the pictures from it. But I just HAVE to post about Color me Rad. Because it was simply AMAZING!! I ended up not running Color me Rad but working it. I was able to work as a color bomber and let me tell you, I think I had more fun than the runners! I was put in charge of eleven other people, we were the Blue Crew! It was the best group of people ever! We had so much fun! I do not even know how to explain to you the awesomeness that is Color me Rad but I once again have more awesome pictures to show you! And I am in some too! :) The before picture... Yes we rode in the back of a Uhaul to get to our stations I wanted my shoes to be color blasted too Part of my crew I was hop

Being Buddhist, I am usually not a materialistic person. I do not usually desire materials, only love and positive energies. But I do find myself occasionly getting hooked on specific materials with sentimental values. Like photographs, certain baby things, and other memiors. Well, I have this new blog that I am just OBSESSED with. Like seriously obsessed, I check it at least once a day (lately twice a day because she is pregnant) to see what she writes. I just love her, she is so much like me! Her name is Melody, which I love and is pretty close to my mom's name Melanie. Anyways, Miss Melody has an etsy shop where she sells jewelry, adorable scarfs and motivational quote paintings. Yesterday she posted about a sale where the first ten buyers get a piece of nest jewelry for free. Of course, I missed the sale lol. But I looked at this jewelry, read the background story to it and I'm pretty much obsessed with them too. Yeah she's pretty amazing, like I said!    Her

Saturday's birthday party was fun. Unfortunately, the kids were not able to come. Alan woke up this morning saying that his throat and tummy hurt. He had a low grade fever and threw up a little too. So we kept him at home with Lon. But the party was really cool! It was for my co-worker's 3 year old daughter and 6 year old son. The party was Star Wars and Dora the Explorer themed. They had several life size cardboard cut outs too! The kids all had a blast, I wish Alan was able to go! Oh well, there's always next year! I finished my book last night! Lon went over to his friend Jason's house for a bit and both kids were in bed, so I sat down and read the last few pages I had been procrastinating. I am sure glad I did too! What a book! I loved it and cannot wait to read the next one! The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games takes place supposedly in the future, in a desolate apocolyptic United States now known as Panem. Originally thirteen distri

So I know the last three clues I said that Anna did not have a costume and would only be wearing her Halloween sleeper, but Grandma Melanie and Aunt April broke down and bought her a costume this weekend while they were in Great Falls for dance and teaching conventions (one of each lol, not the same convention). So I will be catching up her clues on this post and adding Alan's third clue for his costume. You may check out the first three clues here, here and here. For Anna Clue #1: It is not technically alive... Clue #2: You eat it, but not until after dinner is finished... Clue #3: Each one is as different as the last... Clue #4: It is as sweet as Anna is... For Alan Clue #4: Ironically, the character Alan is being has about the same intelligence as a three year old... At the corn maze 2010

I found this on my Facebook breastfeeding group the other morning. How funny is it? I think some of them look a little sexual but you can tell that it was made in Japan. But its to go with the co-sleeping meme (I will have to find and post that one later). I think its cute. :) Between both of my children, I have done around twenty of these positions. How many of these positions have you done? Which one is your favorite? I enjoy nursing while laying down with Anna the best but my favorite one on here is the tribal one! Too cute!

For me, motherhood is... ...never ever getting to go to the bathroom alone again. Always having another little one (or two) following me in there, asking me about my current activity. ...never getting to sleep alone either. You might as well sign off getting to do anything alone again ever, because its not going to happen. Afterall, I now have a little man who is scared of the dark until he gets into your bed. Then he's all giggles. ...no longer having a purse but a diaper bag. Yes, my daughter's diaper bag has a few items that are mine in it, not the other way around lol. ...thinking about what my kid would eat while ordering for myself at a restaurant and ordering what I want for him. Half the time he will end up eating mine and I will be scarfing down some of his leftovers five minutes before we leave. So much for a nice meal out. Oh well, eating out is for losers anyways. :P ...saying things like, "Don't lick the garbage can!" or "Your uncle i

I have not done a blog hop all week so I figured since it was Friday, I would give in and participate in this one. Happy Friday everyone! We are only doing more packing today but tomorrow I work a birthday party for my co-worker's two kids. They go to "school" with Alan, so Lon will be bringing the kids too. It should be alot of fun, I have never had my family come to one of my birthday parties! And I have been doing them for two years now! One of my friends from my graduating class gave birth to her son early this morning. I am so happy for her! This is her first child but she has two step-children as well. It is the family's first son however, they are completley beside themselves. Alan, Anna and I went up there earlier tonight to visit them. And I do have to say, Mister Dom is soooooooooo sweet! He is about as big as Anna was when she was born and has the cutest little bald head. What a precious addition to their family, we are so happy for them. Congratulations

Thursday the kids and I met up with my friend Jessica and her family at our town's corn maze and pumpkin patch. Anna had her last weight check up with her pediatrician that morning, so we got the jeep for the day. Alan and I were so excited to be able to get out around town some! Anna's appointment went really well. Anna weighed 10 pounds and 8 ounces, a whole pound more since her last appointment with them. The nurses seemed very pleased with that progress. They asked me if we had changed anything and I filled them in our own recent work with the Lactation Consultant. She told me that I was right to have contacted her and Anna was lucky to have such a dedicated parent. Made my day, just a little bit. I'll be honest with you. Then we saw our new doctor (one randomly picked from our clinic this time) and what a surprise that was! It was my old school friend Rosa, the girl who actually gave me the idea of Rosalie's name when I was pregnant with her! Wow what a coincide

I noticed today that I have barely posted any pictures of the family this week. We have been so busy packing and preparing for this move next week that I have only been posting back up posts and not really posting too much about our happenings. Not too much is going on but here is a week's worth of my cell phone photos! Been dancing in these gaucho pants for at least ten years now! I forgot to bring him a coat but redeemed myself by giving him mine lol. Anna playing as her buddies watch her :D I look kinda creepy lol! How I found my wild man watching tv this morning Rolling the biggest pumpkin he could find lol! Gray is the new brown for my girl! I just love her in shades of gray! The last tree in our lot that turned! Its such a pretty yellow now! Loving Member Appreciation Week at our bank!

Happy Hump Day everyone! No WILW post today, I will already have two posts today anyways and I am a little busy with the kids and packing. Not too much is going on again today but it is my cousin Anthony's 24th birthday. He lives in Colorado, so unfortunately we will not be doing too much for him. I wrote on his Facebook and will be giving him a call hopefully later today. Happy birthday Anthony, we al love you so much here! Otherwise today we are still just packing and cleaning. I have hiphop class tonight and we are learning some more freezes and working on our six step. I think next week I will teach them top rocking. :) For obvious reasons, since I had Anna we have been pretty homebound. Lon works two jobs and is gone weekdays from 9 in the morning until 11 at night. We only have one vehicle right now and it usually goes with him. We also try to only go to the grocery store once every week and a half, if not two weeks. When we run out of things, like milk, we have to get crea

Here is this week's edition of Guess my Halloween Costume with Alan. If you are just joining us, I will be giving a clue about Alan's costume every Wednesday until the end of the month. Anna is going as a cute baby in a Halloween onesie, there I already gave it away lol. :P Then on November 1st, I will post the answer! Whoever guesses right (if anyone guesses lol) will recieve a little something something from yours truly, though I have yet to decide what that will be. You can see the first clue here and the second clue here.  Well, here we go! Clue #3 He has super healing powers... Carving our pumpkins

Not too much going on today. I do not have class today so the kids and I will be at home packing and cleaning. It was raining earlier this morning, that was nice. I like rainy days. And today it helped motivate me to pack! Bonus! We got a call from our new landlord this morning and the place will not be ready until around next Wednesday. This puts quite the strain on us because we have to be out of this place by the first of next month, but we will make do. I am confident that we can get moved in one day and spend the rest of the week cleaning the place. We have lots of help too. Still, wish us luck! Here is another back up post for y'all! We are all busy, busy, busy! I have been thinking about the songs I sing to Anna to calm her down. There are a few that are similar to what I sang to Alan as a newborn, but a lot of new ones too. Here is a list of them, I will start with the ones I also sang to Alan. "Is this Love?" by Bob Marley This is one of the songs I used

We are still currently living in our old apartment. Spoke with our new landlord on Friday and he is just waiting on a furnace part before we can start moving in. He said Monday, but I have yet to talk with him today. Keep your fingers crossed for us, we may get our keys and such tonight! How awesome would that be???? This weekend was a nice and easy weekend for us. No crazy moving, although I would have been okay with that. Maddie's baby shower was Saturday afternoon. Sunday, we stayed home and did some more packing. We are now down to having only the necessities unpacked and alot of our belongings have been gone through. I have four big boxes full to the brim with stuff we are donating to Good Will, we have developed so much clutter in these past two years of living here. I thought we had gotten rid of most of it over Memorial weekend before Anna was born, but this weekend I have found the most random things (I think I may do a post on it later this week). I have become the new

When Anna went in for her two month check up, my whole opinion on my breastfeeding ability with her changed. I had thought that I was lucky this time around and had a perfect nurser who was getting an ample supply from me. But I was pretty darn wrong. I noticed it when the nurse weighed her. She kept asking me how old Anna was. I thought, nine and a half pounds is not terribly small for a twelve week old, but I knew that it was going to be brought up. And I was right. Well, if you are members of any of the Facebook groups that I am, you probably know how upset I was about all this. I do not want to get into to much detail but Anna's pediatrician pretty much told me that Anna was extremely underweight. She honestly made it sound like she was malnurished and was just going to need to be hospitalized right away. This lady has no bedside manner, I'm sorry. I will at least do her a favor and not use her name for this post, but wow. We have switched doctors. After stressing and

I am pretty excited for this weekend. We should hopefully get a call from our new landlord, sign the lease to the new place, and start moving in tomorrow or Sunday!! Yay, so very excited!! Saturday is also Maddie's baby shower at my aunt's house. I am excited for this too. I made her little boy (they are going to name him James, so sweet) several cupcake onesies to go with the diaper cake my mother had made for her. And Anna has a onesie to wear that goes with the theme of the party! Winnie the Pooh! It should be a lot of fun for everyone. As for today, there's not too much going on here. Just packing the last of the stuff we do not need on a daily basis and some more cleaning. But tonight we might go over to my parent's to see everyone off. My father, April and Kalvin are going to visit Natalie in Missoula. They are going to her homecoming football game with her. Oh so fun! I want to do that with the kids one year! We always wear maroon that day but it would be so co

Today is my two year blogiversary. Like the change????? I sure hope so! I have completely revamped my blog, giving it a more adult/family feel. No more of this young mama junk! I am 23 years old and have two children of my own. It was time for a change! And I like it. Let me share with you the new changes: The first one is obvious, our new blog name. Free Range Family. A name my husband came up with. I told him I wanted something that described our family's free spirit and hippie lifestyle, but also hints at my love for this state and everything about the west. At first, Lon was teasing me, telling me silly names he knew I would never use. But then he said it, and right away I knew it was perfect. It was the new name for my family's blog. There was no question about it. My family essentially is a free range family. In Montana, to be free range means to be unenclosed and constantly able to move around and forage for food. We have not lived in one place for more than a y

Last week, we started the Guess my Halloween Costume for Alan. Every Wednesday this month, I will post a clue about Alan's costume this year. Then on November 1, I will post the results. I think I might even give something fun away to the winner, though I have not thought of anything yet. You can find the first clue here. Clue #2 He does not wear a shirt. They do not fit him usually. Alan, October 2010

I know I did not do yesterday's Toddler Talk Tuesday but we are very busy now, as to be expected. :) I did, however, feel quite compelled to do today's blog hop simply because I have so much to love and be thankful for today. Not too much is going on for us today, just packing and then I have hiphop class. We will just be reviewing the 5 step for breakdancing and maybe learning a new freeze, I have not decided yet. But I am still a very happy little mama! All is definitely good in this neck of the woods! Here is this week's What I'm Loving Wednesday! I'm loving that we got the okay on our house yesterday! We will be moving in hopefully this weekend! I'm loving that this weekend is also my cousin in law Maddie's baby shower. I am doing a Pinterest project for her present! Onesie cupcakes to go with the diaper cake my mom is having made for her! I'm loving that Anna already has her baby shower outfit picked out! It goes perfectly with the th