Free Range Family

Currently, I am sitting here in the living room while everyone else sleeps. Pandora Radio plays quietly in the background and I am finishing the last of my Dove chocolates from Valentine's Day. Its so late, but I cannot seem to get to sleep. I figured if I am already awake, why not pump one more time for the night and finish this post?  I am so hyped today after talking to my director about my dance schedule and plans for this spring! I just thought I would share a little bit with you, my fantastic readers! We have a very busy next few months for dance. In March, we will be learning Michael Jackson's Thriller and preforming it, plus learning some break dancing. Then in April, we will be learning the showcase dance and preparing our costumes. The showcase is that last Saturday in April, a whole month earlier than I originally thought! I am super excited to start the showcase choreography! I have both the songs picked out already! For my 4-6 year olds: They will be performin

Happy Hump Day everyone! This week has been one awesome one for us and a very exciting one. We have lots of things to love! So here is this week's What I'm Loving Wednesday!!! Be sure to check out Jamie's blog This Kind of Love to see her WILW and other fun stuff! What are you loving today? I'm loving...  that my good friend Kelsie had her baby boy yesterday morning! I will get to go up and see them tomorrow! Now just to wait until then and also when they come home so that Alan and Anna can meet him. :) Congratulations Kelsie, Keith and Kelton! We love you all! I'm loving...  that my other friend Chelsey and her husband just welcomed another little boy into her family as well! This will be their fourth foster care child, they are so blessed! Next week she is on Spring Break, so we have plans to get all the kids together. Cannot wait! Congratulations Chelsey, Dan, Colton, M and Baby K! We love you all as well! I'm loving...  that we finally got our inc

I want to quickly take the time to wish my good friend Kelsie a good and quick delivery! We love you hon, cannot wait to meet Baby K! :) I wanted to write a more in depth post about Alan's showcase, complete with the video I made of it and a few pictures. I would first like to say how proud of Alan we are, he is getting so big and so good at doing new things. We love you so much little guy. He was very super excited to show us his newly learned moves, he could hardly contain himself! Here are the explanations of each move he did, a few with photos. The video is at the end. Enjoy everyone! The Bridge   To do the Bridge Move, you lay on your back with your knees up in the air and you hands by your ears, making your elbows stick up in the air as well. Then you lift your belly off the ground, stretching your legs and arms out as you curve your body up. Hold it for as long as you can. Alan was so excited, he did the snail move first lol and then did not put his hands by his

I did have a totally different title at first but I just kept adding and adding to the post as the weekend progressed. Now after rereading the whole thing, the title made no sense at all lol. It was a really cool title too. So lame that I had to switch it out for this cop out. Such is a writer's life. :) Anyways we almost broke our family's clean record this weekend. Technically Alan did lol. And by that I mean our family's clean record of having no broken bones. Yes, you heard me correctly, no one in our family has ever broken a bone . Not Lon, not I, not Alan, no one. It is quite a feat that Lon and I have lived through our whole childhood without breaking any bones, we were both wild children. This is super nerdy but I am kinda proud of it lol. I know, how ridiculous is that????? But its true. Well this weekend, we almost broke our clean record. Friday night I had to run to the store to grab a few neccesities for the house and it was almost bedtime, so I put Anna

This NBC post has been popping up all over my Facebook and Blogger newsfeed all week. Since my family lives in the third best place on the list, I figured that I might as well give into the trend and write a post about it myself. You know, since I have like, personal experience on it and whatnot. If you want to see the full article and countdown, check out the link above. But for now, here is the top 10 Best and Worst Places to Live, courtesy of the Today Show and Best Life Magazine. Top 10 Best Places to Raise a Family in the US 1 Honolulu, Hawaii 2 Virginia Beach, Virginia 3 Billings, Montana 4 Columbus, Georgia 5 San Diego, California 6 Des Moines, Iowa 7 Minneapolis, Minnesota 8 Madison, Wisconsin 9 Colorado Springs, Colorado 10 Santa Rosa, California Top 10 Worst Places to Raise a Family in the US 10  Springfield, Missouri 9 Dayton, Ohio 8 Corpus Christi, Texas 7 Flint, Michigan 6 Columbia, South Carolina 5 Waco, Texas 4 Philadelphia, Penn

I was going to post this yesterday but I figured that a post about Anna's current health condition was a little more important. :) She is doing quite a bit better now that she has been taking meds for a few days now. But let me tell you about the frustration I have for these things... At first, I did not realize there was a difference between bulb syringe and a nasal aspirator, now I realize how wrong I was lol. I bought a nasal aspirator for Anna, when I actually  wanted a bulb syringe. Ugh! But we got Anna some baby saline solution that has worked AWESOME for us. Score! Tuesday night, my sister treated my mom and I to Swan Lake at the Alberta Bair Theatre. The Russian Ballet Company performed it and let me tell you, it was quite phenomenal. I just loved it! The RBC usually performs with SCB every winter in the Nutcracker, they are a wonderful group of dancers. Swan Lake is like one of my favorite ballets too. It was a great treat, thanks Aunt April! I even got a picture wi

I finally was fed up with Anna's nurses telling me she just had a cold over the phone when I knew it was something else. Call it motherly instinct, but I think the fact that I had spent the past few nights sleeping on the hardwood floor next to my daughter's bouncing chair just to keep it bouncing because she could not comfortably sleep in her own bed and was still waking up every few minutes to cough might have clued me in also. Maybe just a little lol. So I caved and took her in to see the doctor yesterday. Let me tell you a little something about doctors and I. Being the naturalist that I am, I just plain do not like doctors and do not always agree with them. My personal philosophy is most ailments can be taken care of by drinking more water. We are mostly liquid creatures afterall, most of our ailments root from dehydration or lack of water intake. The next step is food and nutrition. When it comes to me, personally, I will do just about anything to get out of going to

We all want to be perfect, don't we? I think that everyone does, even if they don't always admit it. Even just maybe being "good enough." I wrote about being perfect in terms of beauty earlier this month. Oftentimes, I struggle with being good enough myself. Good enough as a person, good enough as a daughter, good enough as a sister, good enough as a friend, as a practicing Buddhist, as an adult, as a wife, as a parent, the list goes on and on. Most nights, I lie in bed awake for hours after everyone else has fallen asleep, thinking of all the things I should have done and all the things I still need to do. I lay there in bed, literally frozen there, thinking about everything. I do not enjoy it one bit, I wish I could sleep but I just cannot.  It is very stressful for me, I have not admitted this to a lot of people. As most of you know, I did have generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive complusive disorder, which means that even though I have gone through tons o

It took me so long to think of a good title for this post. I struggled with a good one quite a bit, which is odd because usually titles come so easily to me. But this post is different. It is very important to me, and for some reason I struggle to think of a title because of it. But in the end, the most appropriate title is the person who this post is for, I believe. My sister Natalie and her boyfriend Jake came into town this past weekend. If you remember, my sister is eighteen weeks pregnant with her first child. We are very excited for her and Uncle Jake, it fantastic being able to see them too! Natalie is just starting to show a little bit, her baby bump is soooooooooo adorable. We all had a great time together going out to eat at Texas Roadhouse and swimming at the Reef, taking some fun anniversary photos for Lon, and even taco soup night at my parent's house! I love when my sister comes to town to visit! There is always yummy food, happy children, laughing adults and a fe

How was everyone's Valentine's Day yesterday? Ours went great! Alan's little party had a very nice turnout, we all had a blast together! I will be sure to post about that sometime next week. I do not think that any of us took a single photo though lol, how silly are we! Lon surprised me with a dinner date to Applebee's KID FREE and then we went shopping for a movie (the new Judge Dredd, AWESOME), which was all awesome. I also got chocolates, yum! I am really picky about chocolates lol and he made a point to get me the PERFECT box of chocolates for me. Oh how I love him so much. He is just so perfect for me! Thanks baby! I am so very excited because Aunt Natalie and Uncle Jake are coming to town today! Yay! We have quite a bit we want to do with them here, I am just not sure what the exact plans are yet. But Alan has been asking for Aunt Natalie since he woke up lol. They are buds since he was born. :) We just cannot wait to see them! Have a safe trip here guys, but

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!! I love all of you today! Thank you for reading Free Range Family! You are all fantastic! Lol, I had to. I was looking through Google images and when Lon saw that one, he insisted that I post that on my blog. So there you go lol. Enjoy it! Today we have quite a bit to do. Alan has his Valentine's Day party at Off the Leaf, I have to prepare Lon's gifts (bacon roses and a Heart Attack) and we are also hoping to get in for a tax return appointment at some time too. Oh and I need to stop by my parents too for the kids. But that's besides the point. For Valentine's Day, I made Lon bacon roses. I do not have a picture of the ones I made, but here is a Pinterest photo of them: Lon just loved them lol, he thought they were hilarious. Alan made him a "Heart Attack," where he attacked Lon with a ton of hearts that we had made. Each with there own special reason why Alan loves Lon. We have yet to do this to Lon, we plan

I have a lot to love today, with Valentine's Day right around the corner. Tomorrow, the kids and I have a ton of fun planned lol! Yay! I'm loving... that tomorrow is Valentine's Day and we have Alan's little party at Off the Leaf! We totally cannot wait, I have so much planned! I'm loving... all the cool Valentine's Day ideas I got from Pinterest! Yay, what did I ever do without Pinterest before. I have made my family's Valentine's Day very special and I spent almost nothing! Yes! I'm loving... that next week is Alan's gymnastics showcase! Lon and I will both be there, snapping pictures like the next gymnastics mom and dad lol! But I will be fair and not full of drama! :P I cannot wait to see his skills, he has already shown me some of the stuff he knows. I cannot believe how smart the kid is! I'm loving... these Pinterest finds from today! Idea for the kids' graduation invitations, love this one so much! Will have

Today is the second to last day of CHD Awareness Week. I hope to get a last post out tomorrow, but with everything we have going on tomorrow for the holiday and with tax return stuff too, I am not sure if I will. So do check out today's posts! I hope you enjoy them! I know that I did! Day Six: Krista @ One Woman's Dreams wrote today about Miss Annabelle finally feeling better (A BIG YAY FOR THAT ONE!!) and about making the local news for her heart group's annual CHD Awareness week luncheon. Good for them! I have yet to watch the video (both kids and the hubby are asleep right now lol, will watch it in the AM hopefully) but I am very proud of them! Kaari, Ewan and Austen's Aunt from @ Team Ewan posted this on their Facebook page the other day and I missed it. Very cute, thank Kaari!     That is all I have on my blog feed for CHD Awareness today. There will probably be alot more tomorrow because of the Valentine holiday. I really will try to post the fin

I mentioned writing a post about this in an earlier post of WILW. I know that other bloggers can probably also relate to this, that they find their blogging theraputic. In fact, I know several mommy bloggers who have posted similar posts on their own blogs. But for me, its not just blogging. I have always found writing in general to be very calming for me. Typing as well. I think that blogging is just a further step towards therapy, so to speak, because it is sharing all of my thoughts with everyone on the web. There they are, raw and uncensored, for the world to see. That's what is the best part I think. The fact that I can have people read my thoughts and feelings AND GIVE ME SUPPORT WHEN NEEDED. Yeah, that's it. That's the most important part. My blog is theraputic to me in many ways. What I'm Loving Wednesday:  Forces me to find the positive in my week lol, even if its just the worst week ever. I find these posts very therapeutic. Anna and Alan's Monthl

I have been very busy preparing for Alan's Valentine's Day party at Off the Leaf on Thursday, but I wanted to get in another CHD link post! I hope you take the time to check out these wonderful people and get an insight into an someone else's life. New perspective is always good. :)  Enjoy everyone! Day Five: Krista @ One Woman's Dream wrote about feeling empathy for her heart mama friends in her post today, titled the Percent. I especially appreciated this post, heart mamas are some of the strongest women you will ever meet. Little Johnson Heartbeat shared some ways to take action for CHD awareness today, once again having an adorable little printable to go with it! I love all of these printables she has for us, too cute! Jill @ The Real Life of a Red Head thought about "what should have been" with her son Joshua. This post had me tearing up for sure. I am guilty of doing this with children Rosalie's age, I definitely feel for her. T