Free Range Family

Happy Labor Day weekend everyone! Three years ago around this time I was laboring myself lol, about to have my beautiful Alan Mikael. :) He will be three on Wednesday, I just cannot believe it yet! We aren't doing anything special for Labor Day weekend, we usually try to go camping with my family but don't have any desire too right now with a newborn lol. But I hope that my dad and siblings have a fantastic time camping at Reedpoint this weekend! Be safe and have a blast guys! :) Sunday, we are taking pictures for some upcoming (and EXCITING) changes to this blog. We are doing family pictures at Phipp's Park most likely. I can't wait to see them turn out! Speaking of pictures, if you haven't already be sure to check out Anna's Newborn Photos that I posted on here yesterday. She did such a good job during them! I was so proud!   Here is this week's Five Question Friday! Enjoy and have a fantastic Labor Day weekend everyone! Please be safe! Don't dri...

Thursday, I watched a documentary on PBS called Nature's Child. It was about nature and how it affects and benefits childhood development. Of course being the hippie that I am, I already knew this lol. But it was still a very interesting show to watch and I learned quite a bit from it. In this day and age, most children spend their time indoors either on the computer or at the television. Gradually, less and less children are spending quality time outside. If they do get outside, it is either at school during recess or for an organized sport. While these are also good development teachers, they are not enough. Children need to play outside in their neighborhoods, like we all did as kids. But this is happening less and less. Why is this, you ask? Well there is one theory that I have found to be pretty feasible. Some believe that modern day parents are being conditioned by the media to be afraid to let their children play outside in the neighbor, whether by themselves or with other...

Earth Day is this Sunday and though we don't have too much planned for that day, I have a couple fun activities for us to partake in. First, I will be posting a blog post on here about children and the benefits nature has on their development that day. It is based off of a PBS show I watched yesterday and my own hippie naturalist opinions lol. I encourage you to stop by and read it! :) For Alan and I, I have developed a nature scavenger hunt that we will be doing at hopefully several different parks. It asks for fun things like pine cones, seeds, beetles (we have little containers to catch them) and mushrooms. I hope that we can go to Zimmerman Park, Pioneer Park and Riverfront Park at least. Maybe even Phipp's Park if we have the time. :) Then I plan on taking Alan and all of our recyclable stuff down to Pacific Recycling to teach Alan a lesson about recycling. We have been recycling aluminum cans, plastic and glass for almost a year now but its been a few months sinc...

Lon just woke up to a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast and watermelon from me. Alan spent the night at Grandma's last night so we could enjoy our wedding date, and once he gets dropped off here, we are gonna get going. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the oil changed in the car, so we will not be going to Red Lodge for hiking. :( But I still have grand plans. We will be going to either Riverfront Park or Phipp's Park or maybe even the Yellowstone River for a picnic lunch and a little hike with Alan. Then we will be going to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a barbecue dinner. Grandpa won't be home from camping until around then and we want to spend time with him as well. :) Sounds like a good day! Via To my father: You have always been there for me, since day one. You taught me how to ride a bike, tie my shoes, ride a dirtbike and four wheeler, drive a boat and play football. I know everyone says that Natalie is the daddy's girl, but I think I am as...

Ahhhhh, my favorite season of the year is already upon us! Yes! This weekend was just fantastic for us! Summer is officially here, with the weather being sunny and WAAAAARM (estimated 80 degrees both days) and windy too lol. Saturday, we went on a play date with Lon, Aunt Ariel, Korbin and his mama Erica to North Park. We played in the water park for a whole hour and a half! Alan was scared of the water sprinklers at first, but he would chase Korbin into the water, trying to "save" him lol. He would chase after Korbin, yelling his name, and once he caught up to him, he would grab him and say "All better" lol! Too funny! Aunt Ariel loved helping watch the wild toddlers too, she would chase after them for us. We were so grateful for her, it meant we didn't have to get soaked ourselves! :) We had a wonderful time with the kids, and Alan was so tuckered out afterwards that he fell asleep in the car on the way to the wedding! :D Unfortunately, Lon had to work a...