Free Range Family

All in one weekend lol! How wild of my family lol! :P Not really, we have had way more busy weekends than this! I have been working a gymnastics camp all week in the mornings. It was quite a bit of fun, we had seven great kids who learned a lot in the four days we had! I am so proud of them! I also did my first Dance Out Reach program at our local HeadStart School. I worked with 16 preschoolers and taught them basic popping and locking moves. We had a wonderful time as well! I love getting a chance to teach my two passions! :D Next week will be a lot slower for us because I will only have dance class and my regular shifts. Saturday, we walked to Terry Park to meet up with my friends Kelsie and Jessica. We met up with them and a few new friends for a picnic and to let the kiddos play in the spraypark and on the playground. Alan ate as fast as he could and then ran off to play in the water with Kelton and Carly. Anna crawled around in the grass and played with Trent and Karte...

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 ...

Our weekend was fantastic! We did not get to see Lon too much on Saturday as he worked all day and night but we did go to the Ringling Brothers circus and then to Colton's third birthday party. He had a Mickey party and his mama even tried to make a pinata for it! Homemade pinata with three children of her own? She rocks lol, even if she was not successful! I would not try that with my two lol! Then Sunday was my childhood friend Ali's baby shower. She is having a little boy and the party was themed "Baby Boy Toys". It was too cute!  We had so much fun this weekend! We saw a bunch of good friends and family, it was so nice to see everyone again. I love it when we can all get together and have our children play together. So cool! Now let me share a little information with you. One of my weird quirks is I am kinda obsessed with circuses and side shows and the such. Especially old time circuses! Oh I love everything about them! ...

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...

Yesterday, I had my Traveling Red Dress photo shoot. Aunt Natalie and Jake went with me up to the Rims to take pictures. Thursday it was beautiful and sunny out, however yesterday it started to rain and sleet some. That didn't stop us though, as we are Montanans lol. :P So we still went out. Let me tell you though, it was just FREEZING out there! I wore my winter coat the whole time I wasn't taking pictures and I still froze lol! The wind also made it hard to see and smile in the pictures, but I still felt beautiful and wonderful in my dress. :) I loved the whole experience and can't wait to share this dress with another needy woman. This dress made me feel powerful and beautiful, at a time where I haven't necessarily felt that way. This pregnancy has been rough on me. I have had to deal with morning sickness and weight gain issues, plus just the normal fatigue and exhaustion I have been experiencing. I haven't felt beautiful in a while, just blah. This photo sh...

As you all know, I found my red dress last month and was just waiting to set up a photo session with the wonderful Jeff Bryson. Well we also decided last month that we were going to "upgrade" to a bigger apartment asap. Because of the recent "upgrade" decision, at risk of feeling guilty, I now plan on going with an amateur photographer versus a professional photographer like Jeff. Being the Buddhist and unmaterialistic mother that I am, I simply cannot allow myself to spend anymore money on this journey for myself. This journey is about finding my inner beauty, not about spending money. So I asked my sister Natalie to photograph me. I want to say this real quick before I continue, this has nothing to do with Jeff. I really wish that I could have him photograph me, as he is one of the best photographers that I know. He does amazing work and I cannot wait to do a session with him again, sometime soon hopefully. I see maybe a family maternity photo shoot in the su...

Once again, I came across this project from my wonderful blogging friend Bekah. She introduced me to the Facebook site, which led me to the blog. And let me tell you, I think this is a fantastic project that every woman should participate in! Let me allow the founder, the lovely Miss Jenny, to explain it to you in her own words... "The Traveling Red Dress is a project about generosity...both to others and yourself. The traveling red dress was born in 2010 when I wrote about wanting "just once, to wear a bright red, strapless ball gown with no apologies. I want to be shocking, and vivid and wear a dress as intensely amazing as the person I so want to be. And the more I thought about it the more I realized how often we deny ourselves that red dress and all the other capricious, ridiculous, overindulgent and silly things that we desperately want but never let ourselves have because they are simply “not sensible”. Things like flying lessons, and ballet shoes, and breaking in...

Yesterday I only worked until noon and it was a gorgeous 60 degree day out (in MT, in January???? Hmmm lol), so Lon and I met up with my friend Kelsie and her son Kelton for a little adventure on the Rims. It was bright and sunny out when we showed up, and the wind had just kicked up a bit. But the boys were excited and took off right away lol. :) We went up and around a few of the trails and explored some trees and logs. Kelton was a brave man and climbed right over a log lol, but Alan was a bit more cautious. :) They also played catch and football with pine cones lol, that cracked us up! We saw a rabbit and a handful of dogs with their owners, which Alan loved. He is a big animal lover, and I know he enjoys playing with dogs. We need to get him and baby one after baby comes. :) Kelton and Alan are great buds, but they wouldn't stay together too well lol. This is the only picture we have of them close to each other really lol. I think Alan was trying to get him to hold his h...

It was a beautiful, partially sunny partially rainy, 87 degree Sunday! We had a great day together, the three of us. We woke up nice and early, then snuggled and watched Seasame Street before getting dressed for the day. Then we played cars and watched Cars twice while Lon made breakfast for us. After breakfast, we went for a walk around the neighborhood. Alan ran almost the whole way, laughing and yelling and chasing anything moving lol. We had a great time. :) We even walked through the Moss Mansion gardens on the way home. Later we picked up Aunt April and Uncle Kalvin to go have a picnic and hiking and climbing on the Rims. It was raining lightly when we got up to Swords Park but most of that went away by the time we found our picnic spot. We sat down close to the edge (but not too close) and had PB and J sandwiches with carrots and apple slices. Alan chowed down on his sandwich and some apples but wouldn't eat any carrots. Hmmm, I can only ever seem to get him to eat carro...

Alan's doing better today. I know I keep saying that every morning and then posting twelve hours later saying he's regressed, but I'm hopeful today. He's on Step 4 this morning, and only had two bad blow outs last night. He hasn't gotten sick since two yesterday and should hopefully be able to go to daycare this afternoon. We hoping that he's finally in the clear and will not regress anymore. I really want him feeling good the day before the wedding so that he can enjoy this weekend as well! :) The only thing I'm nervous about still keeping him hydrated and then his probiotic dosage. That's what made him vomit last time, so we are planning to try a different way of getting it in him. Oh my gosh, the wedding is in THREE DAYS!!! That's so close, I'm starting to panic a little lol. Everythings planned and paid for, except Lon's vest and button up shirt. We had to use the money for that to buy medicine and diapers when Alan first got sick. And ...

Once again, I feel like the week just blew by! How does this continue to happen to me lol??? Oh wait, I know how... Because I'm a mom! :) My life has been crazy busy this week too. We've started potty training Alan, yesterday was Lon and I's anniversary, its that time of the month to pay bills, I had to go pick up my wedding dress and shoes from the steamer's, Lon's tooth is still hurting him so we had to take him back into the dentist, my car broke down so we're taking it to the shop and with all of that, I also have my art classes to teach and the rest of my job to work. Blah we are running around like crazy from dawn to dusk this week! That's okay though lol, at least it got us through the week fast and now I'm ready for the weekend!  This weekend we hope to get Alan outside a bunch (he loves this warm weather!) and do some spring cleaning around the apartment. You can totally tell we've been stuck inside here all winter with cabin fever, its a ...