Free Range Family

Alan's hair has just been growing, and growing, and GROWING lately. Or so it seems… It recently has grown so long that his bangs are now in his eyes. And with his glasses been broken (he broke them wrestling with Aunt Ariel several weeks ago, we are waiting for his replacements now), there is nothing blocking his little eyes from all of that hair! He has refused me cutting it since the last time I cut his hair, I butchered it pretty good lol. See exhibit A. Exhibit A. But it was starting to get ridiculous and I felt like it was interfering with his seeing, so I convinced him to let me trim it slightly. After some bribing, he agreed. So last night before bath time, I trimmed his whole head for him. I wasn't able to get a photo of his hair before I cut it, but here is a good example. Its his Pre-K school photo! So handsome! :D But look at those long curls! He definitely was in need of a trim! Before... And after! I am quite proud of my trim job, I took my t...

Alan and Anna recently went to the dentist for their biannual checkup. They go to Legacy Smiles and see Dr. Stuart there. He and his staff are just wonderful! They are so kind, so helpful, the kids just love them! Alan and Anna enjoy going and seeing their dentist and his sweet staff! :) I could be biased because Dr. Stuart is one of my good friends' fathers lol, but he is still just wonderful! It wasn't just any ordinary trip to the dentist though, oh no! It was Miss Anna's first time at the dentist! Now Anna doesn't quite have all of her baby teeth yet, she is still missing her canines and her two year old molars. But Dr. Stuart told us to bring her in regardless. :) The wonderful dental assistant showed Alan and Anna all the dental tools right away, so that Anna wouldn't be nervous. But missy was very brave! Miss Anna was a great dental patient! She didn't like the sunglasses they had her wear but when the dental assistant asked her to put them ba...

We have a pretty easy going weekend, thankfully!! I have been waiting for one of those for some time now! Saturday I teach my second hip hop class and then we plan on going to Uncle Kalvin's football game at Stewart Park fields. Sunday we have family pictures with my good buddy and our family photographer Miss Kels. I am very excited to get family pictures taken, but I am a little nervous about what we will all wear lol! It may get chilly again this weekend, I hope it doesn't snow! She said that she would love to take photos in the snow lol! Disclaimer: Mom and Dad potty training talk coming up ahead. Don't say I didn't warn you, go to the next blog post if you don't want to read! You've been officially warned! Miss Anna has officially been potty training for about four months now. She has been doing pretty good lately, so we have finally reached the underwear milestone! I am so excited for her! We bought her first pair of undies this week. She couldn't ...

Its here, its finally here!  Miss Anna started her first day of dance class today. She is in the Parent/Child Creative Movement class at my old dance studio, Diversity Dance. Her teacher's name is Miss Rachel, she is so very nice. I have seriously been waiting for this day since we found out that we were having a girl, you know like two and a half years ago????? Lol, I am definitely NOT a dance mom… Wait isn't that exactly what I a dance mom is? I am just so excited for her to be starting dance! Anna in her leotard before class We started out class playing with some stuffed animals and going over the alphabet. We did "A" for Anna and for airplane, "J" for Jadelynn and Jack-in-the-box, and "I" for Isabelle and Inchworm. Each letter we did a different action, Anna loved it! Then we pulled out the musical instruments and danced to the Mouse-rcise song, a Mickey Mouse song that I have childhood memories stretching to! It was pretty cool dancing...

Today my handsome, amazing, super sweet, very smart, wonderful, loving son is turning five years old. I cannot believe that he is five now! I remember being pregnant with him, I remember the labor, I remember having him and I remember him as a itty bitty baby. Now he is big, entirely his own person with his own opinions and personality. He is so stinking smart, always wanting to learn about new things. He loves everyone and everything! He loves to take care of his baby sister and his cousin Benton. He wants to be friends with everyone, will talk to anyone he meets on the street and tell them to "Have a great day." I have never met such a wonderful young man before! We are so lucky to call ourselves his parents, he is just amazing! We are having his birthday party tonight. First, we will be making the trip to Bricks and MiniFigs for some Lego fun and shopping. Alan cannot wait, he has been talking about the Lego store all month long lol! After our Lego exploration, w...

I have had a lot of people asking me this over the summer and even more so now that Alan's birthday is coming up (4 more days). So I figured rather then repeat myself a billion and two times (like I have done thus far), I would just write about it on here. If you have been a follower of this blog for years, you probably already know why but this is for those new-comers who have just joined us! Why are we not putting Alan in Kindergarten this year?????? Well, for several reasons actually… #1- Our school district's cutoff is September 10th, just five short days before Alan's birthday. By all technicality he could attend Kindergarten this year but personally I feel that is too close for him to succeed in school. He would be four years old for the first week and a half of school, and that scares me. I feel that the district cutoff date should be on the day that school starts but I do understand that doing so would mean that the district would have to change the cutoff da...

The Montana Fair was in town this past week; Lon and I went once to the Train concert, the kids and I went three times. Rather then post four separate posts, I figured that I would combine all four times into one massive fair post. It shall be full of photos too, you have been warned. :P We had quite a great run there this year, and apparently so did the rest of the county lol. Almost everyone was there! We ran into so many people we knew! Even some from out of town lol! Gotta love the state fair for that reason! Train was a pretty good concert, except it seemed like the lead singer, Mister Patrick Monahan, was drunk off his gourd. And that's me being nice. Everyone else I have mentioned this too disagrees with me, saying it was such an amazing concert. But I was quite upset when he messed up several sets of lyrics from several of my favorite songs. One was a Zeppelin song that I think even Alan knows the words to but if he didn't know all the lyrics to the song, he should ha...

I know, I like never write on the weekends! What has gotten into me??????? Well, for those of you who know me personally know that I only don't write most weekends, because that is my family time. It is the time where all four members of our family are available, so we spend as much time as possible together, doing fun things. I am usually too busy to post during the weekend, I just recap everything from the weekend that following Monday. In fact, the year I started this blog, that was one of my personal rules: No posting on weekends.  But today, I woke up early before the children and I thought I would go online for a bit. Started checking my FB and then my blog and I decided, hey why not post today? If I have something to write, why shouldn't I write? So here I am, typing up a post for today. It will mostly be filled with random thoughts and musings from the weekend. I still want to save my Dirty Dash post for Monday. :) But I have like a billion and two little things I ...

Yay! We finally got through the big birthday parties that Natalie and I have been planning, in detail, since probably March lol. Phew in my opinion it was quite worth it though, both kids had a wonderful time! Plus, Natalie and I were able to be apart of both parties! :D We did it! Lol, I just want to take the time now to thank everyone who helped us make these parties soooo awesome! Thanks to Aunt Natalie and Uncle Jake for helping me plan the parties and helped with Anna's birthday cake. Thanks to my parents for supplying the chairs and tables and for helping us with transportation. Thanks to Aunt April for helping supervise the crazy kiddos and to Uncle Kalvin for entertainment. Thanks to my friends from work for helping with the bubbles and the kiddos too. :) And a HUGE thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate! Honestly, Anna's party wouldn't have been as special without all of you guys! We love you all! Thanks again! :D We started our day at Benton's birthday...