Free Range Family

I have a handful, check that a stock of photos I haven't had the chance to post on here. They are all from pretty recent too. So I figured that I would post some of them today, since I don't have anything else to post lol. Be prepared, it will definitely be a photo dump! But its of my cute kids, so it shouldn't be too bad! Right? :P So a few weeks ago, we went to Alan's preschool class a little early. Which was awesome because it meant that he could play at Open Gym for a bit too! He just loved it! Here are some pictures that I never posted, for some weird reason. Both kids bouncing on the tramp at the same time! The last time Miss Anna got to wear this dress. Its too small now! Alan in the donut hole with all the bouncy balls lol! Now that the weather is nice, I have been taking the kids outside a lot more. They deserve to be out in the fresh air for at least an hour a day. They love it too! Especially Miss Anna, she loves that she can run around in th...

How was your April? We had a decent April. A lot of important things were figured out and we celebrated lots of milestones for this family. Here is what I wrote about: There was a few birthdays this month and also our wedding anniversary. We were very busy with all of our celebrations! We started out the month celebrating Uncle Tyler's birthday. He turned 27 this year. We had Aunt Sam and him over for birthday dinner at our house. Then was Aunt April's 14th birthday. The kids and I took her shopping for her birthday. We had a lot of fun! Nataional Siblings Day was a few days later, I sent my awesome siblings some love. Then I celebrated my blogging friend Hollie's birthday online.  As well as my good friend Chelsey's 24th birthday. A couple of my girlfriends and I took her out for drinks that night. It was one of the first times since I got pregnant with Anna! Speaking of Miss, Anna also turned nine months old, along with that came a new desire to stand on he...

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...

I didn't post a third post yesterday like I planned but that's because we went over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for dinner. However, I still wanted to get in a post about Aunt April and more about Rosalie. But bear with me lol, this will be a random post lol. :D Aunt April and the girls of Diversity Dance did a beautiful job Thursday night at the Alberta Bair. Aunt April did eleven dances total, and I was able to see ten of them (I only missed the opening number because I chose to walk from work to the theatre). She did a lyrical dance, a tribal dance with the younger company, a hip hop dance, a cool ballet dance to "Funhouse", a punk rock themed tap dance, a dance involving mad scientists and robots, a cool karate influenced jazz piece and the finale. I also really enjoyed the ballet to that Ratatouille song and the umbrella dance that was a statement about children being more free than adults. Plus, I just loved Leah's senior choreography and her solo. ...

I did one of these for Arbor Day, and I believe that in this family Earth Day is as or more important of a holiday. I love Mother Nature and the Earth so naturally Earth Day is one of my favorite holidays. My son and husband share a similar appreciation for the holiday and every year we try to do something (or a few things lol) special. This year we will be busy bees, and not because of the our wedding the next day. We have plans to recycle, explore the outdoors, and dig in the Earth! :) The morning will start off with me getting my mani and pedi for the wedding, while Alan goes to daycare for an hour or so. Afterwards, we will have breakfast, do some art projects about Earth Day, and watch Sesame Street's Love the Earth DVD. (This photo thanks to http://www.growingyourbaby.com) Alan and I have been discussing the Earth lately and how we can help it out by planting and recycling. He's excited to celebrate "Earf Birfday" with us on Friday. :) So as soon as Lon ...