Clothesline Baby Shower

I hosted a Clothesline Baby Shower for my friend Bailey on May 17. She is having baby # 2, her first girl!! She said she didn't need any presents, but when I asked if she had any baby girl clothes yet, she said no. So I knew exactly what the theme of the shower would be: CLOTHES!!

Game #1: Make a Headband

I got all kinds of bows and flowers and buttons and elastic things for everyone to make a headband for the baby. The person who made Bailey's favorite headband got a prize: hair stuff from the dollar store! 

Game # 2: Sorting Socks

I collected a bunch of pairs of socks from around the house (don't worry, they were all clean). Then I filled four different bags with socks so that every bag had some bulky ones, small ones, fuzzy ones, and thin ones. I also used about 10 pairs of baby girl socks from the dollar store (for Bailey to keep after the game). And just to make it extra authentic, I included socks without matches, mostly because I couldn't find enough matches in my house! At the party, we split into four groups. 

Round 1: Be the fastest to sort your bag of socks. After all the socks are sorted, we had the players undo them and rotate bags for round two. Round 2: Sort your socks blindfolded, trying to get the most correct matches! We just did eyes closed because I didn't have enough blindfolds. It was SO funny watching everyone do them without looking, and I was really impressed with the team work! (The socks without matches added an extra degree of difficulty). Winners of each round got a prize: summer socks from the dollar store! If you do this game, make sure to get enough sock prizes for all your winners. I had to improvise a little with that because I forgot about multiple people on one team. 

Game # 3: Clothing Alphabet

For this game, Bailey held a bag filled with alphabet pieces. You can also use a deck of alphabet cards. As she pulls out a letter, everyone tries to call out an article of clothing or accessory that starts with that letter. First person to call an item keeps the letter. After all the letters are called, the person with the most letters got a prize: cute accessory from the dollar store! 

Game # 4: Which Item Stains the Worst?

The night before the party, I got four rags and "stained" them. One had tomato sauce, another had raspberry jam, another mustard and the fourth one had ink. The players had to list in correct order how well the stains would come out from least visible to most visible. Then, half way through the party, I soaked the rags in oxyclean stain remover and at the end of the party we washed them to give the big reveal. It should come as no surprise that it was the great-grandma in the group that won the game since she is the most experienced! 

I'm sure you're dying to know the order. It went tomato sauce as least visible, then raspberry jam, mustard and finally ink as most visible. Sarah gave me an idea that next time we can try using ink on every rag and see what stain remover works the best!

For party food, we stayed gluten, dairy and sugar free so that the guest of honor could eat everything. I really liked this challenge because it helped me think of some fun, healthy snacks for Tanner:

Rainbow Fruit Kabobs (thanks, Brytnie!)

Olive & Pepperoni Kabobs

Mini Apple PB sandwiches

Fruit and Veggie Platters (thanks, Sarah!)

And my personal favorite, Cucumber "Cookies" with hummus and raisins.
We also had watermelon slushies!

Bailey ended up getting a lot of adorable clothes for her baby. She is such a wonderful person, she totally deserves it! I hope she had as much fun as I did!! 

Thank you to everyone that helped me host and to all that came to the shower. And a special thank you to Jeremy for taking care of our little friends in the basement. He managed to play with Dallin and Tanner while rocking one of our little friends to sleep on his chest. What an all-star Daddy!

cinco de mayo and other fun

Our church had a Cinco de Mayo party that was a big hit!! When we told Tanner about the pinatas and that he could hit it with a baseball bat, he was super excited. He was actually chosen to be the first one to hit the pinata, lucky duck! He was very aggressive about it!

We had fun listening to the high school mariachi band and visiting with friends.

Tanner liked watching the mariachi band violin players, so he used his spoon and sucker stick to play his own violin. What a funny kid.

I love this pic of him eating dessert with his friends.

Jackie and Serious are two of the awesome young women I get to serve in our youth group. These girls come to my house at least once a week to learn piano and help me with the boys.

Some of Tanner's buddies. 

Other Fun

I've convinced Tanner that our yogurt is ice cream. This is just normal yogurt, not frozen yogurt. 

The funniest part is that Tanner thinks the picture on the ice cream cone box of chocolate chip ice cream is actually raisins. So he told me to put raisins on his ice cream. 

He loves it!

We are both pretty happy about it this new snack! Tanner even had us give a toast for our ice cream cones!

We still eat in the dining room about once a week. Tanner's new thing is that if his shirt gets at all soiled or wet, he has to take it off. We did not have this problem in the winter, so maybe it has to do with the growing heat and humidity?

Basement play on a rainy day! Dallin climbs up and slides down this slide all on his own.

After lots of practice walking short distances, Dallin made the switch from mostly crawling to mostly walking during the second week of May. On Tuesday he was mostly crawling everywhere and on Thursday, we noticed that he was mostly walking everywhere!

He loves to climb and play.

Inventing new toys.

Dallin is quickly gaining a lot of motor skills, including hammering.

Excited about something!

Dallin makes the cutest faces when he eats! He has seven teeth, chews and eats well, wanting to try everything. We let him eat everything except raisins and nuts. LOVES mandarin oranges, lima beans, scrambled eggs and watermellon. 

Dallin has a major sweet tooth; will only eat veggies if mashed up and mixed with something like yogurt, applesauce or bananas. Eats chicken really well. Also loves fish. Does not like carrots in any form and hasn't since the first day I offered it. Sort of drinks from a sippy cup. We are still breastfeeding all the time. He refuses to take a bottle. I keep saying that I'm going to wean him cold turkey, but that hasn't happened yet. This cutie pie is hard to say 'no' to!

I love this baby!!

Springtime

Our spring has been great so far. Here are pics from after Easter through May 4.

Playing with toys and puzzles from the Toy Lending Library.

Dallin talks to us a lot. One of my favorite things he says is "Woh, woh, woh!!" because of this adorable face he makes while saying it. 

Rainy day. Dallin trying to use the computer. 

Tanner watching a dinosaur youtube while playing with his dinosaurs.

Pretending to have a baby in his belly.

Rainy day. Our little climber.

Right after a bath.

Out to eat at Applebees.

Followed by a trip to Home Depot to get garden stuff.

No rain! We went outside to blow bubbles and play on driveway.

I've been wearing Dallin on my back a lot lately. After naptime and right before dinner, he sometimes gets really clingy. The bjorn helps us stay happy. (I'm sitting in a chair while taking this pic).

Blossoms!

Date Night--disc golf at Todd Park after a couple days of rain. Jeremy bought real discs for us, so we were totally legit. It was nice being outside in the fresh, spring air.

Jeremy was making fun of how I look when I throw the disc. I do look pretty dorky!

Saturday morning cuddles, on a rainy day.

I love this pout face.

Jeremy worked from home on a Weds. He and Dallin weren't feeling good.

Bowling game from Toy Lending Library.

Tanner asked if he could climb this tree in our yard. We decided to see if he actually could. He really surprised us! Also, this was the first day of the year that he wore shorts!

Tanner made a T-rex bed in our room. I think he is pretend-sleeping in this picture, but I can't remember.

Dallin is really strong. At this point, he wasn't very good at walking yet, but he was so determined to push the broom around that he found a way to do it!

Story time before bed. This is one of me and Jeremy's favorite parts of the day.

We are trying Square Foot Gardening this year!

We dug out 3 of our old garden beds and made these new ones. It's been a big project, and has been taking us longer than we planned (what doesn't, right?). The gardening book Jeremy has should have had a chapter on how to make a garden with toddlers around. I love that my boys are getting muddy and exploring our yard! I don't love that they pull the tarp after we've laid it perfectly, move the garden boxes that we've leveled meticulously, throw rocks into the soil that we have churned diligently (and then throw that soil into the grass), and dig up the seeds that we have planted faithfully. We were debating on what kind of fence to use to keep the deer out, but I think our biggest perpetrators are our own children!

We'll let you know if our gardening efforts end up in vain. I have faith that we'll do okay! Jeremy jokes that he doesn't think the crops will do well this year and it's going to be a hard winter. He says we will have to go to Mr. Walmart for help, haha. I sure am glad this garden is just recreational and not our only source of food!