Hand Sanitizer.

Not really on purpose but I was trying to think of something I collect so I could participate in Kelly's Korner, Show us your life post and all I could come up with was hand sanitizer, lol.


This "collection" started about a year and a half ago after I was told by my doctors how prone I am to sicknesses after the transplant and they advised to wash my hands often...I guess I take that to the extreme!

I have some in almost every room in the house....take a look:

cute little ones in the bathroom

diaper bag

gray's room

living room end table

kitchen

and some back stock in the bathroom cabinet

ok, you can go ahead and tease me now :)

that's what I heard on the other end of the phone last tuesday morning!

I had just gotten Grayden ready for the day, diaper changed, new outfit on, hair combed and his rosy red cheeks Vaselined and then it was my turn to get ready. So I put gray in the living room to play so I could go get ready. A few minutes later I realized he was being very quiet in there so I went to check on him and this is what I found:



He had gotten into the Vaseline and was eating it by the handfuls! After staring at him for half a second I snapped these terrible blurry pictures like any true blogger would and began to clean him off. As I wiped down the tub of Vaseline I read the back label where it said "if swallowed seek medical attention and call poison control right away". YIKES!

To make a long story short I'll just tell you that he was fine, Helen was really nice and said its really not a big deal, there is just something in there that acts like a laxative. So we had a few messy diapers that day, a good reminder to me to watch this boy like a hawk and a good long talk about why we only play with toys and all was well! Thanks goodness!

Since Valentines Day was the last day of our retreat we didn't do anything too exciting that day. Grayden made us some valentines with his grandparents and aunt lisa while we were away. They are so cute and was such a great surprise to come home too. We spent the evening cuddling and relaxing and celebrated more the next night with a nice dinner at home and a redbox movie!

this video was shown at the retreat we were at last weekend..its amazing

I've been unplugged from the computer for the past few days (other than the times I use my parents computer), ours bit the dust and after a few stressful days wondering if my pictures would be recovered all is well and a new laptop is on its way!!


i have lots to post about when it arrives including; Grayden's 9 month post, our weekend retreat with the youth group, valentines day, and all about a Tuesday morning phone call i made!!


Hope to be back blogging again soon :)

We had a really fun filled weekend!

Friday night we went to visit our friends Ryan and Rochelle and meet their new babies at the hospital. We had a great time with them and feel honored to have meet their miracle trio! I have a special place in my heart for tiny babies! They are beautiful! <3

Saturday I went to an all day scrap booking event. My friend Angie, her sister in law, and myself all cropped til we dropped and had a great time while we were at it! I worked on Grayden's book and finished 16 pages but that hardly made a dent! I only got through the end of his first month!




While I was gone the boys spent lots of quality time together and I came home to a spotlessly clean house, freshly washed bed sheets, a bathed baby and a homemade cake with cream cheese frosting :) The table was set and there was a roast thawing in the fridge for Sunday lunch after church! And I spotted a gift bag underneath his bedside table, which he admitted was my valentines day gift!! My heart was swelling...I could go on and on! I have the best husband ever!

Sunday we went to church, enjoyed that yummy roast, took a family nap and got ready for the Super Bowl party with our friends! The food and fellowship was great but I wouldn't be able to tell you much about the game! In fact, as we were pulling into the driveway at home I thought I should at least ask Robb who won the game! haha! So congrats Saints!

Hope all of you had a great weekend as well!

Grayden and I took daddy out to Russ' for his b-day lunch!

Friday night the 3 of us went to Olive Garden (our family fave!)

Saturday we celebrated with my family with dinner at O'Charley's

and Sunday we celebrated with Robb's family by having lunch at Applebee's and ice cream cake!

Hope you had a great Birthday weekend Robb!

I'm joining Kelly's 'show us your life friday' on my favorite places to shop. Wanna play along?

Let me start by saying I LOVE TO SHOP and I love a good bargain. I shop anywhere, really. I recently bought a top (that I am wearing here) at Meijers for $5! And speaking of that picture, I got the necklace from Walmart! So really, I will shop anywhere.

My faves are TJMaxx, Marshalls, Target (although mostly for shoes/accessories not too much for clothes), Old Navy (I get a huge majority of Gray's clothes from there and Robb's too), Gap and I really like Forever 21 but don't get there as often as I would like. I look online a lot there b/c we don't have a store close by. So see....its all about the cheap!

I love love love the style of Anthropologie but I just couldn't spend that much on clothes and feel ok about it, so I get inspiration from their clothes and try to recreate the looks for much less. It's a hobby of mine! I am currently on a mission to find something like this and this for Spring!

What about you? Where do you like to shop?

Hope you have a great day!!

Love,
Katie, Brenham and Grayden

{photo taken by Water Lily Photograohy}

Grayden, you are 8 months old today~

to celebrate we stayed home and played all day today!

Here is what you are up too:


You weigh 19 lbs 9 oz


You have 5 bottles a day between 6-7 oz


You love to eat all kinds of food, I would say your favorites right now are squash and pears and your least favorite is green beans. Puffs are a huge hit as well as anything mom gives you off her plate!


You've started to do this fake smile thing when we try to get your attention.


You also recently started to mimic our faces when we talk to you, like if we look surprised, you make this cute little "o" with your mouth...so adorable!

You are so happy, I love the way your face lights up when you see me walk into your room in the morning...melts my heart! You make me feel like the best mommy in the world and I love you that about you!


You stand up on everything and even started to walk along the furniture.





If you start walking on your own anytime in the near future I might have to push you down, I am not ready for you to be so grown up yet....just kidding, its probably not much different than crawling 100 miles an hour like you already do :)

You are so busy, always on the go but to my delight you do like to snuggle from time to time!

You celebrated your 1st Christmas and New Years this month


You normally take two naps anywhere from 45 mins-2 hours but you can get by with only one when you want to be stubborn and skip one!

You have been sleeping great during the night. (9:30 pm -9:00 am) up once around 5 for a bottle.

You wear size 3 diapers


You wear mostly 6 months size clothes.

You went on your first snowmobile ride with mommy and daddy.


You've been holding your bottle on your own for a few (3?) months already but I don't think I've ever wrote about it


You had your adoption finalized on Dec 21!


You love to play peek-a-boo and play with anything that you can put in your mouth, (hence the 8 month picture at the top!) you also recently started to bang your toys together which is really comical to watch!

You turn 1 year old in only 4 months and that makes me want to cry....you grow too fast and I just want to freeze you in time!

We love you sweet boy! You've blessed the past 8 months of our lives so much!

Making Baby Food 101




A lot of you have asked me to do a post on how I make Grayden's baby food and I am happy to oblige. I love doing it, Grayden definitely prefers it and it saves me a TON of money!



What I've Made:

I use this site for the recipes. So far I've made, green beans (frozen), peaches (frozen), mangoes (fresh), applesauce (fresh from the orchard), squash-a definite favorite (fresh), carrots (fresh), pea and carrot blend (frozen) baked cinnamon apples (fresh), sweet potato (fresh), bananas-the easiest (fresh), and pears (fresh).



How I make it:

I follow the directions on the website, if I need to thin the purees out a little I use the cooking water so it adds the nutrients that were cooked out.



How I store them:

I make about a months worth at a time and freeze it all! I store them in various plastic containers and even some glass jars (I pull those out first, so far I've never had an issue with them cracking). I wash and re-use the Gerber baby food containers and those work great. For Christmas we got these and I love how they stack. I even noticed that Dollar Tree has packages of 2 oz containers that would be perfect to store baby food in. Ice cube trays work ok but not my favorite way to store them. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do this so I am open to other suggestions if anyone has them.

And I label and date them all so I don't forget what's what.

Every night I take the next days food out of the freezer and by morning it is thawed out.





Ok, I think that's about it....if there's anything I left out, let me know and I'll address them in the comments section!


Happy baby food making!

And then we headed to the cottage and chilled out for the evening!

We could hardly stay up in time to ring in the New Year but we did!

We all headed up to our rooms at about 12:02 :)