Valentines and a missing tooth...

This week has been fun!  Dominic's tooth finally fell out while brushing his teeth! And he is SO excited to leave his tooth for the Tooth Fairy.  Dominic says he wants not just money for his tooth, but Pirate treasure.

    

So Tim and I look in a bowl where we keep change and find three half-dollars, a dollar coin, and a Sacagawea coin for the Tooth Fairy.  Dominic was so excited when he found the coins in his tooth pillow the next morning!  A great was to start Valentine's Day.

Dominic's Valentine's breakfast.

Dominic's lunch for Valentine's day.

Dominic's class also had a Valentine's Day party... Dominic and I created these Valentine's day butterfly cards that I found on Pinterest.... It's a craft that originated from the SheKnows website, complete with a template to print the butterflies. These were incredibly easy to make and they were also cheap... I think for 26 of them it cost total about $10.  Materials you will need:  cardstock (we did red, pink, fuscia, light blue, and light green), tape, printer, lollipops, stick-on googly eyes, pen, scissors, and stickers to embellish butterfly wings. First you print the template and for each sheet of cardstock there are two butterflies so for 26 butterflies we printed on 13 varied colors of cardstock. I cut out the butterflies and snipped where printed on the butterflies to create slits for the lollipops.  Dominic then wrote on the back of each "TO: (name) FROM: Dominic" and he embellished with stickers.  I then put the googly eyes on the lollipop and put in card.  Then secured the lollipop on the back of the card with tape.VERY EASY!

Dominic ended  up having a lot of fun at his kindergarten class' Valentine's Day party and came home with a basket full of Valentine's Day cards and goodies!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVERYONE!!!

Breastfeeding fashion, DIYs, and maternity snafus...

SO EXCITED!  Today I ordered 3 teething necklaces and I cant wait for them to arrive! Kaylee has been grabbing my necklace lately while she is nursing and I thought it would be good to get something a little softer for her to grab. I got them from Koukku (Etsy) and they are super cute.  I ordered one in black, grey, and white. The lady I bought them from was incredibly nice and the price was reasonable.  I'll post pictures once they arrive!

I know I mentioned that we've been doing sign language for milk with Kaylee... Tim and I SWEAR she's actually doing it. When you do the sign for milk it looks like you are milking an invisible cow udder. Kaylee will do this thing where she stops moving except for her hand and its making the motion for milk.  When she stops like that it seems she's concentrating REALLY hard. :) I've also started using the sign for change diaper.  For a full dictionary of baby sign language shown my My Smart Hands click here.

I also have been busy!  I saw this cute headband holder on Pinterest and decided to make it for Kaylee.  I added the link to the pin but it seems the page with the directions is no longer available.  It seemed easy enough to make.  I love repurposing things... recycle, reuse, reduce.. and this headband holder involved repurposing an oatmeal can.  I just covered the oatmeal can with paper and added some decoration.  Here are some pictures... I love how it turned out! On a side note: I am OBSESSED with headbands!

We are still working with Dominic on night time potty training and we are seeing fruits of our labor.  The other night Tim and I were watching a movie and at about midnight we hear Dominic wake himself up and go to the potty.  This is the first time he has done this by himself... without us waking him up first.  Tim and I looked at each other and were so incredibly proud.  So we made a trip to the Lego store for Friday.   Dominic ended up getting some small Lego figurines and a $7.99 small bucket of Legos.  I am ever impressed by Dominic's growth this year and are pleased with his academic experience in Kindergarten.  Every night we read a book before bedtime and a few nights ago he read to me the entire book Ten Apples Up On Top by Dr. Seuss (aside from about 3 words he didn't know, such as 'skate').  The book is almost written entirely with sight words and each week at school Dominic learns a new sight word.

An update on my Disability saga... I previously posted about what a nightmare I was having with filing a Disability claim and issues with my OB's office submitting their portion of the Disability claim... well, I finally got a hold of someone and CA EDD office and the person I talked to said that he looked up my claim and it is currently with an examiner but will likely be disqualified because the medical provider submitted their portion past the 49 day deadline. I should be getting the notice in the mail in about 2 weeks.  When I explained that my OB's office reported they faxed it within the time limit I was told I could appeal and when I got the notice of the disqualification it would state how to appeal... this is ridiculous   At this rate I won't get my first Disability check until I return to work!  RIDICULOUS!

I'm still working on New Year's Resolution #2: Be less squishy and continue to walk to pick up Dominic from school.  Sometimes Tim is working when Kaylee and I walk to pick up Dominic, if he isn't Tim usually walks with us.  On Friday, Kaylee and I also went hiking with a neighbor friend and it was nice to be out.. it was a good beginner hike and the view was lovely.  It would be great to take Dominic on the weekend as the area has cows so I think D would get a kick out of that!  After the hike, however, I dropped my cell phone in the gravel parking lot and my cell phone shattered... Blech!  So now I have a loaner cell phone and Best Buy is ordering me a new one... glad we bought their protection plan.

Here are some pictures of Kaylee..

My sweet girl and her giraffe.

Nap time.  Busted out of the
swaddle.

See you next week... should be an exciting week... Kaylee is getting her ears pierced tomorrow so I will post pics!

Tooth Fairy pillows and baby first chuckles!

So our last post was about Dominic's pending loss of his first baby tooth... but nope, no tooth yet.  Despite that I had to prepare and finally made him a Tooth Fairy pillow.  Here's how it came out:

Here is the back.

Here is the front

I love it!  I got the idea from the At Home in the Northwest blog but changed it a little.  The instructions said to use felt and stuffing for the inside to make it a poofy pillow but I wanted to use all materials I already had in our house.  So, I used scraps from a recycled t-shirts (one white and another blue) that I had cut up to make upcycled t-shirt scarves. I also used buttons for the eyes.  I didn't have any stuffing for the pillow but had a BUNCH of matting left over from another project so I used 4 sheets of that. You can find the pattern for the tooth and pocket by clicking here.

You will need material for the tooth, filler (batting or stuffing), scissors, pattern, either buttons for the eyes or material for the eyes.  It also calls for pink material for cheeks but I elected not to do the pink and just sewed cheeks using the stitch.

I think it came out cute but more importantly Dominic loves it also!

Now we're just waiting for his tooth to fall out!

Dominic also started soccer lessons yesterday.. he was having fun until he and another boy ran into each other and face planted each other.

  

Dribbling.

Are we using our listening ears?

Kaylee is still having a really hard time with teething... she's having a hard time sleeping at nap time and seems so uncomfortable.  As each day goes by you can see a teeny bit more of her little tooth.  Lucky for Tim and I though she is still sleeping well at night.  She is sleeping about 6.5 hours going to sleep at 10:00 p.m. and only wakes once at night, usually about 4:30 a.m. She then goes back to sleep until about 7:30-8:00 a.m.  She also laughed for the first time last night!  She was getting ready for bed, me holding her in the rocking chair and Tim playing peek-a-boo with her and she laughed a little short chuckle to Tim's peek-a-boo!  The days have been a little warmer here and I am looking forward to taking the kids out in the sunshine!