Wednesday, June 9, 2010

3 days in cabin LOVE






















3 hours with james

We packed up after work on friday, got a hotel in Iowa and made it to Mpls just in time to spend 3 hours with the newest member of the Kannas family before they drove out to DC.

James Cole Kannas. He is so cute! And so tall! Stretch him out and he is almost the height of Dennis! :) We are ok with that... we always knew we would have the shortest cousins.


Wish we had more time together! See you in October!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

talking

I will confess that these videos are all too long but you never know when something cool is going to happen! And, they are all so cute to me. :)


the new cheese




spaghetti

Dennis surprised us during dinner with his talents... though, it took a while for us to get him to reinact his skills.

our garden

This year I planted a variety of tomatoes because last year I got bored of the same kind and couldn't use them in all the recipes that I wanted. This one is cherry. I have a lot of recipes I am going to try with this one. Below are pictured left to right: black, yellow pear, & big red. Not pictured are: roma & pinapple. Never knew there were so many did you?

We planted sunflowers again this year. some of them we planted and some grew from seeds that dropped last year! So cool. We had them coming up all over our yard! The one's back by the dumpster we didn't plant but I appreciate them even more!
We also tried planting a BIG sunflower.

We are trying a more normal variety of cucumber this year.
As you can see our green beans are taking over this garden. We didn't thin them out this year so the plants have no where to grow but to bush out into the garden. You can also see our full crop of lettuce!
I also planted lots of flowers. Last year I planted Zinnias andthey all turned out to be hot pink. But they came in a variety pack. So, this year I planted lots of them and I think I got one of every color! Here is the orange.

... the dark and light pinks...
... and white.
I forgot what this one is called but its really cool. It opens up during the day and closes at night. I will post another pic later of the open version. I planted even more different kinds and will show them when they start to blossom.
But here is my favorite one of all!

Saturday, May 29, 2010

flipped with the croup

I have always wanted to try cloth diapers but said that I would wait until Dennis wasn't in daycare anymore. I have no desire to fill a landfill from my kids' diapers alone (I plan on having a few kids). This past week daycare has asked me to bring in more diapers and wipes both of which I had brought a bunch in all too recently. I actually filled up our wipes box 5 daycare days before they asked me to bring some more in. Diapers it was more like 7 days. However, I don't think I can complain since there have been many times that I have forgotten to bring in diapers and Dennis always has been greatly taken care of with more expensive brands than target. Also this past week my totally awesome sister in law switched her boy over to cloth and was extremely impressed with how easy it was and wished that she had started sooner. So I was pushed to flip. All the signs were pointing me in that direction. I can't say that they are extremely easy since Dennis is wearing his first one as I am typing but I will be sure to update you on my opinions. And, there will be no more sharing at daycare. :) though that isn't my main incentive, it is a nice-very tangible one. We decided to go with the flip diaper-because I have NO IDEA and that's what my sister in law likes. I looked up Cotton Babies online and was going to order them online when I decided to look for a store. To my surprise THE Cotton Babies store is 4 exits on the hwy from me! So, I checked it out today. When I walked in, I fell in love and wished that money was not an issue. There were the cutest clothes (NB jammies: $30), the coolest wooden toys that looked like european toys (chose not to look for the price), Robeez shoes, baby camping beds, and the coveted phil & ted's touble stroller ($800). I tell myself "someday" while Ryan rolls his eyes and I really know that that "someday" will never come because really? $800 for a stroller? But, it makes me feel better that I could have it one day if I felt like it and who knows... maybe someday! Another awesome thing about this store that made me fall in love was the fact that one of the workers had a kid straped to her back in a sling! I told her that I thought it was cool that she could have her kid at work and she told me that he was actually her sister's kid who needed a couple of hours baby free!!! Even cooler that she could do that. For those that know the story-- I am completely jealous and those intense feelings of defeat become so real again. And, I think it is silly that I still feel uncomfortable bringing Dennis to school EVER.

Anyways, I feel very pleased that I was able to buy some very cool things there. Here is my stash! I bought 2 daypack flip system diaper kits (4 diaper covers & 12 inserts), 2 barely used inserts, a bag to put dirty diapers in at daycare, a pail liner for at home and 3 air freshner tablets for the bin. Ryan is going to buy a sprayer from home depot to hook up to our toilet and we will get a system going.

Also big on the schedule today was making Dennis feel better (as you can tell in the picture he is not happy). He started coughing last night really bad and it started to sound like he had a really soar throught. He slept with us over night and didn't sleep very well. At his naptime he started to have more trouble breathing and you could see at every breath that his skin would suck in around his ribs (forgot the medical term for that). We took him in and after some x-rays they diagnosed him with croup--even though Ryan already knew that. Dennis got some meds and is now in his own bed sleeping :) Thank heavens for modern medicine!