$15

This past Saturday I was able to escape the house all by myself for a couple of hours. I hadn't really planned on being gone long. The plan was to go to a used baby clothes sale at the DECC and then come home. Well, I did go to the sale but afterwards I got a tiny bit of 'me' time as well.

See back in May my family had a garage sale and from the money Josh and I made we put aside a small amount for clothes for me because I literally left most of my clothes in Korea when we left. Why did I do this? Well because when you only bring X amount of shirts to a place you end up wearing them over and over again and by the time we left they were all very worn and half didn't fit me anymore because I lost a little bit of weight, so therefore they got left behind. Also I just had a baby so any clothes that did fit me before don't really fit me now. I'm not over exaggerating, seriously, I have 5 shirts that I wear out in public, two of which I've had for years and years and one has holes in it that I always hope nobody notices. Any other shirts I wear around the house, mostly old maternity shirt, and hope that nobody knocks on my door and sees me (which someone did today and I was extremely embarrassed! lol!)  :) Anyway, just trying to give you an idea as to why we put this money aside for me. So then my birthday came along and a little more money got added to our little pool for me.

Then came along my kids growing and my husband needed clothes for work and that whole pool disappeared. Well, almost! I had spent $20 of the pool on a pair of pants and a sweater for me and after I went to the sale at the DECC and got Gabriel some 3T clothes (which he will be in soon... SAD! My baby is getting big!) I ended up with $15 left. I also had a gift card for Caribou Coffee from my birthday. So first, I went to Caribou Coffee in Canal Park and got myself a small turtle mocha and a blueberry muffin... HEAVEN!

I was about to go home and my head was hurting from my pony tail because I wear it up in one every single day because the last time I got my hair cut (sorry mom) it ended up being really crooked... so therefore, wearing my hair down is just not an option:) Then a thought came to me 'Kayla, you have $15 left, go get your hair fixed! You've been walking around with this bad haircut for 5 months, it's time to get it fixed!' and so I did! Believe me, I was so flippin' excited to get my $15 hair cut! LOL! I know, I'm nuts and that's ok! My hair dresser took her time and made sure my hair was even and what I wanted and Great Clips isn't exactly known for that. I half expected my hair to still be crooked when I walked out, I was just hoping for not as crooked as before:) But I spent over an hour in that chair and enjoyed every minute of it! My hair dressers exact words were 'well, I figured you've been walking around with a bad hair cut for that long you deserve one that is perfect'. Now, my hair isn't anything special, I really just got a trim and some layers but whatever, I don't care, I'm still excited about it and now I can wear my hair down if I want too!

gDiapers

Before Elizek was born I bought gDiapers for my kids. I tried them out on Gabriel and loved them! I took a break from cloth diapering after Elizek was born because I didn't need the extra work that cloth diapering involves, now I have started up again with both kids. 

Now, of course cloth diapering is a little harder. It's not like you can just take the diapers and throw them in the trash after changing the kids. There is washing them after the change, then the extra laundry, the line drying liners and the actual diaper change itself takes a little longer. All in all it's still worth it. I like the fact that I'm saving money and there are a few hundred less diapers in the landfills. I still use disposables at night because Gabriel will get a rash if I don't and Eli still needs to be changed in the middle of the night and I don't want to have to wash diaper out when I'm half asleep but during the day I use cloth. 

Things have been going well. I sometimes feel like a worker on an assembly line with poopy pants coming my way constantly but I felt like that with disposables too. I think I feel more that way now just because I try to change both of them at the same time so I can wash two dirty diapers at once instead at two different times. 

I think my kids look adorable in cloth diapers. They are so stinkin' cute! I mean, you could put a plain ol' boring disposable on your babies bottom OR you could put on a cute cloth diaper :) Ok, so I'm a little bias but still, look at Eli in my favorite color...

So happy about cloth!

I have a few fun colors of gDiapers. Red ones, bright blue ones, brown, vanilla, dark blue ones, black and a light blue pattern one. I think their fun and worth all the extra effort! 

A Fun Weekend

This summer has gone by so fast! I can't believe there is only one month left! I am determined to make this last month fun. The first two months were great because Eli was born and we have been busy enjoying him but we haven't gotten out to do anything. We haven't gone to the beach or just to Lake Superior, we haven't gone to the zoo or been camping, none of the normal fun summer things. So since there is only one month left I am trying to plan each weekend so we get to have fun before the cold months of winter come along that take up too much of our year. So this last weekend we finally got out to do things!

On Friday night we went down to Bayfront for the Tall Ships Festival.

We left as soon as Josh got home from work so we could go see the ships. The ship tours only went until 5PM so we only got to see one of the ships but we got to walk around a little bit before it started to rain. You should see the rope on these ships. Like seriously, it's amazing! They have so much rope everywhere!

Check out this rope that Gabriel is sitting on, HUGE!

Gabriel was kind of crabby when we went down to the festival because he hadn't had a nap that day, so he probably won't be smiling in any of this pics but he still thought the ships were pretty cool:)

The bottom of this ship was extremely cramped. I seriously think it was made for short people. We were bent over at the waist trying to get through it which was a little difficult because I had Eli strapped to my chest and Josh had to hold Gabriel because he didn't like walking on the ship because it would move and he would loose his balance. 

This is us outside of the ships...

We went back the next day because we wanted to see The Bounty. The Bounty is a ship that was featured in the film Muting on the Bounty and it was also in the second Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Mans Chest.

Jack Sparrow, or a man in the costume really, was on the ship too! This guys costume was pretty darn amazing, if I didn't know better I would have though it was really Johnny Depp in character. I wish I would have got a picture of him but I have this thing about taking pictures of famous people or people in costumes. I feel bad for asking for their picture because I know that I am probably the millionth person to do so and I don't want to bother them like everybody else. I know that's what they are there for, to create the experience but I still don't feel comfortable asking for pictures. Anyway, we had to wait in line for awhile to get on the boat so we got some cotton candy! Gabriel who had never had it before turned out to be 100% kid and loved it! His face was blue, hands were blue, even his hair was blue when he was done!

When we got onto the ship Eli and I got to stand at the wheel, I thought it was pretty cool :)

The bottom the ship wasn't like the other one, we could actually stand up in it :)

On Sunday we decided to make the trip up to Chishlom for the county fair. This was Gabriel's first time at the fair and he loved it! He loved the petting barn the most I think. He kept picking up the hay the animals were laying on and trying to feed it to them. Even Eli got into the fun:)

We also let him go on the pony rides!

We also took him on a few rides which he thought was pretty fantastic!

At the end of the day we were all super hot and super tired so we got some ice cream before heading out. Gabe has never had his very own ice cream cone before and totally loved the every minute of it. He kept getting mad at me when I had to take it away for a minute to lick off all the run offs. Eventually I just let him make a mess because I had extra clothes in the car:)

It was a fun weekend and now we get to plan for this next weekend and do even more fun things!

Park Fun

At our apartment building they have a playground outside for the residence to use, Gabriel loves it playing on it! First we have to take the elevator down so we load the kids up in the wagon. For Eli's safety, we always put them feet to feet in the wagon. Gabriel is very careful not to kick Eli but I don't want to take any chances.

Eli chilling in the wagon 

Apparently my son thinks there is only one way to get up the slide and will not go any other way

A silly monkey with a monkey!

Daddy and Gabe

Gabriel will scoot his little butt onto this bar and just sit there and hold onto the bar in front of him. It FREAKS MAMA OUT!!! He gets a huge thrill out of it but I hate it when he does it!

My favorite picture!