Coronado Beach Exploration

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Meant to be?

I woke up this morning thinking about how utterly fab it would be so be able to attend a CRAVE PHOTOGRAPHY workshop in person. When I clicked on facebook I saw a link-a link to an ALL EXPENSES PAID PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP GIVEAWAY!!! True story I swear! I am already eternal grateful for your goodness God, but maybe just one more little thing? ;) I really have no right to ask, I've been tremendously blessed the past few months...but it would be awesome!
http://cravemyphotography.com/blog/world-wide-giveaway/#comment-8202

At least you get pics

So...a lot has happened since my last post...like moving across the country! Haha if the Navy does anything for me, it inspires confidence that, as Sheri Dew says it best, YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS! lol When you're faced with no other choice than to just get up out of your seat and do something, you learn a lot about yourself! After telling us we would be in Chicago another year the Navy up and gave us two weeks to move!

Happily we are now located in sunny, serene southern California. Cameron has a month or two more of training, and then he will be in the "real" Navy (i.e. on a BATTLESHIP)! It's kinda scary, huh? But also really really COOL! I will have to take some pics next time we go over the awesome bridge to Coronado so everyone can see the Navy's glory...but for now, these pictures of my babies will have to do :)

Daddy studying for a test while watching two curious little boys

Triscuit loves our new 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath home, although I'm sure his favorite parts are the back yard (triscuit size) and the low windows he can look out of.

I made this cutie some yummy fresh apple banana sauce this morning and what does he do with it? He spits it out and then goes outside to eat leaves! Guess I'm lucky he didn't try to grab one of the many snails that frequent our yard!

There are so few pics of them together....because they never hold still! I love Cohie's face

I'm not sure if Cohen agrees with his shirt..I tried to get him to feel a snail this morning and he looked at me like, "you want me to do WHAT NOW?" lol

Every day here has been BEAUTIFUL! We live 15-20 min from base/the coast and I couldn't be happier with our situation! We were incredibly lucky to get into the neighborhood of Navy/Marine housing we did and we're super excited about our new ward full of military members!

Cloth Diapering: Week 3

I've wanted to try cloth diapering for a while now...but the start up costs for the type of diapers I wanted were just too big for our tiny budget. This past month we were happily surprised to discover the government gives you $1000 for every kid you have, woot! When did the government start paying people to have kids? lol So anyway, I decided this would be the perfect time to start cloth diapering. I mean, there are soo many reasons to use reusable diapers-from saving money to saving the planet!

velcro vs snap closure

 I have to admit, once I got right down to it, the thought of giving up my so easy to use disposables seemed a bit scary (would I hate the smell of the diaper pale?, would it be too much laundry? Would they leak? Would people think I was gross? Would I have TIME?).

I'm happy to say that we are in week 3 of cloth diapering and I am IN LOVE! They are easy to use, we found a great product to wash them in and keep the pale smelling good, and I LIKE laundering them (They're just so darn cute and soft)!

Here's what we've started off with:
-10 velcro diapers by Kawaii
-10 snap diapers by Kawaii
-4 Night time "heavy wetter" diapers by Kawaii
-3 Rumparoos (1 snap, 2 velcro)
-3 Fuzzi bunz
-2 diaper pale liners
-1 wet bag for the diaper bag
-diaper pale
-Crunchy Clean diaper formula

My favorite diapers are definitely the Fuzzibunz; I just put in another order at Kelly's Closet for 5 more. They're a bit expenive at $20 a pop, which is why I went for the kawaii at $7ish each.Crunchy Clean is amazing, it smells soooo good! We got samples of about 10 different scents (such as oatmeal, milk & honey, pink sugar, granny's pecan pie, apple butter pie, and other deliciousness) and it was really hard to pick, but we narrowed it down to our two favorites. Special diaper detergent is essential to cloth diapering since the soap builds up on the fabric, making it hard for them to absorb anything, but it's pretty inexpensive at $10ish for 60-80 loads compared to $100 a month we were spending on disposable diapers! The crunchy clean detergent is also great when shaken into the diaper pale (our favorite scent: monkey fart, makes our pale smell like bananas and pineapple)!

 All of our diapers are pocket diapers; they have an opening at the back or front in which a fluffy absorbent liner is placed to soak up all the wetness. When changed, you simply shake out the "soaker" into the diaper pale then throw in the dipe itself. All the diapers nowadays are lined with PUL, a waterproof barrier making diaper covers obsolete. On the inside of mine is soft microfleece for baby's bum.

diaper and soaker

These are not your Granny's diapers!

Grandma Snyder's Visit

Grandma Snyder came to visit for a week in February, fun! We went to the Science Museum downtown, out to eat at the places man vs. food went, and stayed home and played a lot. Here are some pics from the book I'm making "grammy" Snyder of her time here in the windy city.

Grandma hit it off with the boys right away, even though they'd never met before!

Cohen sticks his tongue out when he's curious or thinking hard (like his mommy)

i like this 70's lookin action

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cameron downtown, woot! we kept getting bad shots since there was so much light and i couldnt seem to find the right shutter speed/f stop ratio...cameron-mr. no camera knowledge-helped me out, lol!

cohen LOVES dinosaurs, not just a little, but a LOT! in fact, i think he wants to BE ONE, lol he growled at all of them, showem who's boss co! we went to a 3d movie on t-rex's i thought would be scary for two 7 month olds...but cohen laughed and growled back the whole time! poor camden WAS scared.

coh bro and the t-rex

cohen

camden

grumpy face!

this is my favorite!

this one makes me laugh!

this one too..haha

daddy's digis

the food on camdens face looks like his fighting a bout of chicken pox!