Idaho State Parks Passport

We decided to purchase an Idaho State Parks Passport this year and I am so excited to put it to good use! We live super close to Eagle Island State Park, and with a $5 entrance fee, our $10 State Parks Pass will have paid for itself after just two visits to the park. I'm also looking forward to visiting Bruneau Dunes, Lucky Peak, Thousand Springs, and more.

A couple weeks ago, we went as a family to Eagle Island State Park. Kylee had fun not only playing on the playground equipment, but also playing on the shore of the water (it was still a little chilly to swim). Matt took some action shots of Kylee throwing sand :-)

Here's to a fun summer, enjoying the beauty that Idaho has to offer!

New Toy

Matt has wanted a truck for as long as I've known him. Well longer than that actually, but we have talked many  times over the last 3 years about getting a truck "one day." I knew that our 2-door Blazer wasn't practical for our family... It wasn't easy getting Kylee in and out of the back with her car seat, and I knew it would be even harder with a baby (we never even attempted to put Tyler in the Blazer). But it also never seemed like a good time to get a truck. We always had something else that seemed more important... paying off the house, paying off student loans, paying off the motorcycle and the car, saving for a down payment for our new house, and then paying off the second mortgage of our new house, paying medical bills and legal fees, etc.

With our tax return this year, and the fact that we decided to sell our motorcycles (sad day!), we decided we had enough of a down payment that we could handle the monthly payments on a truck. But the thing that tipped the scales & got me to agree that we could finally get a truck was our family trip to Rexburg and that I wanted to be a to sit by Tyler to help keep him happy on the drive.

We are loving the truck... especially Matt and Kylee, who never want to take the car anywhere anymore :-)

Favorite Things Baby - Newborn to Six Months

I did a lot of research on different baby items before I had Tyler and ended up purchasing some great items and receiving others as gifts. I decided to write about some of my favorite things and why I would recommend them. This post is particularly for my friend Jen - I'm so excited for her to join the ranks of "mommy" later this year!

1. The BOB

I love my BOB stroller. I previously blogged my story about how I bought my BOB, and I can safely say it was worth the effort... and the money! I love the stroller attachment and how I can just plop the entire carseat right in the stroller... this has been perfect when Tyler has still been too little to sit. I also feel like i have four-wheel drive with this stroller and it handles so well. It has met our needs and more, and I'm excited to use it to start jogging. Maybe I'll try that tomorrow :-)

2.  Mesh Baby Bath Sling

My friend Sally gave me this baby bath sling as a gift (I had registered for it based on a recommendation from my sister Mandi). I love it! I think it is so much better than one of those bulky hard plastic baby baths. This is mesh so it breathes well, it is small and lightweight, it dries quickly, and it folds for easy storage. It has been the perfect bath accessory for us.

3. Bouncer Seat

My mom gave us a bouncer seat for Christmas... and Tyler literally spends hours in it a week. This seat has been my savior, keeping Tyler entertained each time I need to pump. When Tyler was younger, he could just lay on the floor, but now I'm not sure what I would do without it.

4. Baby Swing

My mom gave us this Fisher Price Cradle 'N Swing at my baby shower. This sits in the corner of our dining room and is what allows me to make dinner, work on the computer, clean the kitchen, etc. Tyler usually really likes his swing and will happily swing for 10-30 minutes at a time (or longer if I'm lucky!) before he gets bored. It can swing side to side or back and forth, plays music, has a mirror for the baby to look into, and has a rotating mobile. This swing is what gives me little pockets of productivity during the day.

5.  Activity Mat

I purchased this mat for Tyler for Easter and my only regret is not having purchased it sooner. Are you sensing a theme in my list of favorite items? :-) One more thing to entertain Tyler so I can get some stuff done around the house. He loves the mirror and each of the toys. And the fabric on this is great - not only do I love the colors and patterns, but it is super easy to clean if he spits up. 

A few other items to note... 

• I initially researched and purchased "fancy" (aka expensive Tommy Tippee) bottles. And you know what? I didn't love them. They were fat (harder to hold) and seemed to be leaky. It was probably just operator error, but Tyler didn't seem to care if I used the cheap/free ones I brought home from the hospital or the Tommy Tippees. So I returned my unopened box of Tommy Tippee bottles and bought some cheapo boring bottles instead. They work great.
• I wish I had more burp cloths. I decided you can't have enough. And we don't like the cute knit burp cloths (like these) because they aren't very absorbent. 
• Short sleeves don't make sense for winter babies. We got lots of cute newborn and 0-3 month clothes, but I only dressed Tyler in a short-sleeved onesie if I had a jacket or long-sleeved shirt to put over the top of it. I don't know if this was just because he was so small when he was born and we had to be extra careful to maintain his body temperature (including keeping a hat on him for the first couple months), but even now I still find that his arms will get chilly in short-sleeves. Long sleeves were definitely the way to go for his first several months!

Another Year Older!

My birthday weekend has been awesome!  Matt had to work yesterday, so we started celebrating a little early on Friday evening.  Sunny's family came into town for the weekend because Steve was running a race, and I was excited to have our first official "guests" stay in our home.  We had a BBQ with them and Corinne's family on Friday, and I got to open a couple presents.  I was super excited when I opened Matt's gift - it was a Silhouette Cameo!  Sweet!  It will cut paper, fabric, vinyl, etc. and I can't wait to start playing with it.  I'm already making a list of things in my head I want to use it for :-)

My day yesterday couldn't have started off any better.  Knowing that Matt was going to be working on my birthday, I had signed up to run Color Me Rad.  What I didn't know is that we would have Kylee, since we don't typically have her on Saturdays.  I had bought Kylee some cute running clothes/shoes a couple months ago and have "practiced" running with Kylee a little bit, but I wasn't sure that she would actually be able to do a race yet, let alone a 5k!  I showed her a video of the race and she seemed pretty excited to try it, so we decided to give it a shot.  And she did AWESOME!  I was seriously so proud of her.  She didn't complain at all.  She ran quite a bit of the course and walked for a bit when she was "out of breath".  I was lucky to have run the race with Brandee's family, and Matt so graciously let Kylee jump into the stroller for a couple stretches of the course. 

Photo compliments of KBOI2.com

Kylee absolutely loved getting the color tossed on her, and had fun throwing color at people at the end when she was given a couple color packets.  I am thinking we need to make this an annual tradition!

All clean before the race

Post-race photo

After getting cleaned up, I enjoyed a lovely lunch with Sunny and Corinne at Costa Vida (where else?).  It was great catching up with my college roomies.

All in all, it was a lovely day.  Looking forward to dessert (and more presents!) with my fam tonight.  A happy birthday weekend to me indeed!

Kitchen Gadgetry

As I've started thinking about our move, I've been trying to get rid of things I haven't used in a while (or ever used)... I thought I'd share in this post a few things we won't be getting rid of - five of my favorite kitchen gadgets.  I have used all of these within the last 24 hours, and I love, love, LOVE them!

• The Pampered Chef Mix 'N Chop.  I love how this handy tool helps crumble hamburger or sausage meat as it cooks.  I remember the days before I had this tool and I always ended up with giant chunks of hamburger... not anymore!

• The Zyliss Food Chopper.  There are tons of different food choppers out there.  I'm sure I would love any one of them.  This just happens to be the one I have because 9 years ago I found it in the clearance bin at Albertsons for $4.99 (or something like that).  Makes chopping/dicing anything a cinch.

• The Pampered Chef Measure, Mix & Pour.  The perfect container for homemade salad dressing.  I hate trying to mix and then ladle salad dressing out of a plastic container.  This mixes and pours  vinaigrettes perfectly, so no more separated oil and vinegar.

• The Evriholder Egg Separator.  I purchased this egg separator at Sur La Table several years ago and I love it.  So much cleaner than separating eggs with the egg shell.  You might remember seeing this once before when I talked about how I ate an egg-white omelet :-)

• The Capresso froth PRO Automatic Milk Frother.  This milk frother makes the perfect hot chocolate or steamed milk.  It mixes and froths and heats all at the same time.  By pushing the heat button on the front of the frother, hot chocolate is heated to the perfect temperature.

What kitchen gadgets do you love???

Pantry Prep

I have been loving looking at pinterest and on the web for organization ideas and techniques.  Here are some of my favorites.  Don't be surprised if I steal some of these ideas for my new home.

Stationary Station - I Heart Organizing

Bathroom cabinet - I Heart Organizing

Drawer Organization - I Heart Organizing

Garage - The Family Handyman

Laundry Room Cubbies - Family Brings Joy

Linen Closet - Better Homes and Gardens

Beautiful Pantry - House of Smiths

So... seeing all of these beautiful spaces is making me anxious (as you may be able to tell from my recent post about my new spice rack).  So what did I do today?  I started organizing my future pantry, of course!  Using some money I got for Christmas, I bought some new dry food storage containers.  I read rave reviews about the Oxo Pop storage containers and decided to go with those (over my other option of heavy but beautiful glass jars).  I also bought some bins to store misc items such as cookie cutters, sprinkles, cupcake liners, etc.  I still want to add some cute labels, but that will have to come later.  Anyway, here's my start!  Now if only I had a pantry to put all of this in :-)

My Ears Say Thank You

I don't like to run.  And I really don't like to run by myself... but that's what I've been doing the past couple months as I prepare for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon that is in only 23 more days!  It has been too cold for me to run outside (I'm kinda wimpy like that), so I've been running on a treadmill.  I've never been one to run with music, but I found that watching television while I run helps the time go by faster... or at least make running mile after mile more bearable.

The problem was these were the only headphones I could find.

I mean, seriously, who wants to put those nasty looking things in their ears?  Well, since that's all I've had, that's what I've been using.  Until today :-)  Thanks to Matt, I now have some amazing, new, comfortable, washable earbuds that made my 9 mile run this morning not quite as awful (I was ready to be done 2.5 miles in!)

My ears are definitely saying thank you this morning!  So now the question is... should I start trying to run with music, and then take an iPod with me to the half marathon??  There certainly won't be a television along the route :-)  Or what about listening to a book?  That might be kind of fun... wonder what music or a book might do to my pace?  Hmmmm.... I'll have to think about this.

I've Conquered My Nemesis!

For years, the most painful part of of cooking has been getting spices in and out of my cupboard.  The cupboard that holds my spices is up high (middle shelf of the picture below), so I have to pull half the jars out of my cupboard to find the right spice.

I have (on more than one occasion) had a glass spice jar fall out of the cupboard onto the counter and shatter just because it is so stinkin' hard to find what I'm looking for.  I have HATED my spice storage!

Knowing that we are building a house, I've been searching and searching for the best spice storage solution.  And I found it at the Container Store - The Acrylic 20-Bottle Spice Rack.  When my in-laws took a trip to California in September (wish we had a Container Store here in Boise!), I had them pick me up a couple of these spice racks... which I've been storing in my garage ever since.  I knew they would be perfect sitting on a shelf in my beautiful, giant, walk-in pantry in our new home, and every time I cook, I have wished we were in our new home so my spices would be organized and easy to get to.  As I've started thinking about packing up our house (what a daunting task!) I decided that it didn't make sense to move a bunch of spice bottles when I was just going to get rid of them in our new home.  We decided we could just leave the new spice racks on our kitchen counter for a couple months until we move.  Hooray for me!  That meant I had a small project this afternoon, and I smiled the entire time :-)

• I first pulled all the spices out of the cupboard... over 30 jars!

• Using the handy dandy spice funnel (that I also got from the Container Store), I transferred spices from my old jars/containers to my new jars, and labeled them using the stickers that came with my new jars.

• I put them in alphabetical order to make them easy to find.  I even have a few empty bottles in case I want to add additional spices to my collection.  Any suggestions???

• Ahhh, what a thing of beauty.  These racks are awesome.  They have little rubber feet on the bottom so they won't skid on my shelf or counter, or you could choose to mount them to the wall (they have small holes in the back and came with hardware if you choose to do this).  I can picture these puppies in my new pantry as I type this, but for now, I will smile knowing I have conquered my kitchen nemesis!

Christmas Countdown

My mom gave Kylee two ways to count down to Christmas... they are both adorable, so I thought I would share them here!

The first is an advent made with a mini muffin tin.  The numbered papers are held to the muffin tin with small magnets, and a little prize is found under each number.  The first 10 or so contained stickers of the nativity (along with a piece of candy of course!)  The rest have held a piece of candy or a small toy.  Kylee loves it and hasn't forgotten a single day.

The other is a computer advent.  My mom purchased a Jacquie Lawson Advent Calendar that was downloadable, with little ornaments you can click on each day to unlock a magical experience.  Some days you just watch an animated clip (like a polar bear trying to catch a fish or cats playing with Christmas tree ornaments), and other days there is an interactive component (like building a snowman or making Christmas stockings).  One really cool thing is that each day, something new shows up in the village based on what the activity of the day was... Can you see the upside down snowman to the right of the tree?  That's the snowman Kylee built.  

And if you click on the cottage, you can see inside... Can you tell which stocking Kylee made for me?? Blue and orange for Boise State!  She has had so much fun with this!

With only two days left until Christmas, we're pretty excited around here.  I think I might be more excited than Kylee though... my first Christmas as a mama, and we have some fun gifts in store for our little angel.  We also have a couple days packed with fun family activities.  Merry Christmas!

I Ate An Omelet

Some of you might wonder why I would do an entire blog post about eating an omelet.  Those who know me well will know it's because I don't like eggs!  I haven't liked them my entire life.  I won't eat them scrambled or fried or hard boiled.  I do not like them at all!

Earlier this year, however, I had a bit of an epiphany while doing the Biggest Loser Challenge with ladies from my gym.  There was one week when we had to eat our body weight in grams of protein each day without going over 1400 calories.  That was hard to do.  One day during that week I decided to give scrambled egg whites a try (most of the calories for an egg are in the yolk).  I decided if I added a bunch of cheese that I might be able to gag it down.  Well, I ate it, and honestly it wasn't that bad.  I decided that maybe it wasn't eggs I didn't like, but egg yolks that I didn't like.  I didn't want to push that idea (the thought of eating eggs makes me want to gag) but I finally decided to test that theory out this weekend.

I had seen a post on facebook where someone made an egg white omelet.  I decided to give it a try.  And since this was my first time ever making an omelet, I decided to document it!  First, I sauteed 1/4 green bell pepper (chopped), 5 slices of mushroom (broken in pieces), and a large handful of spinach in coconut oil (I decided after doing the Dr. Oz cleanse that coconut oil would be a good substitute for olive oil or butter).

While those were sauteing, I separated three eggs (thanks mom and dad for the "chicken eggs"!) using my handy dandy egg separator and poured the egg whites into a small pan.

When the eggs were cooked through, I added the sauteed vegetables to one half, folded egg over the top, and then plated and topped with salsa.  And I really liked it.

So, after 32 years of thinking I hated eggs, I am changing my mind.  And I'm excited to introduce egg whites into my diet because they are a healthy option for breakfast.  I still don't plan on ever eating the whites around a fried egg, or the white of a hard boiled egg (hard boiled eggs stink!), but for now, I won't be scared of egg white omelets or scrambled egg whites.  Yea me for trying this!

Big Hits

During one of our shopping trips in Sun Valley with my college roomies last month, we came across the cutest little toy store.  I fell in love with so many things, but narrowed it down to just two that I picked up for Kylee.  And let me tell you, they have both been big hits at our house.  They are both by eeBoo (a company I hadn't heard of before, but will now seek out since I love their products!)

The first is the game Go Fish.  The cards are cute in the shape of a fish, the colors are bright and fun, and Kylee loves playing and getting matches.  This is a fun family game and perfect for Kylee - she already knew her colors, but this would be a good game for a kid trying to learn their colors (we don't use the names of the colors on the cards - we just say "dark green" or "brown" instead of the fancy names they really used).

"Tell Me a Story" is a set of cards with pictures on it - they are creative story cards.  We let Kylee pick 3 or 4 cards, and then we make up a story based off the cards.  This is a fun way to mix up bed time stories.  I especially love when Matt tells the story because it is fun to hear what kind of a story line he comes up with.  Plus his characters all have different voices and that totally makes me smile :-)  We went with the fairytale mix-ups, but there are lots of other "themes" for these story cards.

Daisy Day Designs

My boss's wife Rachel recently started a cute little hair accessory business - Daisy Day Designs.  A couple weeks ago, I stopped by her booth at a local festival, and immediately fell in love with her work.  I haven't really accumulated much in the way of hair things for Kylee yet, so I picked up the following:

A Fourth of July "corker" bow:

Some cute lady bug clips:

And my favorite, a couple butterfly clips:

So if you're looking for something cute and fun for your little girl's hair, check out her website: www.daisydaydesigns.com!

SwitchFlops

Have you ever seen Shark Tank?  I really enjoy this show, and have it on my Season Pass Manager on my TiVo.  It makes me wish I could come up with an idea that would be worthy of investment from a shark.  Last year I saw a Shark Tank episode that featured shoes with interchangeable straps.  I just googled it and found the website - it's called Onesole.  I kind of see this as the shoe equivalent of the Miche Bag.  Basically you purchase one sole, and you can switch out the bands to match your outfit.

The Onesole was touted as the perfect shoe for traveling.  I agree.  I'm currently on a business trip in Nashville, and I brought with me five different pairs of shoes.  Now if I had had the Onesole, I would still have had to bring multiple pair of shoes, but it would have reduced this number to three (still need my casual canvas shoes, my tennis shoes for the gym, and then the one pair of dress shoes to wear with my "conference attire").  So basically, I think Onesole is a great idea... but I don't love the shoe itself.

Well, in my hotel in Nashville, I found something similar, but in a style that I do like... Lindsay Phillips!  She has a couple different products - Snap Shoes and SwitchFlops.  At the end of last summer, both pair of my "dressier" black flip flops broke, so I needed to buy something to replace these anyway.  The minute I tried on the SwitchFlops, I knew I loved them - there is memory foam in the shoe and they are sooo comfy (and I knew they would be a relief for my sore feet from all the walking I have been doing in my heels).  I went with the Breanna Wedge Heel and bought a couple different straps that I think will match most of my outfits.

I am excited that I found these, especially at the beginning of sandal season!  I might need to buy a couple more straps to round out my collection, but I've already more than maxed out my budgeted spending money for the month :-)