Little Okie Homestead

After some miscommunications and some family trauma stuff I have finally got my maternity pictures. I love the ladies at  Memories Photography !  (warning if you visit there site it's not G rated so please keep that in mind).  I have taken some other photos with them that I will not share on the internet and they turned out awesome!  I have to say I'm lovin' my maternity photos too! Adrienne did a great job! Love her! If you are in the Denver area and need photos done you should really check  them  out! I'm sure you will be really happy with the final product! Also I think every woman should have their boudoir photos taken at least once in their lives and that is what these ladies specialize in! So all you mommies out there you should keep that in mind! It's a great way to pamper yourself and a great gift for your hubby!

Yesterday was Goose's 2 month birthday! STATS: Height: 24 inches!  (I can't believe he is 2 feet long! Crazy!) Weight: 13 pounds exactly! He loves sitting up however he can...Mommy, Bumbo Chair, Swing, ect. He has the hiccups all the time! His sneezes constantly! He is a night owl & will only sleep on his tummy now! He smiles all the time! He loves watching Monkey play all around him! He loves to laugh at Mommy being silly! He sleeps for 6 hours at night & catnaps through the day! He nurses every 2 hours & let's Mommy accomplish nothing most days because of it! He's a Mommy's boy through and through! I'm not sure he was happy about getting older! Or maybe it was all the pictures I was trying to take right after he woke up ? Monkey had to get in on the camera action too!

7 weeks old! This was after she cut his ear! (Totally kidding! He was just super sleepy!) She cut off an inch of hair! Crazy huh? (Told you he was sleepy!)

Toddle Along Tuesday  this week is all about things you can't believe you say...after thinking and thinking and watching what I say all day I only came up with one theme... ...Don't eat your boogers! ...Quite picking your nose! All day long, everyday! How do you get a kid to quite picking their nose? I have no idea! I wonder if Monkey will hate me when he grows up because of this picture being out there on the internet?!?!

I got a great idea from a friend but the problem is that it doesn't work for my family so I'm hoping that you all might be able to give me some ideas.  A friend of mine said that she takes a loaf a bread and makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out of the whole loaf. Then she freezes them so she can take them with her when her and the kids are heading out for a day at the zoo or whatever. She said it's perfect because they are defrosted by the time they are ready to eat lunch and it helps keep the rest of lunch cold like fruits or cheese. So here is my dilemma...Monkey is allergic to peanut butter! Yep this idea is great for me because I love peanut butter and jelly but I can't feed it to Monkey or Hubby and most likely Goose. I'm thinking of trying a regular ham and cheese sandwich and see how it goes. I'm just not quite sure it will work.  Does anyone else do this? Anyone have suggestions on what I can use instead of peanut

Teaching kids everyday is really pretty easy. Most of the time I don't even realize that I'm teaching Monkey until later when he repeats it back to me and shows me that he understands it. It's amazing to me how easy it can be. Today's "How I Everyday Teach" tip is                     Use Your Child's Interests! Monkey's interests change almost weekly. He will want to know everything he can one week about bugs then maybe next week it's farm animals or snakes. Right now we are in our 3rd week of everything dinosaurs! He just loves them! We have spent many hours reading books about this dino or that dino, struggling over how to pronounce their names, and watching Dino Dan or Dinosaur Train. I love that he is so excited to learn everything about dinosaurs he can but I have decided that this is our last week on dinosaurs. I want to stretch him out of his comfort zone and into another area of learning. We will head to the library and retu

Mommy and Monkey date night!  Just the two of us out for frozen yogurt! I think he enjoyed it!

Fun with the cousins part 2 :) Sunday we spent all day at the zoo. Monkey enjoyed having his Daddy at the zoo with him looking at all the animals and reading him the facts about the animals. He also enjoyed having his cousins there to play with him. It was a great day with family!  Notice the crane in flight to the right. He was flying over to visit all the cousins.  Watching the baby leopard. This lasted almost 20 minutes just watching the baby and mom play together.  Hanging out on the concrete waiting for everyone to come out of Tropical Discovery. This was the only way that he would stop crying and be happy.  Taking a quick nap while all the kids are playing in the water.  Racing wood chips down the river water in the zoo playground.  Baby Peacoks Visiting the new elephant exhibit. Loved having Daddy there to hold him up so he could see the animals easier.  First pictures with the polar bear! We have one of Monkey when he was around this age too! So f

Finally we are up and running on several social media sites! I'm so excited! I would love it if you would come join me on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. I will be posting links to all my new posts as well as updating you on things going on in everyday life. I will post articles I read and want to share as well as questions that I have and could use advice on. Please come join the fun by clinking the links on the left of your screen! Hope to see you there!!!! Image borrowed from  Women Living Well

Yep! That happened to me this morning! Thank goodness it was still during worship and not during prayer ;)

Monkey is really into bug and everything that has to do with nature. We spend days at the Butterfly Pavilion learning about new bugs and creatures. He also loves spending time outside looking at bugs and watching the bees. He can't get enough. Step Gently Out by Helen Frost and Rick Lieder is great in supporting this passion. They have taken great photos that are close up of the different bugs and turned them into a nice calm story about nature.  This was one of my favorite books to read to Monkey before bedtime because it set a very peaceful tone which is always helpful when you have a rambunctious 3 year old on your hands.  I would recommend this book to anyone that has children but especially the ones that have children that love bugs. I plan to add this to our permanent collection in the near future. 

I'm going to write several times a month on how I every day teach my boys. I know many mom's that stay home with their kids (and mom's that work) think that they need to do formal preschool with them to prepare them for school whether homeschool or public schools. I know because I use to be one of them. I started out when Monkey was just over one year old trying to do a formal learning time with him. It never worked out! Try getting a 1 year old to sit still long enough to do some formal learning. Throughout that year I struggled, felt defeated, and like a failure. I felt like I would never be able to do homeschool for Monkey because if I couldn't get him on a schedule now and keep to it how would I ever? And honestly we still have not master the art of a schedule. Well after working and struggling through that year I realized that Monkey did learn and he learned a lot just by doing everyday things with him. It's amazing how quickly he picked things up

Another fun activity here in Colorado! I love that we can buy memberships to all these great places and go whenever we want for as long as we want. This trip...to the Butterfly Pavilion with the cousins (part 1)!  This was Goose's first trip on the outside! He loved looking at all the colors of fish in the tank!   It's always fun when a butterfly stops by to say hi!  (Note the butterfly on Goose) Don't forget to leave without saying hi to Rosie!  And to end the trip..playing on the caterpillar!