Minnesota Welcomes You

Day 5, our final day on our quest from Ca to Mn.

Today was highly anticipated and fun!

We woke up at 730 got the boys dressed and headed down to breakfast. We had plans to meet our Softbums friends who lived nearby for some swimming at the hotel waterpark before we hit the road for Minnesota .

Backstory: I planned on meeting up with this family so I could give them some of my milk for their little girl who isn't able to drink formula due to some medical conditions. Well it turns out a bunch of Softbums mamas also wanted to help this deserving family out and so we all pooled our money together to buy the kids bunk beds and bedding for Xmas. I got them all new pajamas to wear in their new beds. Well it turns out we were going to be staying just 30 mins outside of where they live so I picked up gifts along the way and worked along with another local mama to set up getting the beds & bedding it worked perfectly and so we schemed our plan out so that once the kids were done swimming an we were all leaving we would surprise them with their gifts in the parking lot. It was so incredible to be able to help them out like that and we could tell they genuinely were so happy and humbled by our doings!! Yay!!

Hubs & Caiden had a lot of fun also swimming an playing in the water. After we said our goodbyes we hit the road at 1145 and made it to bdubs in mason city by 530 we ordered food to go and picked it up on our way. Yum!!

We made a lot of bathroom breaks today and made sure to get our MO & IA shot glasses!!

Happy Birthday Boo Boo

Day 4 on our road trip back to MN.

Today is Caiden's 3rd birthday!! I cannot believe it. He seems so much older but the time seem like it was just yesterday we were in Walla Walla with our new baby boy. He sure has grown in to a respectful handsome young guy, super smart & loves his family. We are so proud of him everyday he shows us another thing we adore about him. We love him so much!! We are very blessed to have him in our life.

Today we woke up cade took a seriously long shower while we packed up our stuff and Connor slept in haha, we got breakfast at the hotel which was amazing... Then we hit the road around 10am. One hour later we had to stop for Caiden to pee & Connor to eat. We stopped at a loves trucks top & cade got to pick out a toy as a birthday present. He took forever to decide & then landed on a orange Chevy Camero model car.

All day long he received calls from family to width him a happy birthday including a FaceTime call from cousin Sawyer & a video from Jen & the kids singing happy birthday to him!! He loved that. He is so excited he gets to see grandma & grandpa very soon .

We stopped 3 times today and the last stop was in Wichita for dinner at Texas road house. We had a great dinner and caiden got to get his picture on the saddle.

We are staying just outside of Kansas City tonight and we are meeting some special friends tomorrow to swim at the hotels waterpark before we hit the road one last stretch before getting home tomorrow night !!

We have had a good time so far on this trip and both the boys have done awesome!! We have watched Cars about 13 times now even though we have 4 other movies caiden is a little obsessed with Cars. I think we would win a family cars trivia game hands down if we played one now after this trip.. :)

Pretzels & Pringles

Day 3 on our quest to MN, moving from CA.

Well we started the day with bubba waking up early as usual. So me and him hit the shower and got stuff together while waiting for hubs & cade to get ready.

We headed over to Uhaul to pick up our car trailer at 9am and after me almost plowing over it lol oops we were on our way by 10am

We made only 2.5 stops again today and went through 3 Disney movies..

We didn't want to stop long so we did a lot of snacking today, hence the title of this post.

Connor had his first pretzel & diluted apple juice today. Lol he was a fan

Caiden was awesome in the car, Connor was better & slept a lot if it.. But by 7pm he was getting antsy and crying. Fortunately we arrived in Amarillo at 730pm. We decided to order room service & wine because it was late with the 2nd time change and the boys were too antsy to sit down to eat anywhere.. Btw the time changes are super annoying and crappy!

This is a really nice hotel. The Hilton garden inn. Too bad we will only be here for 11 hours lol

We are hoping to leave early to be able to get to MO tomorrow night so we have some time to swim at the waterpark for Caidens birthday!!

Grand ole day

Day Two of our road trip back to MN.

Today we woke up later, caiden made his own first fort! then we packed up our room & hit up continental breakfast, packed up the truck and made some picnic lunches ready before hitting the road to trek out to the south point of the Grand Canyon.
The boys watched Cars, and we made a bunch if stops at all the scenic views some were scarier than others.. Still made me anxious with Cade walking around... Yikes!

It is very beautiful and much more breathe taking than a picture.

Wow

Glad we decided to stop!

The boys slept all the way back to the hotel and we ate our picnic lunch. We plan on getting some Pita Pit for linnet & then taking the boys swimming later today.

Goodbye CA

We hit the road today 11am, Day one of our trip back to MN with the boys.

We made 2.5 stops today and made it to Flagstaff, AZ around 8pm mountain time. Not bad timing.. Cade was an excellent traveler as usual. Connor did better than expected.. Still did his fair share of crying, before dosing off.

Me and Con went to Wally World to get some dinner & trip supplies & dad and cade hit the pool.

We are all beat.. But excited for our big adventure to the Grand Canyon!!

Cloth Diaper Report - Month 6

How many diapers a day used? 4-5, (morning, after nap, after dinner & before bed)

How many wipes? 1 in the morning, 3 if poopy, none for wet

What Brands were used? SoftBums, Mud Butts, Go Green, Grovia, Kawaii GNHW & Snazzy Minky & my own Lil Freddys :)

What brand/ style fit best? SoftBums/ AI2 ECHOS & OMNI's

Were you able to reuse your AI2 shells during the same day? If so how many times? Yes about 3 times, really could get by only using 2-3 shells a day.
What fit problems did you have? Was having rolling issues on my OMNIs but then asked around and I wasnt putting the rise high enough in the front.. He is also inbetween rise snaps on his mud butts & kawaiis
What was the print/ color you grabbed the most? SoftBums nuclear pumpkin, ebony & lime, then Grovia airplanes!
Best on the go diaper? Grovia AI2 & SofBums Echo & large pod
What type of insert/ soakers worked the best? SoftBums OS Bamboo pods. Grovia staydry soakers next, then our new charcoal bamboo soakers
The worst? Nothing is the worst really because I destashed all my subpar soakers.
Overnight? OS Bamboo pod in OMNI shell or stuffed in a Kawaii GNHW.
Did you have any blowouts? None
What was your washing schedule like? Regular wash in hot/ hot cycle 2x rinse, short cold/ cold cycle no detergent, sun dry the stained shells and soakers, machine dry the pods & wet bags. Air dry most shells, unless I need one right away, washing once a week.
Detergent used? Using Tide original powder.
Love it or hate it? Love it, it makes changing diapers so much more fun when they are so cute. lol Hates how Connor hates being on the changing table recently.
Things you learned? You dont want to wash fleece soakers with diaper laundry but with your clothes instead, and using a fabric softner in the wash with them will help keep them water resistant. So washing them with Cons clothes in Dreft works great!

Some fit pictures:

7 MONTHS

For some reason this one snuck up on me.. :/ I guess we have been pretty busy this last month packing and getting stuff ready for the big move. Why do babies have to grow up??

Well this month Bubbas vocabulary has been busy expanding, he chatters alot more now.. and yup you guessed it he said his first word. MAMAMAMA he has got that one down for sure.. says it all day long if I am just too far away.. :p

He finally rolled over shortly after he turned 6 months he was playing on the floor right before bed I was changing him and got up to grab some jammies (he was nakie of course so I had to take a picture after I dressed him) October 24th 2012

He still much prefers sitting and standing & hates to be on the floor on his stomach. He will tolerate the Jumperoo for about 20 mins then he is over it.

He is pretty happy most the time and very easy going. He really likes to play on the floor with Caiden and just dig through the toys.. His favorite toys right now are still his sophie teether, this ugly elephant thing, moms iphone cover, and the remote he just jumps for when he sees it.. LOL

He also is a huge fan on sitting on the tonka 4x4 ride-on toy its just small enough he can reach the floor with both legs on each side he pretty much scoots backward most the time.. Caiden likes to pretend he is racing with him on the other ride on tractor we have. It is pretty fun to watch them play together!

Bubba still loves breastfeeding and I dont see him stopping anytime soon. He pretty much requires to be nursed to sleep for naps and bed and that is fine with me right now.. Much easier & takes less time than trying to rock him to sleep..  Its funny to think back when Boo Boo was this age we were so over night wakings we were starting to CIO with him.. but the difference between them is huge. Caiden was waking up ever 2-3 hours at night at 7 months still whereas Connor only wakes up 1-2x a night between 9pm & 7am and we didnt co-sleep with Caiden and we do with Connor most the time. But that is going to change once we get moved into the new house. I want to get Con sleeping in his own bedroom at night.

Heres his 7 month routine:
7-745 wake up & playtime
9am Naptime
10-1045 wake up, nurse play till lunch
12:00 pick up cade
12:30 Lunchtime
1:30 Nurse & Naptime Connor
145 Caiden naptime
3:00 Nurse
4:00 Boys get up, playtime till dinner
5:30 Dinner
630 Nurse & short nap Connor
830 Get ready for bed, PJs books & bed for both boys
9pm Nurse, Bed Connor
1am Nurse
5am Nurse

We took a fun trip to Yosemite this month for a couple days and both the boys had a blast hiking and swimming at the hotel. Caiden is still taking about how much fun he had hiking the rocks and throwing snowballs at dada.. LOL. But we did get car sick a couple days going into the park bc the road is so winedy, that wasnt fun!

Also this month was Halloween, the boys had a blast trickortreating and Caiden was Wilson from chuggington and Connor was a chunky monkey.It was 60 degrees and was perfect weather for it. Caiden had a party at school and he was the only one dressed as a train. He had so much fun decorating his pumpkin and cookie. This was the first year Caiden was excited for halloween to come, everytime someone would mention halloween, he would say I be Wilson for halloween! lol it was cute!

Our road trip back to MN should be interesting, hopefully the boys behave and do ok in the car that long. We plan on stopping in Flagstaff the first night and then going to the grand canyon the next day then driving to texas the next night then stopping in MO on Caidens birthday our hotel has a water park and we are meeting some friends there to celebrate his birthday then the last day we should make it to MN!
I have been busy putting together a bunch of things to keep them entertained, some movies, games, and toys. Hope it works .. Eeek

I will recap about our trip when we get to MN.. If we make it.. lol jk