Lindsey's High School Graduation

This past weekend we headed to good old Evanston Wyoming for some family fun.  McKay's youngest sister graduated from high school.  We don't get to Evanston as often as we would like.  His parents are pretty good at driving to Salt Lake for family activities so we usually see them elsewhere besides the family farm.  But this time we made the trip and had fun seeing everyone.  We arrived the night before the graduation since we currently do not have air conditioning in our car so we wanted to travel at the coolest time of day.  Upon arrival Jensen was introduced to the newest members of the family, the pigs.  They are still small so they were really cute.  They said hello by licking his feet.  Gross!  (I promised we washed them after)

Graduation was on Saturday and after the ceremony they had a party at the house.

The Graduate herself-

 

 

 Matching shirts :)  The kids kept getting them confused. 

This is Madison.  Adalyn LOVES Madison and Madison LOVES Adalyn.  They are really cute together.  Madison was a good babysitter for Adalyn all weekend.  Their names even sound similar Addie and Madi

 There were lots of people at the party and many "tours" of the farm were held.  Goats were being milked right and left and there was plenty of chickens around. :)  100+ to be exact...ish.  Adalyn was unfortunately scared at first of the animals, but by the end she finally warmed up and would actually touch and play with the baby goats and the dog.  Apparently we need to go to the farm more so she doesn't become afraid of animals.

This is Joan Jensen Pace.  McKay's grandma who Jensen is named after.  So happy we got a picture of them together.  Sadly after this picture Jensen grabbed a plate of food and it spilled all over grandma.  Hopefully they are still friends....

 

It was a late night home after the party and I feel like I have just recovered (just in time to head to Salt Lake)  Have a good weekend!

Happy 28th Birthday McKay!

Happy Birthday

to my favorite guy!  Love him! 

 

 

 

 

 

He is my rock and absolute favorite person to be with.  I have loved getting to know him more and more each day for the past 4 years. 

I love you babe and I can't wait to celebrate with you tonight! 

5 Months Old- Jensen

Our boy is growing and growing.  He is getting SO big and is so fun!  He used to be tall and skinny but he is really starting to chunk out more (you can only say "chunk out" about a baby) 

Compared to Adalyn he is a little bit more of a needy baby.  Nothing too hard, he just loves to be around people and is kind of getting attached to mommy and daddy. 

He is pretty squirmy in your arms these days and is getting pretty good at rolling over on his own. 

He has started mastering the art of holding things in his hands so he can actually play and suck on toys now instead of just bat his hands at them.

The last few days he has leaked out of almost every one of his diapers so something has to change there.  Either the size or brand I haven't figured which one out yet. 

I just switched him to 6-9 month clothes because he was too big for all of his pajamas, but he can still wear many of his 3-6 month clothes.

He still wakes up once a night, but goes back to sleep well so it isn't too bad. 

Learned to rock himself in his carseat and bouncer (really helps keep him entertained).

Tried a little bit of squash to see if he was ready for food yet, but we decided it wasn't quite time...

Mommy was bad and didn't take too many 'everyday' kind of pictures this month, but here are a few...

 

 

 

I love babies!  I can't get enough of his cuteness and sweet personality.  We love watching you grow Jensen!

Memorial Day Hike

I LOVE memorial day.  Such a special time to visit graves and be with family.  Unfortunately we didn't get to do either of these things this weekend because we stayed home in Idaho yesterday.  June is PACKED with fun things so one weekend off was good. 

So instead of visiting family and graves we decided to go for a hike and explore the beautiful mountains here in Idaho with some friends. 

My friend, Heidi and I were talking on Saturday at Zumba about our weekend plans and we discovered that we were both going hiking on Monday so we decided to combine our plans and go together.  She has a 15 month old baby boy so we knew we would be doing about the same type of hike since we both have kids.

It worked out great and we had a lot of fun getting to know her, her husband, and son a little better.  The kids enjoyed the view from their respective pouches on us and McKay and I enjoyed the mountain views.  We hiked about 6 miles round trip on a trail called the Alaska Basin (it is right by the trail to Table Rock for you Idaho people).  We also took another little detour up the side of the mountain to a water fall.  BEAUTIFUL view from up there.  Even the bear spotting didn't stop us. :) 

McKay and I were very excited that it all worked out so well and plan to do a few more hikes this summer.  Anyone want to go?  McKay is totally in his element when we go (like me with shopping) and I love seeing how excited he gets, especially when he gets to be there with his family.

We were practically giddy when we got home and can't wait to do it again (On the drive home from the hike McKay asked me if I wanted to go again today.  haha)  Idaho mountains are beautiful.

Family picture.  Don't get very many of these.  I was glad someone else was there to snap the picture. 

P.S. That is not blood on Adalyn it was part of a fruit filled treat that she had. :)

Also if anyone is going hiking with a baby anytime soon I HIGHLY recommend the Mobi wrap.  SUPER comfortable and you can switch the baby to be in it multiple ways depending on what they like best.  I moved Jensen around in it a lot depending on if he was tired or wanted to watch what was going on. 

Our only mistake was that we should have brought a warmer jacket for Adalyn.  She never complained but I could tell she was a little cold.  Yes that was snow that we were hiking through.

 

The girls: minus Addie

 

 

All done:

 

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Overshare

Sometimes I want to write a blog post, but then I worry that I will just be sharing too much information and I question whether anyone else REALLY wanted to read that about me.  But honestly those are the kinds of blog posts that I enjoy reading on other people's blogs.  The random, fun, and honest posts where you get to really know the person behind the blog instead of just what they did that weekend.  Although we know that I do plenty of those.  I actually just posted one on my private blog today.  Click here to read it.  But today I thought I would give you a glimpse into my mind. 

What is on Kajsa's mind these days.... 

*Summer.  Summer is short here in Idaho, but beautiful.  I am learning to love that it doesn't get too hot around hear for awhile.  I don't handle the REALLY hot heat very well so these cool spring days are lovely to me.  Our calendar has been open every day during in our nightly discussions as we plan and strategize our summer weekends and trips.   

*I have been researching quite a few new things that will be happening in the Pace household in the near future.  Sometimes lots of options are overwhelming and I wish someone could just tell me what the right thing is (or even if there was one right thing).  Some of these "things" are...
             -Potty Training.  Adalyn is ready.  I am not. So we are going to wait a month or two.  But I have been trying to decide which method I want to use.  I think I am going to do the 7 day one.  My only concern is Adalyn doesn't drink a lot (we try I promise.  Juices and milk don't even tempt her) so she doesn't wet her diaper very often and there for it might take her longer to catch on. 
             -Gardens.  I was resentful of our garden last year.  I didn't really want to plant one (I was too overwhelmed with putting in our yard) and didn't really water it very often.  It produced minimal veggies and none of them were that great.  But this year I am excited and ready to put in the effort that a garden requires.  It will still be small, but hopefully better than last years.  I will at least water it faithly... so that should help.   
             -Cloth Diapers.  Young House Love and Wellness Mama pretty much have me convinced that this is the way to go, and that it is even easy (especially if you get the sprayer that attaches to the toilet and have a good method down).  So we will be making the switch someday.  (possibly not till another baby comes along though)
            -Baby Food.  I promised awhile ago that I was going to make my own baby food for Jensen.  And I still plan to.  We have some veggies all ready to go in the freezer that we made last year when I was pregnant.  He is now 5 months old and getting closer to being ready to start adding in some food to his nursing schedule.  But I have been reading about it some and am starting to question what I should give him first.  Oatmeal/ rice cereal... Vegetables?  Some say grains aren't so good on baby's stomachs and to not do the traditional rice cereal first.  Also I read about a method where you don't feed a baby baby food.  You let them pick up the food and feed themselves.  Read about it here (it is more towards the bottom of the post).  Interesting yes.  I haven't decided completely about what I am going to do.  :P
             -Decorating.  Guys I have NO idea what to do with the space above my piano.  I realize that this is a very trivial decision in the grand scheme of things so it usually gets put on the back burner. For awhile I was decorating for each holiday/ season.  But now I want something that can be there all year long so that I can keep things simple.  I just can not decide what that ONE thing will be.  I have been trying to decide for months grrr...
Anyone seen something cool on pinterest for this spot...

 

wow it looks worse in these pictures then I thought.  Definitely needs more color. 

 

            -Water Filters.  Trying to find a way to have healthier drinking water on a daily basis and also for a way to have clean drinking water in an emergency.  I researched a few different kinds of filters and we have decided on this one.  I think we are going to get the biggest (The Crown size) one so that we don't have to fill it up a lot.  We have a perfect shelf in our Laundry room that is connected to our kitchen for it to sit on so hopefully it won't be too big of a pain and will be out of the way.  We are about half way there on saving for it so hopefully we can get it by the end of the year.

 

*Laundry.  Hats off to those of you with lots of children.  It is exhausting keeping up with the stains, spit up and dirt filled clothes (our backyard is still dirt).  I only have two kids.  I can't imagine the amount of laundry with many children.

 

*McKay's birthday.  McKay's birthday is next week.  He wants a pie.  I am going to try, but it will be my first time making pie crust and I am afraid that I might mess up.  I was hoping he was going to choose a spice cake like last year because I had already picked out a recipe that I was going to do, but he chose pie.  He also wants lasagna, and guess what I have never made one of those either.  Before we changed how we were eating I always just bought Stouffers Lasagna and since last June we just haven't had Lasagna.  I am not too worried about making the lasagna it doesn't seem that hard, it will just be a busy day in the kitchen. 

 

*Chicago.  We are headed to Chicago next month.  It will just be McKay, Jensen and I.  We are starting to plan what we are going to do while we are there.  So far we are visiting some family, going to a White Sox game and seeing the Navy Pier.  Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated. :)

 

 

 

So there you have.  A small sampling of what is in my brain these days.  Hope life is going well for all.  Have a good day!  Can you believe it is almost June?!    

 

 

  

  

Jensen's First Haircut

This past weekend we took the plunge and cut Jensen's hair.  I was shocked at how fast it grew in and realized that boys just need hair cuts more often than girls.  But cutting a little boys hair is also a lot easier than cutting a little girls hair so I guess it evens out in the end.   Adalyn's hair has only been cut a few times and it makes me so nervous each time I do because cutting with scissors is a lot easier to mess up on than using the trimmers. 

P.S. remember Adalyn's poof of hair that she had at the crown of her head for the first few months of her life?  Yeah I mostly covered it up with headbands, but looking back at some pictures it sure does look funny.  :)  But no worries, she was our first baby and we thought she was the cutest thing in the world. 
Here is a quick flashback to when Adalyn was 4 months old...

Anyways.  Jensen loved the feeling of the trimmers so he just laughed his way through the hair cut.  Of course he wasn't so good at keeping his head still so I held it still for him while McKay trimmed.  I told McKay that we should use a #3 on the trimmers and McKay was surprised that I wanted to do it that long.  But I held to it and told him that we could always cut it shorter later.  Well I am SO glad that we didn't go shorter because already the #3 is a little shorter than I wanted it.  I miss his cute baby hair, but am happy that everything is more evened out. 

Before:

 

(by the way don't mind my hair that also looks like it needs a cut.  I am at that weird stage after having a baby when all your hair falls out.  Nothing seems to work these days grrr... )

 

Also earlier in the day when I knew we were going to cut his hair I tried out a little comb over on him.  So cute!

 

 

After- That's a lot of hair...

Yeah the after photos aren't so good.  When I asked McKay (our photographer that night) where the other after photos were he said that he didn't take any.  And I have been a slacker and haven't taken anymore pictures so that is all you get.  Just keepin it real ;)

 

Have a great day!