The night before Kindergarten

As I sit here tonight I am still in shock that Rilan is starting school tomorrow! Almost 6 years have flown by, and I'm just not ready to let my baby go. But I know that he will love school!


Tonight he went to bed so happy and excited about the future. We read Twas the Night  Before Kindergarten. Such a cute book! We also read a little poem his teacher sent home with us on meet the teacher night. It had "magic confetti" in it to put under his pillow to help him sleep tonight. I hope it works!

Mommy loves you so much Rilan! I hope you have an AWESOME first day of kindergarten!

My baby is growing up...

 I am still having trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that Rilan is starting school in just 4 day! It seems like yesterday we were bringing him home, hoping we could figure out this whole parenting thing.

He is such a sweet, kind, and helpful little boy. Who really isn't so little anymore. I know that he is going to have a blast learning and meeting lots of new friends at school.

If you have any words of advice for us I'd love to hear from you.

Camping

I'll be the first to admit I am NOT a camper. I don't like getting sweaty and the thought of sleeping in a tent on the ground doesn't sound even close to fun. But that has all changed now that my parents bought a new RV. We went and tried it out for the first time this past weekend and we all had a blast. I wish I would have gotten some photos of the trailer, it is really neat. It even has a fenced in porch on the back of it!

The 2.5 hour drive down was AWFUL, we had to stop more times than we did going to Colorado, and that took 9 hours! At one point Zoey was yelling Dadda, Dadda, Dadda! Dax just rested his head on his steering wheel because he was going crazy with her screaming at him and she just died laughing. She is a MESS!!!! Rilan was good and so patient with her but he had to ask 2 times I think to stop and go to the potty. One time after we had just stopped to get them some food! 

Zoey hanging with Pops eating some ice.

Her smile seriously melts my heart!

Dax and my Dad hanging out.

We didn't do much on Friday night since we got there MUCH later than we had planned on. Once we got the kids to calmed down some we got all the beds ready and hit the hay. I can't say I was sweaty camping, I literally FROZE all night! I had no idea that there was an actual thermostat in the trailer, I though it was just either the air is on or off! The second night was MUCH better! :)

Saturday morning we took it easy and set up the porch on the back for the kids to play on while we all were getting ready for the day. After we got dressed Rilan wanted to play baseball and he ended up meeting a sweet family that was parked next to us. They had 3 kids and the youngest was Rilan's age. Their middle child was a little girl and she was soo sweet with both Rilan and Zoey. I think she was around 9 or 10. I wanted to bring her home with me! :) She wanted to hold Zoey so badly and Zoey just wouldn't let her. But if we had been there one more day I bet anything Zoey and her would have been best buds. 

 Rilan calls this his "baby bike" he loves it. I hate it. Its been great for him to learn how to balance, it doesn't have any petals, but he refuses to ride a regular bike. I know he can ride without training wheels and he did this weekend on Cason's bike. He didn't realize he was doing it until I yelled. I was so excited and then he stopped and asked for his bike back! BOO!

Zo riding Rilan's old 4-wheeler. Bailey was helping her not run into anything.

Dax hanging out, you can kinda see the bottom of the porch in this photo.

Dare devil Zoey!

And that is all the photos I took, I wasn't a very good photographer this weekend because we were having way to much fun!

We can't wait for the next time we get to go camping with Pops and Granda!

Getting Organized

 I blogged a few weeks ago about the Erin Condren Life Planner I had purchased and it finally came in yesterday! I'm pretty sure I've never been this excited over a planner! Ok, I know I haven't! But I've never really had the need for one.

With Rilan starting school next week and Zoey possibly starting in a few weeks, I knew I would need something to keep up with everything. I had chosen a different pattern and then their computer system got hacked and my order, one of thousands, got lost. When I had to reorder I chose something a little different to match the address book I decided to get too. 

Even the box and packaging was so nice. You can really tell that they will go above and beyond to please their customers.

And here she is...I LOVE IT!

 This is my address book.

One of my favorite things is the tabs! It makes it so easy to get to where you need to be!

The inside...

 Stickers for different events, and even pages of blank stickers to write your own stuff on.

 A pocket to keep important papers in.

They even sent some sample labels...

 and a zippered pouch to keep them in!

I could no say enough good things about this planner. I seriously LOVE it!! Now I just need to go find some cute colored pens to go with it!

If you want to see other planners head over to Meredith's blog for other links!

Before & After

I am in the process of getting ready to go camping this weekend with my family and got to thinking I hadn't done a weight update in a while. I have officially lost about 24 pounds and I am still working everyday on it. My plan is to do another round of hcg drops once Rilan starts to school. I will update more later, but for now I will just leave you with a before and after photo.

The quality of the after photo stinks, but that's what happens when you forget to have someone else take it!

Glass Kitchen Canisters

I bought some glass jars months ago planning to put some vinyl on them and kept putting it off, but today I finally finished and I LOVE the way they turned out. 

Who knew vinyl could make something so simple so cute! I wish I could take credit for the cuteness but I actually got the idea from this blog. I loved the style of the jars but didn't like how big they were, I was so happy to find a smaller version at Wal-Mart.

Anyway, I used my cricut along with SCAL to design and cut the labels. They aren't exactly straight but I really don't think anyone will notice. 

While I had my cricut out I decided to go ahead and label Rilan's pencil box for school. He was so excited about it, I was too until I realized I put it on backwards! Guess I'll get to redo that one! ha!! 

(Font for jars is Vanilla Twilight and Rilan is Mandingo)

Q&A with Rilan

I have seen this on a few blogs so I though it would be fun to let Rilan answer these questions and ask him every few months to see how he changes. 

What is your name? Rilan

How old are you? 5 1/2

What is your favorite color? red and green

Who is your best friend? Everyone!

What is your favorite animal? none

What do you want to be when you grow up? Zoo Keeper

What is your favorite movie? Cars

What is your favorite cartoon? Dino Dan and Dinosaur Train

What is your favorite book? I like all of them.

What makes you happy? Being silly and loud and not having to take naps.

What makes you sad? Having to lay down for a nap.

What is your favorite food to eat? Cheese sandwiches and vegetables, not all vegetables, just corn and potatoes. (ya know the healthy ones! ha!!)

What is your favorite song to sing? Neverland Pirates

What is your favorite game to play? Mario Kart

What is your favorite sport? baseball and soccer

Are you excited to start school? YES!

Chicken & Wild Rice

Just wanted to share a super easy recipe that I got from Dax's mom. 

Chicken & Wild Rice

Pre-Heat oven to 350*

Ingredients:

4 chicken breast

1 box of Uncle Bens Wild Rice(I use original recipe)

2 cups hot water

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp butter

Optional:

1/4 cup sliced almonds

Place rice in the bottom of a 13x9 dish and pour hot water over. Mix in seasoning packet that comes with the rice.

Add chicken breast and place in oven for 1 hour.

While the chicken and rice is cooking mix soup, milk, butter, and almonds in a sauce pan mix over med heat. 

Once chicken and rice have cooked for one hour, pour mixture over the top stir in and put back in the oven for 20-30 more minutes.

Enjoy!!

Kindness

Yesterday we had to make a quick run to the grocery store for a few items I forgot to pick up the day before while doing my weekly shopping. When I was getting sanitizer wipes to wipe down the cart I saw a devotional about kindness I wanted to get for Rilan. 

We read the first story last night and he loved it. One of my goals as a mother is to make sure my children are kind to everyone, not just the people we know. I hope this helps Rilan understand what being kind is really all about.

(photo courtesy of Amazon.com)

 

 

There are a few different Veggie Tale Devos you can purchase here. I am thinking we need to get the one on patience soon! ha

Catch Up

These last few weeks have been kinda crazy around The Hardage House. Since we got back from vacation we have had something going on almost everyday, getting Rilan ready for school company, cleaning, ect. I am not really looking forward to school starting but it is about to be here weather I want it to be or not.

I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact I am about to be a mom to a kindergartner! I am sure that all moms feel this way when their children start school but I really do feel like it was just in the hospital with him giving birth. I am really excited for him to meet new friends, and have a strict routine everyday. I think it will help all of us so much.

Anyway, here is what we have been up to the last few weeks in photos.
(all from my phone so sorry for the lack of quality)

After ordering my Life Planner I decided to make a notebook for the house to help me be even more organized. So far its working wonderfully.

Zoey loves to wake Rilan up in the morning and lay with him.

Zoey has learned how to crawl and get into the chairs at the kitchen table. It makes me a nervous wreck.

I ordered Zo her own cheer uniform to match our cousins real one. I can't wait for Zoey to wear hers! 

 

Some friends of ours are due with their second little girl in December and asked me to make a few things for the new baby. This was one of the gowns.

 

 

 

 

We got a new pool and Zoey loved being able to walk around while it was filling up. Now that its full, she isn't as crazy about it! ha! Go figure! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This little guy, loves the pool no matter what! 

 

 

Rilan has been practicing writing words.

Some of our friends from Austin came into town this weekend for a visit. The kids played and played and the adults played catch up so there aren't may photos but a good time was had by all.

We cooked out on Saturday night and I made these little jalapeno poppers. I am still craving them today. They were delish!!

Jailee played with my hair and gave me some horns. ha! I love this little girl so much and was so happy we got to spend time with her this weekend.