Happy Birthday, Alex!

Our little guy turns two today! It's been a wonderful journey watching him learn and explore. He's a giant ball of energy, sweet, caring, and incredibly inquisitive. Happy Birthday, Alex!

One Month of Self(ie) Love

Tomorrow will start an important month for me. No, there's nothing particularly special about August, but next month will be a big one. Next month, some friends and I will be participating in a little experiment. For one month, we will take a selfie every day and post it with a caption stating something we like about ourselves.

The goal isn't to take really awesome selfies. The goal is to be intentional about changing how we view ourselves. Having a positive self-image might come easy to some people, but for me, it's hard. My self-talk can be incredibly negative and the way I view myself isn't always very kind.

I'm not going to point fingers or place blame. I'm not trying to figure out why I am the way I am, I just know that I need to change my self-image. So, for the month of August I will take a selfie every day and I will post said selfie every day with a caption that says something positive about me.

And if you feel like your self-image could use a boost, I invite you to join me. Be intentionally positive about yourself just once a day and see what happens.

A selfie I took after dying my hair earlier this month.
I LOVE the new color!

Simplicity Sunday

I hope you're enjoying your Sabbath. Here are some sleeping baby pics to help you relax.

Fell asleep after a long walk.

Little guy sleeps on his tummy now. (His doing.)

Here's an oldie, but a goodie.
It's crazy how bad his eczema was!

Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida

Last summer we were blessed to visit the Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida. Big Cat Rescue was founded in 1992 and is home to over 100 cats who have been rescued from various abusive situations. The Rescue allows you see many of the rescued animals in their enclosures and actively participates in awareness and lobbying for better legislation to protect these gorgeous animals.

Here are some photos from our visit.

Big Cat Rescue can provide you with tons of information about the works being done to protect and support these glorious big cats. If you want to help their work, feel free to make a donation. If you're going to be in the Tampa area, I strongly suggest making a stop. The weekend tours allow for children under 10. 

Great Cloth Diaper Change in Abilene

Ok, another late post, but I just realized I never posted these photos!

The Great Cloth Diaper Change is an event put on by the Real Diaper Association to raise awareness of cloth diapers. Each year we try to break/set a new world record using cloth diapers. In 2013, each site through out the world hosted their change at 11:00 am local time.

At exactly 11:00 each baby was changed into a 100% reusable cloth diaper. This was Abilene's first time to participate and we had 46 babies changed at our location. Worldwide we had 8,331 qualifying babies changed!

I'm already planning for next year's event on April 26th. I'm hoping we can go even bigger and better (and maybe make the top 10 locations!)

Here are some photos from last April

Alex and I were very honored to be on KTAB 4U to promote the GCDC.

Before the change, everyone holds up their 100% reusable diaper.

Afterwards, everyone holds up their freshly changed baby!
It's not a race, but Philip was very proud to be one of the first to finish. ;)

We were blessed to have a great photographer offer family photos and take our official before and after shots. Emerald Lemmons is a wonderful lady and great photographer.
You can find more about Emerald here.

Here's Alex in his outfit for the big day!

We were blessed with a number of sponsors who provided samples and coupons for our participating families.
This was when I first learned about Milkin' Cookies. You can find more info on them here (affiliate link).

We had tons of great giveaway sponsors including local WAHMs,  Kid's Village, Baby K'tan, Nose Frida and so many more!

Here is a complete list of our local sponsors. (Links provided if available.) Thanks again to everyone who helped out and changed their babies for making Abilene's first event a huge success!

Kid’s Village 
Chickapea Baby 
Baby K’Tan
Frida Baby
Casa Campbell Soaps

Little Turkey Baby
Seconds Count CPR
Angels of God Doula Care
Twice Upon A Time
Amanda Pope Beach, DoTERRA Essential Oils
Hayle Cochran, Scentsy
Bamboobies
Undercover Mama
The Gathering Place
Milkin’ Cookies
Unique Maternity
Whetsel’s Wearables
Kristen Patterson, Discovery Toys
Chick-fil-A North Abilene
Snappi Baby
Big Country School Supply
gDiapers
Glad Rags
MotherLove
Spray Pal
Abilene Zoo
Stork Vision
Happy Family 

Family Photos

We were very lucky to be able to take some family photos recently at the Jacob's Dream area on ACU's  campus. Korri Roberston is a local photographer just getting her business started here in Abilene. Here are some of my favorites.

Many thanks to Korri for helping capture this special time for our family! You can contact Korri here: korrirobertson@yahoo.com

We did receive this service for free as part of Korri building up her portfolio. I was not compensated for this post.

Happy Fourth!

Happy Independence Day from Our Little Clan to yours!

Simplicity Sunday

Here are some photos from when we went to the State Park earlier this month. We met up with some other cloth diapering families and had a great time. We saw some deer and birds and Alex tried his first watermelon chunk!

Drooling at the park!

Daddy trying to get him to smile.

Finally smiling at Daddy.

All tuckered out.