What's Going On?

Lots of stuff going on in the Elwood Household these days! First off, today is my 25th birthday. Although we don't really celebrate adult birthdays anymore, I got a beautiful hand made blanket from my Mother-In-Law this past weekend. It is pink, brown, and white, one of my favorite color combination's! It is in our bed already!

But besides the fact that I am getting old, I have a ton of exciting stuff. I will start at the top.
BlogHer!

Every day that gets closer to the BlogHer conference in New York City, the more excited I get, the more news, sponsorships, and opportunities are opening. I secured 4 sponsors, although small, very helpful. They are Lamaze, Kandoo (a pampers company), RJS Designs, and Go Mama Go Designs. I have a couple other e-mails to get back to, so that list may or may not expand. But it certainly has made me ABLE to go and make the most of this opportunity. I am beyond thankful.

Second? We are switching Benjamin to cloth diapers. Camden is almost fully out of diapers, and I want to cut back the costs any way I can. We average $100 a month at the least for diapers. I struck up a deal with a Canadian company called Apple Cheeks. I am getting a FULL time supply of cloth diapers for free. I am going to make it into a long term cloth diaper project and make a series of posts about it on Momotics, as well as giving the company a year of advertising on my blog. It worked out well.

I got an e-mail from the website Nick Parents Connect. It is a parenting website powered by Nick Jr. and they wanted to review some samples of my writing to offer me a freelance writing position. I have my fingers crossed, but I am beyond excited.

During all of this, my mothers almost became Dorthy when a TORNADO went through their small Lordship community. I could not believe it today when the National Weather Service came out and CONFIRMED it was a Tornado! WOW!

You Can't Write This Stuff!

You know what that is? It is a Ground Hog. Kind of like that little guy who tells us if we have 6 more weeks of Winter left in February. It is also the last thing I expected to find in a cage match with my dogs in my backyard today.

Fast forward from February 2nd till June 23rd, and my tale begins. This afternoon I let the dogs back outside after having them in for their "cool down" session for a while which included a nice bowl of ice water, and a couple chicken nuggets this kids threw them. Well I let them back out and in less than 5 minutes of my mutts being outside, they started barking like someone was trying to come in the yard. The catch? They have barking collars now. We have had issues with neighbors complaining about "barking dogs" (which most of the time is the neighbor two doors down but that is another tale for a different day) so Donna invested in these for the dogs.

I knew something was serious so I got up from feeding the kids, and went to see what was up. I walk onto the side deck and the Polish Granny from next door is waving her arms and yelling something I could not translate into English, so I started walking down the steps to the back yard and I saw it... Teeth snapping, hissing, and trying to eat my dogs, as the dogs tried to tag team it. What a nightmare!

I immediately screamed for our next door neighbor on the other side, Tom. Thankfully his mother was outside and went running to get him as I tried to get the dogs back into the house, or at least onto the other side of the yard which is split off for the kids to play in.

As Tom came to the rescue I got the dogs inside and ran to get a box, and the phone so I could call Animal Control. Well apparently our tax money isn't any good because the Animal Control in our town doesn't "trap wild animals". Well what the hell is animal control good for then?? The woman can't even catch a dog?!?! (Another tale for another day! LOL)

By the time I got back outside Tom had got the critter into the box, and freed it into the woods behind our houses. Thank god because I wasn't paying someone to rid that thing out of my yard after it got itself stuck inside a rock!

Never a dull moment!

Fathers Day

This weekend, as everyone knows was Fathers Day. I was lucky enough to see my Dad on Saturday and Sunday. We had a great time on Sunday at my parents house. Pool, cook out, dinner, sun, fun with the kids... it was totally needed!

Dad opening up his Father's Day Card from the boys.Ben hanging out with Grandma
Camden & I headed into the pool for some fun with Grandma

We finally dragged Will into the pool

We had a ton of fun, and it was a great father's day!

Benjamin's First Haircut

Since Ben's hair was starting to get a little on the... girlie side, we decided to bring him and his big brother for a nice snip today at our favorite kids salon. I swore he was going to scream, cry, and be one of those kids who hate getting their hair cut. I knew I would be WAY too lucky to get two kids who loved haircuts.


I should play the lotto tonight because I have two haircut loving boys!

Before...During...

Getting the back... Goodbye curls!

Camden checkin' out his little brother getting his haircut once he was done with his.How cute is he with a mohawk? If I could only get his hair to stay up like that!
Awww what a little man!
The Finished Product!

While I miss his little baby hair, he looks so much better with a nice trim. Although he looks so grown up just like Camden did after his first haircut. It is almost like I am letting go of my baby again. Although Ben is going to be my little baby for a LONG time!

Off to the store to get some lotto tickets!

Benjamin's Worker

Benjamin has been assigned a worker. One of the two women, Cindy, who originally came out to evaluate him will be working with him for the next who knows how long.

We have our first family planning meeting the first week of July to get our plan of action for the next 6 months set in stone, and then we will proceed.

Just a short update today! Sorry.
Heading out with the kids!

Delay Shmalay!

Benjamin surprised us all while we were at the beach yesterday! He sat up on his own. No assistance, no help, no leverage, nothing. Just sat right up the way the women who evaluated him said he should be sitting himself up.

But he didn't do this once or even twice. He did it 3 times!

I think this is a much more positive start to the services he is going to need, and it makes me feel better that he is probably just later doing things than it actually being an issue with the muscle tone in his lower back.

A couple days ago I found him trying to stand himself up the way that the evaluators also said he should be trying. I really think the second half of his evaluation was not as accurate as it could have been because he was pissed off and he is stubborn when doing things he really isn't into.

A slight relief because I don't think this will be as long of a road as I was originally thinking.

Beach Bums

I have been wanting to make it to the beach for a while. I tried to wait till my sure cute vintage tankini came in, but Dee, a friend of mine extended the offer to head to Penfield beach in Fairfield, someplace we have never been so of course I jumped on it..

We packed the kids in her Explorer (thank gosh for those third rows!) and off we went. After a minor bug spray incident in the car (that is a tale for a whole other day) we were off.

We got there around 11am and set up shop. Two blankets, 4 beach chairs, an umbrella for Mr. Benjamin and set up our snacks.The kids couldn't wait to get in the water!
Although Camden's healthy fear of water became very helpful though out the day as I watched Alex Dee's son become more and more daring. We both joked someone was going to have to go in and rescue him shortly.

Just got to the beach, having some fruit snacks before Mommy lathered him up with suntan lotion. LOL
Ben hanging out in his little shady cabana. LOL

Camden is such a beach boy! In and out of the water, playing in the sand, digging holes, you name it, he did it today!

Alex during one of our many water breaks.
For once, I turned the camera on myself!
Ben hanging out with Dee. He was so happy to be at the beach too. Because of course, sand tastes awesome!

Of course it wouldn't be an Elwood family adventure if something random, and completely out of the blue didn't happen right? I am sitting there watching the kids, and this woman starts walking towards us. She was about the age of my grandmother, at least, and she was wearing a bikini. Yes, a small little two piece. EEK! While the bikini is something she should not have been wearing, it wasn't until she turned around that I was shocked..

That is not just a butt crack hanging out... that is an ENTIRE BUTT! The front of her bathing suit bottom was unable to be seen at all! I was completely shocked! By the time I grabbed my camera for proof (because I knew NO ONE would believe me!) she was a little ways down...