Musings on Being Thankful!

As I write this I have much to be thankful for. I have an amazing network and family and friends. This Thanksgiving we spent with Mr. B's family in Mount Airy...it is very amazing to feel the power of having 3 generations sitting around the same table eating a meal. We visited with cousins, grandparents, and great grandparents. I however did miss my own parents since it was Mr.B's year, of course we talked on the phone and will see them soon anyway.

On the way home from Mount Airy, we decided to take Z up on top of Pilot Mountain. We talk about it every time we go by, but actually thought it was usually closed because you can't see the main entrance from the interstate. Well, he found his second wind once we got up there so we decided to hike out to the overlook.

On the way we spotted a man and his daughter with 2 llamas. At first Z was afraid of them, he said they would smell bad. I walked up to them and began petting them prying they wouldn't spit on me. Once he saw me petting them, he decided it was OK. It was one of those amazing unusual experiences that my son seems to get in his life. Of course we got some pictures...then when we were heading to the parking lot we saw them getting into a mini van to go home. I had to laugh and of course take a picture or two to share with my mom. She appreciated the pics and the picture in her head of all this going on.

I'm a Bad Blogger

I've been a bad blogger. I vowed to do better last time, well once again I failed. I've come to realize that I have a lot on my plate and don't always get it done. This does not make me a failure, it just makes me busy. I try to spend as much quality time with the Z-man as I can and we have many great adventures and as much as I have wanted this blog to be a combination of those adventures and different things I do with him as well as thing I observe about life, I just forget to come back here and post. I'm going to try to do better so some day he can look back on these things and read about his adventures.

Well, we have had many adventures since my last post. My little boy is now 3, potty trained, and even more amazing than ever before. I feel like I am truly blesses to be his mother and be able to help guide him in his adventures. Every day is an adventure with him and no 2 are the same. He loves the great outdoors more than just about anything. He is very lucky to be close enough to spend a lot of time with both sets of his grandparents on a regular basis. He has an amazing way of looking at things and figuring out different ways to make them work or different ways to play with them. He has a fabulous side kick in many of his adventure...his best buddy, Gus the dog.

He and Gus play inside the house and outside. He loves his Gus dog. He also has a few friends his age. Being busy I don't get to set up as many play dates for them as I would like, but we try. His bestest friend lives in Asheville 3.5 hours away. When he asks to play with his best friend Orion, it kinda breaks my heart because I know he won't get to see him for a while. He is such a happy little boy no matter what is going on. He is very inquisitive and always on the go.
Here are a few pics from our adventures over the last few months.

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Some of my Favorite Things!

This post is about a few of my favorite places to shop online for great homemade things. There are two sites that I love to search to look for gifts to holiday's, birthday's, and baby shower gifts. They are Etsy and Hyena Cart. Both have many different stores within the main site, and both have great handmade items for people of all ages. Hyena Cart has more little people things than adult things. Etsy has a good mix of both.

I've also found a great website called CraftGossip.com. This site if great for those of us who are crafty. They are having a great contest right now to win a gift certificate from Etsy to win $100 wish list...
So here is my wish list:

1~ Mother's Necklace stone pendant-sjengraving $20
2~ 52 piece Mixed Wood children's building blocks (cedar, cherry, ash and black walnut) $40
3~ Wooden Tray Puzzle- Rainbow Fish $35

These are just a few of the amazing things I found that I wanted when I was trying to make this list. It is always fun to surf Etsy.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Life has been very busy as usual. I completed 15 credit hours this summer toward my B-K teaching License. I'm now taking my last class, then I will student teach in the spring and I'll be done. Unfortunately this has meant not as much time to spend with my amazing little boy. Hopefully this will provide him with a more secure future though...at least that is my reason for doing this. We stay busy on the weekends going to the farmer's market every Saturday morning, and trying to do things as a family on Saturdays. Z-man is an amazing little man. His knowledge continues to amaze me every day with the things he understands that I have no idea where he learned. I guess we are doing all right by him. He is a gentle loving soul and the is very caring of others. We were talking about seeing a friend of our and we had been talking about wishes, and he said to us "I wish that ____ would feel better soon, Her back hurts her. That makes me sad." It brought tears to my eyes and when I told our friend she gave me the greatest compliment. It made me realize that somehow throught all the conflicts with a 2 and a half year old, and the time that I am away from him, we have done something right to raise such a sweet gentle soul in this world. It gives me more hope for the future.

Too Long

It's been too long for me since I posted anything here and I said I would do better. Well I could give a ton of excuses, but I won't. I'll just move on from here. I've continued to do well with the no plastic bags for the most part. I need to come up with my next "green" project. We continue to recycle and other basic things like that. My son and I have been busy, we go to the farmers market each week to get fresh fruit and veggies. This past weekend all 3 of us went to the zoo and had a blast despite the heat. I've also been back in school this summer so it's been a very busy summer. I hope you all enjoy a few pics from our summer so far.

Hello Blog World!

This blog is going to be my way of attempting to become more of the person I always wanted to be and the mother I want to be for my son. I have always had great visions of being a super natural, green, laid back person and mother. As life has made a few decisions for me over the last year or two, I've felt like I have gotten away from this and want desperately to get back to it. I have many reasons for wanting this, but mainly I want to pass on a better wold to my son and teach him how to really take good care of the world we live in. I also want him to explore it and enjoy all the aspects of it. I want to improve our "green" imprint on the world. My first goal it to try the small changes challenge I have see on other blogs. I will have to figure out what to try first for February, but I'm thinking of triying the no plastic bags in the house challenge first. I would also love to try family cloth...I doubt my husband would try this, but I think I am the main TP consumer so far since Z-man isn't potty learned yet. I currently use cloth diapers most of the time...I also tried cloth wipes, but never really got into the flow with them...maybe I will try that again with family cloth. Stay tuned.