Radford Weekend- Baby Blessing!

This past weekend, we took a little road trip!  The reason for the trip was to visit with my sister and be there for her baby's blessing.  But Aaron has been working a few extra hours recently so he was able to take Friday off so we could head to my parents' place for a day first.

So on Thursday night we drove to the lake house (2 1/2 hours of driving).  On Friday we spent the day playing.  We played tennis, went for a walk through a long canal tunnel, played tennis again, played cards, made popsicles, and hung out.

On Saturday morning we headed out for Radford (4 hours of driving).  We checked in to our hotel, hung out with my sister and her family, ate pizza, and went back to the hotel for the night.

On Sunday we packed up and went to church.  Chris gave Graham a beautiful blessing and I got to go to Sunday School and Relief Society (I attend Primary when I'm in my own ward).  After church we all headed over to a park to have lunch, take pictures, and socialize.  We had a good sized group- Natalie's family, my parents, Austin, our family, Chris's parents, and three of Chris's grandparents.  Chris's mom made most of the food and it was awesome.

Then it was time for the drive home (5 hours of driving).

It was a really good weekend.  Parts of it were stressful, specifically the driving since Andrew doesn't love being restricted in his car seat, but we were so happy to meet our newest nephew and be there for his special day.

8 Months

Andrew had two big accomplishments this month: climbing and getting into everything he shouldn't.

Climbing- He has always been good at pulling himself up on things, but now he's taken it a step further.  It's not uncommon for me to look away for a minute or two and find him on top of a diapers box or standing on his little chair.  Yikes!  Actually I don't get too worried anymore because he's really figuring out how to get down off the chair, and I opened up the big diapers box so he can't get on top anymore.  He wasn't so good at getting off of that one and there were many tears shed before I opened it.

Getting into everything- this has been a frustrating thing for me.  I mean, we don't really have anything (in the living room/entryway) that is likely to injure Andrew if he messes with it, but we do have things that I don't want to have to reorganize if he gets into it, and we have stuff that Andrew could break.  In fact, he already broke our floor lamp (the bulb, anyway).  So I've piled boxes in front of the bookcase that holds our DVD collection on the bottom two shelves.  We bought a baby gate for the kitchen doorway.  And every day I put a dining chair in front of our china cabinet, blocking one of the lower cabinets.  But I can't really do anything to block the lamp, fan, or computer from his little fingers.  He also likes to pull up on, and then shake, a little white bookcase.  We keep our Wii remotes on top of this and already he's shaken it hard enough that a remote has fallen on his face.  Oops.  And he just LOVES pulling all of the shoes out of the shoe rack in the front hall (this I don't mind so much and have done nothing to discourage).  I just have to keep in mind that he's just exploring and figuring out how the world works.  And maybe someday he'll finally figure out what NO means...

I gave Andrew his first haircut this month.  He doesn't have super thick or long hair, but it was really uneven on top so I just evened it out.  He was not a fan of the ordeal but it's done now and I don't anticipate him needing another haircut for a long while.

Before

After

It's been a pretty lazy month for us, so he didn't have a whole lot of new experiences outside of our little apartment.  Oh well, sometimes that's a good thing right?

New things this month:

Haircut

Tunnel

Climbing

Some new foods

Family hopping at church

Drinking from a sippy cup

 

 

Let's Review: Lysol Power & Free (Part 1)

Through BzzAgent, I was sent a bottle of Lysol Power & Free cleaner and a package of wipes from the same line.



The whole idea for this line of products is that you can get a powerful clean without the use of bleach.  Benefits of this:

• No harsh chemical residue
• Leaves a fresh clean scent
• Kills 99.9% of germs
• No gloves, masks, or protective eye wear needed

 Instead of bleach, it cleans using a hydrogen peroxide formula, which is supposed to release micro bubbles that penetrate to dissolve grease and tough messes.

So far I've tried the wipes and I'm so impressed!

I don't regularly buy cleaning wipes (except for baby's bum) so this was a test of both the cleaning formula and the method of application.

It was so easy to clean my countertops with these wipes.  I used it on both my bathroom counters/sinks and the kitchen counters.  In the bathrooms, it easily cut through the grime that had accumulated- toothpaste splatters, spilled contact solution, hairspray, shaved facial hair, etc.  I didn't have to move everything off the counters at once like I normally do when I use a spray cleaner- I just moved things as I went, and was able to put things back right away since it took no time at all to dry.  In the kitchen it sanitized as well as removed spots of dried pasta sauce and peanut butter.  And all of this without the nasty smell of bleach.  The rooms still smelled like cleaning product, but it wasn't the strong stench of bleach that makes you feel like you need to throw open every window in the house to air it out.

My only issue was that there was almost too much cleaning product in the wipes when it came to cleaning the faucet in the bathroom.  This is a seriously minor complaint, but I had to go over the faucet with a dry paper towel to pick up the streaks of cleaner that was left after wiping it down with the Lysol wipes.  It was looking like it would dry splotchy if I didn't.  Maybe it was just because I was cleaning metal, because it didn't seem to leave too much cleaner on the countertops or in the sink.

I'm giving this product an A.  It was pretty great.

I'll be trying the spray cleaner soon and I'll write another post on that one.

*I got these cleaners for free though BzzAgent, but all opinions are my own!*