Brown's zoo

I took the kids to a zoo today in Smithfield, IL called Brown's Oakridge Zoo. We went with a playgroup that we are involved in. While there you are able to pet the tiger and lion cubs as long as they are under 12 weeks old. The cub in the middle picture on the left is the one that the kids got to pet, play with, and feed a bottle too! It was pretty amazing! We plan on going back in the spring when they have bear cubs to play with! Can't wait!!

{ Jessica Dobra, Independent Marketing Executive }

Sol U Mel to the rescue!!!

So far this week I have rescued 3 items and saved the day with Sol-U-Mel!

The first was on Monday morning, after Janelle and Matt's wedding. Apparently a child got ahold of the pen that was placed for people to sign a framed photo of Matt and Janelle. The picture was a beautiful, huge, black and white picture of Matt and Janelle holding hands while walking down a trail. Once the child(ren) got ahold of the pen tho, it made this beautiful picture look horrific! I was literally sick to my stomach when looking at it after the child(ren) drew all over Matt and Janelle's arms, faces, necks and legs with black ink. Janelle's mother was planning on calling the photographer to see about having them cut the picture from the border it was on and replacing it with a new picture (can you say big bucks???).

I asked them to bring the picture over and let us see what we could do with Sol-U-Mel and a few q-tips. Sure enough, the minute I applied the Sol-U-Mel covered q-tip to the picture, the ink started to fade!!! It was as if the Sol-U-Mel was sucking the ink from the photo! We were able to remove all of the ink marks! In fact, after we were done, I asked if there were any signatures they wanted removed, from people they were not too fond of! LOL (Of course they said NO!) I was at Janelle's house this afternoon and saw the picture and it looks absolutely wonderful, you can not even tell that it was covered in scribble marks at one point!

**disclaimer- I know for a 100% fact that it was not my child that scribbled on the picture*** ;0)

Learn more about healthy, environmentally safe, and awesome products like this!


Another wonderful Sol-U-Mel save.....yesterday afternoon I was sorting Luke's baby clothes for a friend to borrow and realized that all of my favorites were covered in yellow stains from when he was little pukie-Lukie! I soaked them overnight in a Sol-U-Mel mixture and sure enough today, they look brand new!

Finally- tonight for dessert I made chocolate pudding, as Luke was eating his in the living room on the beige area rug, the bowl spilled and the pudding ended up all over the rug. The dog, of course, licked up what he could (good 'ol Sarge!). And then I was left with a huge brown stain! After a few squirts of Sol-U-Mel and a few rubs with a paper towel and wash cloth, the carpet looks great and you can not tell anything was spilled there!

I LOVE SOL-U-MEL!!!

One more- sorry!! Yesterday after cleaning the baby clothes with the Sol-U-Mel, I left the squirt bottle sitting out on the table and my little monkey girl, Emily, climbed up and sprayed herself in the eyes with it. Of course, I was nervous and washed her eyes out, she seemed fine, but I wanted to be sure, so I called poison control, told them what happened and they informed me that she would be fine since there are no harsh chemicals in the cleaner! It is such a relief to not have to worry about her getting into something that is harmful to her! With my Melaleuca products, I know that my children, pets, carpet(!) and clothes(!) are safe!


{ Jessica Dobra, Independent Marketing Executive }

Fun at the ball park

We celebrated my grandpa's 84th or 85th (?) birthday tonight at the Chief's Game with my family. The kids had a blast playing with my uncles, their great-uncles and watching the mascots. Luke is really starting to gt into watching the games more and cheered so loud for the home runs! Here are the kiddos and me at the beginning of the night...

Luke and Em watching them get ready to life the rain cover off the field

Luke, Em and Uncle Mat...he was bouncing them on his knees and it was hilarious to see and hear them...

Homer the mascot!

{ Jessica Dobra, Independent Marketing Executive }

My day

I was a bit nervous for today, as I was watching my nephew Jacob today. He is 6 months old and it is so funny how fast you forget the little things about that age. He is wobbly, tends to spill forward after sitting for a few minutes, so I had to remember to put soft toys all around him. He liked spinning himself in circles on the carpet..and getting up and rocking on all 4's..hate to tell you this Heather, but you will have a little mover on your hands pretty soon!! I also forgot how silly they are when they are learning to eat cereals and veggies and other yummy stuff! He barely opened his little mouth for the cereal and pretty much decided that the arm of Emily's hi-chair tasted better than his carrots his mommy sent! ;0) Luke was a great helped for the 1st 10 minutes, then lost interest....Emily, on the other hand, thought Aunt Heather had asked her to babysit, and I was just there to assist! Too funny how she mothered him all day long! I did have to remind her to not drink his bottle tho, and that we do not wake a sleeping baby! She kept walking to my bedroom during his afternoon nap, saying "Ake, Ake"...finally we checked on him and he was still snoozing, but I think Emily fixed that when she yelled at her brother about 10 minutes later! No one could sleep thru that!

Luke feeding Jake, right after I snapped this shot, Luke said "I'm done with him now mommy."

Emily and Jake playing with toys

Jake, Em and Luke chilling after nap time....






{ Jessica Dobra, Independent Marketing Executive }

Minocqua

The kids and I went to Wisconsin with my mom, my sis, her fiance, my aunt and uncle and my cousins. It was a fun, quick little trip...here are a few of the hi-lites!!

The ducks were uber-friendly, which of course the kids loved!!

Swimming in the lake was way fun and WAY cold!!!

I forgot Emily's hi-chair, so this is how she had to eat at the cabin...I think in this picture someone had asked her for a bite of her food and she was saying "no!!"

Luke caught 9 fish while we were there...Jamie is holding one of them in this pic, but it is hard to see....Luke basically refuses to stand nicely for a picture anymore, so that is why he is posing so funny!






{ Jessica Dobra, Independent Marketing Executive }

Summer fun

I love summer time and the kids and I had a blast this summer...some of my favorite things about summer are:

eating in just a diaper (Emily, not me!)

Silly faces we make on rainy summer days!

Snuggles from my kiddos and fun around the house!






{ Jessica Dobra, Independent Marketing Executive }

Ravoli

Does not happen too often in our house...and this is why....

{ Jessica Dobra, Independent Marketing Executive }

TEST

TEST

{ Jessica Dobra, Independent Marketing Executive }

More PARTY pics!

{ Jessica Dobra, Independent Marketing Executive }

Danell's Bachelorette Paaarrrttttyyyyy!

The Awesome cake Jenny (AKA Martha Stewart with Boobs!) made ;0)

The Bachelorette in all her glory!

Stephanie, Kristi, Jenny, Danell and I at Howl at the Moon!

Danell and I singing and having a great time!

We arrived in Indy at 1:30 Saturday and headed to the hotel to change and get ready for some shopping! Jenny arrived about 2pm and we headed to the mall to "help the economy"! LOL First stop was Cinnabun (sp?) I had never had their cinnamon rolls before so we shared one as a snack before the crazy shopping extravaganza began! YUMMY!!!! The Circle Center is a 4 story mall with over 100 stores and we found some awesome deals! My kids ended up with new jammies and a decal for Luke's crocs. The shoe shopping experience was awesome (Thanks Joe!). We made our salesman, Joe, run his tail off at Nordstrom's, but it was well worth it for him. Jenny got some super cute RED dress shoes that she wore out Saturday night and a cute pair of "mom" shoes in Ohio State colors! Danell ended up with the same heels that Jen bought, but in brown! I was on "budget lock-down" so no new shoes for mommy! But it was fun watching my gals shop! Danell ended up with another pair of heels from Payless (that ended up on my feet Saturday night and left me with 4 nasty blisters!) but they were super cute and that is what is important for a Bachelorette weekend, right?! After 4 hours of shopping it was time to head back to the hotel to meet up with Kristi and Stephanie and get ready for dinner.

Dinner was at an awesome Italian restaurant, full of pasta, fun drinks and lots of dessert! There were 3 other Bachelorette parties there, so it was a fun evening at dinner. The cake for dessert was HUGE! The slice fed all 5 of us and we had some left over! Back to the hotel to retrieve my cell phone and call the boys at home to check in before heading to the dueling piano bar, Howl at the Moon!

The bar was awesome and packed and so much fun! There were at least 10 other Bachelorette parties there so that made for some fun attire and accessories on people! (Let me say that we were VERY nice to Danell and did not make her dress up like a complete idiot!) Tons of songs, dancing and drinks later it was 1:00am and time for our group of girls to head back to the hotel. Back at the hotel we shared the great cake Jenny made, toasted to Danell's last night of freedom with some campaign and had some girl talk and giggles before heading to bed about 2:30am!

Sunday greeted us (me) with headaches and tummy aches and very tired bodies! Showers helped, but breakfast at Le Peep helped even more. Then it was time to say our good-byes and head back to our real worlds. It seemed like a much longer drive coming home, but that may have been from my headache and stomach ache?? We were back in Peoria by 1:30. Bachelorette weekend behind us- we have 2 weeks to recover before the big wedding weekend!






{ Jessica Dobra, Independent Marketing Executive }

Emily's pig tails!!

Seriously??!! How much fun is that??!! After haircuts we ran to Sally's to get the kind of rubberbands that will not pull her rip her hair. She sat very nicely while we did it and was pretty excited to see the result in the mirror!





{ Jessica Dobra, Independent Marketing Executive }

Emily's 1st haircut

Emily had her 1st official hair cut this morning. She did great! She was super serious for it and sat so nicely for Alison. All we did was trim her bangs, as they were in her eyes. I think she enjoyed being a big girl and getting into the chair like big brother!

Before

During

After! All done!






{ Jessica Dobra, Independent Marketing Executive }