Rainy Crafternoon

I love it when I can be outside with my kids, especially in the Spring, when the cold weather has kept us in for months. But sometimes a rainy afternoon feels fun and cozy, like we have an excuse to stay in and cuddle.

Yesterday was such a day. During naptime I searched Pinterest for some rainy day activities for toddlers and I found SO MUCH STUFF. Let's take a minute and all say thank you for Pinterest. Yes it can be guilting and shaming and a comparison machine, but sometimes it's really helpful.

Here's what I found:
Painting a Bag

Painting in the Tub

Stuff in Rice

And, Check out this list!



I think all of these look really fun. I know my 2 year old would love them.

Full disclosure: Yesterday, after naps, we cuddled and watched Thomas & Friends and it was glorious.

What do you do on rainy days?

Summertime Schedule

Lord, help us. We need structure.

I don't know about you, but the hot days of summer (which have already started because we live on the surface of the sun) can drag on and on and on with a toddler and a baby when we don't have a plan. I'm thinking having a plan/schedule will keep us from staying in pjs and eating chocolate all day long. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I searched Pinterest for mom schedules and found this from Our Nesting Place Blog. I LOVE it. So I created one for our family.

Here it is!

Today is our first day trying to stick to it. Structure makes me excited! Happy Scheduling!

The toys are taking over.

Pre-kids, when I knew everything about being a good mom, I said I wouldn't let toys take over our living room. I said I wouldn't buy my kids a lot of things because they don't need a ton of toys. I said a lot of things.

Now I have kids and I see how excited my two year old gets when we get a new train (Thomas & Friends). And I just can't stop myself sometimes! There are Legos and pirate ships and train tracks and crayons and PlayDoh. It's too much.

So we are at a point where we're reaching full capacity in our small townhouse. I am desperately trying to store the toys so that they're accessible, but also look semi-organized when they're put away.

Before I sound like I have any of my crap together, here is a picture of our living room in its usual disarray.

Don't judge me.

With the help of Target, I've come up with some feasible storage solutions.

A basket for books next to the chair where we read. (Yes it's a to' up basket.)

Big baskets for the bigger toys

1 bin for MegaBlocks/Legos and 1 for train tracks

I love this so much. Again, Target. I kind of have a system for what goes where that may or may not be followed regularly. We do what we can. 

That's how we (sort of) keep the chaos under control. I'm open to other suggestions! Happy toy organizing!

How To Feed Your Baby

I was an awesome mom before I had kids. I was going to breastfeed for at least a year. My kids were never going to see the tv on until they were at least 2. I was not going to count to three to get my toddler to obey. It's been two and a half years since I became a mom and ohhhhh how the mighty have fallen.

My experience with breast feeding has been, to put it nicely, less than desirable. To put it not so nicely, it's been hell.

Breast it best...until it's not.

My son Sam was born in March of 2012. I was ready. I had attended all of the classes, read all the books, bought all the stuff, prayed all the prayers, judged all the other moms. I had it figured out. I started nursing him right after he was born and it seemed to be going ok for a few days. I stayed in the hospital for five days because I had pre-eclampsia and they wanted to keep an eye on me.

We took him home on a Friday afternoon and the weekend that followed was hell. I fed him and fed him and fed him and he kept screaming and screaming and screaming. It didn't occur to me that he was hungry and I was NOT going to supplement because supplementing is of the devil. Obviously.

We took him to the pediatrician the next Monday as a follow up appointment.

I hold back tears as I type this.

 He had lost more than a pound since he was born a week earlier and he was only 7 lbs when he was born. He was starving. We left the doctor feeling confused, ashamed and scared shitless. I gave him a bottle in the car and he sucked it down ravenously.

At my pediatrician's suggestion I bought a pump to see how much I could pump so I'd have a general idea of how much I was producing. I couldn't even get an ounce after pumping for 30 minutes.

I spent the next three weeks pumping, crying, praying over and over and over again. When he was four weeks old and I was struggling with what I know now was intense postpartum depression and anxiety, I stopped pumping and nursing. The day I made the decision I spent most of the day trying to nurse Sam while he screamed and I sobbed. It was miserable.

I was able to (sort of) make peace with formula feeding by the time he was probably a year and a half old. That didn't mean I didn't encounter some judgmental people along the way, but I eventually let go of my guilt.

Fast forward almost two years and Noah was born! I decided I would give nursing another try. I was optimistic and hopeful that I'd make enough milk this time after hearing stories similar to mine with other moms who had pre-eclampsia. I didn't have it with my second pregnancy.

Again, I nursed Noah within the first 30 minutes after he was born. He was a good nurser, had a good latch and seemed to be a natural at it. We took him home a day later and I nursed and nursed and nursed and he never seemed to be full. He was at a stable weight, but not gaining. I texted everyone I knew who knew anything about breast feeding. I had somehow become neurotic again about making this work. One day I nursed him for 2 hours pretty much without stopping and he was still hungry. At that point I decided we had to start supplementing.

I went to a lactation specialist's support group once or twice a week for the next month. I was doing what they call "triple feeding." I would pump (for 20 minutes), nurse him and then give him a bottle of pumped milk or formula. Did I mention that at the time I had a 19 month old and was also working part time from home with no maternity leave? So...yeah.

After a month of intense stress, little sleep, some bad advice and multiple breakdowns, I woke up one morning unable to get out of bed. Postpartum depression had hit me like a ton of bricks. I immediately went to see my OB because unlike last time,  I was not going to endure months of feeling crazy without getting help. She told me to stop pumping and nursing and to start sleeping and taking care of myself. I fought it for a few days, but eventually decided to bottle feed as I tried to regain my mental health.

When I was seeing the lactation consultant she had mentioned the term tracheomalacia. She asked if Noah had been diagnosed with it and said that most babies who have it have a really hard time nursing. Because his trachea was loose, he had a really hard time getting the suck, swallow, breathe rhythm of nursing right, so he would only eat about an ounce after nursing for 20 minutes. After I had all of this info, I realized that bottle feeding really was the best for him. And with my 19 month old and my part time work, I just didn't have time to pump every three hours and then bottle feed and then do everything else I needed to do for my older son.

So, again, with some guilt, I gave up breast feeding.

The reason I'm typing all of this out is to give perspective to the breast feeding journey.

Contrary to what I used to believe, breast feeding is not best for every single baby or every single mommy. For various reasons, sometimes it Just. Doesn't. Work. And THAT'S OK.

I write this to say to all the mommies who have felt guilty, inadequate, ashamed, afraid, IT'S OK. A nourished baby is a healthy baby. A baby whose mommy is present to him or her is a healthy baby. Breast feeding does not a mother make.

Sam (formula fed from 4 weeks until one year) is at a healthy weight and 97th percentile in height. He knows more words than I can count at 2. He can count to 10, knows all of the colors and is emotionally healthy, well adjusted and attached to his mama. Noah (formula fed from 2 months until now) is a thriving 99th percentile in height and 85th percentile in weight. He's the smiliest baby I've ever seen and very attached as well.

      Sam @ 2 years old                                       Noah @ 7 months old

Yes the research shows that breast milk is physically healthier for your baby. I will never dispute that. In an ideal world I would have been able to produce enough milk with Sam and Noah wouldn't have tracheomalacia. I also wouldn't struggle with postpartum depression and chocolate would be zero calories. BUT we don't live in the world of should. We live is the world of is.

So in the words of my newest favorite movie, let's all sing it together. LET IT GO! LET IT GO! Grieve it if you need to and then let it go, sister. If you're feeding your baby with love, you're a good mommy.

Liveable Decor

You could say I've struggled to find my decorating voice. I've never really considered myself a super creative person and because of that never put much effort into figuring out how to make the atmosphere of our home warm and inviting. Then I started staying home with my son in 2012 and all of a sudden I realllly cared what our house looked like because I was spending a lot of time there.

Since then I've figured out that I like a bright and airy look in our house. HGTV is now my love language and Target and World Market are my favorite places to go for fun new pillows and cute storage baskets. Oooh and TJ Max. Don't forget those guys.

In the most recent issue of HGTV Magazine, they did a spread on using trays as functional decorative pieces. I was really excited reading this, because I had all of the pieces already in my home to make the cookbook/knife/utensils tray. 

I put my most used and prettiest cookbooks between my butcher block and utensils holder. I love how it looks! It's a great way to have some cookbooks easily accessible for use while cooking and it makes the whole space more colorful. 

What do you think?

Hippie Crunchy Oily

If you had told me a year ago that I'd be buying into a business that uses a multi level marketing strategy and consists of applying and huffing smelling oils to improve my physical and emotional well being, I would have laughed in your face. Yet here we are. I have bought in to Young Living's oils and business model.

I have always been super skeptical of multi level marketing businesses. I've been harassed by too many Mary Kay ladies. (Sorry Mary Kay fans.) I'm not a salesy person. I cringe when someone is trying to pitch something to me and I don't think I could ever be in sales because I would cringe at being "that person."

So what's the deal with these oils? It started in August of last year. I was 8 months pregnant with my second son. At one of my routine chiropractor visits I had a muscle in my back that was really bothering me. She adjusted me and then put these oils on the muscle. As I walked out to my car, the place in my back started tingling and the tension released. Hmm. "That's weird," I thought. When I returned for my next visit, I asked my chiropractor about what she had put on my back and she handed me two bottles. One was called "Deep Relief" and the other was called "Valor." These were my gateway oils.

My chiro added me to a Facebook group of people who were new to using the oils and a week or two later, I got another crippling migraine. I've struggled with migraines off and on for the past 5 years, but the ones during pregnancy were especially brutal. My OB had prescribed Lortab and Phenegran. So really my only solution was to take this combo of possibly harmful meds while pregnant and lay around totally wiped out for the rest of the day. Even more frustrating, that combo didn't always work. Oh and I had an 18 month old at the time which made lying around waiting for migraines to go away impossible.

I asked the new oils group what they did for migraines and told them which oils I had. So after several suggestions I applied Valor on my temples and neck and then a few minutes later Deep Relief on the places my head hurt. 10 minutes later, my migraine was gone. If these oils can get rid of migraines that Lortab won't knock out, something about them is working. Since then I have been a believer.

I bought a couple of other individual oils for help with calming my kids down (Peace & Calming) and scar tissue after childbirth (Frankinscense). And then my Christmas present was this:

I have loved using them and just recently placed my first post starter kit order. Yeeeee!

Ways we use the oils:

• Germs (diffusing Thieves and rubbing it diluted on the bottoms of feet)
• Baking (adding a drop of Lemon to baked goods)
• Stress (diffusing Stress Away and rubbing it on my wrists)
• Hormones (applying Endoflex on my thyroid and adrenal glands daily)
• Energy (diffusing Citrus Fresh and applying Endoflex)
• Kids' Sleep (making a Sleepy Cream with Peace and Calming, Lavender, Cedarwood and Valor)
• Allergies (applying a blend of Lemon, Lavender and Peppermint on the sinuses and forehead)
• Liver cleansing (applying Release to the liver every few days)
• Deodorant (1 drop purification mixed with a smudge of coconut oil in armpits)
• Face cream (1 drop Frankincense and 1 drop Lavender mixed with coconut oil on face)
• Colds/Congestion (peppermint on sinuses and chest, Ravintsara diffused)
• Digestion (Peppermint diluted applied to tummy)
• Mood (diffuse Citrus Fresh, Awaken, Release, Joy, Peace & Calming, Stress Away or Lavender)
• Odor elimination (1 drop Purification in the trash can, dishwasher or washing machine)

It's important to note that anything I use on my 2 year old is diluted to a ratio of 1 drop of essential oil to 1/2 tsp of coconut oil. Anything used on my 7 month old is 1 drop of essential oil to at least 1 tsp of coconut oil.

Also, Peppermint is never used or diffused with or around children under two as this can cause breathing issues.

I purchased these oils through someone I now consider a close friend and she did a wonderful job teaching me how to use and how not to use the oils. Education is super important. Make sure you know what you're doing before you apply these willy nilly!

If you're reading this and think it sounds like a bunch of hippie crunchie voodoo. You're right. It does, but it works for us and that's what matters.

If you're interested or have questions, feel free to post them below. Thanks! Happy oiling!