Mom Life

When I was pregnant with Annie I got some advice that I shouldn’t read too many books for new parents because too much advice could cloud my thoughts and make parenting more stressful.  I can appreciate that the sentiment behind the advice was to trust my own judgment as a parent. But I often subscribe to the old saying that it takes a village.  Books serve as a voice from research and experience. If you can read parenting books with a grain of salt then apply (or not) the strategies and advice in a way that works for you then …

Happy Valentine’s Day!  In honor of this day we made a pink strawberry banana smoothie and cupcakes. So good! Becoming a mom is such a cool thing because it truly changes your perspective on love.  This used to be the holiday I looked forward to with romantic love for Ned, drawing his name in hearts on my notebook.  It is still that of course, but now there’s a whole new level and kind of love to celebrate.  I love crafting with the kids.  There are so many great seasonal crafts out there from super creative moms and I find myself …

Annie loves to do little art projects and it’s been so cold outside I decided it was time to pull out a fun round up of winter crafts for toddlers.  All of these crafts are Annie tested and Annie approved.  Seriously so much fun and none of them are hard or time consuming.  Just a great afternoon spent together crafting. 1. Smoosh paint mittens with free printable Any time I dream up a craft that will entertain both the baby and the toddler I get really excited.  Even better—it’s mess free!  Smoosh paint was the perfect go to for this …

When I hear “easy, no mess painting” my head turns.  I always want to know more.  Annie lights up when I say it’s painting time, but sometimes I just don’t want to deal with the mess. So no mess painting is my favorite kind of painting.  My kids love smoosh paint because it is a way they can be creative without mom nagging them to keep their shirt out of the paint.  That’s where smoosh paint comes in.   What is smoosh paint? Smoosh paint is a process art that involves applying paint inside a ziplock bag either on a template …

Pumping at work was never something that excited me.  Before maternity leave ended with our first baby I was very anxious at the prospect.  Honestly, I wasn’t even comfortable breastfeeding at that point, especially not in public, which made pumping at work even harder to imagine. When I was pregnant with our first baby I assumed breastfeeding would be easy. We took a class at the hospital and they laid out the benefits of breastfeeding, but I had already made up my mind that we definitely would. All the while not realizing that it doesn’t come as naturally as I …

I’m not sure how, but I almost forgot I’m responsible for potty training our two year old.  There really should be a manual of when parents need to teach their kids certain things.  It seems to me that there is a sequence of events that should occur, but it never crossed my mind.  Annie was born and I blinked and all of the sudden she’s two and I’m looking for potty training tips. Oh Crap! Potty Training A few months ago I was reading through posts on a local mom’s facebook group and someone was asking about potty training.  It’s …

As a new mom, most of my life and the world around me revolves around our toddler, who doesn’t stop moving, and the baby who never sleeps.  Recently we’ve been spending so much time trying to make the Christmas season special for Annie and Ace, with the Christmas light drive throughs, the Santa breakfasts, the Christmas tree finding and decorating, the Hot White Chocolate mocktails, and the present buying and wrapping.  We are one week out from Christmas and I just realized I haven’t really even thought about my own Christmas list.  Luckily, I wasn’t starting from scratch as this …

This was the second year I’ve hosted Thanksgiving in our house.  Last year it was just my in-laws.  This year my mom was able to join us from Colorado, so I really wanted everything to be perfect.  So I planned out the day so I could focus on the cooking, while setting up fun activities for Annie with my mom and husband.  Everybody wins.  We started the day watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Then we pulled out this fun sensory bin that I put together the day before. What is a Sensory Bin? A sensory bin is an interactive …

I can’t believe Annie is two years old!  It seems like we brought her home yesterday.  The past two years with her have been wonderful and surprising and I just really feel blessed to be her mom, and Ace’s too of course.  I recently shared the birth story from Ace’s birth, and in honor of Annie’s 2nd birthday I thought I’d share a little throwback with her birth story especially since it was so different from our experience with Ace. Easy Pregnancy Our pregnancy with Annie was great.  I only had mild morning sickness for a short period of time.  …