It’s official. Maternity leave is over and I’m back to work, which also means the kids are in daycare.  My company offers remote work 3 days a week and office work the other 2 days.  That schedule gives me the flexibility to be a little creative with our childcare. So it was time to start thinking about daycare and scheduling daycare tours. I decided to keep Ace home with me on the days I work from home, at least until he’s mobile. Especially since he’s breastfeeding.  The more time we have together the better.   It went okay throughout the …

If you’re anything like me, as a first-time mom trying to decide what baby gear I needed I leaned heavily on the women in my life who were already mothers.  I sent my sister-in-law text messages right from the aisles of Buy Buy Baby.  I sat with my coworker at the company picnic and picked her brain.  And I spent hours reading reviews and posts online.  Now that I am three months into being a mom of two, I have some insight on what we liked so much we reused for baby 2, and what we replaced.  So, I’m paying …

It is finally fall and I am so excited.  This is my favorite time of year.  The heat of summer is fading away into crisp morning air and the leaves are starting to turn colors.  One of the things I love most about fall is how it presents in so many of my senses: seeing the beautiful, natural colors; hearing the rustling of the leaves; feeling the cool air through my cable knit sweater; smelling the warm mulled spices; and the taste of this pumpkin bread.   I thought I’d share with you the Pumpkin Bread recipe that our family uses.  …

One of my favorite things is to give each season dimension.  Decorating for the season is visual.  Lighting a candle is olfactory.  Giving a season a sense of taste helps you perceive the season internally, making it seem more real.  I think that’s why I always rush out to get a pumpkin spice latte as soon as they arrive in Starbucks and why our family loves this Apple Cider Mocktail. The back half of the year is my favorite.  Don’t get me wrong, the bright, light, and sweet flavors of spring and summer are great, but when autumn hits I’m …

Throughout this pregnancy I did a lot more preparation toward my goal of an unmedicated birth than I did the first time around.  I read books (Ina Mays Guide to Childbirth and Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way), watched positive unmedicated birth stories on YouTube, researched as much as I could, drank the raspberry leaf tea (after 36 weeks and with permission from my doctor), practiced prenatal yoga, increased my water intake, and even watched a few free courses from the hospital and that I found online.  I would have done more in person education, but Covid limited my options. A …

Every week or so I pull out this sausage and vegetable skillet recipe when I find my fridge filled with veggies that just didn’t make the cut for other meals and it becomes an urgent situation to use them or lose them.  Having this meal on standby for something delicious and flexible regularly solves my last minute “what’s for dinner” dilemma. It’s such a quick and easy meal to serve your family, with the added benefit that it tends to lean more to the healthy side, compared to some of the other heavier meal I sometimes make.  It’s packed full …

Working mom life is a dream for some moms.  I’m not going to pretend I understand what that’s like.  For me, the working mom guilt is unbearable, enter my stay at home mom goals. Annie is 17 months old at the time of this post and I’ve been working since she was 3 months old.  I remember the first day I dropped her off at daycare.  It was soul-crushing.  She was safe, surrounded by other adorable kids her age, great teachers, toys, outdoor space, any kids dream I can imagine.  But for the 8 hours after dropping her off I …

Almost a year ago I shared some insights into our process of getting Annie to sleep through the night in her own room.  I stand by our sleep training process; it worked well and continues to work well.  So, I wanted to share a brief update. Click here to read the original post. Time Change Debacle Last weekend Daylight Savings Time ended, and we changed our clocks to spring forward.  The first morning, Annie slept until 9 thanks to an extra tired kiddo and the bonus hour provided by the clocks.  Sounds awesome, right?  It was, but it was the …

I know it’s controversial, but we decided we are going to travel to visit my mom and brothers for Christmas in Colorado this year.  Any other year, this would have been a no brainer – get plane tickets, pack, and go.  This year with COVID in the air we had to really think through this decision with a list of pros and cons and strategize our pandemic travel plans. Pros Annie is 14 months old, and my mom hasn’t seen her in real life since she was two weeks old.  Facetime is great and all, but it’s just not the …

Call me crazy, but we are planning to travel for the holidays this year.  It was a big decision with COVID being as rampant as it is, but it’s the decision we made.  Unless the airlines shut down, we’re going.  You can read about our thought process and the things we’re going to do to keep ourselves and others safe here. So now I’m in holiday travel prep mode.  The first time we went anywhere out of state with Annie, she was 3 months old, and she was a perfect angel.  Granted she wasn’t mobile yet and not that curious …