More Baby Stuff!

7:56 PM Edit This 1 Comment »

You know what's fun about having another baby? Well besides that sweet newborn smell and their squishy, smooth skin~getting new baby stuff!! I am beginning to wonder what I will do when I don't have a baby to buy stuff for anymore! :)

Since we are holding off on finding out what we are having, it gets a bit tricky. We have all the girl stuff we could need, but if we have a boy there will be more shopping to do!

Regardless, I really think I need a new diaper bag. I spent so much time looking for one for Emerald and I didn't actually find one until after she arrived. I have fallen in love with JuJuBe diaper bags. they just have the cutest colors and prints, AND they have come out with a new print I am CRAZY about! It seems like the perfect bag to carry girl and boy stuff (granted we are having a boy). Wooohooo! The thing is, they are kind-of like designer diaper bags, so the price is well...a little pricey. My mother always said I had expensive taste, but really if I found it at Target for $10, I'd love it just as much. :)

The next great purchase will be for MORE cloth diapers!! Wooohooo! I am *hoping* Emerald will be on her way to being "toliet learned" (I know that doesn't sound right grammatically, but it works) around the time the baby comes, but regardless we will need more dipes. The thing is the dipes are the same as the carriers, there are so many styles and prints~it's hard to just buy a few! I love some of the Happy Heiny's prints, but I also have my eye on some of the FuzziBunz. Really the BumGenius Flips! are hard to beat as well...so many choices...

Then you got the babylegs and everyone who sees Emerald on a regular basis knows my addiction and obsession with those!

I think I just need to start selling these things to help curb my "appetite" for it all!!

Crazy about Carriers!

8:32 PM Edit This 2 Comments »
Organic Maya Wrap

*Bolded items can be clicked for links :)

I admittedly love all things baby. It's hard to resist all the cute accessories that moms NEED to survive the baby years (and let's just face it, I do not need an excuse to shop). One baby item I love is carriers. I didn't know a whole lot about them before Emerald was born. I had always seen lots of women at my church carrying their babies in all sorts of carriers and always thought, "I'm going to do that too." I wish I had researched the world of carriers more. I had registered for a hotsling and thought I would be good to go. Sadly, Emerald was not too fond of this carrier and as she grew I found the one shoulder carrying was not always comfortable for long periods of time.
After hearing from other moms and doing some research, I decided to try the Mobywrap when Emerald was about 5 months old. This was a much better fit for us and she seemed to enjoy being carried for longer periods of time than in the hotsling. It was also nice for me because this carrier has the two shoulder support. Emerald went everywhere in the Moby, grocery shopping, church, the park, but I could not for the life of me get Sam to use it in public. (It's not exactly dad-friendly).
Next came the search for the "dad-friendly carrier." It was found in the cadillac of baby carriers- The Ergo. I have a friend that sells various baby items and she had some Ergo's that were on clearance, so Sam decided to give it a try. The Ergo comes in plenty of colors and designs and of course I wanted something "pretty" but if Sam was going to be totin' the baby around it had to look masculine. :) So we went with the organic navy blue twill Ergo. Emerald loves it!! It can be used as a front,. back and hip carrier. Totally fab. And Sam actually volunteers to carry her in it. That's nice. I really like it too. All the weight of the child goes to the hips, so there is no need to worry about shoulder discomfort.

So my obsessions goes even further to being part of a "babywearing group" where local moms come together to show how different carriers work and how it benefits them. I am actually very thankful these groups exist, as there are so many carriers out there and it can be hard for a new mom, or a mom that is new to babywearing, to know how to safely wear their infant or toddler. I have seen so many different, super cool carriers because of this group and sadly, although I already own 3, I want to try more with the next baby.
One that I have my eye on is the Mayawrap. They have the new organic line that looks fab. Plus, there is a little pocket where you can store your phone, keys or other important items. How cool is that?? This is another shoulder carrier, but I have heard that it is much more comfortable than the hotsling because it contains more padding. Speaking of slings, there is another ring sling I am looking into as well, the SlingEZee. There are just too many amazing carriers now a days I really want the baby wearing to work out right away with this next one. I carried Emerald a lot in my arms before we got the Moby and I just don't see that happening as easily with a toddler to run after AND a newborn to hold.

I also want to get another Ergo. I know that Emerald will still be carried a lot in the one we currently have, even after the baby arrives. So Sam can carry her and I can carry the new addition in the various carriers that work for us. :) Plus, then I can get the print I want! Next summer we are going to my sister Shyanne's wedding and the Ergo's will be a BIG help while traveling. The sad thing is the one I wanted was on babysteals less than a week ago and I didn't check it in time. :( Sadness.

I may need a "baby carrier intervention" but I say, "hey there are worse things to be addicted to!" :)

Some great resources for babywearing moms: TheBabyWearer.com and Babywearing International

iPhone Madness!

7:48 AM Edit This 0 Comments »
Emerald entertaining everyone in line with her smiles and giggles.

So, June 24th 2010, was the infamous release of Apple's new iPhone 4! Anyone who knows my husband knows he is absolutely devoted to Apple and all of their amazing products. Before we met, I didn't really know much about Apple or Mac computers, I had used one before, but I wasn't on either side of the "Mac or PC" debate. Sam converted me. I am wholeheartedly a huge Apple fan and have only been very impressed with all of their products. That being said, I got my first iPhone 2 years ago and I immediately fell in love. The iPhone is like no other smart phone ever created. The smoothness and efficiency you can do pretty much anything on the iPhone is unmatched and once you have one you can't go back to the clunky-ness of those "other phones"
Sam got his first iPhone about a year ago. I had the normal 3G, but he upgraded to the 3Gs. With this new iPhone coming out, it was a race to see if we could get our reservation in on time. Luckily, after multiple attempts, we both got the email that our iPhone 4 was in fact reserved for us on June 24th. This phone is absolutely incredible. Not only does it have an HD video camera, the iPhone is the first phone to have video calling, called FaceTime. You can check out all you need to know about the new iPhone 4 here: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-iphone-4/

The morning of the big release, I had been reading some fb updates and there were people who were saying they had been waiting for hours before the door even opened to their local Apple store and the line was insane!! We had other stuff going on, on Release Day and I wasn't going to interrupt a one year old's nap schedule to stand in line for hours. So I headed out to the Apple Store at Southpark at about 4:00, after Emerald's afternoon nap. I got there and was blown away by the line. There were two lines-one for those with reservations and one for those without. The reserved line was winding all the way down to the concrete halls the stores use for loading merchandise! I have no idea where the non-reserved line ended. I was undoubtedly nervous about the prospect of standing in line with a one year old without any idea about how fast it would move. Another fb friend had updated that they were standing in line for 5 hours and moved 20 ft. : / Sam was planning on meeting us after work and kind-of "taking over" in the line, so at least I knew we could escape if Emerald was getting restless.
Emerald actually had a lot of fun. She completly LOVES people and getting attention. She was very sweet and wanted to share her Cherrios with everyone. However, you can only stand still in a line with a toddler for so long before they get restless. She wanted to "walk" everywhere. She loves holding our hands as we help her walk across the world. We did that for awhile and then that got old, luckily Sam arrived just in time, so Emerald and I headed out to go shopping. We totally scored at Gap Kids, as they were having a huge sale-40% off of already clearance merchandise. Whooohooo!!! I got her two pairs of sandals for her to walk in, which made that task a lot easier to do in public on the dirty mall floors. :p

I was going back and forth about whether I should get the iPhone 4 now in black or hold out for the white one. I knew I would be sad if I saw other people with the white and I hadn't waited. Supposedly, the white will not be available until mid July and they will be scarce, but in the end I decided to wait it out. Currently, I have "upgraded" to Sam's 3Gs until then.

Needless to say, standing in line for HOURS for any sort of "the latest thing" is definitely an experience. First off, every person that I saw in line already had an iPhone. This makes sense, once you are an iPhone user it's nearly impossible to go back, but this also says that these people knew all the AMAZING things their current iPhone could do and wanted to experience the next step in "iPhone Bliss!" When we got to the front of the "Reserved Line" the guy at the front of the "Other line" had said he had been in "line" since 11pm the previous night!!! CRAZY!! I was thinking, "how do these people eat and go to the bathroom" Cool thing, Chick Fil A came around like every 10 minutes with complementary tea and water trays and then a tray of chicken nuggets and brownies. How great is that? Besides you become friends with these other crazy people and most of them are more than willing to save your spot for second. :) Sam had read about a guy who stood in the iPhone line for the 3Gs for the sole purpose to make friends. He didn't even get a phone! In the end he said he made life long friends and it was one of the best experiences of his life.

I can't say we made life-long friends (we were only in line for 3.5 hours :) but it was fun being a part of "pop-culture" And well, you'll have to ask Sam what he thinks of the new iPhone 4 :)


EC fun! :)

12:22 PM Edit This 3 Comments »

Just a warning to everyone, this blog post is all about potties, pooping and the like. Turn back now if this topic grosses you out (guessing you may not be a parent yet if it does! :)

When Emerald was first born someone mentioned something to me called, "Elimination Communication"-EC. The whole idea is related to "Natural Infant Hygiene" and helping your child learn to recognize the urge to eliminate from the very beginning of their life. I thought it was really strange and I like to think I'm open minded when it comes to alternative parenting techniques. :)

When Emerald was about 5 months old I found a GREAT group of Naturally minded moms on Meetup.com. Some of the moms there were talking about how they were practicing Elimination Communication with their little ones who were around Emerald's age. I was fascinated. I went home and googled it a bit and then not too long ago in my issue of Mothering Magazine there was an article that summarized the whole process up very well. Basically, the whole idea is that if we tune into our babies to find their cues to eat and sleep why not to eliminate as well. That made sense to me. Also it is mentioned that many children get emotionally attached to diapers and see them as a "security blanket" and then later on have a hard time separating from them. I think this makes a lot of sense as well. If we never teach them to ignore the urge to eliminate when they are able to bring themselves to the potty it won't be such a big change or a possible traumatic experience. Why not start early?

Another good point was the fact that many people around the world do not have access to disposable diapers or cloth, or even clothing to wrap around their babies bums. What do these mothers do? They tune into their babies and figure out what signs they give to eliminate. It's funny, looking back to the time I spent with the street children in India, many of those babies had no diaper and I didn't even think about what happens when they had to go. Those mothers must of had a system going on! And what did mothers do before the invention of diapers?? It's very interesting topic to ponder on.

Some people practice EC to different degrees. A lot of the people that write about it are completely "diaper free." They do not use diapers for their babies unless they go out and even then, not always. I haven't met anyone yet that does the diaper free method.
Most people I know use dipes all the time and then watch for signs of elimination and then put their child on the potty. Some people start at a very young age-birth and others wait until their children are closer to the toddler years-9ish months.

I tried for the first time when Emerald was probably about 10 months. She was a little scared of being on the big potty, so soon after we got her one of the kiddie potty seats to put on top of the big one. This did not scare her at all and she seemed to think it was a new, fun thing. :)

The way we are practicing EC with Emerald is to attempt to catch all the "poops" in the potty. For the past month and a half it has gone great! It is VERY obvious when she needs to poop, so we just take her dipe off and then set her on it. Sometimes it takes her a few minutes and she usually likes to play with a toy or shampoo bottle from the shower, but she always seems to do very well. She even claps for herself now when we say, "Good job!" It's like she is proud of herself and it is really cute to see! In the past few weeks it also seems like she looks to us when she needs to poop as if to say, "Put me on the potty, I am pooping!" I'd like to learn more about how to read when she needs to pee. This seems much tricker to me. I also know a lot of people who sign with their babies and once they get the hang of it, they can sign when they need to use the bathroom if they are not talking yet.

Call me crazy, but I am excited about the prospect of Emerald being potty trained "early"
And the truth is I'd rather take the time to put her on the potty then change a dirty diaper ANY DAY! :) I'm not sure when we will start this process with the next, but I think I would like to try it sooner than we started with Emerald.

For anyone who is interested in this process a good article to read:
http://www.mothering.com/green-living/mothering-mindfulness-and-babys-bottom

A great site to check out:
http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/

A good book to check out:
http://www.amazon.com/Diaper-Free-Baby-Natural-Training-Alternative/dp/0061229709/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276894036&sr=8-1-catcorr




Catching Up.

6:58 AM Edit This 2 Comments »

Well, it is obvious I am not the world's best blogger.
Between taking care of Emerald, cleaning, running around, socializing, doula certification stuff and well, life-I just never have the time or inspiration to blog. So we will see how long this lasts.

The last time I blogged Emerald had just turned 6 months. She is now a year old!! It is very hard to believe that time goes so fast. When she was first born it seemed liked she would stay tiny forever, but as soon as she started sitting up and being able to be a little more independent it seemed like the time went so fast!! On her actual birthday we went to the zoo, just the three of us. It was a really special, memorable time. Last weekend we had her party at the park and while it was sweltering HOT, I consider the party a success. :) She seemed to enjoy herself and of course all the attention she received.

The latest news in our family is that we are unexpectedly expecting baby #2! This news was quite shocking to us as we were not planning on having another for quite some time! I will be 17 weeks on Saturday. It definitely took awhile for it to sink in, but we are excited and I know Emerald will love being a big sister. She absolutely adores babies and other children.

We are not going to find out what we are having with this one. I am pretty sure this will be our last and I want the opportunity to experience what it is like to be surprised in that moment. However, I am quite convinced it is a BOY! I feel completely different than I did when I was pregnant with Emerald. I had hardly any morning sickness, my hormones aren't making me too crazy, :) and I am actually enjoying it for the most part-something I thought I would never say about pregnancy!! :) I have always had dreams it is a boy and all I dreamt about with Emerald was having a girl, so time will tell!

Speaking of pregnancy and the like, I am on my way with my doula certification. In just one month, I will be going to the CAPPA conference and then doing my doula training with a CAPPA instructor. I've been learning so much through my reading and research and I am really excited to be going down this path in my life.

Other than that life is pretty much mellow and going good. Sam is still enjoying his job and working hard in school.

Hopefully, I can keep everyone updated a little better over the coming months. :)


November 09

12:20 PM Edit This 2 Comments »

Try as I may, I can never seem to post the month I am writing about before that month is over! Oh well, December First is close enough!
Our little baby girl is 6 MONTHS old, already!! I don't know how this happened. I swear, she was a little baby who couldn't do anything on her own and BAM! Now she is sitting up, entertaining herself and looking to eat "real" food. =) I am truly amazed with how fast she is growing!
We put up our Christmas tree and Emerald adores the lights and all the sparkly things that come with Christmas. Sam and I are excited to start our own traditions with our little family.
Sam started his job at the IRS a few weeks back and everything is going well. He is now working on being promoted in the Army, which will be good for his future profession, so I know he is excited about that.
We are both in school full time and I JUST finished a 10 page paper. I know all college students have to write papers and I know that there are lots of other moms out there who go to school, raise a baby AND work. So I have to think that I don't have it all that bad. I think I would be more motivated if the school was for a purpose other than the check we get that pays me to go. I am researching different Doula training organizations and I think I found the one I am going to go with. There is a seminar to start the training in July, which works out perfect for us because Emerald will be able to be apart from me for more than a few hours for the training.
I am excited about the prospect of this and feel that I am finally on my way to doing something I hope I will love.
We had a good Thanksgiving and most of all I am thankful that Sam is able to be home with us. Although, I can't say I am not a little worried the Army is not going to send him back over as they are sending 30,000 more troops out. All we can do is pray!
I can't believe that Christmas is only 25 days away! Hope everyone is having fun getting into the holiday spirit!

October post...a little late...

7:09 AM Edit This 0 Comments »



I am trying to do at least one post a month, but this month~especially the last 2 weeks have been CRAZY!!!
Anyway...our little punkin is now 5 months old! Where did the time go? She definitely wants to move around and scoots her little body all around her play mat...we will see when she decides to attempt crawling. She is attempting to sit up and is doing well, but still needs support to sit up for more than a few seconds.
We are now on week 3 of our cloth diapering adventure. So far, so good. The Bum Genius cloth dipes really are great and I am glad we decided to go with them. We are still doing the disposables at night, but will eventually switch over to 100% cloth when we run out. The diaper sprayer we connected to a toilet is a "must" in my opinion if you are are going to venture into this world. But we are having fun and Sam doesn't even mind them either.
I got a Moby wrap after having so many people suggest it and then suggesting it myself without ever owning one. I LOVE it!!! It is very nice to have the two shoulder support that the sling lacks to perform in. I found a camo colored one online and told Sam I was going to get it for him for our NEXT baby. =) (I have to put those messages in his mind b/c he says we are only going to have one!)

We didn't go trick or treating with the crew (Cauthen's and Stroud's) because Emerald was feeling "under the weather." I loaded up on herbs and essential oils and gave her the ones she could take and she is feeling LOTS better. It's no fun when your baby doesn't feel good, so I hope that the rest of this "sick season" we can keep the yuckiness at bay and continue to do preventative care.

Onto to other news...school is going pretty well. I have found it difficult to tend to Emerald and get everything done. I have had my sister come stay a few times just so I can do my schoolwork undisturbed. It will help when Sam is home every night and we can "take turns" as he is in school full time right now too.
Speaking of Sam coming home...this is his LAST week of paralegal school!!!! HURRAY!!! We only have 3 more nights apart and then NO MORE!!! We survived. The first few weeks were not fun, but it really started to go by fast after that. I am just glad it is over for now.

That about sums up our news for now!! Looking forward to the holiday season!


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