Open Letter To The New Mom

Open Letter to the New Mom

You've brought your beautiful new addition into the world. Congratulations! Now you just have to adjust to having this new little person depend on you for everything every second of the day. It's pretty hard right? I know I've been there and so has every other mom, even the ones who look like they always have everything together. I could tell you it will get easier, I'd also be lying. It doesn't get easier, ever. Life will eventually feel normal again though, It's just a different kind of normal. Eventually you and your new baby will find a groove and you will adjust and so will your baby. For right now all you can do is your best. So get a good cup of coffee (learn how to make a good cup at home, you'll need it), put the baby down and take a hot shower, and breathe mamma you're doing your best and it will pay off.

Packing With A 9 Month Old

Packing With A 9 Month Old

     Packing for a trip is different for everyone and every trip so I'm not going to go through every item I've packed for me and E. I am however going to tell you about a few of my favorite items that I make sure to have on every trip whether it be an overnight trip or week long vacation.

1. A good cross body bag

     I love cross body bags. They're easy to carry and still allow me to use my hands to carry ither things like a sleeping baby after a long day of shopping or laying on the beach.

2. Large Tote

     There are a million reasons to have a large tote packed for a trip. It could hold towels going to the pool. It could hold souvenirs on the trip back home. It can hold dirty clothes so they arent in the suitcase with your clean clothes. The uses are really endless.

3. Luggage Set

     A good luggage set makes all  the difference when packing for a trip. I opt for a hard case luggage set big enough to but mine, Scout's, and Easton's clothes in. This way we only have one big suitcase to keep up with.

4. Baby Carrier

     I have loved my baby carrier since day one it makes life so much easier. I don't know that this would be useful for every trip but since most of my trips include a lot of shopping the baby carrier comes in handy. It's an easy to keep E safe and still while still being hands free and is a lot lighter than the stroller. I would recommend this one for a younger baby, and this one for an older baby.

5. Pack n' Play

     The pack n' play is such a necessity. I love the ones that have the changing table attachment. Then you have an easily portable bed and a changing table for your little one. Plus it's east to set up and take down for those quick overnight stays.

6. Portable Sound Machine 

     E loves his sound machine at home so it just makes sense to bring one with us on trips. I tried to find the smallest one I could that would be easy to hook up and unhook. 

I hope this gives you a head start on packing for your next adventure. 

Planning A Vacation With A Baby

Planning a Vacation With a Baby

When my mom and I started planning our usual family summer vacation I thought it would be like it was last year. I was so wrong, now we have Easton and that changed everything. Now the hotels, restaurants, and entertainment have to be baby friendly which is a lot harder to find than I thought. Here are the steps we took to plan our vacation.

1. Pick a date and hotel

     This is the easiest part. Pick the dates you want to be out of town and start searching for hotels. I love hotels.com. It lets me look at many hotel options at once so I can get the best hotel for the best price. E loves the water, but pools are often to cold for him, so my goal was a hotel with a nice indoor pool and plenty of room for his pack n play. If your baby likes being outside you may look for something with or near a playground. also, take into consideration the location of the hotel. We wouldn't want a baby who is a light sleeper in a hotel in the middle of downtown in a big city.

2. Pick your Entertainment

     This was the hardest part for me because most of our usual entertainment was not baby friendly. Look for indoor attractions or attractions that give you an all day band so you can leave when baby needs a break and come back later. We chose to visit a small zoo (could be walked in 1 hour), Ripley's aquarium, and a small amusement park with games and rides a 9 month old can do 

(with mommy's help of course.)

3. Plan your dining 

     I love planning where we will eat. I try to choose hotels with a complimentary breakfast so one meal is out of the way. For lunch we try to keep it quick and light which can be harder when you have a baby eating table food. We chose to eat at places that had kids meals like mac&cheese, hot dogs, and fruits and veggies. Dinner was easy to plan because most dinner restaurants have kids meals. We just decided where the adults wanted to eat and easily found something E could eat too. If all else failed I ordered something that could easily be shared with him like pasta and steamed veggies, chicken and fries, or soups.

4. Plan your drive

     Easton does not like being in the car for long amounts of time so we tried to plan a lot of stops and plenty of car entertainment. We stopped roughly every hour to hour and a half for a few minutes. A couple of stops were to get gas and a quick diaper change, some were for food, most were just to stretch. In the car we had plenty of E's favorite snacks, toys to occupy him, and our portable DVD player attached to thee back seat head rest. we also have Amazon Prime which allows us to access to tons of movies to keep him (and us) entertained even on the go.

Our trip was a blast. There were still a few bumps in the read when we couldn't get a long enough nap time or food just didn't come fast enough but over all E did great and I thing it was a perfect first family vacation for our little man. I hope this helps you plan your perfect trip too.

Road Trip With A Baby Tips

Road Trip With A Baby Tips

     I'm finally back to blogging. It has been a long two weeks. For those of you who don't know we moved into an apartment about 45 minutes away the first weekend of July. (Check out my Moving With A Baby Blog.) I decided to take a a two week vacation from blogging to gete unpacked and set up. In light of my time off I decided to do a vacation theme this week so be sure to check back, or even better subscribe to get emails, to see the rest of my vacationing with  a baby blogs. So here we go road trip with a baby. Anyone who has a child knows that being in a car for a long amount of time is almost impossible. I have __ tips I've used for all of our day trips and extended car rides.

1. Snacks

     E cannot go anywhere without snacks and lots of them. I try to stick with snacks that are easy for him to eat in the car like rice husks, teething cookies, and cheerios. One of my favorite car ride items is this snack cup. It's adorable and keeps my car from being completely covered in cheerios. 

2. Toys 

     We actually keep a small basket of toys in our car at all times. I try to keep the toys in the car quiet toys that arent very loud and dont have lights so they arent distracting to me drivin.

Soft books are one of our favorites.

3. Frequent Stops

     Adults cant stay in a car for very long so we know babies cant. I suggest planning your stops ahead of time. Decide before your leave what cities youre going to stop in. Then only stop at places you know will have a baby changing station and good air conditioning (think McDonalds). 

4. Patients

     This is my biggest tip. Be patient with your baby. Road trips my be fun for us because we know where we are headed wherre as our babies only know they are stuck in a hot carseat strapped in with no one to play. 

Moving With A Baby

Moving With A Baby

Easton will be 9 months old in five days! We have been living with my parents since I was about 10 weeks pregnant with E to try and save money to buy a house. Space had started getting pretty tight at my parents house and we suddenly got a really great deal on a two bedroom apartment so we decided to move. The only catch is we moved in less than two weeks. We found out about the apartment on Friday, got the paperwork done on Tuesday, then moved in the following Monday. That means we moved in 10 days. It was chaotic but we survived and this is how we did it.

      The first thing we did was tell my parents we were moving and start packing. This makes our third move in two years so I'm feeling like a pro packer at this point. Our first two moves we went around to various businesses and stores and got boxes for free. I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THAT! The boxes they give are usually already weakened from being shipped to the store which makes them hold less and break more. For this move we went to the u-haul store. The boxes are usually about $2.50 each for the largest boxes or $20 for ten (this may vary depending on your location.) It was so worth the money to buy good boxes. I got all of our stuff and E's stuff from our bedroom in ten big boxes and four small boxes. They held a lot of stuff and were really strong which made moving them easier and quicker.

     Packing with a mobile infant isn't easy. In fact it may be nearly impossible, so my next suggestion would be find a baby sitter for a couple hours one day. My grandma took E to bible school at our church the Saturday before we moved and it made it so much easier to get the final boxes packed.

     Having a packing and moving plan is the next tip that helped me a ton (you guys know how much I love to plan.) I made a list of what order to pack things and made a schedule for the moving day. This helped me stay on track with my packing and made it easy to keep everyone who helped us move stay on the same page.

    That brings me to my last tip. Get help, hire help if you can afford it, or enlist friends and family. We had the help of my grandma, cousins, brothers, and my parents later on as well as a close friend and moving would have been impossible without them.

Here is my packing plan

• Tuesday

1. Toys E doesn't play with often
2. Out of season clothes (ours and E's)
3. Shoes we wouldn't need until after the move

• Wednesday

1. clothes we wouldn't be wearing for the next week
2. bedroom decor

• Friday

1. Kitchen items

• Saturday (Grandma had E)

1. anything left in our room we wouldn't be needing
2. essentials box (this box I kept open until the day we moved it held all of our electronics, chargers, and any thing we needed to get ready on monday morning)
3. unpacking kit (this was a small box with things like box cutters, cleaning supplies, laundry and dish detergents)

I hope this helps anyone who is moving. Leave me a comment if you would like to a post about sharing a room with our baby, and don't forget to follow me via e-mail to see my latest post. 

Meals for Babies and Young Todddlers

Meals for Babies and Young Toddlers

When E first switched to table food I was at a loss on what to feed him. He had two teeth and was working on growing two more but what could be eaten with only two teeth. Well it turns out there's a lot that he can eat. Here is a list of meals we've tried and love.

Breakfast

1. Whole wheat waffle with fruit cream cheese and chopped berries
2. Yogurt with cheerios and peaches
3. scrambled egg with sliced cherry tomatoes and whole wheat toast 
4. Baby food smoothie with cheerios
5. Chopped hard boiled egg with kiwi and pineapple chunks

Lunch

1. Vienna sausages with grapes and peas
2. Gerber pasta pickups with assorted veggies
3. Thinly cut up cheese quesadilla with black beans
4. Rainbow plate (tomatoes, chopped orange peppers, pineapple chunks, peas, blue berries, purple carrots)
5. Mac and cheese with grape tomatoes and broccoli

Snacks

1. Cheese puffs
2. Rice husks
3. Fruit cocktail 
4. Chopped fruit
5. Chopped veggies

Dinner

1. Chicken with mixed veggies and pasta
2. Tomato soup with gold flish
3. Ham cubes with peas and cooked carrots
4. Shredded chicken with rice and tomatoes
5. Lean ground hamburger with avocado and black berries

These are just a few of the foods E loves eating. For us it was really just trial and error. If I was eating something I would cut up a small piece and let Easton try it. After awhile E got better at chewing and trying new foods and now we have a pretty long list of food he loves.