Choosing a baby name is easily one of the most important, yet difficult, things you will have to do when preparing for baby. If you're lucky, you and your partner will have had some midnight conversation about this years and years ago after a series of margaritas and have known what to name your kids since that day. For the rest of us, your husband wants to name your son Leonidas Clyde. For us, it's the latter. We thought we had a name in mind from when we were pregnant with Charlott[...]
I have always been an invite and announcement girl. Maybe I'm old school, but receiving happy mail is still one of my favorite things! I can thank my grandmother for that. She still sends us cards just to tell us she's thinking of us, to celebrate a holiday and for everyone's birthdays. As a military family, we send out announcements when we move. As new(ish) parents, we sent out birth announcements when Charli arrived. And when Eli & I eloped, we told our loved ones by sending out elop[...]
I so badly wanted to be the "Do It All, Pinterest-Perfect Mom" when I became a parent. I was going to breast feed, use cloth diapers, and make my own baby food. All the things! Reality hit me hard when breast feeding was impossible, cloth diapers were far more disgusting than any experienced mother led me to believe, and there was no time in the day to make organic, good-for-you baby food (much less clean up the mess!). When Charlotte started on baby foods I was SO di[...]
Anyone who has had a small child knows that teething can be painful, exhausting and defeating (and I'm not just talking about for the baby). When Charlotte's first two teeth came in it was so... EASY! She took it like a champ, wasn't crabby, didn't cry and only got a slight fever for half a day. We should have known they wouldn't all be like that. We should have known. With lots of practice we have now figured out what works and what doesn't for our 13-month old. For us, Charlotte[...]