Baby essentials.

I thought I would take the time to post a few of the things that are a MUST-HAVE for a mama of two! Everything is about being hands free that make a baby happy! Two kids mean two baths, two diapers, twice as much dirty clothes, two mouths to feed... and the list goes on.

1. Baby sponge bath: I hate baby tubs, I think they are gross and one more thing to sanitize. These disposable bath sponges allow the baby to sink in and enjoy bathing without the hard surface. You just have to squeeze it out when you are done and it dries quickly!

2. Fisher Price Rock N' Play: This little cot is perfect for babies first nights at home. It is so snuggly and I think the baby feels like they are being held. This helped us get a lot more sleep!

3. Aden & Anais swaddle: Except, I don't swaddle with these. They are PERFECT for nursing. They are so big, light, and air can easily pass through this muslin fabric. Must, must have!

4. Johnson & Johnson bedtime lotion: The bath stuff is great too! The lavender scent helps relax baby and helps them sleep better. We actually took the time to experiment with our first born to see if this actually worked. Trust me. It does.

5. Summer Infant Swaddle: These swaddles I truly believe in, that is if you child likes to be swaddled. Aiden HATED it. Luke, loves it. After all, my children are extreme opposites. But Luke is 6 months today and loves being swaddled for naps and bed time.

6. Bumbo: This chair goes everywhere with us. Not only does it help Luke sit up well, he is happier and feels like more of a part of the family while sitting in it. We feed him in it and he plays with Aiden while he is in it. Love love.

7. Sophie the Giraffe: This giraffe is great for teething and playing. The feet work to reach molars while the top of the giraffe is good to teeth with those first teeth coming in! It also squeaks which is entertaining!

8. Fisher Price swing: Please get this. You will not regret it! Luke is still in love with his swing! Without it, we would be a very grumpy family. We even bought a new one after he was born because he loved it and we were flying through batteries. Now we have one that plugs in, and I recommend getting that one!

Well, there you have it! These things are so amazing and I hope you find them just as amazing for your little one!

Will you have more?

This is the common question. As we approach the six month mark with our second child, I can honestly say I do not know. What I do know, if we have more, we will have two more. But that is a lot of "ifs". I cannot go out to the park, grocery store, restaurant, or anywhere really without getting this question. Will you have more? Will you try for a girl? Oh, you HAVE to try for a girl. Why? Why do I HAVE to do anything? I love having two sons. I was made for two sons. I love sports, and dirt, and being outside and primary colors. Don't get me wrong, a little pink (as in handsome pink polos) is good. But I am not a Barbie playing, doll combing, dress up type of girl. 

Today was a beautiful day at the park. It was sunny, with a few cloud, but mostly gorgeous. I was reflecting on my awful day yesterday. There were tears, lots and lots of tears. Tears about our house being torn up. Tears about the ginormous hole that is collapsing under our drive way. Tears about money. Tears about a dirty house. Just a lot of tears. Yesterday was the type of day where I said to myself, "never, will I ever have more children." Not that they were terrible. Well, actually Aiden was pretty terrible. He knows how to push my buttons. After he hits me: "But mommy, I was having fun with hitting you." After throwing the iPad down the stairs: "But mommy, I was having fun throwing it down the stairs." You get the pattern. That calls for an O.M.G. moment. All day, it was tears for me, tears for Aiden, and Luke baby tears - no meltdowns for him though! 

Today we splashed! We splashed at the park and had a blast in order to get all of the bad juju and bad yahoos out after being cooped up all winter. We LOVE summer in this household. This summer we have some major plans. These include: Buying a new house, Las Vegas mom & dad trip, California, DISNEYLAND for the first time for Aiden!

When people ask me about more kids I cringe a little inside. When I was talking to my friend about this yesterday, she brought up a wonderful point, something she had heard. Don't judge having children by their infancy and toddler years, think about how many people you want at your Thanksgiving table when you are old and grown. This is a great point. Infant years are hard. You lack sleep, sanity, ability to take a shower without a kid cracking their head open or crying to come it. You cannot pee in peace. You cannot sleep in peace. Some days, you just do not want to change one more poopy diaper, or in Aiden's case poopy underwear. 

But then you look at these sweet little faces and smiles and do not even doubt why you decided to have kids in the first place! 

Happy Thursday y'all! 

Good bye before and after.

Since our house is currently under contract and we are getting ready to move, I thought I would share before and after pictures of our miniature fix and flip house! When we bought our house it was a short sale and had been abandoned by the buyers three years prior to our closing. It needed some love, and love it what we gave it!

We have had fun making this our project for the last year and a half... we cannot wait to get started on our new home and see what projects we can spin together!

I better now.

Do you ever have days that just start out on the wrong foot, and you know it is not going to be your best day? Days that start out with tears from your child for no reason? The "good morning baby!!" as you walk through your bipolar toddlers door immediately produces a mass amount of tears saying something about chocolate milk, water, and waffled, but yet you cannot quite understand because of the ridiculous face they are making and through the slurred teary words? That was how our day started.

Surely I cannot be the only one who thinks their two year old wakes up on the wrong side of the bed every. single. day. Right? You know, after writing this, his bed is against a wall. Technically he can only wake up on that side. That, and it is a twin bed. Maybe he needs some rearranging in his room. Better yet, maybe in our new house it will be on the correct side of the bed. 

My parents (dad) always ask why he is so grumpy. Why do you give in to him? My response: "Because, dad, if I didn't I would be a raging alcoholic." The screaming, tears, fighting, kicking, hitting, telling me to shut my face, of course result in being put in time out. Along with tears and crying, whimpering, and then a sad little kid comes slowly walking over saying "I better now." 

That is the magic words. I better now. Wouldn't the world be a much better place if everyone had the forgiving ability of a two year old? My sons best friend was over the other day and I was talking with his mom about how incredibly reassuring it is when two year olds fight over the same toy, look like they are going to maul each other like a bunch of angry tigers, and then when the toy is no longer important, they go on like the tiff never happened. 

Then, they escape upstairs into uncharted territory. After talking about the trials and tribulations of having two year olds, we realize it has been quiet for far too long. We sneak upstairs and hear whispering but cannot quite tell what room the little conversations are coming from. 

Enter baby Luke's nursery. 

These two little rascals had snuck into Luke's crib with a snack. What little thieves! The best part about this whole story was when Courtney asked how they got the bar open, Aiden said "Jimmy did it!" This immediately was followed by the look of death from Jimmy to Aiden. I mean seriously, beams of hate were coming from his eyes! Aiden has been quite the story teller lately so I do not know if it was because Aiden had opened it and was lying, or Jimmy was mad Aiden was being a tattle tale. Knowing my son, both are very feasible possibilities! 

As the day progressed it slowly got better. We promised Aiden to take him to his favorite pizza place that he has been begging to go to for a few weeks now. Every night he would cry and say "noooo, I want to go to a pizza place again..." He liked to misplaced the word again with the word now. He doesn't quite get the difference yet. He was happy to get his noodles at the pizza place! 

Then the day ended like this....

I better now!

Little big boy room love.

With all the excitement of moving comes the excitement of getting to decorate new rooms! There are SO many rooms on Pinterest that I just love. Luckily, I have a very handy brother and father to help me build things if we need to. Aiden recently moved to a big boy bed after a very terrifying morning.

How our typical mornings go. Luke wakes up early and my wonderful husband gets up with him, feeds him, and puts him back to sleep. I set my alarm for 7:45 every morning to pump so I have enough time to "refill" before I have to feed Luke again. When Berto gets up he slides the iPad under Aiden's door so Aiden can watch a movie when he wakes up in his room while I pump. We have him gated in his room so he doesn't wonder all over the house all night, like he did when he could climb out of his crib. This pattern has worked so far for us and helped me be able to manage breastfeeding while having a busy toddler.

When I was pregnant with Luke Aiden learned to climb out of his crib. So we obtained a recalled crib tent thinking that only idiot parents who had not used the tent correctly had problems. It worked great, and I was desperate and exhausted from being pregnant with a toddler. Until recently when I heard the cry. That terrible, I am hurt, scared, something is wrong, wrong, WRONG cry. I ran into Aiden's room and he had ripped a small hole in the tent in his efforts to escape and gotten his head through and it was stuck around his neck. Scary. TERRIFYING.

I pushed his head back down through the small hole with all of my weight, which has about 20 extra pounds to it from my little Cherub, Luke. I got him out and just held him as he cried in my arms for five minutes. He had a red mark on his neck and I felt terrible.

That morning we all got dressed and went down to Mattress Firm in our local town. I let Aiden jump on every single bed. The store agent was going to KILL me. But, I didn't really care. I wanted him to love his bed and pick the one he loved. I let him pick a bed that was close to 700 dollars. I pretended to order that one and got him the 200 one that doesn't have a ton of springs to deter jumping. Yeah right!

He thought the really amazing comfortable bed was delivered later that day. Over the last year I have been buying things at Pottery Barn on sale in order to get good bedding. I don't like to be cheap on bedding because if you get the good stuff, it can last. Unfortunately that means I cannot decorate whenever I want and change things up, because I am not rich like that. Damn!

Last weekend Aiden and I typed in "Little Boy Rooms" on google images and he picked out the rooms he liked and asked "I want that for my birTday" in his cute little voice. Here are some of the rooms I fell in love with online!

From Houzz

From PBK

From Better Homes & Gardens

From The Painted Home

From PBK

So, as you can see we kind of have the sports theme going. His room has been sports since he was a baby. Although I do think it is nice to switch things up, we have so many cute sports decor that I don't want to stray away from using those when so much money was spent on it. 

Click here if you want to follow me on Pinterest! 

Happiness.

I woke up this morning to a lovely e-mail from the buyers of our home. They are asking for 5 things. Sigh.

1.    Install sump pump by a license contractor and provide receipts of completed and paid work at closing.
2. In crawlspace there are wires that are exposed and need to be in a junction by a license contractor and provide receipt of completed and paid work at closing.
3. A/C unit should be on a level ground before appraisal.
4. Seller shall repaired sewer line by a license contractor and provide receipt of completed and paid work at closing.
5. Seller shall install the garage sensors before appraisal.

These things are all doable. EXCEPT number four. Oh, sweet number four. We think they may be trying to pull a fast one on us. We spoke with other neighbors who these same buyers had a contract on their home but it fell through and financing did not work out. On the inspection, no mention of anything sewer line related needs to be fixed or is broken. So, why do they have this? The property is lendable upon fixing all of the things, but surprisingly enough, the lender did not see anything about a sewer line because it is not in the inspection. So... here we go with this battle.

The scary thing is, we HAVE to close by May 30th or we cannot get a loan on our new home due to lovely student loans - thanks education.

I came across this lovely gem this morning on a friends page. I needed this. Really, really needed this.

I was eating my eggs and chai tea this morning when Aiden starts crying because he can't have cookies for breakfast, Luke was crying because he was tired. And all I wanted were some damn eggs! Some days I think of how much easier life would be if I had a nanny and could go to work, come home, and play with my lovely kids. Then I look at the mess on my coffee table masked with Cars drifters that I had to build in the ever so perfect way. The swaddle left over on the floor from when I picked my little cocoon up from his night of sleep, and the old Pampered Chef dish sitting in the sink from last nights dinner because they can't go in the dishwasher.

These fifteen things are things to give up to be happy.....

1. Give up your need to always be right. There are so many of us who can’t stand the idea of being wrong – wanting to always be right – even at the risk of ending great relationships or causing a great deal of stress and pain, for us and for others. It’s just not worth it. Whenever you feel the ‘urgent’ need to jump into a fight over who is right and who is wrong, ask yourself this question: “Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?”Wayne Dyer. What difference will that make? Is your ego really that big?

2. Give up your need for control. Be willing to give up your need to always control everything that happens to you and around you – situations, events, people, etc. Whether they are loved ones, coworkers, or just strangers you meet on the street – just allow them to be. Allow everything and everyone to be just as they are and you will see how much better will that make you feel.

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond winning.” Lao Tzu

3. Give up on blame. Give up on your need to blame others for what you have or don’t have, for what you feel or don’t feel. Stop giving your powers away and start taking responsibility for your life.

4. Give up your self-defeating self-talk. Oh my. How many people are hurting themselves because of their negative, polluted and repetitive self-defeating mindset? Don’t believe everything that your mind is telling you – especially if it’s negative and self-defeating. You are better than that.

“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.” Eckhart Tolle

5. Give up your limiting beliefs about what you can or cannot do, about what is possible or impossible. From now on, you are no longer going to allow your limiting beliefs to keep you stuck in the wrong place. Spread your wings and fly!

“A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind” Elly Roselle

6. Give up complaining. Give up your constant need to complain about those many, many, maaany things – people, situations, events that make you unhappy, sad and depressed. Nobody can make you unhappy, no situation can make you sad or miserable unless you allow it to. It’s not the situation that triggers those feelings in you, but how you choose to look at it. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking.

7. Give up the luxury of criticism. Give up your need to criticize things, events or people that are different than you. We are all different, yet we are all the same. We all want to be happy, we all want to love and be loved and we all want to be understood. We all want something, and something is wished by us all.

8. Give up your need to impress others. Stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not just to make others like you. It doesn’t work this way. The moment you stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not, the moment you take of all your masks, the moment you accept and embrace the real you, you will find people will be drawn to you, effortlessly.

9. Give up your resistance to change. Change is good. Change will help you move from A to B. Change will help you make improvements in your life and also the lives of those around you. Follow your bliss, embrace change – don’t resist it.
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls” Joseph Campbell

10. Give up labels. Stop labeling those things, people or events that you don’t understand as being weird or different and try opening your mind, little by little. Minds only work when open. “The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.” Wayne Dyer

11. Give up on your fears. Fear is just an illusion, it doesn’t exist – you created it. It’s all in your mind. Correct the inside and the outside will fall into place.
“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

12. Give up your excuses. Send them packing and tell them they’re fired. You no longer need them. A lot of times we limit ourselves because of the many excuses we use. Instead of growing and working on improving ourselves and our lives, we get stuck, lying to ourselves, using all kind of excuses – excuses that 99.9% of the time are not even real.

13. Give up the past. I know, I know. It’s hard. Especially when the past looks so much better than the present and the future looks so frightening, but you have to take into consideration the fact that the present moment is all you have and all you will ever have. The past you are now longing for – the past that you are now dreaming about – was ignored by you when it was present. Stop deluding yourself. Be present in everything you do and enjoy life. After all life is a journey not a destination. Have a clear vision for the future, prepare yourself, but always be present in the now.

14. Give up attachment. This is a concept that, for most of us is so hard to grasp and I have to tell you that it was for me too, (it still is) but it’s not something impossible. You get better and better at with time and practice. The moment you detach yourself from all things, (and that doesn’t mean you give up your love for them – because love and attachment have nothing to do with one another,  attachment comes from a place of fear, while love… well, real love is pure, kind, and self less, where there is love there can’t be fear, and because of that, attachment and love cannot coexist) you become so peaceful, so tolerant, so kind, and so serene. You will get to a place where you will be able to understand all things without even trying. A state beyond words.

15. Give up living your life to other people’s expectations. Way too many people are living a life that is not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them, they live their lives according to what their parents think is best for them, to what their friends, their enemies and their teachers, their government and the media think is best for them. They ignore their inner voice, that inner calling. They are so busy with pleasing everybody, with living up to other people’s expectations, that they lose control over their lives. They forget what makes them happy, what they want, what they need….and eventually they forget about themselves.  You have one life – this one right now – you must live it, own it, and especially don’t let other people’s opinions distract you from your path.

This is what my happiness looks like: 

What does your happiness look like??

Long time coming...

Alright friends and family, near and far... the blog life has returned. The year 2012 was probably THE busiest year of our lives. We found out we were expecting in late March, had a terrible rough pregnancy through one of the hottest Colorado summer's on record, my brother got married, my sister in law got married, we had another (adorable) little boy, and have decided to sell our first home! Woah.

We L.O.V.E. our home. Like, we think it is the best house ever for a first home. With that being said, we are growing out of it. It is a beautiful 3 bedroom 3 bathroom house, but with 2 kids and a dog, we need and want more space. Because the housing market has been so hot lately, we decided to jump on the bandwagon and sell in order to upgrade to a bigger house, and closer to both grandparents - SCORE!

I can not even believe it has been almost three years since we welcomed our first baby into the world. He is not even a baby anymore and has quite the personality. He love Thomas the Train, Cars, the iPad, sports, swimming, and playing outside. He is growing into such a cute kid, and reminds me of it every day when he says "mom, hold me like a kid." And I am reminded of it every night when he crawls into a BED... I cannot even believe my baby is in a bed. Having him as my first baby taught me so much. Now, when I am waking up every three hours with the "Luke-man," I just stare at him beautiful face and cherish those night where I am the only one who gets him all to myself. Although, one night of continuous sleep would be nice, but oh well! I can't believe how much faster time flies by with a second baby. With Aiden, all I wanted was for him to crawl, then walk, then talk, then play sports, then wear bigger clothes. With Luke, time cannot seem to slow down. It is unreal how grown up my boys are already!

That is all for tonight... as of now our house is under contract. We are waiting for the new buyers to submit the inspection to their lender to figure out what we need to do! As for our new house, I cannot wait to share my decorating, crafting, thrifting, and growing babies with you all!