Today was a conference day at my school. I spent all morning in conferences and then a staff meeting. A wonderful parent brought us a tasty lunch to eat while we chatted. I came home, put Mac down for a nap, put in some laundry and drank a latte while I worked on blog stuff. We had homemade fried rice for dinner and after Mac had a bath and went to bed, I had a glass of wine while I typed up this post. Not all days go this well. But this is just a typical day in my life.
Also, I was really feeling my outfit this morning, so I took a picture. Today instead of changing poopy diapers and crawling around on the ground, I sat in meetings all day. Although I did clean the fish tank in this outfit. This was the best picture I got because Mac and Ralph really wanted to get themselves in there too.
So, today is Throwback Thursday and I thought I would tell the story of the time I cracked my head open while doing a waterski pyramid. As most people haven’t done any show skiing, I have a little explaining to do. And as an aside, the pictures I am posting will be a little blurry for two reasons: 1) They were small pictures that I blew up and 2) I try not to post pictures of people who don’t give me their express permission, so I blurred these so you could get the general idea without seeing the other people clearly.
I spent 6 years skiing with a show team in my home town. We were a family oriented team who competed, but were more into creating a fun show for all ages. I wasn’t great on skis myself, but I did a lot of other things like climbing pyramids and doing doubles routines along with land acts like acting and dancing.
Today is my sister Molly’s 21st birthday! So we celebrated yesterday with a simple, family party. It was incredibly windy and Mac was not feeling good, so it could have turned out terrible. But instead we were able to pull together a fun little get-together to celebrate her. We even managed to Facetime with Mason in Germany, but we were so excited to all talk and give him a tour of the new living room arrangement that we forgot to take pictures of it.
This was the not feeling good I was talking about. She wasn’t sick, but she certainly wasn’t herself. She was mad about the wind and mad because I dared set her down when she asked me to.
See, she did okay most of the time. Mac had to bring her Clifford to go meet the other dogs at the party. Jojo looks thrilled, obviously. BFFs fo sho.
My dad (or Chief, as Mac calls him) was helping Jojo and Maclaine compare bellies. Beware, if you are around Mac, she may demand you show her your belly.
The big girl insisted on her own chair. Of course, the queen gets her way at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.
I’ll narrate Molly’s thoughts in this collage: (1) What the hell is Bob doing? (2) I thought it was weird he had to leave so suddenly. (3) Oh god, did he go buy me a present?
The last-minute shopper that he is, Bob left the party to buy Molly’s birthday present. Thankfully, she had already opened the present from us, so he could just reuse the gift bag.
Here is Maclaine, showcasing Molly’s new shoes that she got from Bob. If anyone wants to book Mac for some catalog shoots, let me know. She is obviously great at showcasing products.
Mama and Maclaine bonded.
Maclaine loved being a free range baby. We live in a townhouse, so we don’t have a yard that she can wander around in. She loved following the dogs around the yard.
Mama had a great time indulging Mac’s every whim.
Halfway through the birthday celebration, Mac decided she needed a nice outdoor nap. Of course she had to have it cuddled up to her Mommy because she didn’t feel well.
Mama’s first selfie!
We busted out the bocce ball on this beautiful day. In true mommy form, I played with my baby strapped to my chest.
Sometimes I ask my sister to take pictures and I mostly get selfies of her making dumb faces. And sometimes I get cool pictures like this one.
We were all super concentrated on the game.
Like I said, it was windy.
But Mac still enjoyed her first s’more!
By this point, Mac was pretty clearly wanting us to wrap it up and go home. So we did. Stay tuned for Birthday Adventures Part 2: Party Bus Edition, coming next weekend. Keep me in your thoughts as us old people attempt to keep up with the youngins.
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I will come right out and admit it. I am a pack rat. I keep material things around because I’ve attached feelings and emotions to them. I have tried in the past to go through and simplify my belongings. I end up getting rid of a few things, but I also end up keeping loads of weird stuff like t-shirts that barely fit and a key chain I bought on a field trip in 5th grade. Tidying just doesn’t seem to be my natural strong suit.
Then, two things happened that made me get rid of box after box of my belongings: I had a baby and I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. After that I had the reason to simplify and the push to make it happen. Now after a long winter, I am ready to continue the process. So I am re-reading the book to get more motivation.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am totally a Christmas fan. I wait all year for the holiday season and then I decorate to the max while watching Christmas movies and drinking hot chocolate. So other holidays pale in comparison for me. Now that I have a baby, though, it is important to me to make all holidays special in some way. Easter was no exception. I put up some Easter decorations and even found an Easter special on DVD at Target. But as with most things, I had a bad mom moment along with some good mom moments.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. That means if you buy through my link, I may receive compensation at no extra cost to you. For more information, see my disclosure page here.
When Andrew and I decided to cloth diaper, we got a lot of push back. Don’t get me wrong, it was all well-meaning. People were concerned we didn’t think it through and they wanted to make sure we understood our decision, especially because cloth diapers are a big up-front cost. But we found that a lot of their concerns were unfounded. Andrew especially considers himself totally on the cloth diaper side, despite being on the fence before Mac was born. (Make sure you also check out cloth diapering 101 and my minimalist’s guide to cloth diaper accessories.)
Our main, everyday diapers are Grovia Hybrid. We like the 2 in 1 diapers because we don’t have to change the shell as often. You just have to change out the pad. This was especially nice during the newborn stage. At night we use pocket diapers. A lot of them we bought second-hand, but my favorite to buy are bumGenius. Not only are the bumGenius diapers adorable, but we have really put them through a lot and they still are looking great! There are so many great companies, but these are two that we have used extensively and love.
I will also put in a plug here for using a diaper service. If you are not sure about the laundry part of cloth diapering, look into diaper services. They are usually pretty fairly priced and you get the best of both worlds: cloth diapers and a few less loads of laundry a week!
So here’s the deal, I change disposable diapers all day long at work, so I have plenty of experience with them. Full disclosure, we also used disposables with Mac for the first few weeks until her umbilical cord stump fell off. Someone had given us a box of newborn diapers, so we didn’t have to buy any. But you can purchase cloth newborn diapers, which I am considering the next time a baby enters our lives. Either way, I have experience with both kinds of diapers and after everything, I recommend cloth diapers. Here are 5 reasons why:
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. That means if you buy through my link, I may receive compensation. For more information, see my disclosure page here.
It seems to be a natural scene: parents going out grocery shopping, lugging their baby in a bucket seat that they set in the basket of the cart, parents lugging their baby in a bucket seat into the school to pick up their preschooler, parents lugging their baby in a bucket seat into the clinic waiting room where the baby hangs our while mom or dad fills out paperwork.
So it might seem totally weird when I tell you that we didn’t use an infant bucket seat at all, not even when Mac was a newborn. Right from the beginning, we had her in a convertible seat that had a padded insert and could tilt back for newborns. (In case you are wondering, we use the Britax Marathon G4.1 Convertible Car Seat . We have never had any problems. It fits in both of our small cars and Mac has been comfortable in it from birth until now! In fact, she is still rear facing in it at the age of 2.5.)
You are probably curious about why and how I came to this decision. So here are the list of reasons I picked to skip the bucket seat and what I did instead.
While I was pregnant, I did some research on how to make a Montessori environment for an infant. I will be honest, I was a little intimidated because it sounded like a lot of work to take my already cluttered and messy living room and somehow also accommodate an infant who was supposed to have freedom of movement. We live in a 1,550 sq. ft. townhouse. I literally don’t have another room that I could revamp into a playroom. Mac even roomed in with us for almost a year, partly due to the fact that we had to go through the guest room and totally clean it out so she could sleep there. So the idea of dong Montessori at home in our living room was a little daunting.
Three Months Later: I made a few updates on things we have already changed.
My brother Mason is leaving on Friday to be a professional water skier in Germany for 8 months. I know that sounds like I am making stuff up, but it is true. It is going to be such an awesome experience for him, but we are going to miss him an awful lot. So my dad decided to put together a little family party for him.
Of course, my family never plans anything in advance, so on Saturday afternoon, I received this as a picture message.
Because my family is awesome, we all automatically RSVP’d without even thinking it was weird in any way. We also clarified that this could include snow sculptures and that my dad was the judge. Andrew and I put on our thinking caps and came up with a plan for our sculpture.
Today we celebrated Mac’s first birthday with a small, family party. She was first apprehensive, then loved being the center of attention, and then was too tired to function. So it was a great party.
For Christmas, Andrew got a green screen stand that we have since used a few times as a party background. It worked great to hang a “Happy Birthday” banner on. We also served sandwiches, veggies and dip, buffalo chicken dip with tortilla chips, and Ikea veggie balls (for us vegetarians and vegans.)