Grand Cayman 2019 | Part Two

The above photo is one of my favorites from this trip and perfectly captures the vibes of this vacation - slow, relaxing and beautiful, with Max wearing Finn in the Baby Bjorn, and Parker two seconds away from running out onto the beach to frolic in the waves. 

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Finn Edward | Six Months

Finn has been halfway around the sun! He is wearing size 9-12 month clothing and size three diapers. This was a BIG month as he went on his first airplane ride, earned his first passport stamp, saw the ocean for the first time, started eating solids, and moved to sleeping full-time in his nursery (no more bassinet by Mama and Dada's bed - he pretty much outgrew it!). He's still waking up at least once a night to nurse, but his nursery is right next to our bedroom which is nice.

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Grand Cayman 2019 | Part One

Earlier this month, we headed out on our first vacation as a family of four! We wanted something beautiful and relaxing, so our favorite island was just the ticket.

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Finn Edward | 5 Months

We blinked and September was over, and somehow our babe is five months old! He is still our high maintenance grumpster,  but he's napping more which helps everything. And while he's super picky about most things, he'll take a bottle straight up cold so I guess that makes up for it?

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Parenting Is Messy

This post is sponsored by Armor All but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

Raise you hand if you've ever changed a diaper out of the back of your car? Fed a toddler a chicken nugget meal in his car seat? Spilled coffee all over the driver's side and center console? I'm guilty of all this and more.

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PCK | 6.5 Years

Our sweet Parker Klein turned six-and-a-half this month! This guy is a sports loving, rule following, chess playing, bundle of energy. He's an old soul and a voracious reader, and is missing four front teeth! We celebrated his half birthday by heading out for a donut breakfast before school.

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Recent Reads | Evvie Drake Starts Over

I joined a book club! When I was first asked to join, I almost immediately declined because life has been so full since Finn arrived (and sleep has been so minimal). I mean, when was I going to read all these new books? And then I remembered the hours and hours of nursing time Finn and I put in, and realized that all I needed to do was prop up any book during a few feedings and I could knock it out in just a few days (fun fact - exclusively breastfed babes require the equivalent of a full time job's worth of hours over the course of a year of nursing). 

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Finn Edward | 4 Months

It's been a third of a year with our Finn Edward! He's continuing to trend tall, coming in at the 90th percentile for hight (26.5 inches) and 50th for weight (15 lbs. 13 oz.). The doctor used the words "big" and "strong" 😊 Finn is wearing size 6-9 month clothing and is barely still in size 2 diapers. New this month: we're rolling back to front and front to back!

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8.29.09

                                                                 photo credit: Karen Tamaki 

Taylor Swift's new album Lover was released last week. This was an August album drop, however most of her other release dates have been right around my October birthday. In years past, I'd use it as an excuse to peruse the aisles of Target, stopping at the music section and putting the CD in my red Target basket (I was especially tickled pink when the Red album release day was on my actual birthday).

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Back-to-School Sleep

This post is sponsored by Natrol but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

I don't know about your family, but in the summer we throw bedtimes out the window. In an effort to soak in all the season has to offer (Late night ice cream! Extra inning baseball games! Dinners at the pool!) we let Parker stay up much later than he does during the school year. We totally don't stress about it since our mornings can start later, too, but come the new school year, our mornings are back to bright and early and we need a sleep reset.

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Summer Bucket List 2019

For the past few summers, Parker and I have brainstormed a "Summer Bucket List" - a group of ideas and outings that we want to do over the break in school. Some of the list items (visiting the botanical garden, going to concerts in the park) we always do several times anyway, but Parker is like his Mama and loves a list! He also loves crossing each item off as we get to it. This past week, we finally got to the very last item on our 2019 list, perfect timing as school is starting on Wednesday (side note: I blinked and summer was over). Here's what we've been up to:

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The Fourth Trimester

photo credit: Olivia Reed

They call the first three months after birth the "fourth trimester" - typically babies eat, sleep, and grow a lot and not much else. While our dear Finn has been a champ at eating (and growing), he apparently didn't get the sleep memo. These past three months have been a doozy. Max and I are basically running on 2 hour chunks of sleep. At one point I was legitimately quizzing Max on whether or not we could die from lack of sleep - apparently sleep deprivation makes me very paranoid. There are studies that show that an insufficient amount of sleep makes the brain function in a similar way to being drunk, and I'll attest that the night I squirted contact solution onto a cotton ball and tried to take off my eye makeup with it felt very much like having one too many drinks, ha ha! I eventually figured out that I needed makeup remover instead but it took a hot minute. Here's a look back at Finn's first three months...

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Trending Now | Charcoal Toothpaste!

This post is sponsored by Colgate but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

Charcoal is beauty's biggest trending ingredient right now - and so it only seems fitting that it's now available in toothpaste! New Colgate Essentials with Charcoal Toothpaste provides the Colgate quality and value, along with the opportunity to try all charcoal has to offer. 

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Fast & Furious | The Birth of Finn Edward

58 minutes. That's the amount of time it took to go from 4cm dilated to delivering a baby - into the hands of a nurse, no less, because when I say "fast and furious" I completely mean it. Finn's birth was so completely different than Parker's - and so much quicker. With my first pregnancy, it took eleven hours to go from 3cm to 5cm, and another six hours after that to deliver the baby. Both L&Ds had some frightening elements for sure, but both resulted in healthy babies and a healthy Mama, and I was able to do both without an epidural (which, after safe and healthy was really my only other wish, thank my inner California hippie side for that one).

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Bumpdate | 9 Months

Baby is the size of a: watermelon!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: +29 lbs. (but still able to wear my wedding rings this time around, wahoo!)

Maternity Clothes: Technically, I've gained less weight with this pregnancy but I'm somehow BIGGER - so big, that the maternity clothing I've saved for six years from last pregnancy don't fit, Hrmph. 

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Bumpdate | 8 Months

Baby is the size of a: pineapple!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: +27 pounds (like carrying around three bowling balls all day every day... and it feels like it!) 

Maternity Clothes: Loving warmer days and dresses!

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The Wild | Chinese Lantern Festival

The traveling Chinese Lantern Festival, The Wild, opened this past week at the Huntsville Botanical Garden and we made a family date of it to go check it out opening night. We've been members of the HBG since we moved here four years ago, and just love supporting it. 

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PCK | Six Year Interview

What is your name?
Harry Potter.

What is your age?
Six in March 18th.

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Asheville | North Carolina

One of the interesting things about living on the opposite side of the country from where you grew up is discovering all the new places people travel to. For example, when living in California, Las Vegas would be where you go for a crazy Bachelorette party (or break-up party as I once attended). Here in Alabama, the much closer New Orleans is the destination. For a tropical beach vacay, Hawaii is much closer to the West Coast, but when living in the South it's the Caribbean.

Asheville, North Carolina, is one of those gems I'd never even heard about before moving to Alabama. It's a day trip (5 hours) from Huntsville, but worth every second of the drive as I found out a few weeks ago when I headed there for the first time with my friend Sarah. Our goal? To spa it up and eat our way through the city. Spoiler alert - we succeeded!

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Bumpdate | 7 Months

Baby is the size of a: cantaloupe!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: +22 pounds... this was, by far, the biggest one-month gain so far!

Maternity Clothes: I find it impossible to wear maternity jeans, which is such a bummer! They will either fall down, or I get frustrated that they're so tight. My answer? Maternity overalls. Best. Thing. Ever. So comfy, and they stay up all on their own. 

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Life Lately | February

We kicked off February by hosting our sweet Nashville friends in town. We took in Parker's favorite, a Huntsville Havoc game! (Made even more favorite by the fact that they won and in overtime, which Parker says is like "more free hockey" and also lets him push back his bedtime which he's all about).

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Valentine's | 2019

I've always loved Valentine's Day - simply put, it's all my favorite things rolled into one! Pink, hearts, chocolates, flowers... Husby killed it this year with the ones photographed above that he snuck into the house while I was sleeping so I got to wake up to them! Valentine's Day is just the best. Being a teacher on Valentine's Day was always so much fun, and being a Mom is even better! 

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5 on Friday | Bookshelf Edition

Happy February! For my Friday Five today, I'm sharing five books that I'm super excited to dive into...

Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen are the authors of The Wife Between Us, one of my favorite reads of 2018. An Anonymous Girl is their new release, and I am so hoping it lives up to their first book! 

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What's Up Wednesday | January

Happy almost end-of January! How can it be? Today I'm linking up for a little What's Up Wednesday...

What we're eating...

After not being into sweets the first trimester-and-a-half, baby has now decided that I need #allthesweets. I made waffles this weekend and topped them with these caramelized bananas - so yummy! 

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Bumpdate | 6 Months

Baby is the size of: kale!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: +16 lbs (I totally made up for losing weight while I was sick!)

Maternity Clothes: Low point - my maternity tops from my first pregnancy don't fit anymore! I'm quite a bit, um, bustier this pregnancy. More shopping it is! 

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What's In My Cup

This post is sponsored by Celestial Seasonings but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

I gave up caffeine last year in an effort to help with our infertility battle, and have mostly kept that up during this pregnancy. I can count on one hand the number of coffees I've had over the last six months. When I recently came down with #alltheviruses, however, all I wanted was tea. Morning, noon, and night. 

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5 on Friday | January Edition

With each new calendar year, I always get the urge to declutter and organize. I wrote here and here about using Marie Kondo's books each January to help as a guide:

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2018 | Top Ten

Happy New Year! We rang in the last day of 2018 with a family fondue dinner at home reminiscing on our year. It was the first year in recent history that we've been home for NYE, and while we've had so much fun the past few years spending NYE with friends in Nashville and San Diego, this low-key night ringing in the new year for the last time as a family of three was just perfection to me.

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