Toddler and nursery decor

I have a great spacious room for the kids. We moved into a 3 bedroom right before Joslyn was born to give us 300 more square feet for only 100 bucks more a month. Now people can really come and visit and I don't have to have our desk in our room. Needless to say our apartment isn't all put together yet but I am trying to figure out the kids room at this time. Here is what thayne and I have been working on...

This is a cross stitch growth chart. It took me about six months to do. I went to Michaels and had it framed. I plan on measuring the kids with a measuring tape and then marking with a dry erase how tall they are. Thayne already loves it. 

So for Thayne's name in his room I did this...

It takes up a TON of room and I never want to hang it. And now I have two names to have in the room I wanted to keep it simple. I found inspiration from none other than Pinterest.

Under the J and the T it reads J is for Joslyn and T is for Thayne. I want to make their names bigger so I might redo it but for now I'm loving it. I think thayne and I will paint the letters from his name and do another project from it. What do you think? The colors I'm loving to tie both genders are blue green and pink. 

Apparently blogger doesn't like iPhone pictures so I'll have to take some better ones when the room is all put together. 

How is everything going?

"So how is everything going?" Is a question I get A LOT! Haha this question should really be... "How is life with a toddler and a newborn?" Well, it's not easy but it's never dull.

I get all sorts of "help" sometimes resulting in injuries.

I get excited about gear like this...

I'm able to still do the things I love with the babies I love. 

I do lots of this...

Sometimes even ending with surprise packages mom gets to clean up. 

I feed A LOT!

I get to bake and create a lot...

...and clean messes. 

I find things like this going on while I'm feeding...

(He ate the cardboard of this cereal box) even though one was already open. 

Needless to say its so fun with two. Crazy... But fun! I need to get a picture of both kids crying at the same time,.. There is also lots of that. There are also lots of laughs and smiles to go around. So to answer your question everything is fabulously insanely great with a toddler and a baby! 

All about... Nursing pads

I know, I know it's been a while. I've been  a little busy.. Maybe even barely keeping my head above water kind of busy.

But I've been dying to do a post on this because I had a hard time finding info about it when I was looking so I hope this helps someone else. I do cloth diapers and love to save money by using reusable things. My quest was to find a cloth nursing pad. I bought two different kinds and wanted to see the difference.  Here is a picture of two reusable kids and one disposable. These are the fronts of the nursing pads (or sides that will be touching your breast)

We will start left to right. 

The first one is a pink daisy nursing pad (bamboo). This one had a lot of bad reviews and I had to see for myself. Comes in a pack of six. 

Cost:$12

Pros

It's washable and soft.  Yup that's about it. 

Cons

It's huge. The sides have ruffled after washing. And it's noticeable even under a looser shirt. It actually is pretty easy to leak through. Is the same on the front back and moves around like crazy even with a sports bra on. 

Bottom line:Don't recommend this one at all!!!

The middle one is a bravado moisture wick. This one also had some bad reviews. But had more positive ones than the pink daisy. Comes in a pack of six. 

Cost: $13.60

Pros: works great, feels great. Has a seam on the back to help stay in place. I didn't feel like it showed anymore than a disposable would. 

Cons: for long stretches(like 6 hours) or early in breast feeding can leak. But at that point even the disposables can leak. Other than that I love them! 

Bottom line: I recommend these for cloth nursing pads!

This is a picture of what I recommend. The bravado ones act most like the disposables and I have been happy with them. I think two packs would be perfect if you don't do laundry everyday. But with two kids and two adults I'm doing laundry everyday. So just one pack works good for me.

The back side of the cloth and disposable the seam helps it stay and flow more with your bod. 

Oh and it is thicker on one half than the other. Which is desirable... Trust me. 

Breast feeding saves money why not try to save more money? Would you consider cloth nursing pads? 

Easter

Easter morning was pretty crazy as you can imagine with a brand new 

baby at home. But Adam... I mean the Easter bunny still was very diligent in making 

sure Thayne got an Easter basket and eggs.

He did not know what to think when he found an egg trail. (The Easter bunny thought maybe we should wait till next year to hide the eggs)

He found his basket and was very excited to find toys 

once he figured out what was in the eggs he couldn't wait to collect them all!

After church we were able to visit with our cousins Stacey, Kiah, and Ramon! Stacey grew up in 

Logan and know all the secrets. She told us about this super cool tradition that people

do every year on Easter. Everyone goes to "Old Main" which is a hill by the USU campus,

they decorate their eggs and then roll them down the hill.

We were a little busy so we didn't decorate any eggs but...

we found this egg down the hill still intact. 

So we rolled it down the hill. That is about all the attention span Thayne had so 

its probably good that we didn't decorate a bunch of eggs. 

These are the seagulls flying in to eat all the eggs. 

Thayne loved picking up all the broken eggs. 

He would not let go of these two pieces. He checked the ground over and over again to make sure he 

had the best pieces around.

Adam got Joslyn and I hanging out watching the boys run around.

Thayne smelling his egg. He kept saying MHHHHMMMM! We tried to tell him eggs don't actually

smell good they just smell. But he just kept going on MHHHHHMMMMing. 

What traditions did you find this year? 

Joslyn

I've been a horrible blogger... but I figured this post will make up for anything not written in the last little 

while. 

We had our sweet baby Joslyn born. 

The doctor stripped my membranes on wednesday and gave us a 50/50 chance that we would have her that night. Sure enough it worked and after a 4 hour labor (so much better than 23) we 

have our healthy, beautiful, little girl. 

Here is right after she is born. 

While in the hospital (Ugh was so nice to leave I hate being trapped) 

I wrote these texts to Adam...

Apparently I couldn't even think straight. Sleep deprivation will be a common occurrence in the

next few weeks, months, ok possibly even years.  

But look at this little cutie. How can you say its not worth it?

Grandma rocking her babies to sleep. So grateful to have my Mum to help. 

She is singing all the songs she sang to us as kids. 

So far Adam is still the only parent who has gotten kisses from the kids. 

Joslyn was kissing him back. I tried it and she just stares at me. hehe I don't mind. 

I love looking into her eyes.

Thayne is handling her arrival like a champ. He likes to come up to her and whisper "baby". 

He has already tried to get her to play with him. He also always has to know where she is.

If she is in a different room he will ask where she is. 

Happy march!

Spring is almost here right? It seems like everyone is sick of winter. Thayne and I were pleasantly surprised that it got above 40 degrees.

To celebrate we went on a long walk and made some homemade play dough (see picture). He loved it and I loved that I didn't have to worry about him eating it. I got out some cookie cutters for him to make shapes and keep his interest for longer than five minutes.

So I am 35 weeks along. I wanted to go on a road trip to California to see Adams parents but my doctor actually laughed at me when I brought it up. He couldn't believe I was even considering it after thayne being so early last time. He talked some sense to me and set up to have another ultra sound to see how everything is going. If she is born the same time as thayne she would be here in a week in a half. How crazy is that? I'm hoping she stays in a bit longer. Although now I'm prepared.

Mom and Dad I'm back!

Moving in with parents when you have already left home

These are my parents. They were kind enough to let us move in with them to save some money.

I have been wanting to do this blog post for a while and even while I was living there I wrote down things I liked and maybe didn't like about moving back in. 

I want to share my experience because I feel a lot of young (and maybe not so young) 

people are doing this to save some money. 

Would I recommend it? Bottom line yes. 

You do save a ton of money not only in rent but if you share food together its much easier there as well.

But for how long? That is where it totally depends. 

Maybe a list of pros and cons will help? And two different scenarios.

I want to do the cons first because I like ending on a happy note. 

Cons:

Privacy

Dual Parenting

Family Drama

Those are really it. I think the biggest problem was the "dual parenting". My parents want to be grandparents. And rightly so. They want to spoil him and not have to discipline him. Which is fine when you visit your family on weekends but when you have grandparents and grandkids together everyday you can't have this. 

It was definitely hardest on me. Thayne literally hated me while we lived there. I did the disciplining and all the other things he did not like. It really hurt me. 

It also made me not like my mom because Thayne liked her better (sounds silly but have your only child hate you and you will know what I mean)

Which then hurt our relationship.  

BUT 

I do have a friend living with her parents and she has a daughter about the same age as Thayne. 

She loves living at home because her parents help with the parenting.

Its all about if you can handle some conflicting opinions and work through it.

I also think that if both you and your spouse are working then these are eliminated. 

My parents were home most the time with me and probably is what was so hard.

Onto the Pros:

First of all you save money

Reconnect with family-my sister is a senior and there is a 6 year gap and it was great to re-get-to-know her.

Get help with children

Family Meals Together- something I always enjoy

Able to do more things

We had a lot of fun with my family. They like to do a lot of things and invited us to be apart of it. 

For instance; boating, going to the gym, doing races, going skiing, ect.

We were able to do baby swap and spend time together and doing things we loved. 

I really felt like I re met my family I enjoyed being close (we still live close). 

Overall it was a great experience and we are so grateful we were able to do it. 

To make living at home work for you I would set everything up before you get there. 

If you have children the rules you have for them. 

Privacy rules like if our bedroom door is closed and its after 9:00pm DON'T OPEN THE DOOR

(apparently this was a rule that had to be said)

Things like that. I think the less you are at the home the easier it is to stay longer. We did six months and that worked out perfect for us. I love my family and again am so grateful we got to live with them. 

I am even more grateful that they still love us and try to come visit as much as they can.

Have you considered moving back in with mom and dad to save money?