I'm Tired.

I have had a lot of people ask me to start writing here again.  Honestly, I have missed it. I just don't feel like I have enough time. Which is dumb, because I can make time for something that makes me happy.

Between being a wife, mom, full time student, housekeeper, chef, personal shopper, chauffeur, entertainment specialist, dish washer, dog walker, lunch maker, laundry maid, therapist, teacher, diaper changer, pee-cleaner-upper, nurse, milk maker, storyteller, tantrum-tamer.....oooooohmygosh. Can you tell I'm a bit tired? I love my life, I'm just pooped. 


This morning, I was listening to my favorite Christian Pandora station and Overcomer by Mandisa came on.  I am so in love with this song today.

This is my favorite verse with the chorus following:

The same Man, the Great I am
The one who overcame death
He's living inside of You
So just hold tight, fix your eyes
On the one who holds your life
There's nothing He can't do
He's telling you

[chorus]

You're an overcomer
Stay in the fight ‘til the final round
You're not going under
‘Cause God is holding you right now
You might be down for a moment
Feeling like it's hopeless
That's when He reminds You
That you're an overcomer
You're an overcomer

Everybody's been down
Hit the bottom, hit the ground
Ooh, you're not alone
Just take a breath, don't forget
Hang on to His promises
He wants You to know

You're an overcomer

God is good, so glad there are great reminders that the stuff we are going through is no big deal and that HE has our backs!

I am in no way in a "bad" spot.  I'm just a tired mom. Comes with the job, right?   Anyways...I'll get back to my normal self in the next post, I promise!

Coming up: DIY natural disinfecting wipes, DIY reed diffusers, my love affair with essential oils, and some random rants.

Truth In The Tinsel

For the Christmas and Advent season this year, our family has decided to focus full force on Jesus.  Elf on a Shelf and Santa can wait.  We're laying the groundwork of the "true meaning of Christmas". Growing up Lutheran, we celebrated Advent.  I didn't realize that everyone didn't celebrate Advent. So, if you don't know, Advent is the weeks leading up to Christmas where we focus on Jesus' birth and events leading up to it. 

I had been looking for a way to teach B(3  years old) an age appropriate way of teaching about Advent and Jesus' birth when a friend of mine from It's Our Long Story posted on her Instagram a give away link for something that looked very appealing. 

After doing some reading, I decided that Truth In The Tinsel would be perfect for our family.  The Truth in the Tinsel gives us 24 days of Jesus, lessons, crafts, special time, and memories leading up to Christmas.  It's so important to us to lay this special and true groundwork for our kids.    Each day has a scripture passage, directions to make an ornament, and a talking point that helps get the message into the heart of the kids.  

I got B a prelit 3ft Christmas tree for his room to put the ornaments on that we make during our lessons and he looooooves it!  I can hear him at nap time and bedtime talking about his ornaments and counting the lights.

We finished day 3 last night, and I'm totally amazed by the amount of information he has taken in and how when asked, he can tell me all about the past three days.  

Each day, we make a simple ornament (as instructed in the book) during our quick lesson.  B has done great with this!  Here are the first three ornaments:

Day 1, Light

Day 1: We talked about light and how the world was in darkness before Jesus.   B remembers that "Jesus is the light of the world"

Day 2, The Crown

Day 2: We talked about God's kingdom and that a king would come who would rule forever.  We also talked about how the king would have many names.  B remembers Jesus is also called the "Prince of Peace"

Day 3, Zechariah- mom fail on this one.

 

Day 3: We learn about Zechariah and how the angel Gabriel spoke to him about the miracle that would happen for he and Elizabeth. Since Zechariah did not believe him, Gabriel made Zechariah unable to speak until the baby was born.  What b remembers is that Zechariah couldn't talk until the baby is here.  He also remembers something about Elizabeth.  

On day 3 I didn't have all of the right supplies, which is silly because at the beginning of the book there is an entire page that tells you a list of supplies and then another page that tells you which supplies are needed on each day.  Oops. We call that a mom fail.

I am a HUGE fan of the Truth in the Tinsel.  It's not too late to start, if you are interested!  Also, if you don't want to get all of the supplies for the crafts, you can download the printable ornaments and color them with your child.  You can skip around, do more than one lesson a day, take supplies with you if you're traveling.  Seriously, this is easy and awesome.  It's an eBook and is cheap. no excuses.

Oh, me? hi.

Life has been nuts.  Had that sweet baby girl, she's awesome.  B is an awesome big brother.  We're just in love and so stinking blessed.

She's breastfeeding like a champ, has a baby cousin who is 3.5 weeks younger than she is. She smiles and laughs, she's just plain awesome.

B counts to 17, knows his ABCs, loves to laugh, and is all around amazing. 

We.are.so.blessed.

"but what do you DO all day?"

I'm 33 weeks pregnant and have been having some pretty terrific preterm labor issues.  I have contractions pretty much constantly.  Sometimes they come only 2-3 times an hour, other times they kick up to every 2-3 minutes.  Some are painful, some are not. It sucks.  I spent three nights last week in the hospital and made another quick visit yesterday because of quick coming contractions. There's no way to tell if the contractions are being 'producticve' unless you go in and see the {awesome} nurses in the labor and delivery department.  I mean, I guess my husband could try to do some cervical checks, but no thanks.

Because of the preterm labor, I'm on bed rest.  Complete bed rest.  Like, I can't get up to do much of anything aside from pee and go to doctors appointments/labor and delivery. 

Before bed rest was implemented, I was a full-time stay at home mom.  I won't lie, I was a seriously freaking fun mom.  My doctor very frankly told me that there is no way to keep baby H safe and take care of B at the same time. ::cue heart break sounding music:: he is now in daycare from the time my husband drops him off on the way to work until he picks him up on the way home.  Seriously, sad mommy about that, but I know it's best for both of my kids.

Anyways, so to answer the question that i keep getting, "What do you do all day?" this is what I do:

5am - take meds
6am - take meds, make sure hubs gets up and into the shower, start waking B up, have hubs bring me his clothes into our room and get him dressed/ready for "school".  Snuggle.
7 am-  "get up" make the bed, spray some linen spray, open blinds, wash my face, brush my teeth
8am - take meds, find food and take it back to bed, drink a ton of water, take a nap
10am - wake up, play on facebook, return emails, watch TV, hubs usually calls within the hour to check up on me
11am- take meds
Noon- eat something, make myself chug water, nap.
2pm- take meds, write thank-you notes, start crappy movie,write thank you notes to all the people who have brought us meals or took our son for a bit of time so hubs could get a few things done.
5pm-take meds, hubs and kid get home, dinner
8pm-take meds, take a shower, watch a movie/TV with hubs after the kid goes to sleep
11pm-take meds, go to sleep.  Then I wake up about 4 times to pee and it's time to start the day again.

Yes, I take meds 9 times a day.  Soon I will only have to take meds 6 times a day. Super exciting!



Bed rest isn't fun, but I know it's worth it. Hopefully I have a few more weeks of it!   Luckily, right now I have a project in planning/getting stuff ready for my little sister's baby shower! I love that I have something to think about and I'm really praying that I get to go.  Mid-August, this kid will be 37 weeks, I should be able to get out of bed to go to the shower! Keeping my legs closed until then.

Baby Wipe Solution

So remember how a few months ago I posted about how I freaked out about all the chemicals in baby wipes and cut up a bunch of tshirts and decided to make my own? No, well Read this then.

I ran into a few problems with the wipes in the container. Turns out when the baby wipe companies put wipes into containers, they use a billion chemicals to make sure that they don't turn to mold or start to stink.

My wipes, however, do not have chemicals to prevent this, so we got some stinky wipes in the container.  I started making a wipe solution and putting it in a spray bottle.  I now spray my wipes (or my kid) with the solution. Problem solved.

Just wanted to give an update.

To remind you, my recipe:


Baby Wipe Solution

• 2 Table Spoons Burt's Bees Baby Shampoo and Body Wash
• 2 Tablespoons Liquid Coconut oil
• 3 cups Distilled Water

Bug Spray

Deet is totally bad for you.  Which really stinks, because it is awesome at keeping bugs away.  Pinterest has all these awesome recipes for DIY bug spray, so I thought I should probably try one out.  When I went to my local health food store, they were out of whatever oil it was that I needed, but they had a recipe for a natural one there, so I decided to try it.  It's super easy and cheap!

Natural Bug Spray

• 8oz Spray Bottle
• 6oz Water
• 2oz Witch Hazel 
• 30-50 drops Citronella (the more you use, the stronger the scent)

Boom, that easy.

The three of us sat outside and watched our neighbors set off fireworks the night before Memorial day.  There were tons of mosquitoes out, they were flying around us a ton, but none landed on us.  Not one bite.  Awesome!

The only downside to this solution is that with any type of natural solution, you're going to have to use more and reapply.  This didn't bother my 2.5 year old because it doesn't stink, stink, and isn't sticky.  But, if that's a huge pain to you, it may not be worth it.

I'm a fan, but even better was that my husband was a fan.  That makes it a win.

My Shower Cleaner

My shower cleaner is probably no different than many others who make their own shower cleaner.  There are actually so many of this exact same "recipe" on the web, that I couldn't even begin to guess or give credit to the person who I "took" the idea from. ha.  Anyways, if it was you, thanks.


Super easy, two ingredients.

Shower Cleaner

• 1 part Blue Dawn Dish Soap 
• 1 part distilled white vinegar

yep, that's it.   I make mine in a big bottle, so I don't have to make it as often. 

I spray the shower and tub, let the cleaner sit for a few minutes and then wipe it down with a sponge. If the tub really needs to be scrubbed, I throw some Baking Soda down, too.  Then rinse. I never worry about my 2.5 year old drinking bathtub water, hoping that I rinsed all of the cleaner down the drain well enough. Super easy. Super safe.

Soap scum and all other kid scum is gone. Perfect!