I'm a bit nostalgic writing this post… over 2 years ago, I started this blog to capture our adventures at Walt Disney World when Bella (my little Cupcake, for those that only read the blog and don't follow our YouTube Channel, beingmommywithstyle) was only 9 months old! It was her first trip to WDW and I was excited to share it with her. At the time, I was not on YouTube full-time yet, and only took limited video of the trip. Oh how I wish now I had the camera out more during that time, and caught all those precious moments on film… but alas, at least I have pictures and a few videos.
And I'm back now, after a short blog hiatus - to share a Disney trip once again. This time with BOTH girls (Natalie, "aka Peanut" was "on" the last trip… but no one knew it yet, ha!), Natalie's first visit to Walt Disney World and the first vacation there that Bella would remember. I knew this would be an exciting time, and I was so thankful that I would now have more extensive videos to look back on in years to come.
We ventured to Disney World in Orlando the first week in April 2014, and the trip went marvelous… I will be sharing a separate blog recap post for each of the "Day in the Life" YouTube videos. These will be videos that I will look back and treasure for some time, and I'm excited to be able to share them with you. I will also be doing a blog recap of my YouTube Travel Prep series and traveling with toddlers. It was an adventure, but an extremely fun one at that!
I challenged myself to try some new meals this past week, and came across some great crock pot meal options on the blog Mommy's Fabulous Finds! I was trepidatious at first, to try something new. We started out with Pork Carnitas, which went great - then onto Teriyaki Porkchops which were also really good, and finally ended the week up with Honey Bourbon Chicken - which also turned out… you guessed it, great!
Watch on YouTube to see how quick and easy these meals were - as well as the final outcome!
Pork Carnitas:
Teriyaki Porkchops:
Honey Bourbon Chicken:
All in all, it was a great experiment - and I'm looking forward to trying some new meals next week as well!
Tah dah! Everyone at our house is now a princess... due to our wonderful new dress up organization for the girls' dresses and accessories! It works as great storage when the items are not in use and gives them easy access to use things during play time!
We had originally seen a dress up station on Wayfair.com, but my husband thought it was something he could tackle and do himself. We came across blogger Jess, that had that same thought on "Craftiness is not Optional", which even contained a link to another site by Ana White that had some plans for similar designs! He went to work on ours and came up with a design that would work great in our play room.
My husband put it together over a few weekends, with some additional work time being added on it by using a router on all of the edges to give them a rounded finish - so there were no sharp corners in the girls' play area. We picked out paint at Lowe's (Valspar "Plum Burst" 4002- 10B, in case you're looking for it!) - and made our own stencils on some card stock using a font in the word processing program on our computer. I think it turned out beautifully!
The top shelf has storage space for tiaras, cowboy hats, and the pirate hat... if it was ever not in use!
Lots of room to hold the ever important dresses & tutus!
The bottom has a bin that is a great little cubby for purses, shoes, and jewelry:
It has been a great addition to the play room! I will do an updated playroom organization video soon!
Here's the reveal of the dress up station to the girls for the first time - and a mini tour of their dress up items (so far, ha!) in their collection:
The girls loved it, as you can see here!
Cupcake looking all grown up in her Rapunzel costume!
Peanut enjoying the dress up selections!
Great job to Daddy and Grandad - and a very special thanks to Craftiness is Not Optional who was a great help in giving us inspiration for ours, and the plans by Ana White that she linked on her page that gave Daddy a great place to start for ours!
For Week 15 we talked about "Growing Grammar" and the letter 'G'!
We had a special play date planned that worked perfectly with our theme, where we painted some garden pots to plant flowers and vegetables in to watch them grow this summer.
Also, we completed some worksheets on the letter 'G', nouns (the part of grammar we were focusing on for the week), and did a 'G is for Giraffe' craft! Since giraffes are a particular weak spot of mine, I had a slight obsession with them while I was pregnant with Cupcake - and decorated the nursery with a jungle animal theme centering around giraffes - we did a "Mommy & baby" giraffe theme craft. I colored the spots on the mommy giraffe and had Cupcake help me glue it together, she colored the spots on the baby giraffe.
Week 14 of Preschool at Home was 'Fantastic Feelings!' week, where we talked about different feelings and emotions, since Cupcake has started to show interest in talking more about feelings. I had recently found a number of books to add to our collection on feelings, so we focused on those over the week and also did some feelings worksheets as well.
The letter of the week was 'F' and we did an 'F is for Fox' craft project!
I also incorporated feelings in an upcoming busy bag exchange that we are taking part in, and I will share that project in a future post - but the exchange happened to be the following week so it didn't line up exactly timing-wise with feelings week. We will continue to talk about feelings off and on in the future though, since Cupcake more interested in understanding what different feelings mean.
Independent play time is an important part of our schedule that we've worked on since the girls were around 6 months old. It starts in the play pen (or play yard) with a few toys and for a minimal amount of time - a great chance to clear out dishes from the sink or Swiffer the kitchen floor. Slowly the time amount builds and what started out as 10 or 15 minutes can grow to 30 minutes or even longer.
When they are younger, I found that I could be in an adjacent room where I could still see the play yard and my daughter would still play independently. This was important to me to not only let her gain the independence, but also get more comfortable with the idea myself. As she lengthened the time where she could play in the play yard, I could continue to add to chores that I could get done during the time that she was playing independently - and eventually it could even turn into a long enough period of time that you could get something essential done like take a shower.
For us, starting independent play time (IPT) early on really helped, because it eased the transition into the next phase of IPT once your child becomes a toddler... room time. Room time is a challenge all its own, as your child grows, they begin to explore their surroundings and want to expand their boundaries. Making sure their room is child proofed and a safe surrounding to have your toddler in for short periods of time independently is the foundation, once that is completed... you can begin your transition from IPT in the play yard, to independent play time in your child's room - or as we call it around our house, "room time".
Room time for us started early, before Cupcake's 2nd birthday actually... she was well adept at keeping herself entertained for up to a 45 minute period for IPT and was ready to drop her first nap. (When I had been taking my shower.) At this point, we decided to transition to toddler room time during her original first nap time and it has worked out great as far as time of day for us.
We started the transition over Christmas break while my husband was here to help with it. Once you begin the transition, it is like "starting all over again" - starting out with a short amount of time and slowly adding to it. We started out sitting in the room with her for the first week, then trialed room time for a short 5-10 minute period in the beginning - with one of us sitting outside of the door. That went well, so we slowly started adding to it and could move to other areas in the house on the second level. (Her baby monitor would be left on in the room of course, to hear the activity that was going on... and you could also use a video monitor during this time if you had one as well.)
Eventually, room time turned into the time on our schedule when Mommy was able to go take a shower, and also conveniently lines up with Peanut's morning nap time. (See my post on daily schedules for more about lining up a baby and toddler schedule together.
I'm very glad to have found out about the concept of independent play time and room time through our Babywise groups... these have worked out great for us and are an important part of our schedule each day. Do you do IPT or room time at your house?
Here's the link to the SAHM September video on Independent Play Time:
I started a new video series on beingmommywithstyle called "Stay at Home Mom September" to address a number of SAHM issue videos that I had been thinking of doing for a while now! I'm excited for this new series, because I think it will be a great way to start dialogue on different SAHM issues and also help me develop on these topics as well.
Some ideas I'm planning on addressing in the series are SAHM cleaning routines, daytime schedules, independent play time, activities with babies & toddlers (at home or outside of the house), and more! Please let me know if you have any specific questions you'd like me to address during this September video series! I hope to have a new video posted every few days during the month of September, depending on what time allows me to film.
Here is the introduction video to the series, on SAHM daytime schedules around the house:
I've found that schedules really help us to stay focused and happy throughout the day. Both the kids and myself know what is coming up next in the schedule and it keeps our day moving.
Well, technically she's 7 months old today! (Happy 7 months, Peanut!) However I posted this video last week when she was still 6 months old, a quick mini vlog - afternoon in the life, if you will - following us throughout the middle of the day. Day in the life videos are always so fun!
We were just around the house this day... we went out to sign up for swim class and then played outside later in the day. So it was a fairly low key day in the life!
Well, I didn't ever get around to blogging about the beginning of our daycare experiment... but I guess I can just summarize it at the end! I signed up the girls for a few mornings of daycare, so that Bella can go to parent & tot activities on the mornings that Natalie is there and giving Natalie a few mornings of Mommy time. (Well, one glorious morning I scheduled 4 hours to be able to do things like go get a haircut... which I have never gotten around to doing yet, by the way.)
A few things I learned during our month long experiment...
1) Nothing is open at 8am... unless you want to go to McDonald's or Target. I scheduled the girls from 8am until noon to try to avoid interrupting Bella's nap schedule, however I failed to realize that the only hours I would really be able to get anything actually DONE "errand wise" would be between 10am and noon... which doesn't leave much time when it takes upwards of 20-30 minutes to get back to the daycare location.
2) People ARE NOT joking, when they say your kids are going to be sick constantly after enrolling daycare. We've tried out daycare for a month, and my kids have pretty much been sick off & on... for a month. Bella has had the worst of it, more because I think she's in that age category where all the kids are sharing and licking every thing that they do share... ick.
3) Getting two kids ready and out the door in the morning is a hassle, not fun, and just generally... something I do not enjoy. (So if this was an experiment to see if me going back to work full-time was a possibility on the horizon, which it might have partially been... that is a giant no-go.)
4) On a positive note, I do really enjoy surprise artwork, made by little feet at daycare.
Natalie's first artwork masterpiece
So overall... it is just turning out that the original schedule I put together is not for us. Daycare is a valuable resource for parents that chose to or have to work part-time or full-time, and I applaud everyone that gets one or more children up and out the door every day to be somewhere on time... it is a chore. Especially with a little one in the 2 year old category! For now, I believe we will be chalking this up as a learning experience and dropping our schedule down from four mornings a week (which just seemed like too much), to two mornings a week. Which means that only Natalie will attend while Bella does some activities, and Bella will be forgoing her "school days" for now...
That's my plan right now to try to make it more manageable. Once Natalie starts chewing on everything, we shall see how it changes from there... It may realistically end up being zero days at that point. Mommy doesn't like having sick babies. At least through all of the sickness of the past month, they still have both stayed adorable.
Well, it has been a hectic week and getting near a computer with a moment to write anything sane has proved to be harder than usual.
I participated in my first "Pink Nail Polish Wednesdays" for On Wednesdays We Wear Pink... and was so busy I couldn't get pictures until today. I was wearing Zoya's Anaka at the beginning of the week, which is a gorgeous fuchsia pink... but decided to tone it down a little bit on Wednesday because I was going to tour a day care I'm looking at having the girls go to a few days a week. So I thought I would go with something a bit more subtle.
I put on Zoya's Reece... I just love this color! It is a gorgeous shimmer pink, that has gold highlights throughout. It's a truly unique polish and just one of those colors that makes you happy when you look at it! I did a little touch up today to take a picture, so it is still on my nails.
Zoya Reece
In other news, as I mentioned above - I'm looking into child care for the girls a few mornings a week so that I can take Cupcake to classes again while Peanut is at day care, and then have Cupcake get some socialization time with kids her same age a few mornings as well. It is a truly nerve-racking experience. I've been a SAHM since the start, so looking into part-time day care has been a big decision for us... but a necessary one. Not only do I think my sanity will benefit from having some 1 child mornings (and one glorious child free morning on Fridays!) - but to get Cupcake into swimming and gymnastics classes that I have to participate in... I have to have some sort of care worked out for Peanut. So it just seemed like the right way to go to work out a combo situation of days that they are both going.
I will keep you posted on how it goes... This SAHM is nervous about putting the girls into someone else's care, and also a bit miffed that I could get a new Speedy every month for the price of day care. I just need to keep repeating to myself: Sanity, sanity, sanity. Sanity is priceless.
