Tales from the trenches

That moment when you're strolling through Target and the baby is asleep and you had given the 2 year old your phone this time so she keeps her cool while you shop in peace. You're almost done shopping, then you see the baby start stirring. "Uh oh." You freeze. Oh good she's quiet again....Nope. Never mind. There goes the crazy arms followed by that unmistakable howl of a hungry baby that stops everyone in their tracks wondering whose kid that was. But what does one do? You contemplate making a beeline towards the fitting rooms to nurse , or just abandoning ship and head to the car defeated. Or.....maybe you can just sprint through those last few aisles, wildly throwing the last few things you needed in the cart all while the baby is screeching acting like she's never eaten before! You go for the latter because Lord knows you didn't go through all this trouble for nothing! You leave, get everything and everyone loaded in the car and the baby gets fed in the parking lot before having an epic meltdown.

Phew. Crisis averted. Till next time...

6 week sweetness

I'm not sure if it goes faster with each kid or what, but it's like I blinked and Ava is 6 weeks old. 6 weeks old! Good grief. I know, I know, I'm like a broken record with this saying, but I just can't believe how fast it's going this time. Faster than the other's. I guess it's because she's been pretty easy and I've been in newborn heaven. Come to think of it. It didn't go that fast with Mariam. She was colicky and tough for the longest and it felt like she was a baby forever. Pretty sure with her I was in a hurry for her to go through the tough phases quick. 

Ava is chunking up quite nicely. I feed her on demand and she likes to nurse a lot. She still sleeps a ton and goes through her nightly routine of off and on crying between 9 and 11 pm. She refuses to go to sleep before 11:30 pm. That's ok though. Just gives me more time to snuggle her uninterrupted.

On Fridays we sparkle

Sparkle onesie c/o Kateandsophia

Well my babies sparkle anyways.....as for me, sparkling I am not. This sweet babe was up almost every hour last night! At least one of us woke up looking fabulous. Even how tired I am or frustrated I might get, I sure am thankful for this little lady. So blessed to have her and it's been a blast dressing up a newborn again. Speaking of dressing up, I'm loving all the sparkle onesies and accessories Kate and sophia co on Etsy has to offer. So many different options for a little one!

Have a great weekend!

Ava is a month and life lately.

What in the world?! A month? How did that happen? It feels like we just brought Ava home from the hospital. I think it's gone by even faster because we have enjoyed every minute with her. She is amazing and though she has her fussy hours, she's still by far easier than the others were. This morning was a bit of an epic disaster. She refused to be put down today without crying all morning. i barely had any breakfast this morning and when it hit 10:30 am and I was getting ready to get everyone ready to pick up Layla from school, I realized that we had washed Ava's carseat cover last night and didn't put it back. I just could not figure it out and the time was creeping closer and closer to have to leave to pick up Layla. Ava was screaming her head off becuase I had put her down and I just didn't know what to do at that point. I called my husband at work crying. Thankfully it was no big deal for him to leave to pick up Layla from school. He brought her home, had lunch with us, put the carseat cover on and then left. Right now the girls are finally napping (though I fully expect Ava to wake up any second) and things are quiet. I can normally keep things together, but that's if I'm running a tight ship and have everything planned out. It has to be this way or everything goes to hell in a hand basket. Not being prepared in having the carseat all ready to go threw everything off as you can see.

Anyways, every day brings something new and even on days like this, I'm so thankful for another baby girl that was put into our lives. There's never a dull moment, though I could do without the many temper tantrums that Mariam has. Phew! This girl tries my patience for sure! She's very unreasonable and when she wants something she will pester you until she gets it, or at least gets sent to her room because she won't stop. 

With this new addition, it has given me less time to work on things but business is still trucking along as usual and going fine. I'm excited about some new products in the shop and a few different flash sale sites I'm scheduled with this year. Currently we are on Brickyardbuffalo.com and the deal runs for 3 days. You can check out what we have on sale here.

FHJ Baby

FHJ Baby

Postpartum update

With every pregnancy I do worry a little about the body changes and how I will come out afterwards. The first week I was starting to get a little worried because my stomach was taking a little longer to go down than the others, but each day it got smaller and smaller. I highly recommend binding your belly after baby. I use control top underwear that goes up to my navel and it always helps. You can read more details on it by clicking here which is my postpartum post when I had Mariam.

I weighed myself after the first week mark but I don't remember what it was. At the two week mark I was 110, so I had lost 16 lbs. I gained 26 lbs this pregnancy. I'm completely fine with keeping the extra 10 pounds. I was a tad underweight to begin with. I'm now 3 weeks postpartum and I gained a pound so I'm at 111 right now. I'm exclusively breastfeeding and I tend to get really skinny by 3-4 months postpartum so I'm hoping things are different this time. I'm trying to remember to snack consistently though it's been a tad more challenging since I've had to cut out dairy because of Ava.

Here is my last bump picture at 38 weeks (I had Ava at 38.5 weeks)

2 weeks postpartum

Next week I plan on starting to exercise slowly as in working on my core first. I also need to work on building strength in my upper body again. Carrying the baby for long periods of time and nursing around the clock is killing my muscles and my knots have been hurting like nobody's business again. 

Baby! Party of 6

Oh hi. Just realized it's been 2 weeks since I've updated. As you can imagine, we've been busy adjusting to life with a new baby again. H was home for two weeks and then my mom came. She just left back to Texas yesterday, so today is actually the second day I'm home by myself with the three during the day. Last week on Monday H went back to work which made it my first day with no help and it went by so smoothly. I was able to pick up Layla from school with no problems and we even went to Target afterwards. Two toddlers and a baby at Target! And we survived! My husband said I was brave. That day I was also able to pick up the house and make dinner. Come Tuesday the day that my mom came Ava flipped a switch. 

She has been having these colic spells every night between the hours of 9 or 10 pm to about midnight or 1 am. She also gets some fussy periods during the day, but still she's much easier than my last two were as newborns. She has her good days and her bad days. Some days she spends most of her time happy and sleeping and some days she has stomach issues and needs a lot of holding. She's exclusively breastfed and it looks like some foods could be the culprit so I've modified my diet to cut out diary and eggs. I'm also trying to avoid gassy foods but I think I messed up yesterday. I had pancakes for breakfast which included some eggs and milk and for dinner I had tacos with a side of beans. We all suffered last night and this morning she was still fussy. She had a doctors appointment last Friday and currently weighs 7 lbs 8 oz. She also turned 3 weeks this past Saturday. I'm in denial that she will be a month once this week ends. It's already going by too fast!

XO