Yum Yum!

Back in November I wrote about how I have been making my own baby food for my youngest. Well, I have officially given up on that. Three times now I've cooked and puréed food for him only to go to feed it to him and find out it wasn't puréed enough. So off to Walmart we went and I just bought him some tubs of Gerber stage 2 foods. Then this past week I was doing some research online to see if I could find the baby food for any cheaper. I looked and looked but couldn't find any place that sells them cheaper. 

So then I decided to order a whole months worth of food for him so that was one less thing I have to worry about running out of. I figured out that in a 31 day month he would need 62 fruits and 62 vegetables/dinner entrees. The total came out to around $88. I don't think that's too bad. It comes out to about $2.84 a day. I'm not sure if that's cheaper than it was when I made my own, but it's definitely a lot easier!

I've heard of other people that make their own food for their first child and then for each one after that, they just buy it. So I'm proud of myself that I made my own food for about 3 or 4 months. He's got one tooth coming in and who knows how long it will take him to get more. But he shouldn't be eating the puréed food for too much longer. Even if he is, I'm ok with giving him store bought baby food. With an almost 3 year old and a 9 month old, and my new Young Living business, I just don't have the time to be making my own food. I'll let the experts do that!

And now, I'll leave you with a quote: "Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it, you can never get it back."

Let's learn!

So last June when my oldest turned 2, I wanted to start doing some lessons with her on basic things like colors, shapes, numbers, and ABCs. Before she turned 2 and before my second child was born, I even went out and bought a whole bunch of stuff so I could do said lessons. I scoured Pinterest and even got a planner to plan out my own little curriculum. Well, then my second was born and all of that planning and preparation went out the window. I just didn't have the time to do these lessons for my oldest while taking care of a newborn. I didn't plan that many activities for each day, maybe 2 or 3 at the most. But looking back I say to myself: What was I thinking!?!

Now that my youngest is 9 months and my oldest will be 3 in about 3 months, I'm going to start doing some of the lessons I had planned for her. She's doing pretty good with her colors and numbers, so I think I'm going to focus more on the alphabet. For those who don't know, I have a teaching degree in elementary education and special education, so the teacher in me is definitely coming out!! I'm going to start out by doing 1 educational activity a day, 3 days a week. I printed myself a blank calendar so I can plan out what I'm going to do and when I'm going to do it. I'm going to give myself this week to plan everything out so that starting on Monday, March 13th, school can begin!

Do you have any educational activities for learning the alphabet that you love?

In honor of last week being Dr. Seuss' birthday, I leave you with this quote:

Happy New Year!

Yes, I realize that it is now March 3rd but this is my first post of the new year so I just had to wish everyone a happy new year! I hope your year is going as great as mine is so far! I can't believe that 2 months have come and gone already! Time is just flying by like it always does.

So what have I been up to? Just staying busy with my 2 kids who are getting bigger and smarter everyday! My oldest will be 3 in June! 3!?!? Wow!! And my youngest just turned 9 months and is 3 months away from turning 1 year old! There's times that I want the day to go by faster because the kids are driving me nuts and I can't wait till my husband gets home from work. But then I look back and think "Wow! Time is going by so fast!"

I've also been using and sharing my essential oils more and more! Just the other day I did something that I should have done months ago. I went through my cabinet under the sink and got rid of all the chemicals that I haven't been using since I started using Thieves Household Cleaner. Check out this awesome before and after picture!

All I do with the Thieves Household Cleaner is take a capful and add it to a 16 oz spray bottle, then add water! I use that for everything, counters, kitchen table, toilets, shower...it has replaced so many cleaning products with chemicals that I used to use. But with 2 kiddos in the house, it makes me feel a lot better having a cleaner that isn't toxic.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I know I will! My hubby was away for work since Monday and got home very early this morning. So we will be spending lots of extra time as a family this weekend!! I'll leave you with a quote I just found and love: The best things in life are the people we love, the places we've been, and the memories we've made along the way.

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2017 is coming soon!

Another year is almost over. Which means it's time to start thinking about New Year's Resolutions. One of mine is to get my house cleaner and keep it clean! I can get the house clean when I know that company is coming over, but then after they are gone, it just becomes a mess again. I need to figure out strategies that will work for me in order to keep my house in order. Just recently I was reading the issue of Good Housekeeping with Lauren Graham on the cover. In the article about her, she mentioned a book called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I looked for it at my library and was able to get the ebook version of it. So far I am loving it! On the first page it says, "Have you ever tidied madly, only to find that all too soon your home or workspace is cluttered again?" *Raises hand* Yes!! That is totally me!! It pretty much explains tidying as consisting of two things: deciding whether or not to dispose of something and deciding where to put it. My problem when I clean up and organize my house is that I just worry about where I'm going to put everything. I need to start really looking at things and saying "Do I really need this?" I probably have so many items in my house that I don't need and those items are just taking up space!

So while I'm going to definitely take into consideration what this book has to say about tidying, I'm not exactly going to follow it to a T. It says that you should tidy by category and then go in a certain order. The author says the best sequence is: clothes, books, papers, miscellany items, and momentos. She also says it's a big mistake to tidy by room, but I'm going to ignore that anyway and tidy in my own way. I figure as long as I'm throwing stuff away and putting things that I'm keeping in their proper places, that could work for me.

Throughout the next few weeks I'm going to kick this plan into gear and start getting my house in order! I will be sure to post my progress with before and after pictures!

One more week of Elf adventures!

Can you believe that Christmas is almost here?? It's crazy!! 6 days away!! We had our first Christmas celebration yesterday with my dad, step-mom, and her dad and sister's family. We had a great time! Big E got the Fisher Price Code-a-pillar (which I'm going to enjoy playing with) and Little E got the Fisher Price Dance and Move BeatBowWow. Big E got BeatBo last year for Christmas and Little E has been loving that so my step-mom figured he would love the puppy version of it, and he does!

Well, here are some pictures of Elf from this past week. Have a great Monday everyone!!

The first year

Some people may argue with me on this statement, but I'm gonna write it anyway: The first year of a child's life is the hardest! Now my oldest is only 2 so I've got plenty of years ahead of me including the teenage years, but so far, the first year of both my kids' lives have been difficult. One reason it is difficult is the lack of sleep! Little E, my youngest, is now 6 months and he's had plenty of nights where he went to bed at 7:15 and didn't wake up till the next morning at 5 am. He started doing this pretty early on, but it was not consistent at all. Big E, my oldest who is 2 and a half, probably didn't start sleeping for that long until about this time or maybe even closer to a year. More recently, Little E has been waking up at 2 and then sometime between 6-7 am.

Now I know, I only have to wake up twice a night compared to some people out there who wake up 3, 4, even 5 times or more a night! So I could have it worse than what I do. But as we all know, sleep is important and I believe it's about quality, not quantity. I feel a lot better and more refreshed in the morning when I've only gotten up once, compared to 2 times or more. So I definitely can't wait till Little E truly sleeps through the night, every single night!

The first year is also rough because of me breastfeeding him. Now I'm not saying that I don't like it, because I do, I love it! I still find it incredible that the human body is capable of feeding another human being! It just blows my mind. I'm feeding my child and it's 100% free? But that also means that he's kind of attached to me. The only time I can really go out somewhere and not have to worry about leaving him bottles or taking my pump with me, is at night. This past weekend I actually did leave him during the day for a few hours both on Saturday and Sunday. It was probably only the 3rd or 4th time that he ever had a bottle and I was a bit worried on how he would do because the first few times didn't go so well. But surprisingly, he did very well! So now that eases my mind a little bit knowing that he will take a bottle so hopefully in the next 6 months, I can have a few more days like I did this past weekend where I get out of the house kid-free! As a mom, I deserve it! I'm with my kids 24/7 and I love them to death, but every now and then I need a break!

I also have to watch what I put into my body because of breastfeeding. Now I'm not saying that if I weren't nursing that I wouldn't care about what goes in my body, I'm saying that I wouldn't be as restricted. When I get sick, there isn't much I can take without it affecting my supply or having to pump and dump.

I'm not trying to rush the next 6 months, but I will be kind of happy when they are over. Our babies are only little for so long, so I'm definitely cherishing every single moment while they are little!! But I think after the first year, things get a little easier because they are a little more independent and not as needy. But stay tuned, I'm sure in about 11 years I'm going to be saying that the teenage years are the hardest!

Oily Wednesday

This week's Oily Wednesday post is going to be a little different. Instead of talking about an oil that I love and how I use it, I'm going to write more on why I love Young Living. As I mentioned in this post, I bought my Young Living Starter Kit right before my little one was born this past May. So I've been using the oils for a little over 6 months now.

People who don't know that much about essential oils may say "I can get those oils at 'insert store name here' for so much cheaper!" That is true, but are you getting the same quality oils from that store as you get from Young Living? The answer to that is no. The FDA has really loose labeling on essential oils so it is misleading for those who know nothing about it. Other companies can label their oil as 100% pure when in reality it is probably just a drop of pure essential oil and the rest is dangerous solvents and fillers. In some stores, you will find their oils in the aisle with potpourri. That should be a big red flag there.

Young Living owns all of their farms and have really strict standards when it comes to the quality of their oils. They hand-pick their weeds, don't use any pesticides, and don't allow any motor vehicles onto their farms. They also invite anyone to their farms and allow them to partake in the harvesting and distillation process. I would love to be able to visit one of their farms in the US some day!

Looking at oils at a health food store or even a grocery store, you will see that they say they aren't safe for ingestion or use on the skin. But yet they say they are 100% pure. Really? If they were truly 100% pure, they would never say those 2 things. You will definitely pay more for Young Living oils than you will for any other brand but that's how you know you are getting the best quality products.

So before you buy that $17 bottle of Frankincense (for those who don't know, Frankincense is an expensive oil so if it is under $70, it's not pure), be sure to do your research. Ultimately it comes down to 2 choices: price or quality. I'm one of those people that is willing to spend a little extra for the better quality. I want what is safe for me and my family and I hope others do, too! Contact me if you would like more information about Young Living essential oils and the starter kit. I'm hoping to jump into the business side of things and share my love of oils with others!