must have monday

so first i have to pat myself on the back before i get into my must have monday for this week.

*pat* for making it 6 months exclusively breastfeeding! *pat*

the goal i set was 6 months, and i met it to-the-day! to me this was a huge accomplishment. i wasn't sure how things were going to work out with pumping at work. i have been very diligent though. twice a day i close my office door (thank goodness i have an office) and hang a 'do not enter' sign that i made on my door (because, yes, i had someone walk in on me even with my door closed...embarrassing!!) and away we go!

right around the 5.5 month mark though i wasn't getting as much as usual and had to start dipping into my frozen stash. then at exactly 6 months i ran out of frozen and had to send in his first formula bottle to daycare! he didn't seem to mind it at all (phew!). not being able to keep up with his demands has led me to send in two bottles of each, which i still think is pretty good. but making formula bottles in the individual bottles is kind of a pain in the neck.

unless you have my must have monday!!!

dr. brown's formula mixing pitcher!!!

i have to give a quick thanks to miss lisa for telling me about this wonderful contraption! no more shaking individual bottles. all you have to do is put in the amount of water and formula you need in the pitcher, then move the handle up and down and the formula is mixed perfectly! then you just pour that into your bottles and you're done. LOVE it!!

i end up hand washing mine since we don't run the dishwasher every night, but all the parts are dishwasher safe. all the parts are BPA free too. if you're using any type of formula and want a couple minutes back in your day i would HIGHLY recommend getting one of these. at $15 you really can't go wrong!

must have monday

sorry for the hiatus last week. with my birthday and a weekend full of surprises, my must have monday slipped by me! this week i just have three words:

JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!

we use our graco doorway jumper EVERY DAY!

and thank you to our other great neighbor, teresa, who was on the lookout for us. she snagged us ours for free from freecycle. yahoooo!!! grady and grampa hooked up the hanging system (a block on either side of the entrance to our sunroom) and it has provided the dude with endless amounts of fun! he loves to jump, jump, jump! (i'm sure you've noticed this in quite a few of our videos)

must have monday

as the little dude has been battling this ear infection, he has also been battling a fever as well. all day this past friday, saturday and sunday he had a fever...poor dude! awhile back we had purchased a thermometer with the three settings (oral, rectal and armpit). i only had to use the thermometer once or twice before just to check and see if the dude had a fever, so putting it under his armpit wasn't too bad. buuuuuuuuuut, having to take his temperature more often, the under the armpit was NOT working. especially if the dude was sleeping and i had to mess with his onesie to get a reading.

so behold...my must have monday

exergen's temperal artery themometer!!!

OMG, this little thing makes taking a temperature SO MUCH EASIER! it was so easy that i would take the dude's temperature every 2 hours or so, just because i could and it wouldn't bother him or wake him up if he was sleeping! it even came with batteries, which they must have been thinking of mom's when they did that one. what frantic mom who's infant is running a fever is going to run in and get a thermometer and then remember to get batteries for it?! not this one! :)

i hope i don't have to use it again in the future. but i love that i'll have this on hand when i do!

must have monday

i think i jinxed myself awhile back when we experienced the dude's first blowout when i said "we're lucky because he hasn't had many blowouts." ha! the clean poops are a thing of the past now! we've moved onto one to two outfit changes a day due to 'messy' diapers. poor daycare has to deal with most of them as the dude tends to be an afternoon guy. *side note...i love how i openly talk about poop now!*

so now my evening ritual includes not only nursing, feeding cereal, cleaning bottles, making bottles, sometimes taking a bath and then putting to bed...but it now also includes washing out the 'messy' clothes from school. this is where my must have monday comes into play...

the shout advanced gel stain remover with built-in brush.

oh man...this stuff takes EVERYTHING out!! and we've seen some horror scenes here lately! because grana had bought us a little bottle of the totally toddler stain remover we gave it a shot. it also claimed to get everything out of clothes. but to our dismay, the dude's poop stains would normally still be there after one washing. i was having to wash his clothes twice and apply the totally toddler twice until the stain was gone...not liking that!

but the shout is great. i rinse the clothes in our set tub in the basement (thanks grampa for helping grady put that in. it's a lifesaver!) to get all the 'mess' off of them and then just squirt some gel on the stains, use the brush to massage the gel into the clothes and then i just lay it on the side of the set tub until i do a load of the dude's laundry. even with the worst stains that i thought wouldn't come out, the shout gel has not let me down!

i did have a hard time finding it at target, but i did find it pretty easily at walmart. it's cheap and well worth the investment! happy laundering!

must have monday

this week's must have monday is going to be a little different than most as it is not a tangible object. we should all have it though. it comes in different forms. it means different things to different people. and at the end of the day, it usually puts most of our minds at ease. this week's must have monday is.....

...hope!!!

and yes, this is all stemming from VCU's win over Kansas yesterday. without hope VCU wouldn't be where they are right now. everyone doubted us. we weren't good enough. we didn't deserve to be part of the big dance. hmmm, i guess they're all rethinking that right now!

i'm a firm believer that with a little hope you can accomplish anything, and the current happenings with VCU proves my point. seeing the rams turn such a negative situation into something positive has really inspired me and challenged me to try and continue to see the positive side of things. because there have definitely been some days recently where it's been VERY hard to see the positive side of things. but once i did, i knew everything would be alright.

it's not always easy, but honestly, when is life ever easy? so starting today, i'm not going to get bogged down with "i can't," "it'll never work" and the "i'm not good enough" mindsets, and i challenge everyone else to do the same! the glass is half full people! :)

ps...thank you to the selection committee for seeing hope in the rams. i think it's safe to say your decision has influenced a nation (well, at least the little nation i like to call myself!!).

must have monday

we made it through the cold & flu season without the dude catching anything, even when both grady and i caught the bug. hopefully that means the dude has a pretty strong immune system.i'd be lying if i said he wasn't a little congested through the season though. this must have monday definitely helped us through the sniffley season!

little noses sterile saline nasal mist

originally we picked up the saline drops....but you try to get the dude's head to stay still and tilted back just right for the drops to go in! :) i think half the time they ended up rolling out of his nose before they ever even went in! this mist however.....uh-mazing!!!

i was a little apprehensive at first about buying it, thinking, just how much better would this work compared to the drops. LIGHT YEARS better!!! with one little press of the nozzle a nice fine saline mist goes completely in his nose. nothing drips out and i know his little nostrils are getting a good dose of moisture.

thanks to little noses, this little nose has been spared crusty boogers and runny noses!!

must have monday

you've seen a lot of her in recent photos and videos. she's an awesome friend and she's never too far away. she is my must have monday...and no, i'm not talking about mojo. i'm talking about....sophie!!

this video about sums it up! happy birthday sophie!!!

must have monday

i have to thank my sister-in-law, andrea, for this week's must have monday.

unfortunately, we do not have ceiling fans in the bedrooms of our townhouse, which would have been great to use for white noise. so before graham was born i was looking at getting a little boombox that would play cd's, ipod docking stations that we could use and even just a regular old alarm clock that we could leave on a classical station. all of these options seemed to get up there in price pretty quickly though.

of course graham arrived before i had a solution to our white noise problem. luckily though, grana was on the case for me! she remembered the one that andrea had bought for olivia that worked perfectly for them. may i present to you my must have monday...

the homedics soundspa sound machine

we have LOVED this little thing! sitting on the dude's bookshelf, it doesn't take up that much space. it plugs into the wall, so you don't have to worry about buying MORE batteries than we all already do for other baby items! it has multiple sound settings (we normally rotate through the rain, beach and rainforest ones). volume control. and even a timer to have the sound shut off after 15, 30 or 60 minutes. there are definitely no real frills to it, but that's what i like about it. it's reliable, and i know i can get it to work the same way night after night.

and i think the best part is...it's only $20 at bed bath and beyond. throw a handy 20% or $5 off coupon on top and it ends up only being about $15, depending on what coupon you have. affordable, reliable and the perfect solution to white noise! hmmm, these could make a pretty good shower gift too!

must have monday

i've been back to work since the beginning of the new year and i had reservations about pumping at work, how i was going to have time to do it, if the stress/sleep deprivation would effect my supply, etc. but i had gotten that far without having to use formula, and i didn't want to start if i didn't have to.

as it turns out, the whole pumping at work thing wasn't too bad. luckily i have an office, so i can close my door and not be interrupted. one of the things that has made pumping at work very easy is my 'must have monday' item!

the medela quick clean micro-steam bags!

thank you thank you thank you medela!! you have saved me countless hours of standing at the sink scrubbing and drying pump parts! all i simply have to do is rinse the parts afterwards, throw them in the bag, add 2 oz of water (which just so happens to be the amount that fits in the dixie bathroom cups..like the ones the dentist puts mouthwash in for you), then throw it in the microwave on high for a minute and a half and finally drain the water out through the convenient whole in the top corner of the bag. and VOILA....sterilized!!!! then back in my desk drawer the bag goes until the next use!

and great thing about the steam bags is that they're cost effective. you get 20 uses out of one bag, and you get 5 bags in a box. another great thing about the bags is you can use them for milk storage bottles too...although i must admit, i hand wash mine. i have to be able to use my boon grass drying rack for something!!

so if you are a working, nursing mom...or if you simply want more time back in your day, i would HIGHLY recommend getting some of these.

must have monday

so funny story (now that i think back to it)...when graham was born we were trying to go binkie free (what were we thinking!). i didn't want to confuse him at all, and if he didn't need it, we didn't want it. we actually went two days i think without one. woo hoo!! but then the third night when i became a human pacifier i had to put my foot down. so we broke and asked the nurse for a binkie. she came in with a soothie binkie and, like a charm, graham settled down and zonked out.

because graham was smaller when he was born, the binkies we had registered for, and received at our shower were too big for his little face. so we returned a few and got some more soothies. we tried later on to give him a regular style binkie, but nope, no cigar. the dude only wanted the soothie.

my dilemma with not being able to switch to a regular style binkie, was the fact that for the life of me, i couldn't find a binkie holder that worked with the soothies! so we were dealing with graham spitting it out and it falling to the floor. not that rinsing it off when needed was a huge deal, but it would be nice to not have to bend down all the time and then head to the sink.

and then came my must have monday item...

booginhead's pacigrip!!! (graham has this exact one attached to his outfit in the post below.)

it has been amazing! just thread the cord end through one of the holes in the soothie (or gumdrop binkie, which we now use) and attach it to the whatever is being worn at the time. perfect!! i wish i had known about these, oh say, four months ago!

now i'll admit, i thought i might try to make some of my own (since it doesn't look too hard), but trying to find the clips and actually finding the time to sew right now made me shell out the $5. $5 bucks well spent i say! and if you order them on amazon and have a prime account, you get free shipping!

must have monday

for a special must have monday....everyone must have.....

love

<3

happy valentines day from all of us to you!

must have monday

this has been probably one of the best shower gifts we've gotten...right up there with the boppy!

boon's grass countertop drying rack

i use this everyday for cleaning and drying all my milk storage bottles. i can fit 8 of the milk storage bottles and lids on it with no problem! and from users photos on amazon, you can see you can fit a TON of stuff on it. it comes as two separate pieces, the white bottom tray and the grass and both pieces are dishwasher safe! because of the 'grass' design you can fit pretty much anything to dry on it. just press down and voila...it's locked in to dry!

not only is this a very functional and versatile drying rack, but it also looks stylish. it's like we're growing bottles and lids in our kitchen! oh, if that were only the case!

must have monday

for all of you photobugs out there...you MUST get an

eye-fi card

what a time saver this little card has been!! i actually first saw these on the martha stewart 'cool gadget' holiday show back in 2009. i've been eying them ever since then and thanks to tim and andrea for christmas this year, i finally got one!!! i have to admit, i was a little skeptical on how well it would work, but to all of our surprise, it works GREAT!

so basically you put the eye-fi card in place of your memory card in your camera. any picture you take is saved on the eye-fi card and is then uploaded to your computer through your wireless network! no need to hook your camera up to your laptop anymore. woo hoo!!

i was just looking on their website, and for all of you iphone users (i have a droid), it looks like you can now download an eye-fi app and all your pictures and video can be sent from your phone to your laptop. hmmm, wonder if they'll make a droid app like this soon!!

must have monday

this week's monday must have is a lifesaver for both grady and i!

babyesp

it's an app for the droid, but i know there is a similar one for the iphone. it is so great though. you can track ANYTHING (literally anything since you can add trackers manually) about your baby or babies! i would be so lost without this app. i can barely remember what i went to the kitchen for, nevermind when i last nursed, which side i need to start on or how many poops graham had that day! all that is solved with this app and since grady has the same app on his phone we can both track things for graham and have it update the same account. brilliant! i can even send the pediatrician an email with all his info if needed (luckily we haven't had to do that though).

if you're the type of parent who doesn't need an app like this...i commend you. but me, i NEED something it to keep me on track! so thank you babyesp developers!! you have made me a sane mother! i'm looking forward to the upcoming nursing timer update as well!

must have mondays

so i'm going to start something new on my blog...must have mondays! it's going to be a weekly post (hopefully!) where i'll spotlight a particular item, website, service or something of the sort, that i think all mom's, dad's, babies, etc. must have. of course i'll have either tested the product or used the service in order for it to be a must have! (disclaimer...i am not getting paid by anyone for these posts)

so i'm going to start my first must have monday off with a bang.....

AMAZON MOM!!!

if you have a baby or toddler you MUST sign-up for a free amazon mom account. you can get incredible deals on baby items, like 30% off diapers and wipes!! gotta love saving money!! and one of the best perks of signing up for an account, you get free two-day shipping with amazon prime for the first three months, and then your amazon prime membership continues for every $25 you spend in the baby store for up to a year of when you created your amazon mom account! so not only are you saving money on baby items...you get them shipped FREE to your house. LOVE IT!

so sign up for you account today! you'll be glad you did! i've fallen in love with amazon prime so much that i'll probably pay for a membership when mine runs out with my amazon mom account.