Giveaway: Jellie Babies Mei Tai

Last summer I had the pleasure of “meeting” Michelle Lloyd from Jellie Babies when I did a review for her hand made Mei Tai’s. (Don’t know what a mei tai is? This is an Asian-inspired soft baby carrier which can be used to carry baby either on the front, back, or even on the hip!) And recently I received an e-mail from her that you all are going to love!

“In honor of our 100th sale, Jellie Babies would like to offer up a giveaway for our newest design – Royal Peacock Blue!  I personally want to thank Donielle and Naturally Knocked Up for reviewing Jellie Babies way back when, it has been a real blessing to our business!!

“Jellie Babies Mei Tais are now made with the inner layer of duck cloth, also called canvas.  The straps are triple x-box stitched to that inner layer and triple stitched to the carrier itself.  Jellie Babies has added these features to increase the sturdiness of our Mei Tais.”

Michelle has also started to use an extra layer of fabric (canvas) in between the minky lining and decorative outer fabric.

** Please do not construe my posts as medical advice, because *ahem*, I am not a doctor or medical professional. I am but a student of Nourishing Nutrition and Natural Health. I only hope to ignite a passion within you to do your own research and begin your own journey to better health. And to make sure you don't miss a single post, you can add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email.

You Know Mom is a Blogger When….

Wordless Wednesday

** Please do not construe my posts as medical advice, because *ahem*, I am not a doctor or medical professional. I am but a student of Nourishing Nutrition and Natural Health. I only hope to ignite a passion within you to do your own research and begin your own journey to better health. And to make sure you don't miss a single post, you can add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email.

Kids Are Like Ice Cream

Sometimes being a stay at home mom is like eating ice cream that has a little frost bite on it. You really love the ice cream so you keep eating it, but those little pieces find their way onto your spoon every now and again. It doesn’t make you stop eating it, since you love it so, but it does put a sour taste in your mouth every now and again.

And if you don’t like ice cream (*gasp!*), let me explain. As stay at home moms, we love our children. We would do anything for them. But there are days, weeks, even months, that can really beat us down. The kids aren’t sleeping well, they’re sick, you’re sick, they test you to see what you’ll let them get away with. Everyday. Leaving us drained of energy, our minds in a mental fog.

Like with any full time job, there are days were you wish you could just quit. Not indefinitely of course, just for that one day. I definitely had my share of those while working a 9-5. A demanding boss, ungrateful customers, coworkers that were out to make your life miserable, and ledger books that weren’t balancing. And we would go through super busy periods that left me drained at the end of the night. Not so different from being at home actually. Who can be more demanding than a toddler, or more ungrateful than a child who doesn’t like what you’ve made for dinner. Some days, it does seem like it’s our children’s goal to drive us crazy! And then there are always the books (or budget) that don’t seem to want to balance. Especially now in this tougher economic time. Some days are so busy you seem to have no more energy left to give to your husband. Or yourself.

Don’t get me wrong, I truly and passionately believe that God has called me to stay at home with my family. Taking care of my husband, my children, and my home. It’s important for me to support my husband by making sure he has what he needs to get through his day. Teaching and training my son is high on my priority list as well. Not only teaching basic household chores and actual academics, but also teaching him about the Lord we serve. It seems a large undertaking some days but, when all is said and done, I hope to look back on my life and consider this my greatest work.

So what happens when your stuck in a funk? Just going through the motions? You know the feeling. Things get done, dinner gets on the table, the children are clothed, but you’ve lost your passion. You’ve lost your ability to truly enjoy being at home. And while you know the reason you do what you do, you just feel like something is missing, something just isn’t right.

**First and foremost, you need to know that this happens to all women. In every stage of life. I haven’t met a mom yet who hasn’t gone through a rough period. Even the best of moms can have times where they lose their focus! And it’s okay. We have not been called to be perfect. So why is it that we have such a hard time asking for help? Is it that we think our friends and family won’t help us out? Do we really have such little faith in them? I know I would jump at the chance to help another mom doing what needs to be done to give her a break. I also know that I don’t ask for help either. So what’s stopping us? Pride, and only pride. We feel we should be able to do everything under the sun, and look great and be happy while we’re doing it. A sense of guilt creeps in that you aren’t enjoying your family like you should be.

**Spend time with God every day. Just you and you alone. Preferably before your little ones wake up. And why before? There really is no better way to start the day than refreshed and renewed.

**Get up before everyone else. I never understood why my mom always got up early when she didn’t have to. We were homeschooled and had no bus to catch, and rarely did we have to be somewhere early. But every morning, there she was, sipping her cocoa and enjoying the news. I completely understand it now. While I would much rather stay up late and get to sleep in, I get up with my husband at 6:00 every morning to see him off to work. Then I normally have about an hour or so to myself. (sometimes I’m lucky and get two!) This time is pivotal in my keeping my sanity. I’m able to do my devotions, drink a nice hot cup of cocoa or tea, and do something I enjoy. Just try waking up an hour before everyone else for a few weeks. Take a shower while the house is still quiet, spend time reading a book or doing something you love. When your kids wake up and the house is all a bustle, you’ll be ready for it.

**You also need to treat your job like a job, because that is really what homemaking is. Set a schedule for yourself, organize your own life. I tend to focus on my toddlers schedule so much so that I forget about the little things that I need to do. Take a moment to plan out your week. Plan your meals so you never have that “what’s for dinner?” feeling at 4:00. If you really love organizing, plan out different laundry and cleaning days. Sometimes it may feel like over planning, and maybe it is, but a job outside the home has all sorts of schedules and deadlines, why shouldn’t your house? Get your little ones on a schedule, it’ll make their lives easier as well!

**Make sure you are nourishing your body. In order to keep up with all of the physical, mental, and emotional toles of keeping a home, you need to be in tip top condition. Your body will run ragged by the end of the day if all you’re doing is snacking on whatever is in the cupboards just to keep hunger at bay. This is especially important for pregnant and nursing moms! Your bodies are providing that same fuel to your babies, and they get the nutrients first, while you just get the leftovers. You need to be eating at least 3 meals a day with a couple snacks in between. And these meals need to be as nutrient dense as possible. Keep your diet low in sugar and low in refined flours. Both of these not only effect your blood sugar levels (which effect your energy levels) but they deplete your body of nutrients. It’s to hard to live your life when your body is tired and malnourished. There is even a strong connection between your diet and your mental state, as the chemicals in our brains are directly related to what we consume.

**Try and get some alone time out of the house every once in awhile. This is something that has taken me awhile to learn to ask for. But even grocery shopping without a toddler seems heavenly some days! Once in awhile I’ll go out at night to do my shopping when my husband gets home, and sometimes a friend of mine (bless her heart!) will watch him while I go. Just being able to run errands by myself can be a huge re-energizer! You don’t even have to spend any money. Get together with a friend, go to the library, or just get out of the house for a nice long walk.

**Ask for help. If you need that time away, or need some extra help around the house, ask. Call a friend, call family. Just ask. Swallow that pride and realize that you are not super woman. It doesn’t matter how many kids you have or how much homemaking you do, everyone needs a helping hand.

Labor Day!

I saw this meme floating around last year and thought to myself “Self, remember this for next year”.

And I did not remember.

Luckily Jill posted this today as well, so while late, here it is!

How long were your labors?

son: 22 hours from start to finish, but 12 hours in active labor.

daughter: 16 hours from start to finish, 4 hours in active labor

How did you know you were in labor?

son: my water broke

daughter: contractions started and stayed 5 minutes apart.

Where did you deliver?

son: Hospital, it was the only place I wanted to be

daughter: Hospital, but wanted to be at home. (no $ for a homebirth)

Drugs?

son: I had wanted to go natural, but succumbed to an epidural when the doc said I had to have pitocin.

daughter: went in knowing more of my options and rights, and had an awesome, empowering natural birth!

C-section?

Neither.

Who delivered?

son: My OB with the assistance of a vacuum, most likely due to all of the interventions.

daughter: I did!! I delivered my baby! The intern and resident caught her as the on call OB looked on.

And tell me your stories too!

Mom-nesia Monday: Breakfast

Because I am so awesome, I thought I would make you all some breakfast.

Pancakes anyone?

Yes, this is what happens when you fry a pancake for 25 minutes while you take a shower and get ready.

And don’t let the picture fool you. Soft and fluffy it is not. More like frisbee hard!

Review : Dad’s Wooden Toys

Today I went out and bought a little wooden teether from a friend. Once we got home, I knew you all needed to see these!

See, lately baby girl is really trying to get a feel for things by sticking everything into her mouth, and I’m a bit hesitant to keep giving her all the plastic toys we had when Cody was an infant. (Yea, I didn’t know then about all the junk they put in plastic!) So I’ve been trying to give her the cloth toys we have, but it seems sometimes she likes to actually chew or bite. So I figured it was high time to go get her a wooden teether!!

It was a hard choice since there are so many cute ones to choose from, but I decided to go with the turtle.
It’s so cute and so easy for her to get her little hands around. Because at only almost 5 months old she’s still working on the whole grasping thing!

Tiny Fingers

Mom-nesia Monday: Wow, Just Wow

The past few weeks have been busy for me. (like you couldn’t tell by my lack of posting, right?) And for me, with busy-ness, comes more forgetfulness!

• I baked bread without turning the oven on. Not to self, this does not work well and results in an uncooked, flat and fallen lump of dough.
• I bought supplies for our VBS program. And walked right out of Target without them.
• I headed to the farmers market last Saturday (20 minutes away) and forgot my purse. No purse = no money! Luckily, the lady at the bank was super nice about it and I was able to get some much needed cash.

In other news…..I’m still pretty busy! Harvest season is upon us so I’ve been busy trying to get my freezer and pantry stocked for the winter. Last week I made up 30 quarts of my favorite sun pickles, and set them out for a few days in the clouds. Yea, it’s AUGUST and it’s been in the 60’s (for highs!) and cloudy and rainy for the last week! Not our usual August weather. Saturday I canned a few jars of pizza sauce, yesterday I shucked, cut, and froze 120 ears of corn. And today I’m freezing a whole re-usable grocery bag full of green beans as well as the same amount of broccoli. Tomorrow I’ll get started on my bushel of peaches! So I’m thinking I’m gonna have some late nights ahead of me as I try to get it all finished. Because working with 2 littles can be quite tiresome during the day! Now let’s just hope I don’t get the cold that’s currently going around!

Not the post I thought I was going to write

I had great plans for this morning. Plans of having a bit of time to myself so as I could actually sit down and write a decent post.

You know what happened?

As soon as I sat down, as soon as I hit “new post”…….. I hear “Good Morning mom!”

Yup, my toddler is up and at ‘em again. Seriously this child seems to function (all be it sometimes not so pleasantly) on very little sleep. I thought for sure he’d be sleeping later today as he had no nap yesterday, went to bed at 9pm and was up like 5 times (why? who knows!). But alas, my 5 minutes of free time are over.

And you know, I could sit and complain about it. But this is the life of a mom to a couple littles. If this season in life is once thing, it’s constant! And it makes the day go by so much better when you can wrap your head around that fact instead of fighting it each and every day.

And because I have a little to no computer while he’s awake rule, this may be the only glimpse into my life you see today.

A Button Nose

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