Tag Archives: Mom life

Potty training win

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Want to know what the biggest early parenting win is? (In my eyes that is)……When your child finally uses the potty!!

It sounds ridiculous to be making such a big deal of something like that. But when you’ve had to deal with diapers, it’s exciting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! Even if that light may be super far away.

Diapers aren’t cheap and if your child is like mine, they go through SO many. My child drinks so much water during the day. I swear it seems like I change his diaper every couple minutes. Yes that’s a bit dramatic and I know it’s not that often. But if feels like it!

Potty training itself isn’t terribly difficult. I would say the most difficult part for me was getting my child to actually want to go in the potty. A regular toilet scared him. I think the size was a bit overwhelming. So I got him a little kids potty. He didn’t like that I had it in the bathroom at first because it was close to the big potty. So strangely enough I moved it into the living room and tucked it behind a chair so he had his privacy. That’s when he actually showed a little interest in it!

I started by letting him run around naked and just reminding him he didn’t have a diaper on so he needed to tell me when he had to go potty. The first two times he didn’t even tell me. He walked right over to the potty, sat down and went! After that we had a few accidents. He peed on the carpet twice while playing. However he did stop himself. He started peeing then was like omg I don’t have a diaper on. He stopped, told me, then went over and used the potty. While I don’t love that he peed on the carpet, it’s all a learning process so I didn’t get mad at him.

I’ve figured out if I put “big boy underwear” on him, he can tell the difference in the feel of that and a diaper. So he will tell me he needs to go potty if wearing underwear. However, if I put pull-ups on him, he uses the diaper not the potty. It’s almost like it’s done out of laziness. He doesn’t want to stop playing to use the potty so he’s like ok cool I have a diaper on I’ll use that. So lately if we are at home, I have him just wear underwear (and pants) so he gets used to the feel and using the potty becomes a habit!

He does get super excited about using the potty. He would tell me he needed to go then when he finished he would excitedly announce that he used the potty. It was super cute! He gets so proud of himself.

I know we aren’t 100% done with diapers. But we are past the starting line! That’s a success in my eyes!

Back in the red

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We are back in the Red in DFW. I don’t care what anyone says. I’m wearing a mask even when I workout. What inconvenience is it really to me? None. I put on clothes in the morning so a mask isn’t any different to me anymore.

I actually haven’t worn makeup since the masks requirement went into effect. With the exception of mascara of course but no actual face makeup. It’s been great! My skin has never looked so even toned and breakout free! I wash my face often or use face wipes. I also wash my mask regularly so that helps quite a bit to reduce any skin issues.

I really don’t mind wearing a mask even after the mask order is lifted. Honestly I’ve never gone this long without catching even just a cold! I credit that to the masks, over disinfecting and hand washing. I know masks are annoying to some but I’m one who doesn’t mind it. I’ll do whatever is going to keep my family and myself healthy! Better safe than sorry!

Scripture in the house

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We wrote a few scripture verses in different parts of our house. The entry, living room, kitchen, stairs, playroom, master, etc. They each relate to those specific parts of the house and our lives.

My handwriting sadly looks absolutely terrible as I was writing. You don’t realize how hard it is to write on unfinished floors till you get started! There was so much material and stuff stuck to it, even after I tried cleaning it, that made it hard to write on. I’m surprised you can even read half of what I wrote in some places!

We even let our 3 year old color on the floor a little so he could leave his mark in his room. He doesn’t quite understand it now but he enjoyed it.

When the house is done, you won’t see the scripture. The hardwood floors will cover it, but we’ll know it’s there. It’s sort of like God himself. You can’t see him, but you know he’s always there. It’s a great memory for us to have that writing there but secretly hidden. 🙏🏻

In the kitchen where the island will be

Drive through state fair

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I was super upset when I found out the Texas State Fair wasn’t happening this year because of Covid. It’s one of the few things I really look forward to every year. I love trying all the crazy food and walking around looking at all the interesting things being sold. I even love going to watch the pig races! If you ask our oldest, he would of course tell you the petting zoo is his favorite.

When the State Fair came out with a drive through option, I was super excited. My mother made fun of us for wanting to go. She said it was ridiculous to pay that kind of money just to drive through the fair and it was something she wouldn’t do. But we didn’t care. No it’s not the real fair but it’s a different experience and we weren’t going to let anyone ruin the fun for us. We may not get to walk around but we still get to go get our fair food and take a picture with Big Tex. My husband and I actually don’t have a picture with the both of us and the kids together in front of Big Tex. We have never had anyone take a picture of all of us together. It’s either me with the kids or him. So I was super excited to get a full family pic this year! And have it be a professional photo!

We went this weekend and had a really great time. Once you drive through the gates they have the entire drive through decorated like the fair. They had food stands lined along the way where you could pick up each of your food items. We got 8 Fletchers corny dogs, 6 fried Oreos, 4 corn on the cob, 2 turkey legs, 2 sausage on a stick, 2 fries, 2 cotton candy, and 2 kettle corn! We definitely got our fair food fix for the year!

While it wasn’t the “real” state fair, it was a lot of fun. It was a once in a lifetime experience to do a state fair drive through! Although next year I’ll be looking forward to going back to the real thing! But this was definitely a fun backup experience since we couldn’t do the real thing!

Zucchini Brownies

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I’m not a baker. Never have been. I actually have ruined 95% of the things I’ve tried baking over the years. I can cook decently well but me and baking just can seem to mesh

However, I did successfully bake the best zucchini brownies ever! And I’m not a brownie person! I actually very much dislike brownies, cookies, cake, etc. But these were pretty good! Would I crave them again? No. But that’s because I’m not a brownie person. If I was I’d be making these every week!

I think what I liked about them was that they didn’t have that oily texture. I hate that so many baking items require an oil base. Zucchini replaced the oil in this case. So instead of an oily feel, it was just very moist and soft. None of that greasy feel when you picked them up. I also didn’t feel as guilty having one because I was like well, there is zucchini so I’m getting a hint of a veggie!

Ingredients:

•2 cups flour (I used rice flour)

•1 cup grated zucchini

•1/2 cup cocoa powder

•1 cup granulated sugar

•1/2 cup skim milk

•2 eggs

•1 cup chocolate chips

•2 tsp baking soda

•2 tsp vanilla extract

•pinch of salt

Frosting:

•8 tbsp cocoa powder

•8 tbsp water

•4 tbsp sugar

•1 tsp vanilla extract

Recipe:

•Preheat oven to 350 degrees

•Spray 9×9 pan with cooking spray

•Combine all ingredients (minus the ingredients for frosting) into a bowl and mix until smooth

•Pour batter into pan

•Bake 25 minutes

•Combine ingredients for frosting and mix till smooth

•Once brownies are done and cooled, top with icing

Benefit of fevers

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All our lives we have been told (if you paid attention to your Dr or in health class 😉) that fevers are beneficial to fight infection. Having a fever can be scary, especially if it gets into the 104+ range. However, it’s also good. A fever, which is an elevated body temperature, sets in motion a series of mechanisms that regulate our immune system.

If you remember back to health class in high school, your hypothalamus is what sits at the base of your brain and regulates body temp. When your hypothalamus detects pathogens from the immune system, it signals for the body to generate and retain more heat. Thus triggering a fever.

There’s a saying…..”feed a cold, starve a fever.” If you have a fever you should avoid eating. You want your body focusing on the fever and riding itself of pathogens. By provoking digestion, you are over stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system.

Most fevers, a doctor will tell you to just stay home in bed and rest. When my son was 2 he got a fever of 104. The doctor told us to put him in a luke warm bath. If him temp continued at 104 or higher for two hours or more, then we were to take him to the emergency room. It’s scary, but again the body is just fighting an infection.

What’s crazy now days is the minute we find out someone has a fever, we go into full on panic because it’s possible they have corona virus! Before this pandemic, if someone had a fever they were told to go home and rest and no one really thought twice about it. But because of this virus, you get a fever, and people literally run from you! Lol

You body does some really cool things if you just pay attention to it. People are so focused on a quick fix and pump themselves with medication too early so their body becomes reliant on medication vs allowing it to use its immune system and fight it as god planned. Mind you, not all illnesses can be fought off by the immune system. I think we can all agree that there are quite a few cases where medication is needed. Please don’t go on the attack. I am not anti medication. I am just one who prefers to let the immune system try to work first. Then if help is needed, you call your doc and get your body extra help!

Raising the ceiling

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I’m loving the new ceiling height in the kitchen. The original height was 15ft. Now we are at 23ft! It really makes the room feel so much more grand. Not to mention it gives it more of an airy feel.

Don’t get me wrong, a 15ft ceiling would have been beautiful. I wouldn’t have had any complaints. But when we put in the balcony, we had to raise the ceiling and now it’s 23ft. So I went from loving the ceiling height to LOVING the ceiling height!

Sometimes I wonder if my husbands main goal for putting in the balcony was because he knew it would raise the ceiling height. He’s 6’6 so everything feels short or small to him. Old houses can be brutal for him to walk in to. Especially ones with archways because he has to walk directly under the middle of the arch or he risks hitting his head. I don’t have these problems being 5’3. 😂

Either way, putting a balcony in the playroom overlooking the kitchen was one of our best ideas!

Laundry addition

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One of the best ideas my husband has had for our house……expanding the upstairs play room closet and making it in to an upstairs laundry closet!

Call me lazy but the last thing I want to do is haul the kids laundry up and down the stairs multiple times a week. First world problems, I know! 😂

I never even thought about having an upstairs laundry. But after talking with our builder my husband found a way to fit it! Did we lose storage space for the game room? NOPE! How? Well we expanded the closet so it’s double what it was supposed to be. So not only will it fit a stacked washer and dryer but we will have shelving on the side for whatever. We also made adjustments to a small linen closet just outside Camden’s room. So that will be perfect to put board games and toys!

I have an upstairs laundry! I can’t say it enough times! Lol That’s how excited I am about it. 💃🏼

Terrible twos

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Terrible twos was definitely a bit brutal! People told me it was rough, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. The random melt downs, complete defiance, temper tantrums, etc. I knew he would push his limits but lord!!! Mix in the fact that he was still learning to talk and it made things so much more difficult for both of us. He would try to tell me something and got frustrated because I didn’t understand what he’s saying or wanting.

Every day I was exhausted! It’s an exhausted I’d never felt before. It’s a mix of mental and physical exhaustion. But weirdly enough, he wasn’t exhausted (ever)! It’s like the terrible twos upped his energy level. I was worn out well before he was. His bed time would come around and I was the one who needed to go to bed.

What didnt help was other moms telling me “wait till he’s 3 that’s worse than 2.” Come on people!!! Give a new mom a glimmer of hope! I need to see the light at the end of the tunnel and comments like this don’t help!

We are now at 3 and it’s a whole other ball game. He’s now able to talk, very well actually. But he still doesn’t know how to verbalize his feelings or emotions. So when tiredness comes over him and he’s ready for a nap, a lot of the time he just goes crazy. He’s not that kid who tells me he wants to go nap. He has always hated napping. Instead he acts out or throws things. What’s funny is he will throw something, look at me and go “mommy I’m being bad” and sometimes he actually goes and puts himself in timeout! It takes every bit of strength in my body not to die laughing. Because let’s be honest….the wrath of a toddler who’s in a mood and you laugh at him….nope I’m not going there!

He is a good boy. A very good boy. He’s so loving and does try to help out and share with his brother. We are just in a stage. I try to remind myself of that. Obviously in the moment it’s not exactly the thought going through my head. Most thoughts are more like “dear god please make this stop.” 😂 But as bad as I say it is, it could be worse. He isn’t as bad as some horror stories I’ve heard. He really is a good little boy. He is just learning and trying to figure out his emotions and life in general! 💙

Little details when building

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It’s crazy to me the amount of detail that goes in to building a house. I just thought builders followed a plan and that was that. Everything would be prefect and as it was supposed to be. I’m a little naive sometimes, I know!

As we have been going through the build process I realize there is so much work and detail that you as the homeowner have to pay attention to. Things aren’t always done how they are “supposed to be.” For example, some of our outlets in one room are all at different heights. They don’t run along the floor at an even height as you’d expect. If we hadn’t caught that and put it on our list of fixes for the builder, that room would have been finished with outlets scattered all over and it would have looked ridiculous in the end.

In another room the overhead fan location wasn’t in the center of the room. It was off center by a foot. Another minor thing that would have looked terrible later on had we not caught it early.

One of the biggest fixes we had recently was the niche in the master shower. The builders put the niche at too high of a height originally. I’m 5’3, and in order to reach for shampoo, I literally would have had to reach up over my head almost a foot to get a shower bottle. If you’re over 6ft this niche would have been fine. But for a shorter person like me, the niche was terribly located. So we had it bumped down a bit. Now it’s at a height that anyone, besides a child, can comfortably reach.

These are all things I would have never thought to even pay attention to. But when you’re building, literally every little detail of the house needs to be checked. Now I understand why people say building a house is so stressful!