GIVEAWAY WINNER!!

AmyS828 is the winner of the wall letter giveaway!!

Please email me at corinnep27 at yahoo dot com and we will talk about what you want! I will also be posting the "process" on the blog of making the letters, so yall can follow along on the edge of your seats :)

Til then, I am taking the girls on a road trip.... thank GOD Matt will be there, but I am still a little nervous. Especially about the driving...

Wish me luck, and Amy, I'll talk to you soon!

GIVEAWAY! A good one too :)

At least I think so! Some of you may or may not know, I have an ETSY shop where I sell wall letters for kids' rooms. I customize them to whatever you want, and frequently am asked to match a baby's bedding, or a kids' favorite things. The shop isn't all that fancy, but since it is all custom work, I don't have multiple listings to sell. I hope you love them, and tell your friends about them!

And I am going to give a set away! I really love doing this, and would love to do more!

There are more pictures on the ETSY store also.

Sooooo, I am giving away one set of wall letters! Customized to whatever style you want.

So, what you need to do.... each of these is for a separate entry, and you need to make a seperate comment.

1- Follow the blog
2- Favorite the ETSY store
3- Tell me what you would do (*name/design) if you won!
4- Share the ETSY page link on your FB page

Winner will be chosen at random on June 30. Good luck!!

Stolen Post

I had to do it. And I will give credit to the amazing author of course. But she just puts it in some great words, so I had to borrow it! I am going to edit some things to make it totally relevant to me.

Dear  first-time-mom-Corinne,

Try not to be such a super mom. Try not to read every book and have all the milestones memorized the month before she should reach them. Try not to drop everything every time she makes a noise that sounds like she might be slightly discontented. Try not to judge that mom of 2 in Target who’s letting her infant cry while she chases her toddler down the aisle. Try not to keep everything so clean. Try not to learn all the words to so many lullabies and nursery rhymes. Try not to buy so many toys. Try not to work with her so much on reaching with purpose, rolling over, and crawling.

3 years from now, you will not have time to read. You won’t have any idea if your second baby is hitting any of her milestones. You, frankly, won’t really care because, well, she seems healthy and happy, so that has to count for something.

Your second baby will cry. She will cry often. There’s really not anything you can do about it because the toddler who just pooped on her dress and possibly smeared a little on the floor needs to be dealt with more than the crying baby. Her cries in public will not bother you as much because you’re too busy FUH-REAKING out at the 3 year old running away from you in a parking lot.

She will spend her days playing in an exersaucer and jumperoo that have a healthy layer of dog hair and baby puke on them. Her immune system is going to be AWESOME. The jumperoo doesn’t even have batteries in it. She does not seem to care.

You will have forgotten all those lullabies by now, but you will know the words to every popular country song because your 3 year old daugter is slightly obsessed with songs like "Stuck Like Glue". You lull the baby to sleep with a slow version of it.


She will have about 5 toys… that are age appropriate. Your 3 year old will also shove very small baby dolls and age-inappropriate musical instruments in her chubby hands, and she will chew on your phone. You will not have time to wave mirrors in front of her to get her to roll over. You will, honestly, not be in a big hurry to get her to crawl because crawling leads to walking, and before you know it, you will be chasing her in a parking lot. She will probably be running the opposite direction of the other one running away from you. You will want her to remain immobile as long as possible.

First-time-mom-Corinne, try not to be so awesome. You might have a little less guilt the second time around, and you might save yourself a bit of sanity. Turns out all that stuff you are so neurotic about now is really not that important.

Love,
Corinne from the future

Thank you so much to Jill from Baby Rabies, and AWESOME mommy blog that I can't get enough of.  I pink puffy heart you. A lot.

Wordless Wednesday

Cutest.outfit.ever.

Soooooo sweet

Comparisons

Olivia- before a party at Chuck E Cheese

Ava- before a party at Goofballs

Sometimes I can't help but compare the two girls. And quite frankly, when a moment like this happens, it is just hard to pass up a photo op. They were both before birthday parties, both sitting on Daddy's lap, in his truck. Different trucks mind you, but still. I only wish Matt was actually in the picture of he and O.

Sweet babies. They do look alike sometimes, but are very different in most ways.

And alas, it seems the little one is done napping. Typical!

Wordless Wednesday

Airplane!

How am I so lucky?

Long shadows and fake uggs in 95 degree evenings

Toddle Along Tuesday!

If you need some great new blogs to follow, check out Toddle Along Tuesday!



It's a good way to follow some new baby blogs!

Dairy Free Life- Not by choice

When Ava was about 7 weeks old, we figured out she had a dairy intolerance (along with 8000 other issues you can read about here). So any dairy I ate, was affecting her through my breastmilk. So, I stopped eating dairy. At first, it was just the obvious stuff, milk, cream, butter, cheese. Yes, cheese. Bye bye pizza, lasagna, coffee creamer, and oh so many other wonderful things. Then I decided to cut out hidden dairy as well. Anything with an ingredient that was milk, out. So most packaged products. Good bye, oh, just about everything in the world that is yummy. (Ok, I exaggerate. A little.)

On the plus side, I dropped 5 pesky pounds in about 2 weeks. Um, hello! That was a good thing for sure. Also, I learned remembered how to eat better. I went back to whole foods, fruit for snacks, and very carefully reading labels. So, not such a bad thing.

Some things I have learned, that I was surprised about.

-You can make gravy with almond milk. So fried chicken still has a friend. And biscuits and gravy? Yes ma'am.
- Oreos don't have dairy.
- Coconut milk ice cream is alllllmost as good as the real deal. Especially the chocolate. Swoon.
- You can live without dairy. It kind of sucks at times, like today when I may or may not have drooled on Olivia's grilled cheese while I was cutting it up. But, it's worth it.

Ava's tummy troubles have pretty much ceased, and yes, I can tell when I have slipped up. She tells me allllll about it. I really thought that she wouldn't notice that fun size Twix I ate the other day....

I am thinking that around 6 months I may try a piece of cheese on a sandwich or something, and just see what happens. Most kids outgrow it within the first year. I really hope she does, for her sake. We will deal either way, but I hate for her to be restricted on what she can eat as she gets weaned.

Off to dream of pizza.... and remind myself that it is worth it to help her!

Ohhhhhhh

So that's why I had kids <3 Love these girls!

Getting the body back

Well, it's been tough getting to the gym the past couple of weeks. I have no idea why, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with two little girls I know...

But I have still seen some progress.

Weight- 148- Down 3 pounds

Waist- 35.5- down 1.5 inches
Hips- 39 inches- same
Thigh- 23.5 inches- up .5 inch

And I got into 2 pairs of jeans that I LOVE! I had bought them the month before getting pregnant with Ava. So I guess, though I hate to say it, at the skinniest point I had been since getting pregnant with Olivia. That makes me happy and sad. I remember buying them thinking "I am not where I want to be, but I want some cute jeans." But now, they fit, and I am super happy! Except for it's 90+ degrees every day, not jeans weather....

And I just want to get my body back!!! It's so frustrating. I love seeing progress, obviously. But it's never fast enough. I think I will get back to doing the 30 day shred, and trying to stick with that, and get to the gym when I can. And stop eating Oreos.... and coconut milk ice cream.... hey, it sucks not being able to eat dairy!

Old School

A friend of mine posted an old picture of her hubby, and it made me think that it would be fun! So enjoy, from the young, and skinny days :)

Pretty much reinforces how I decided I would somehow make it to the gym at least 4 times this week... 2 babies do a number to your body! I just am reminding myself, it will be so much easier to do it now, at 28 years old, and make a permanent change. I can't let myself stay like this for too long, or it will be that much harder to get it off years down the road.

Totally MIA

Yes, that has been me. I don't know what happened, but life with two kids, 100% of the time (aka, preschool is out for summer) takes a lot of time. I love it, and I wouldn't have it any other way. But to steal a memory from another girl's blog, sometimes I do feel like Charlotte in Sex and the City II, when she goes into the closet and screams. Except, I do not have a nanny to then whisk my children away and give me peace for a little while.

I think those days happen about once a week around here. Which isn't really too bad, I don't think. What on earth do I get frustrated about? Probably feeling like I can't be everything both girls need me to be. Ava is obviously requiring a lot, since she is only 4 months old. But Olivia requires a lot, because she is 3. Just totally different stuff. I do have to remember to be grateful that I am literally giving them almost 100% of my time, and that a lot of kids don't get that from mom (NOT bashing moms who don't SAH. At all.).

On the brighter side, summer is here. And it's really here. Like 93+ every day this week. We got a pool, as a hand me down from our neighbor. We don't get to use it quite as much as I'd like, since I can't really handle 2 kids on my own in the water, and it's too hot for Ava to just sit in the shade or something. Plus, who are we kidding, not like she'd hang out by herself for longer than 5 minutes anyways!

So we take advantage of it when Matt is home, and when Ava is napping. Olivia is a fish, for real. That reminds me, I need to check into swimming lessons. She always runs around saying "I can swim!" ummmmm, no, you can't. You can float around and kick your feet while you are wearing your Puddlejumper floaty. I don't want her flinging herself into Papa's pool declaring "I can swim!" And then, well, not swimming.

I am currently working on Ava's naps. She has been napping in her swing, which honestly, doesn't even work that well. She takes 30 minute naps all day, and one long 2-3 hour one. Usually. But I cannot be toting that swing around everywhere we go, and plus, she is trying to sit up in it. No good. So to the crib it is. I really only started yesterday. She will nap about 30 minutes in the crib, which is the same, so I guess that's good. I'll admit, when it was time for the long nap, I threw that baby in the swing, yes ma'am I did. Hey, both girls nap at the same time then. I mean, who's to mess with that?! Maybe she would do it in her crib too, I don't know. I vow to try by the end of the week.....

That said, here is what Ava's up to.

 baby crunches.all.the.time. Abs of steel, yes sir.

And this noise.... cute, but so loud!