I've been a little overwhelmed of late with baby and summertime activities and just life in general... so I'm taking a little bloggy break!
Back soon...
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
A Little Break...
I've been a little overwhelmed of late with baby and summertime activities and just life in general... so I'm taking a little bloggy break!
Back soon...
Monday, July 18, 2011
Giveaway Winner!
Via the Random # Generator... Jolene is our winner of the Scentsy giveaway!!!
Jolene, please send me an e-mail with your info so we can get your adorable zebra warmer and scent bar of your choice in the mail :)
Jolene, please send me an e-mail with your info so we can get your adorable zebra warmer and scent bar of your choice in the mail :)
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| Didn't win? You can still get your hands on one of these cute little numbers... just click on the Scentsy button in the sidebar! |
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
If You Do Nothing Else Today...
Please pray for James and his family. They received devastating news yesterday, please go here to read it in their own words.
I have no words to express the utter heartbreak that this family is going through. Please pray for strength, wisdom, and peace for them in the days ahead.
I have no words to express the utter heartbreak that this family is going through. Please pray for strength, wisdom, and peace for them in the days ahead.
Monday, July 11, 2011
16 Weeks. {OMG, has it been that long???}
The Aunties made this SUPER-adorable mum for Glambina when she was born. They brought it to the hospital the night before I was induced (along with pizza, salad, and the most heavenly strawberry cake ever!) and hung it on my door. Believe me, I was the envy of EVERY girl in labor and delivery at the hospital :) The mum came home with us, and has now taken up permanent residence on the door of the Glambina's nursery, as well it should!
Crafty girls that they are, the Aunties fashioned a mum that is not only decorative, but also functional. (You wish they were your friends too, I know. They rock.) See that pretty flower in the middle? It's also a hair clip! I decided it was high time for Glambina to model said hair clip, so here you have it...
Crafty girls that they are, the Aunties fashioned a mum that is not only decorative, but also functional. (You wish they were your friends too, I know. They rock.) See that pretty flower in the middle? It's also a hair clip! I decided it was high time for Glambina to model said hair clip, so here you have it...
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| I want one for my bedroom door too, but husband said no. Boo. |
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| Adorable, yes? |
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| Threw a fit, and decided the bow had to go. |
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| But allowed the lamb to wear it for a brief moment. |
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| Decided we wanted the bow for ourselves again. |
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| Over it. |
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| Lamb is victorious in Battle Hairbow. |
Giveaway!
Hi peeps! (Little known fact, Marshmallow Peeps and Pop Rocks are really the only candy that I like. Weird, right? I don't like ANY kind of candy bars.)
It's Monday, historically not the most popular day of the week - but I'm here to change that :) Because THIS particular Monday we are having a giveaway! The lovely Jessica, from Scentsy, is giving away a fabulous ZEBRA(!!!) Scentsy warmer + scent bar of YOUR choice!
She kindly sent me one to try - and I decided to do a little photo shoot with it - obviously I went with an outdoor theme... it is animal print and all :)
The scent bar comes shipped to your house in this super-cool (literally) cooler bag, nestled among some cold packs. By the time it arrived at my doorstep, the cold packs were no longer the least bit cool... but the scent bar was in perfect condition, not even a teensy bit melted! Considering that I liveon the surface of the sun in Texas where the average temperature this month has been over 100 degrees, this is pretty darn impressive!
Now for my favorite part. The warmer. Jessica was sweet enough to let me choose the warmer for this giveaway - of course there was NO question that it would have to be this darling zebra-print one! I also chose the one that plugs directly into the wall... because I have a munchkin and don't want any unnecessary cords hanging around :) The warmers also come in full-size and a mid-size as well!
Now onto how YOU can get your hands on this little lovely! Jessica is giving away this zebra plug-in warmer AND a scent bar of your choice! It's easy to enter, here's the details:
Go to Jessica's scentsy page and choose the scent that you would like for your very own!
Leave a comment on this post with the scent that you would like, if you are the winner!
For two additional entries, do the two things below!(please leave separate comments for each one!)
{Disclaimer: Jessica from Scentsy sent me this warmer/scent brick free of charge to review! All opinions in this post are my own, and entirely my own.}
P.S. I am posting this giveaway on both Glamorous Newlywed & Glambina{dot}com, but you only need to enter on one website or the other, not both :)
It's Monday, historically not the most popular day of the week - but I'm here to change that :) Because THIS particular Monday we are having a giveaway! The lovely Jessica, from Scentsy, is giving away a fabulous ZEBRA(!!!) Scentsy warmer + scent bar of YOUR choice!
She kindly sent me one to try - and I decided to do a little photo shoot with it - obviously I went with an outdoor theme... it is animal print and all :)
The scent bar comes shipped to your house in this super-cool (literally) cooler bag, nestled among some cold packs. By the time it arrived at my doorstep, the cold packs were no longer the least bit cool... but the scent bar was in perfect condition, not even a teensy bit melted! Considering that I live
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| Delicious-smelling Scentsy bar nestled in its little cooler pack! |
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| Un-melted, but not for long! |
Now for my favorite part. The warmer. Jessica was sweet enough to let me choose the warmer for this giveaway - of course there was NO question that it would have to be this darling zebra-print one! I also chose the one that plugs directly into the wall... because I have a munchkin and don't want any unnecessary cords hanging around :) The warmers also come in full-size and a mid-size as well!
 |
| Super-easy assembly: screw in the light bulb. That's pretty much it. Even I can handle that :) |
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| animal print = love |
Go to Jessica's scentsy page and choose the scent that you would like for your very own!
Leave a comment on this post with the scent that you would like, if you are the winner!
For two additional entries, do the two things below!(please leave separate comments for each one!)
- Become a follower of Jessica's Facebook Page and her blog
- Become a follower of Glamorous Newlywed & Glambina{dot}com
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| This could be yours... enter today! |
{Disclaimer: Jessica from Scentsy sent me this warmer/scent brick free of charge to review! All opinions in this post are my own, and entirely my own.}
P.S. I am posting this giveaway on both Glamorous Newlywed & Glambina{dot}com, but you only need to enter on one website or the other, not both :)
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Glambina's Birth Announcements
I just realized that I never gave ya'll a peek at the Glambina's birth announcements... here it is :)
The announcement actually folds in thirds into the envelope, then opens out into a long card! These are screenshots from the online print preview, so please excuse the little arrows on the sides... those obviously weren't present on the actual announcements!
The announcements were from Tiny Prints - who I highly recommend! They had fabulous customer service, and the website/design tools were really easy to navigate and use :)
The announcement actually folds in thirds into the envelope, then opens out into a long card! These are screenshots from the online print preview, so please excuse the little arrows on the sides... those obviously weren't present on the actual announcements!
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| front |
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| inside |
The announcements were from Tiny Prints - who I highly recommend! They had fabulous customer service, and the website/design tools were really easy to navigate and use :)
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Getting Your Baby to Sleep.
Disclaimer: I have no earthly idea how to tell anyone else how to get their baby to sleep. But I do know what works for me, right now. It may probably will change in the future, and I'm ok with that. I don't consider myself an expert on babies, nor am I here to argue with anyone about SIDS, co-sleeping, or crying-it-out, so please don't try to pick a fight with me :)
Before I had a baby of my very own, I thought that all babies did only three things:
Then I had this tiny, perfect little daughter. When we first came home from the hospital, she was a little under 5 lbs, and was so very small! I was told that I must feed her every 2 hours (or even more, if possible), until she was at least up to 6 or 7 lbs and a bit sturdier. But as miniature as she was, Glambina is a highly opinionated little girl! She adamantly refused to be swaddled, ejected pacifiers at terrifying speeds, and loudly proclaimed that her crib was simply unacceptable.
After going through the seemingly endless cycles of feeding for 45 minutes, spending 45 minutes trying to get the baby asleep in her crib, and then realizing that I had 30 minutes left to sleep before it was time to start again... I realized that parenthood is trench warfare and you do whatever it takes to get you and your baby through in the best way possible.
So we slept together in the daybed in the nursery. And I actually got sleep. Not much more sleep, but enough to keep me from turning into something that looked like it crawled out of the crypt on a full moon. (Side note: cruel irony of breastfeeding - you're SO TIRED in the beginning, but you can't have much, if any caffeine. Sads.)
So I did all the research on co-sleeping with your baby, how to make your bed safe, etc. We stayed in the little daybed in the nursery for a long time, until I felt confident about going back into the big bed with the husband. I won't bore you with the precautions we took, but if you want to learn about making your bed safe for co-sleeping, we found great information here. I also learned how to nurse in the side-lying position... which is the most amazing thing ever (doesn't usually take much to impress you when you're a new mom - getting to use shampoo AND conditioner in the shower is life-changing :) and led to even MORE sleep!
We tried every other option out there and they just didn't work :
So here's where we are: the Glambina usually falls asleep around 11 am for an hour or two, and then we both take a nap together in the late afternoon (yes, I nap and I am not ashamed. Sometimes I use this time to blog or read as well.) Nighttime is still tough, as the Glambina refuses to accept substitutions for nursing, and although she will temporarily fall asleep while someone walks her around or if she is in the car... it's always short-lived and over in 20 minutes or less. BUT, if I lay down with her and let her nurse (and doze off myself), she is content and asleep in less than 10 minutes. So we normally just go to bed around 10:30 or 11 together. She never fusses at night anymore, if she wakes up I just latch her on to nurse and we both fall back asleep within a few minutes. I don't mind her going to bed late, because the husband usually works fairly late, so going to bed at 11 and sleeping in a bit or taking a long nap the next day works well for us!
I tried to let Glambina cry it out a couple of times about a month ago, but it just doesn't seem natural to me and we haven't tried it since. This has been the toughest thing, because EVERYONE seems to want to tell you that you "Just have to let them cry it out, it's good for their lungs, and they'll get spoiled if you don't." Please understand that I have no judgement towards anyone who chooses a cry-it-out method for their baby, and I will not say that I won't ever turn to that in the future... but for now it just isn't right for us. We'll probably try a gentle method of sleep training when the Glambina is 6 months or so, but not until she is at least 15 lbs (we're at about 12.5 right now).
There is nothing sweeter than waking up in the middle of the night to a little hand reaching out to make sure you are still there. I'm super-grateful to my husband and my dad for supporting me in the decisions I've made about how to deal with the sleeping issues we've had with Glambina.
I had some very tearful moments when people close to me were quite harsh and vocal in their opinions about how I should sleep-train Glambina, telling me that she would be spoiled (it's a scientific fact that you cannot spoil a newborn)
It took me a while to not feel pressured or guilty about this, but ultimately how you raise you child is YOUR decision. If you do the research (I did, exhaustively), act out of love, and come to an informed decision about an issue, then as a parent I believe that you have done everything you can do to keep your child safe and happy. What we are doing works great for us, my dad is around a lot to help me in the evenings because she is up later than most babies, I don't work a regular job so I can nap during the day with her, and I am naturally a light sleeper that also doesn't require a ton of sleep to function. This may not work for you, so find what does... but don't expect it to be the same thing day after day, because the moment you find something that works your baby will switch it up on you :)
If you are a parent, did you have trouble with sleep and your baby? What worked for you?
Some things I found helpful in my hours of researching this topic:
When to Start Sleep Training
SIDS
Comfort Nursing (& a bunch of other helpful stuff!)
Before I had a baby of my very own, I thought that all babies did only three things:
- Eat
- Poop
- Sleep
Then I had this tiny, perfect little daughter. When we first came home from the hospital, she was a little under 5 lbs, and was so very small! I was told that I must feed her every 2 hours (or even more, if possible), until she was at least up to 6 or 7 lbs and a bit sturdier. But as miniature as she was, Glambina is a highly opinionated little girl! She adamantly refused to be swaddled, ejected pacifiers at terrifying speeds, and loudly proclaimed that her crib was simply unacceptable.
After going through the seemingly endless cycles of feeding for 45 minutes, spending 45 minutes trying to get the baby asleep in her crib, and then realizing that I had 30 minutes left to sleep before it was time to start again... I realized that parenthood is trench warfare and you do whatever it takes to get you and your baby through in the best way possible.
So we slept together in the daybed in the nursery. And I actually got sleep. Not much more sleep, but enough to keep me from turning into something that looked like it crawled out of the crypt on a full moon. (Side note: cruel irony of breastfeeding - you're SO TIRED in the beginning, but you can't have much, if any caffeine. Sads.)
So I did all the research on co-sleeping with your baby, how to make your bed safe, etc. We stayed in the little daybed in the nursery for a long time, until I felt confident about going back into the big bed with the husband. I won't bore you with the precautions we took, but if you want to learn about making your bed safe for co-sleeping, we found great information here. I also learned how to nurse in the side-lying position... which is the most amazing thing ever (doesn't usually take much to impress you when you're a new mom - getting to use shampoo AND conditioner in the shower is life-changing :) and led to even MORE sleep!
We tried every other option out there and they just didn't work :
So here's where we are: the Glambina usually falls asleep around 11 am for an hour or two, and then we both take a nap together in the late afternoon (yes, I nap and I am not ashamed. Sometimes I use this time to blog or read as well.) Nighttime is still tough, as the Glambina refuses to accept substitutions for nursing, and although she will temporarily fall asleep while someone walks her around or if she is in the car... it's always short-lived and over in 20 minutes or less. BUT, if I lay down with her and let her nurse (and doze off myself), she is content and asleep in less than 10 minutes. So we normally just go to bed around 10:30 or 11 together. She never fusses at night anymore, if she wakes up I just latch her on to nurse and we both fall back asleep within a few minutes. I don't mind her going to bed late, because the husband usually works fairly late, so going to bed at 11 and sleeping in a bit or taking a long nap the next day works well for us!
I tried to let Glambina cry it out a couple of times about a month ago, but it just doesn't seem natural to me and we haven't tried it since. This has been the toughest thing, because EVERYONE seems to want to tell you that you "Just have to let them cry it out, it's good for their lungs, and they'll get spoiled if you don't." Please understand that I have no judgement towards anyone who chooses a cry-it-out method for their baby, and I will not say that I won't ever turn to that in the future... but for now it just isn't right for us. We'll probably try a gentle method of sleep training when the Glambina is 6 months or so, but not until she is at least 15 lbs (we're at about 12.5 right now).
There is nothing sweeter than waking up in the middle of the night to a little hand reaching out to make sure you are still there. I'm super-grateful to my husband and my dad for supporting me in the decisions I've made about how to deal with the sleeping issues we've had with Glambina.
I had some very tearful moments when people close to me were quite harsh and vocal in their opinions about how I should sleep-train Glambina, telling me that she would be spoiled (it's a scientific fact that you cannot spoil a newborn)
It took me a while to not feel pressured or guilty about this, but ultimately how you raise you child is YOUR decision. If you do the research (I did, exhaustively), act out of love, and come to an informed decision about an issue, then as a parent I believe that you have done everything you can do to keep your child safe and happy. What we are doing works great for us, my dad is around a lot to help me in the evenings because she is up later than most babies, I don't work a regular job so I can nap during the day with her, and I am naturally a light sleeper that also doesn't require a ton of sleep to function. This may not work for you, so find what does... but don't expect it to be the same thing day after day, because the moment you find something that works your baby will switch it up on you :)
If you are a parent, did you have trouble with sleep and your baby? What worked for you?
Some things I found helpful in my hours of researching this topic:
When to Start Sleep Training
SIDS
Comfort Nursing (& a bunch of other helpful stuff!)
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