Gluesticks: Make Your Own Taco Seasoning Mix: For sure going to try this

Gluesticks: Make Your Own Taco Seasoning Mix: Taco seasoning isn't expensive, but it is easy to make from basic ingredients.  I make mine from ingredients that I always have in ...

Do you have your summer planned?

I know it’s only mid April but my mom has taught me, it’s never too early to start planning. Summer is just around the corner and I thought it would be fun and kind of helpful if I put together a list for you guys. I tried my best to find links for everything so if you had more questions about anything you could totally check the sites out yourself. I know money is tight for everyone so I looked up a lot of things that fairly cheap (in my opinion) that you can do with the kiddies. Just a FYI all these places are in Washington state, so sorry if you’re a reader from somewhere else.

1.      Pike place market. Bringing your kids to the market should be fun because of all the cool things you can see. Just pack a lunch so you don’t have to worry about buying anything. Also they have this neat thing going on called “around the market in 80minutes” its free and you get to explore the market with the kids.http://www.pikeplacemarket.org/news_events/aroundthemarketin80minutes

2.      A Tacoma Rainier baseball game. You don’t have to love baseball but the tickets are pretty cheap and kids always love new experiences so why not. It will be a good picture perfect moment.http://tacoma.rainiers.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=t529

3.      Children’s Museum. Admission is cheap in my opinion. I personally loved coming here as a child. You can spend the whole day here exploring. There is honestly something for everybody, and I love the fact that it’s in a controlled and safe environment.http://thechildrensmuseum.org/visit

4.      Kent Cornucopia Days. Unfortunately I won’t have a link you can check out, but I was able to find out the dates yay. It will be going on July 8^th,9^th and 10^th. They will probably have more info out when we are closer to the date. They have parades and all that good stuff though that I think kids would enjoy

5.      Museum of Glass. I remember going here on a field trip, but I honestly can’t remember if I liked it or not. Like I said before, kids like trying new things. It’s not expensive really to get in but they also have a program where, every third Thursday of the month between 5-8pm it’s free to get in.http://www.museumofglass.org/page.aspx?pid=389

6.      The Bite of Seattle. I love the bite because I love food. It’s such a fun adventure because you get free live music, there is tons of booths of random stuff and there is so much different types of food to try. This year it will held July 15^th-17^th.http://www.comcastbiteofseattle.com/

Of course this isn’t the only thing going on this summer but I thought it would be a good place to start. Just look up festivals and type in your area, you’ll be surprised with how much is going on around you. If you have any places you think people should check out, write it below on this blog. Nothing is better than word of mouth, well if its good things. Hopefully this was helpful and I hope everyone has a good summer.

Don't do that please

Now my intention is to not offend anybody when writing this. This is my blog and I am allowed to write what I please. Today I feel like expressing my feelings about my pet peeves when strangers and sometimes even people I know meet my child. Hopefully it isn’t too long of a list.

1.      Try not to touch her hands. I feel like her hands are a magnet or something, because it’s always one of the first things people touch when seeing Jaliyah. I have no idea where your hands have been. I say that in the nicest way say possible by the way. Her hands are constantly in her mouth with the whole teething thing going on, the fact that she is a baby and that is what they do. Why would you want to scare the crap out of me by touching my daughters’ hands, especially when you’re a stranger? Good question right? So hand touching to a minimum. Please and thank you.

2.      Don’t touch the feet when she’s sleep. That’s actually a way to wake them up and 9 times out of 10 you’re not going to the be the person who puts them back to sleep. Plus I think it’s rude. Do you like to randomly be touched while you sleep? Didn’t think so.

3.      She’s not spoiled or a brat because she doesn’t want you to hold her. When you first meet someone, or haven’t been around them tons of time, does it make you spoiled or a brat if it makes you uncomfortable to be around them. I know she’s a cutie and you just want to squeeze her but she’s a human being just like everybody else and is allowed to have feelings. Stop being butt hurt if she doesn’t like you. It happens and eventually she will get over it.

You know I think that might sum it up for the most part. 3 pet peeves isn’t too bad. I think people tend to forget, is that babies are people too. Do you guys have any pet peeves that people do or did to your kids when they were younger? I would love to hear other people’s stories. Even if you’re not a parent, do you have something that irritates you when you see people around other people’s kids? Go ahead and write it in the comment box below on this blog.

Unnecessary things

Thinking is one of the biggest things that you do when your pregnant. What the baby will look like, what sleepless nights might feel like,what you want to eat, but most of all things you feel you really have to buy for the baby. Before i start this i would like to say this is only my opinion. Different strokes is for different folks. I would like the yelling to be held to a minimum please and thank you. I'm going to give you a top 10 list for both sides, so that should be fair, 10 things i loved and 10 things i could have lived without and a quick brief on why(this list is also for the first 6months of life).I'll start off with what i loved. In no particular order:

10: baby activity center: We put liyah in this when she was about i dont know five months and she loves it still and shes almost eight months old.It spins and allows her to jump so it keeps her busy for at least thirty minutes

9: boopy or the knock off: I was a breastfeeding mommy who had a c-section, so to have a pillow made specifically to help feed her was nice but when she is learning to sit up its also nice because you can prop the baby up. Its really nice to have.

8: Raffi: singable songs for the very young. Obviously they cant sing along with the music and im not always playing this but when its bath time for her it's nice background music. It helps them recognize that its bath time because its somthing similar and it just never hurts to be too kid friendly at such a young age

7: baby bath: Mind you my daughter will be 8months in a couple weeks. Shes not huge and i was kind of scared to put her in the bath tub. It helped so much because you dont have to worry about slipping and sliding it was nice.

6: bibs: when she use to just spit up all the time i didn't really care about bibs. When i started feeding her regular food is when it became all bad. Especially when she eats sweet potatoes. Why, i dont know but thats the food that she tend to get on her clothes. So breast milk just comes out in a wash real food, not so much so bibs are a must. Fancy ones aren't important either. I found its better to just get plain ones in different colors then ones that have words and sayings on them.

5: Nursing bra. I know this sounds silly specially if you have decided your breastfeeding. I didn't think it would matter that much so i actually never bought a nursing bra until i had a horrible first experience in public. I wont go into that but trust it comes in hand.

4: Nursing apron. Somebody actually gave it to me and i didn't think anything of it but it came into handy. You can always use a blanket it but its nice that it just hangs on your neck.

3: Johnson and Johnson bedtime bath: So lavender has something in it that helps soothe the body. It would knock  Jaliyah out in no time. I seriously have about a ten minute window from when i take her out the bath to when she needs to be in bed because she gets so dang tired. I love this stuff.

2: Plain white socks. Your probably thinking "ummm ok this is random" but its not, i promise. As cute as those little socks are that says" mommies champ" or some random saying. your better off with just plain white socks. Its seriously not even funny how fast and often your little one will lose that lovely sock and then your stuck without a matching pair.

1: Butt paste or diaper rash ointment.: Liyah didn't catch to many rashes so far yet but that actually works really well on there neck when it gets really icky because it traps milk and other weird stuff there.


Now for me to become a hater

10: Infant carseats. Now i know that you need these but dang it i hate em. So much work to carry my child in and out the car in. Thank heavens she no longer needs to be in it.

9: Non Cosco wipes: I know this may sound a little silly but the packaging for there wipes and the amount and the price just works way better for me then anything else out there. You get a pack of 900 that divide off into packs of 100 and it only cost 18 dollars before tax. When i use other wipes they dry out cost to much and not nearly enough comes in the back only like 64 or so.

8: Toys: ok i dont hate toys but i defiantly wouldn't buy any until your kid is actually born because you seriously don't know what they will like. You will save so much money. To be honest, the simpler the better. The toys that helped built motor skills, like the rings or something along those lines, work out way better then the stuff that lights up

7: Child developing books: we have like a love hate relationship. They help you learn but they freak you out so much because if your child isn't doing what they say they should be doing in the book you freak out.

6: shoes: They don't even use them, they cant walk, and depending on the shoe it can actually be bad for the baby because the weight of the shoe and all that good stuff.

5: Bouncer: Honestly you can have one or the other and the baby swing worked better then bouncer. if you want a chair i guess this ok kind of but its just a waste of space in my opinion

4: pullover sweatshirts:they;re cute on a baby but my daughter was so uncomfortable until she got older

3: diaper genie: In my opinion its just a lazy way of throwing away diapers. If you have a poopy diaper you can buy these little disposable baggies made for diapers at the dollar store that come in a pack of 75 or even better just take your trash out every night.

2: baby detergent: I am a person with very sensitive skin so this is one of the things i asked for because i thought my child would be the same. It didn't make a difference though so since she was about a month old shes been using regular detergent. Granted not all babies will be like this but it seriously wouldnt hurt to try. It can end up saving you alot of money.

1: Stilettos: I am the kind of girl who loves heels and loves looking cute but do you know how uncoordinated you are after you have a baby? ill tell you very. I feel like ill never be the same but my opinion to alternative is wedges or really cute boots. They help in the balance department, they're cute, and when the little one gets a little older and you have to start chasing them around its something that is much safer.


Hope you enjoyed my long count down list. feel free to list some products you liked or didn't like for that matter.

Cleaning never wins

So i have confession to make. Cleaning is NOT my forte. I had this wonderful idea that because i magically pushed out a baby that i was going to grow this love towards cleaning. I guess i was smoking crack when the idea came about because believe you me that is not the case. BUT i have to admit i have gotten better and for anybody who has the same i thought i would come up with a couple of things to maybe help.

Get containers or a storage unit for pretty much everything. The more divided things are for some reason the easier(at least for me) it is to store things and put them back. It doesn't really matter where you get the items.( Walmart, Target, Walgreens. Anywhere really) You don't have to get the plain ole' white and clear plastic stuff either, stores make them in so many colors now its not even funny.

My next helpful tip: Do small projects at a time. I always have the problem of getting overwhelmed because I always want to take on to many projects. Baby Steps in the key. Small projects and then put yourself on a time limit. Say Your going to clean off this shelf and then give yourself thirty minutes to do so. It's hard at first because you just want to get it all done but you'll start feeling accomplished because things are slowly but surely getting done.

Now this is probably going to sound silly saying because if it was easy everyone would be doing it but putting stuff away as you go. I kid you not it takes more time to leave something on the bed and have to clean it later compared to the 2seconds it will take you to just put it away. Semi on this subject I have learned that when i tend to not put things away right afterwards a great alternative is to do a "final sweep". Believe me that final sweep does wonders. After you have put the baby down just do that quick sweep around the house that will honestly take two minutes before you do anything else. Say you didnt get to the dishes or clean the bathroom completely atleast if some random person drops by the next morning your place doesn't look like a tornado of toys came crashing through your house.

Now mind you half of these idea's aren't completely mine. I had a lot of help from my lovely mother. I did want to share them though(the idea's). As simple as they are they have helped me tremendously. I know i also didn't touch on every subject but i hope i helped out atleast a tiny bit( or gave you a good laugh atleast)
Feel free to leave comments if you have any helpful hints.  

The great adventure of breastfeeding

So while your pregnant one of the big things you think about, well the big thing that i thought about was whether or not i will breastfeeding. I new that i was trying to go back to work after i had the baby but only part time. I was so torn because I wanted what was best for her so i wanted to breastfeed, but i new that if i bottled fed her it would be easier to go back to work. At the end of the day i went with what was best for the baby by deciding to breastfeed her. My idea was to atleast breastfeed for a month and try to get her use to formula the second month so we would 1) give her the nutrition that she needs for atleast a little bit of time and 2) i would be able to have other people watch her while i went back to work. What i didn't think about was whether or not my daughter would actually follow that plan. I don't know about your guys children or if you even have any but my child loves not going along with what i have planned and shes only three months, who knows whats going to happen when shes older. 
So breastfeeding isn't actually all that bad in my opinion. You seriously give your baby everything she needs in her food and you save so much money. You lose weight at a faster pace because the baby is just taking pretty much everything you eat, just like when you were pregnant. For me it didn't necessarily hurt really it was awkward at first and there was like a little bit of stinging involved but honestly that pain only last for a good week or so and dealing with labor and being pregnant was worse then that pain. The other good part for breastfeeding is at night time its so much easier to stick a boob in your child's mouth rather then getting up and trying to make a bottle. 
If you have the idea of doing half and half,meaning half breast milk half formula let me tell you now its way harder then the books lead you to believe. I tried with Jaliyah and let me tell you, that was not fun one bit. She gave me the worst stinky face i have ever seen in my life.and i have never seen my child scream the way she did when that formula hit her tongue. She was so use to what i was feeding her and i honestly didn't think it would be such a big deal. It was hard for me to try and feed her formula because deep down i new it wasn't any good for her. 
The downside about breastfeeding is trying to do this around company or in public. I'm not even going to lie after you have 20 thousand people in your crouch to help you deliver your child pulling your boob out in front of people doesn't really bother you. The thing that sucks is the people around you or the public. Luckily i have a very supportive family and a good support group so pulling out the boob does not faze them one bit. Its just annoying because people look at you funny if you want to feed your child like your doing something disgusting. It makes me mad. So instead of joying my time out i have to go put myself in the car or stay in a room by myself and its horrible and annoying. Good thing is that Washington state and maybe in other states made a law were you are allowed to breastfeed and nobody can do anything about it. No one can tell you to cover up and no one can kick you out for feeding or make you go to the bathroom or some other odd place.




Basically when its all said and done. Do your researcher and make sure you always try to do whats best for your child. There is always pro's and con's to everything. I can tell you that i love the decision that i made. Me and Liyah have the best bond i could ask for . Yes it takes longer to do things at time but i personally would rather take longer running errands or something along those lines then not try to breastfeed my child and give her the best that i can give her. Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong if you can't breastfeed but in my eyes you should try or at least think about trying.






Yvonne