Mothership Confessional

Mmm I'm so excited to share this recipe with y'all!! It should be a household staple  for everyone! It's easy, hearty, and satisfying! We cook with a lot  of chicken in our house, and I love being able to whip up a complete meal in a crockpot. A crockpot meal just about always  gives you leftovers and allows you to dump and go and come home to a hot dinner. And as a bonus, you can throw the lid on it and put it in the fridge after dinner is over so there is no clean up! You can deal with the dishes another night; a crockpot dinner should mean a night off from cooking and  dishes! Here we go! You'll Need: 3 chicken breasts, frozen is fine 2 cans of Cream of Mushroom Soup 2 cups of water* 2 chicken bullion cubes* (the water and bullion cubes could be replaced by 2 cups of chicken broth) 2 cups of dry quick-cooking brown rice 2 cups of chopped cooked broccoli (more if you love it, less if you don't) Here's my schpeal...

Phew! These last few days with Ava have been little more challenging. We have switched her, cold turkey, to a 1-nap-a-day schedule...and she's a little overtired! She used to nap at 9:30 and 2, and it was taking her an hour or more to fall asleep at her afternoon nap and sometimes she would even skip one of her naps entirely! I felt like 13 months was a little  early to make that switch, but she's always been an alert kid and napping hasn't always come easily for her, so it didn't surprise me too much that she was trying to tell me she's ready for just one nap! She's pretty tired in the mornings, so I've been needing to keep her busy to distract her from being sleepy. We took trips to the park, and I made sure to have new things for her to do. It's been going a little bit better each day, except last night she had a big meltdown for no other reason that we could figure out besides the fact that she was ready for bed. I think we are going to move up bed...

Time for another simple, fun activity for your toddler! For this DIY, you'll need:  *1 gallon-size Ziploc bag *Some sort of " suspension liquid" - I used some body gel oil that I didn't care for and was planning on throwing away. You can use just about any clear/semi clear liquid you have on hand - hair gel (dollars store sells it for cheap!), baby oil, olive oil, vegetable oil, or even water! It doesn't really matter what you use! *Next, you'll want to add some goodies . Any random art supply will do; I had pom poms, beads, and sequins on hand so that's what I used. If you don't have a stash of art supplies built up yet, you can easily use household items! Torn up magazines or junk mail flyers, paper clips, rubber bands, or even Cheerios...be creative! Now you can fill your bag! *Lastly, you will need clear packing tape to secure the bag to the floor. Make sure your bag is sealed well! The body oil gel I used ...

12 weeks... DONE!! We are 1/3 of the way to meeting our baby!! And we finally got to see little baby and we got an official due date! The ultrasound image was of a 9 1/2 weeker, so there wasn't much to see! Still a "little gummy bear" as the doctor called it! And I am due February 27th!  I was able to ask some questions about my delivery options. I will only have one more appointment with this doctor (if we are even here that long) so she gave me her opinion, but said my next doctor might have something different to say. She recommended letting myself go into labor, and have a c-section scheduled for a week or two past my due date in case labor did not happen. She said it is rare that they advise anyone against laboring, so it would be okay for me to do as well. Of course, this all depends on how baby is presenting; Ava was transverse or breech the whole time until the doctor did an external version to move her. I still feel a little reluctant to labor bec...

I've been feeling rather disappointed in myself lately that I haven't done more hands-on activities with Ava. I am a preschool teacher after all, and I have an enormous  arsenal of ideas for early education! For whatever reason, I just haven't been able to get my butt in gear to plan a few fun activities for my girl!  Ok, well I am pregnant, so I guess that is a reason! I'm in the midst of 1st trimester exhaustion! Ava is nearing 13 months so there are still a lot of activities she is still a bit too young for, but there is no reason I can't start introducing new concepts. Babies love to learn new things! And since this weather has been so hot lately, we are both needing something new and fun to do. For this project, it is 100% MESS-FREE and so, so simple! The materials you need are: Paint, any kind, any color (I had just plain ole washable kids paint on hand) Clear packing tape 1 Ziploc bag, gallon size (I would recommend the durable freeze...

**This post was written a several days ago; I am just now publishing it** I am going to try and write this post while little girl makes laps around the downstairs entertaining herself with my flip flops, an empty box, and the dog's lips. I'm in ultra-quiet stealth mode, as usually any peep or change in position from me and she detects it and comes over to me and demands to "help" with whatever I'm trying to do. She even hears when I press the home button on my iPhone. She's crazy. We'll see how far I can get before I am detected this time. Finally we are 2 DAYS  away from seeing little peanut! I could be as far along as just shy of 11 weeks and we still don't have a clue what little baby is up to in there! I have been experiencing lots of nausea - round the clock this time. With Ava, it was only in the evenings and I barely ate anything because I hated almost all food! This time around, nausea hits me at all times of the day and I try to power ...

**This post was written a few weeks ago, and I am just now publishing it.** I don't even know how to start this post so I'm just going to start putting my thoughts down. I find it so ironic  that my post from earlier today included a part about wondering how I'm going to store all of Ava's baby things. I found out just a few hours ago that I will only have to keep them in storage for 9 months!!!!!! ...yes, I found out today that I am pregnant...AGAIN!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh. Obviously I am writing this up just a few hours after seeing that positive test, so things are just sinking in. It is just so  wild!  God sure does work in mysterious ways! So let's rewind to how I got to this joyous moment! Chris and I decided when Ava was around 8 months old that we would forgo the birth control and let nature take its course. We want to have kids close-ish in age, and once again, we felt confident in going the "no birth control" route sinc...