Baby Steps

We are on the downhill to Preston's first birthday and my mama heart is in complete and total denial.  It's as true as it is cliche that they grow up so fast.  One day last week I was able to set him anywhere, the next he was opening doors and pulling himself up on everything while hauling things out of the baskets or drawers.  We are on the move folks!  The first birthday means a few big things.  We survived a year of being a family of four.  Our newborn, turned infant, is almost a toddler who will be walking.  Is it just me or is it a little cruel that they turn one and walk around the same time? Oh my Heart!

Ever the shoe addict and overly sentimental mama, I had to find the perfect pair of shoes for those first steps to be taken in.  Never one to value function over style I settled on these Cactus moccasins from Freshly Picked.  They are the sweetest little moccasins, and as stylish as they are functional so he adores them too!  The elastic opening means easy on and off for mama, and they stay on all day.  The soft leather bottoms are my absolute favorite part.  He can easily feel the floor making it easier to learn to walk for him, and once those little feet are on  the move his footprint will be worn into the bottom for me to keep forever.  I cannot explain the feeling I had when I was going through Leavitt's old shoes to use for Preston when I stumbled on the moccasins Leavitt walked in for the first time.  Seeing his little footprint worn into the sole felt so bittersweet but they are a treasure I will forever keep.

I can't lie it stings a little that he is pushing for independence lately.  I have traveled this road once before with his big brother only this time I know what to expect.  Less concerned with meeting the milestones, and more concerned with burning them into my memory.  I have watched these boys bond with each other, Preston just adores his big brother.  So I know he is trying his hardest to get those feet under him and take off.  When he does I will be there cheering him on, dying a little inside, and when he's on to his next pair of shoes I will have these moccasins with his footprints worn into them to remind me of these days I'm desperate to live over and over again.  

To help celebrate Preston's first birthday Freshly Picked & I are giving a pair away to one lucky reader!  The giveaway is being hosted on my Facebook page to enter head over there to enter!

Bringing up Leavitt is a Freshly Picked partner and I was provided with a pair of moccasins for this post.  All opinions are and always will be my own!

Mommy Needs A Drink

I love summer don't get me wrong, but holy heck is it hot.  Not just that but our social calendars are all packed, and mommy attends every one's obligations.  Trying to make everyone happy and involved is killing me!  When I get a hot second with my gal pals, or the end of the day when the babies are all sleeping, mommy wants a cocktail.  

If you've ever grabbed a drink with me you probably know my drink of choice is raspberry (or blueberry for summer) vodka with sprite zero... my friends and family have dubbed it "The Samantha" and they are all on the bandwagon.   Many of you also know I am trying to be a little healthier so I decided to ditch the diet soda in an attempt to do that while also being able to indulge in an evening lifter.  

If I have to be healthier I might as well make it fun, so to jazz things up I  grabbed some coconut vodka and watermelon lemonade seltzer.  I then tossed in some frozen watermelon and fresh mint leaves I have kicking around for infusing water to stay hydrated throughout the day.  Guys, it is literally so good!  Smells like vacation, tastes like vacation, and is super low cal - 133 calories per 1.5 oz serving of vodka and the seltzer is zero calories.   I've been serving these up to my ladies and they are a major hit!  You could even use a drink dispenser for a party,  I might just have a party just to serve them up!

Mix up a batch of these, by eyeballing the ingredients because ain't no body got time to measure things, or do extra dishes!

Shopping List:
Pinnacle Coconut vodka
Polar Watermelon Lemonade seltzer
Frozen watermelon
Fresh mint leaves

Over Ice

Enjoy!

Thanks to Cassandra from and there's this for taking these pictures and sipping cocktails with me! 

The Perfect Watermelon Snack

I love how effortless meals are in the summer.  I don't mind the drive by snacks and meals on their way in and out of the pool, or the fact that we live on fruit and cheese as a real meal when it's hot out.  We have a very short window of warm weather and I try to keep myself out of the kitchen as much as possible.  Somewhere along the way I decided summer was a guilt free mom season and we were meant only to enjoy it.

In my guilt free haze I sometimes end up in a snack slump.  We have the same basic on-the-go crap on hand every day... cheese, goldfish, gummies, pirates booty, you know healthy stuff (insert eye roll).  Leavitt and I recently had a little time on our hands while Preston took a nap and decided to get our creative on in the kitchen.  We cut up some watermelon, half to eat, half to create something with.  I decided to scour the pantry, we happened to have some white chocolate melts in there and fruit dipped in chocolate is basically a love language in our house.  I let Leavitt help me pick our toppings.  I wanted shredded coconut, and he opted for raisins.  

I melted the chocolate according to the directions on the package and let it cool enough to thicken.  Dipped small/medium sized watermelon wedges in the chocolate and tossed some coconut and raisins on there.  We slid them into the freezer for a couple hours and enjoyed them outside when the baby got up from his nap!

I have honestly missed being in the kitchen with my not so little man.  He has become such a great fisherman this year, and while I am so happy for him I miss these moments in the kitchen just us.  He asked me the other day if we could try again and put some cheese on there, when I said no (frozen cheese?!) he said he wanted to try Cheetos.  So stay tuned we may conjure up some more epic concoctions!

Catching Up

I just love all the messages you guys sent on my post The Fitting Room Diaries, seriously some of the sweetest messages.  I did end up hiring a trainer and going back to the gym I went to after having Leavitt, and while it is much less glam feeling, I suppose that is what I need for now.  A humbling experience, in a good way.  I'm older than I was, busier, and actually much happier now than I was back then making the work a little harder.  I just hope my trainer has thick skin and can handle my eye-rolling and sass.

Other than my new torture routine, I have been neck deep in the summer.  I took a weekend away to surprise a lovely gal pal at a bachelorette weekend her bridesmaids had planned.  Being a friend to ladies without kids, I think its super important to give the relationship that attention because they hang in there with me when I say "what were we talking about" 100 times during lunch when my brain is just scattered and trying to keep up with kids and conversation.  It was lovely, and I missed my babies dearly.  They were in capable and loving hands with our parents making it that much easier to relax.

We have been fishing like crazy so that my oldest can get his fix.  He loves fishing and is so good at it.  I feel kind of bad he's stuck with me all day while his dad works and he would much rather be tossing lines than hanging out with the mommy and me crowd.  Where are the redneck kids camps at?!  That being said we have had so many fun play dates this summer and I am really loving all this unstructured down time with the kids.

We spent Independence Day with my husband's family.  Eating lobster, fishing, and catching up.  We really needed some down time after the holiday, and have spent some much needed time hanging out at home, and at the pool.  Preston is so rambunctious and eager to keep up with his big brother.  When we got home from camp after the holiday, I had to lower his crib mattress down again, when I heard him fussing (totally not his character), I found him with his diaper off.  This was the first time he showed me his spunky spiteful side - I loved it.

I'm working on some new posts for you all.  Including a super cheap patio update.  We have lived here for almost four years and still have no deck furniture.  That will change in the up coming weeks and I did it on the cheap.  With kids, dogs, food, and Maine's weather I didn't want to spend a fortune for usable outdoor stuff.  So stay tuned for that!  I hope you all are enjoying your summer and really soaking in these warm summer days.  I am going to miss the smell of warm baby hair lathered in sunscreen when these kids head back off to school!

Weekend Recap & Nuby On-the-go

We are home from another weekend at camp and I am already feeling the aftershock at home.  The amount of stuff we lug down and back every weekend makes my head spin.  This weekend was the first real weekend of camp so it was nice to be able to hang with the boys and watch Leavitt really come into his own as a fisherman!  He can cast his line all the way to the neighbors dock, and caught more fish than I can count.  That being said it's really all he wants to do which is hard on poor Preston who is less than comfortable in that bulky lifejacket.  He will get used to it I am sure, and he loved the boat.  

The hardest part of being at the lake is feeding the kiddos.  Leavitt will fish a solid eight hours every day if he can, he hates to come in off the dock to eat, while his adult caretakers are starving so he must be famished!  My husband asked about getting him some meal replacement shakes for him so we know he's getting enough good stuff when we are on-the-go or he is busy with activities.  I snagged a few and his favorite water canteen from Nuby and he kept it with him all day.  I don't love the idea of replacing meals for kids or letting him skip them, so we still put up the good fight over meals but I felt better when he walked away after meals knowing he had gotten plenty of nutrients and hydration throughout the day. He is in love with the bear print especially at camp and the free flowing straw, and I love that the transparent base lets me see how much he has consumed.  I also love the flip top to keep the straw clean.  I tell you these boys are going to keep me on my toes! 

If you have a teething baby this is a game changing must have for introducing solids and relieving the  pain from teething.  You can get a one pack here and a two pack here.  

The NEW Nuby Thirsty Kids Active water canteens is coming soon to Babies R’ Us stores! Can’t wait shop the Nuby Thirsty Kids Reflex water canteens in store at Target or online: http://bit.ly/2rEeprm.   How cute are all those prints the canteens come in?  Leavitt loved the bears, I really love the gray ones, which are your favorites?  

Because we love you we are going to give one of you a chance to win a Nuby Thirsty Kids Active water canteen.  Find us on Facebook to enter! 

Bringing up Leavitt is a Nuby parent blogger and was given products in exchange for reviews.  All opinions are and always will be my own.

The Fitting Room Diaries

Grab a cup of coffee and hold on to your mom jeans,  its about to get real.

 After my post about dressing the mom bod for spring I got some of the sweetest feedback to my inbox.  Most everyone can relate to needing a little extra love in the wardrobe department to help us navigate our post baby bodies and closets.  While I loved all the positive feedback, and felt good that I had encouraged some of you, I have to admit I have been backsliding lately on the self love.  

Last weekend I was out of town on a girls shopping trip.  I went out the night before to eat and had a couple drinks because the kids were with my mom.  My 3AM wake up call and 5 hours in the car bright and early had me feeling less than my best.  Then I decided to spend the day dressing and undressing over and over again in front of a mirror under fluorescent lights.  Needless to say my usually solid self esteem took a nosedive and I saved my husband lots of money not going crazy updating my closet for summer.   I figure I should probably stop living my life like I am on permanent vacation and shake this mom bod of mine back to its happy place.  

The week before our shopping trip Preston got super sick, Leavitt seemed to also be sick but not double-ear-infection-and-pneumonia-sick like his little brother.  My talented and super thoughtful gal pal the fabulous Danielle Brady Photography, had us on the books for mommy and me pics that had to be rescheduled because who needs 100 pictures of my kids crying and me sweating? No one.  I mean those are actually my favorite pictures from every single session ever, but I do love the perfectly sweet candid just as much.  I was kind of happy they got pushed back so I could find new outfits for the photos, however after my day in the fitting room I started to think I didn't want to do pictures at all.  

Now I will just stop here and say I am a fairly confident gal, who despite knowing my flaws tends to embrace the season knowing at some point I will work on it (or not depends on the mood I guess) but I just don't find my self worth in the mirror, or in my closet for that matter.  I love fashion and clothes make me happy but that is not part of my self worth.  I give and receive love all day every day and that's where my worth comes from.  I have a deep appreciation for my body, for carrying two healthy baby boys, a gift that I would never cheapen by hating it for being a little too soft should we say.  

My weekend in the dressing room was a rough one on the pride, but I would never turn down the chance to take pictures with my boys, to document a season of life because my ego is deflated.  I am mad at myself for letting my head go there.  So mamas, suck it up, suck it in, take the pictures and for gosh sake when the fitting room is letting you down head to the shoe department! Can I get an AMEN on that one?! 

Here We Are

I have a little confession to make. I've had so many ideas for new content and even started a handful of posts, but I can't seem to finish them or I get a little negative and scrap on the idea.  So many of my closest friends had been checking in on me leading up to the one year anniversary of my Dad's passing.  Which happened to fall on the day before Mother's day and my birthday.  I am fairly tough and try to be in control of my emotions so I was confident I was going to stroll through this one OK.  The more I was reminded though, the more I began to get a little sad and reflect on what a crazy year it was.  I put every ounce of myself into Preston and Leavitt that I didn't take the time to ever grieve properly.  Instead I began the constant panic and internal obsession over my health.  Going crazy thinking anything that didn't feel right was something terrible.  A few new moles were shown to three different doctors just to make sure I didn't have melanoma.  I have been channeling my grief into a weird almost obsessive fear of leaving my kids behind.  Maybe it's a control thing, who knows.

Sorry if this all seems a little crazy, but putting it all into words helps sort out why I haven't wanted to blog.  It's not just blogging I have been avoiding without meaning to, I have had a few friends ask if they did something or if I'm mad because I have been distant.  I clearly let myself wander into a rut and have only focused on my family and some of my gal pals who have kept my mind off of the sad stuff and on having fun and celebrating my last year in my 20's.  I'm so thankful for friends that recognize when I'm a little off and help me stay the course.  Where would a girl be without her friends?

We are winding down at school, and have finished our last week of MOPs.  How crazy the year has flown by!  At our last MOPs meeting I realized I was still pregnant with Preston when we started this year.   At the beginning of the school year I was so concerned that adding to our family would create chaos, an unmanageable amount of work for me, and rock my world in a way I could never recover from.  I had a good little thing going and was nervous to rock the boat.  Then came Preston.  The sweetest, little bundle of love there ever was, who completed us all in a way we didn't even know we were desperate for.  He seamlessly filled a huge part of me, so much so it is hard for me to even believe we got by without him.  But here we are wrapping up the year, starting our summer, and that tiny human I was still growing is now a husky eight month old I don't ever recall living without.

I know I am not alone when I say that sometimes I am just happy to be getting by.  If I met my kids needs for the day, and my husband and the boys have heard that I love them, that's enough.  I love when my house is spotless, the kids are in adorable outfits, and I have it all together.  But life happens.   Eventually I will get around to going the extra mile, striving for the perfect Instagram worthy snippets of my life to share.  But in order to be myself, and be a good friend, mom, wife, and daughter I have to be OK with short seasons of getting by.   Letting the details in life go so that I can focus on my relationships is what keeps my heart full when it very well could be a shattered mess.

I am glad to see Leavitt's first year of school end on a happy note.  Preston didn't throw me into a tailspin of chaos.  We can handle life as a family of four.  I also am glad to be free of this first anniversary.  A weight has been lifted and it is time to get back down to business!  So if you are still reading this, thanks for hanging in there with me.  I have missed posting, I miss seeing your messages when I step back, so if I haven't gotten back to you I will do that this week!