milestones

newborn hospital photos

Welcoming Baby Layla – Newborn Photos at the Hospital

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On the morning of June 30th, at 4:08am, we welcomed our second daughter – Layla Josephine. Although she made us wait an extra 8 days past her due date, once she was on her way, she moved pretty quickly, arriving 9 1/2 hours after my water broke. My mom and sister were in the delivery room (my Dad stayed home with big sister Ellie) and Chris got to catch her, pulling her out by holding under her armpits and placing her on my chest. He didn’t have time to put gloves on – neither did the midwife – because once I started pushing, she came out much quicker than expected. You’ll hear me complain every day about pregnancy pains and discomforts but I’ve been blessed with two relatively smooth deliveries. It doesn’t escape me how fortunate I am.

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how to potty train before 2

Potty Training our 21 Month Old

- hellomylove 3 Comments

 

ORIGNAL POST WAS POSTED IN MAY 2015. I HAVE SINCE UPDATED IT WITH A YEAR UPDATE
(FIND IT BELOW ORIGINAL POST). 

Original Post —- May, 2015:

We started potty training Ellie a week and a half ago, coincidentally on her 21-month birthday. I thought I’d share about our little mini-journey: the steps we followed and guidelines we’re still following. Looking back I think it’s almost more about when the parents are ready than the child. There are going to be messes, frustrations and your patience will be tried. But your kid is bright – and they’ll get it!

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healthy preschool must haves

Going (Organic) to Preschool

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This day came sooner than I planned. But if I’m being fair, I guess I’m rarely ready for Ellie to grow up. She already seems so ahead of the game, communicating beyond her years, understanding more than a 2-year-old should, being so in tune with herself and her surroundings. It’s freaky sometimes – but its obvious she’s ready for this next step, even if I’m not: PRESCHOOL.

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creative ideas monthly baby photos

Monthly Baby Photos: 10 creative ideas!

- hellomylove 19 Comments

Monthly Baby Photos: 10 creative ways to document your baby’s first twelve months

FACT: Your newborn baby will grow and change more in their first year of life than any other time.

It’s not as if we needed a fact to give us a reason for documenting our amazing and fast-developing babies. But it’s true – and it’s why the monthly baby photos are so popular and fun. It’s incredible to be able to see how much a baby physically changes in their first year by looking at side-by-side progression photos.

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progression baby photos

Monthly Baby Photos – Documenting the first year

- hellomylove 11 Comments

I knew I wanted to document Ellie’s growth and progression in monthly baby photos but I wanted to do something other than the standard number on a onesie. Don’t get me wrong – I think those are super adorable but I wanted to see if we could come up with something a little out of the box. I tend to like to complicate simple things, even when I have a brand new baby apparently…

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first birthday theme party

Lemonade Stand First Birthday Party

- hellomylove 18 Comments

Now that I’ve started planning for Ellie’s second birthday party, I figured it was time to share details from her first birthday party. In other words, procrastinating for 11 months is long enough.

We turned our backyard into a Lemonade Stand and served “elLe-monade” (get it? wink wink) – regular and spiked of course, because aren’t first birthday parties about the adults too!?

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early potty training

“Yay Ellie!” – The third stage in Pre-Potty Training

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Ellie is 19 months today (side note: I’m going to be sad to stop counting months soon!) and for the last week or so has been peeing on the potty just about every time we sit her down on it. We do it strategically – like after bath when she always seems to need to pee – or after her milk, right before bedtime. This picture was taken a week or so ago – when she was good about staying seated for awhile. Now she’s in the habit of jumping up mid-stream to celebrate: “Yay Ellie!!!” she says while clapping her hands enthusiastically. She’s usually not done, but is excited to dump the peepee into the big potty (“Ellie do it!” but if she did herself there would be pee everywhere) and then start over. Last night she did this 3 times, and peed each time. The fact that she can cut her peeing into thirds is pretty impressive, haha. She doesn’t go on the potty at daycare but they’ve recommended we start potty training her in the next couple months.

I wrote about previous stages here and here.

My baby is 18 months old!

- hellomylove 1 Comment

I’m not totally sure why this feels like such a mile marker for me. I’ve been referring to this day for a couple weeks as “Ellie’s Birthday” and Chris keeps rolling his eyes and correcting me: “It’s her HALF Birthday.” Yea, yea, but she’s EIGHTEEN months old! She’s actually an age you can describe without using months. She’s one and a half years old. Tomorrow she will be closer to two years old than one.

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potty training young

“Pee Pee Potty” – Second Stage in Pre-Potty Training

- hellomylove 1 Comment

Ellie has been showing a lot of interest in peeing (and watching the pee pee come out of her pee pee) lately. We talk about it when I change her diapers, we have a book about Elmo going potty. I’ve even been allowing her to pee on her diaper-changing pad –half the time she just squats and nothing happens – and I’ve celebrated with her each time it happens. The first time or two, I thought it was a happy coincidence but now that it has happened a few times, I’m thinking she really might have some control over it.

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signs of early potty training

“Poo-poo” – First Stage in Pre-Potty Training??

- hellomylove 2 Comments
My 13-month-old just told me she had a poopy diaper.

We were playing peek-a-boo and she was looking at me from under a chair when she stopped the game to say “poo-poo” (well, it sounded more like boo-boo but no judgement). I couldn’t get to her fast enough! Did she just say poo-poo without me saying it first?! I mean, we had been working on this for a couple weeks. And by working on this I mean that I had been saying the word to her every time I had the joy of changing a poopy diaper. I didn’t know what I was expecting to happen – I just figured she should know the word that was associated with what Mommy was cringing at. And now she’s saying it! I didn’t even have to stick my nose in close (friends cringe every time I do the bottom-sniff), there was definitely one on board!

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