My advice for new mothers!

I recently had a friend who is trying to become pregnant ask me what my best piece of advice I had for a new mother was. At first I had no idea…my mind ran through many tidbits of advice that were helpful but could be found anywhere and I’m sure she would hear such things many times over the next 9 months. All of a sudden it hit me…something somebody should have told me from the beginning…something that would have saved me hours of fear, frustration and finger joint pain:

Step away from that computer!

 I’ll admit I have a problem: A “Google-It addiction”! When I was younger and my friends and I came across a question we did not have an answer to we would chime “Let’s Google it!”. That worked well when you’re 15 and you want to know when the new Smallville season would begin airing or what happens if you go swimming shortly after dying your hair (nothing in case you were wondering!) But when you are a new mother Google is not your friend.

Typing in a simple question lead me to believe my child was having seizures…or that I had caused irreversible brain damage by accidently using the bulb syringe incorrectly, both of which are not true…at all! So over the past 6 months I have learned to stop using Google to answer my baby related questions. It’s better to pick up the phone and call my mom or another mom friend who is much calmer than I am.

I’ve learned to trust my instincts….the internet has no instincts! If I think my child is ready to have 6 ozs instead of 4 ozs, she is most likely ready I do not need to spend hours researching what the “average baby” is drinking at this stage in life. When in doubt it’s always OK to place a call to your pediatrician’s office!

Of course the internet is a wonderful place to find information, one of my favorite websites being babycenter.com. It’s a great website full of wonderful information! I almost always find answers to my questions…from experts, not from random people on the internet who get their information from random people on the internet ;)

So again my advice for new mothers is: Step away from that computer, take a deep breath and stay calm! If you wish to do research online this is crucial! Take everything you read with a grain of salt (or reality!) Look at professional websites, not online communities for the best advice and information! 

Weekly goal follow up, baking day and some news!

So how did I do with my weekly goals? Not so great!! 
I only got a few things done! I did do the laundry twice! (with a little help from my husband! ) I did do a baking day! But those were the only two goals I actually made it through this week :( 
Here is my goals for this week:
1. Read at least 2 books to Jane twice a day 
2. Start 13 week couch to 10k running program! 
3. Make French Bread. 
4. Continue doing laundry on a regular basis and making bed every day. 
5. Keep coupons organized! 
My baking day was great! I tried out a recipe for making home made lattes, and pulled out my old recipe for french bread! Both of these are great ways I use to save us a little money...my french bread recipe makes 2 loafs and is easily doubled (Although it is quite time consuming...) I slice it up and throw it in a large plastic bag in the fridge and we have our bread for the week! It's cheap to make as long as you have yeast and flour! The latte turned out great! The coffee syrup and Caramel melt was a little expensive but I've made 3 more lattes and they've already paid for it's self :) Now I can get a latte for cheap instead of spending $3 plus every day! 
Now for that news! ;) 
I got a seasonal job at Target today!!! I'll start some time in the next 2 weeks! I love being a Stay at home mom but we're needing a little more money these days, especially with Christmas coming up so it's a great opportunity for me to make us a little extra money! I'm looking forward to getting out of the house a little bit but I'm really going to miss spending all day with my baby girl! 

My first coupon post!

I thought I'd share a little bit about a great way I use to save money! Coupons! Here is a picture of this weeks weekly CVS shopping trip:

I paid $24.77 for 2 packages of Huggies, Febreze fabric refresher, Febreze air refresher, 3 Febreze Set and Refresh and 1 package of razors.
Normally every week I give myself a $15 spending limit and only allow myself to go over when it's time to buy diapers or formula.
Here's how I did it!  The diapers were on sale for 7.99 each and I used (1) $1.50 off coupon, CVS had a deal if you bought $15 worth of select house hold items you get $5 in ECB which can be used on your next purchase like cash.  So I used $1 off coupon on the febreze fabric refresher, a $2 off 2 coupon for the febreze Set and Refresh (they were on sale for 2.99 so I paid full price for one) The razors were  orginally $8.28 but I had a coupon for free razors! I had $5.79 worth of ECB from last weeks shopping trip. With out coupons I would have paid $41.30! I received the $5 ECB from the febreze and $3 for the razors which I used to get some candy and wipes for $0.42 later this week!
Almost all of these coupons I found in the Sunday paper. The free razor coupon I received for letting the Schick company know that my razors were falling apart.
Letting companies know how you feel about their products is a great way to get coupons, in my expreince most companies will send you a coupon or two for giving them your opinion (good *and* bad!).
Normally Sunday morning I plan out my coupon trips by finding sample shopping trips on a couple blogs. This week I was not as great as planning out my trip. I had several plans in mind which ended up not working out...I actually forgot a couple coupons I had and was not able to get a few things we needed because of that!  I spent a good hour or so today cutting out coupons from last weeks paper, arranging my coupon binder, and throwing out a lot of expired coupons. Couponing is so much easier when I'm organized!!
Also just a little note this month P&G is donating 2 cents to The National Breast Cancer Foundation for every coupon you use!

Weekly Goals

The author of my favorite blog Money Saving Mom always posts a weekly goal list of hers and goes over last weeks goals, I've been doing this on mine own since I started reading her blog, but today I was going through the comments on her post and noticed others saying they kept track of their goals on their blogs! So I decided to give it a try!
Here are my goals for this week:
1.Read at least 2 books twice a day with Jane
2. Do Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred at least twice this week, and walk 30 minutes every day.
3. Finish reading Twisted by Andrea Kane
4. Try one new recipe! (I'm thinking cookies!) Also I hope to try and fit in making French bread but it's  a whole day process so I don't know if it will happen!
5. Do the laundry twice! I've been doing laundry once a week, but that is just NOT working out for us! by the end of the week there is dirty laundry every where and a little confession...it takes me all day to do one load I forget about the laundry and only remember to switch things around every couple hours, and once it's out I usually don't fold it till the next day so adding onto this goal would be to actually finish it when I start!
6. Make bed every day. Things just look nicer this way!
7. Write a blog post about my CVS trip
8. Finish organizing my coupons that are all over the place!
9. Be more encouraging to my husband! I've been noticing lately I'm not very encouraging. I point out his flaws too much and ignore the fact that he's so great....most of the time ;)
For those of you reading this I challenge you to make a list of goals this week, the list can have 1 goal on it if you wish (that's how I started mine out!) or 20! It really does help!

5 months!

Jane is 5 months old today! It's so crazy! It feels like just yesterday we were bringing her home with NO idea what we were doing!
Now she is learning how to sit up, eating solids, rolling around like crazy and sleeping through the night *hallejuah chorus* in her own crib!
I've been a mess all day today...somebody mentioned on one of her pictures I posted on Facebook that she looks so big...all of a sudden I'm sobbing because she's not my tiny little girl...she's actually growing up! I was looking through some pictures from a couple months ago and it's amazing how much bigger she's gotten in the past 5 months.

The top picture is the day we brought her home and I took the bottom one this morning! Look how much she's grown!
Today I'd also like to celebrate the fact that I am no longer living in intense fear of SIDS.
The first 3 months of Jane's life I was a wreck. I read way too many articles about it. I struggled daily with the fact that she co slept with us for 2 months (eventually I got over this after reading http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/sleep-problems/co-sleeping-yes-no-sometimes) , I beat myself up when I read that breastfeeding can help prevent and I wasn't breastfeeding! I made her sleep in diapers for weeks so she wouldn't over heat and then I read having a cold can up the chances, so I put her back in PJ's. I was bad. I would be up literally every half hour to check on her. If she fell asleep on my bed I'd strip it of all pillows and blankets and attempt to pull the sheet as tight as I could. I was barely functioning during the day and I was horribly crabby and almost half asleep sometimes! This became a huge problem when I went back to work. I decided sleeping with her was not going to work for us anymore. I moved her crib mattress into our room so she could sleep with us just not in bed....slowly but surely I stopped waking up all the time and then we moved her into her own room for real. The first night both of us slept through the night.
I still check on her while she takes naps and if I happen to wake up in the middle of the night I will peek in on her and watch her breathing but I sleep at night. She has a little blanket in the corner of her crib and she takes naps on out beds with out me spending half an hour stripping it!
Today I wrapped her up in one of my blankets and she took a nap like that...That was when I realized....I wasn't terrified anymore! :D

How time flies!

Exactly a year ago I was struggling to hide my tiny baby belly (which was barely there but I felt like it was!) and walking into an interview for my dream job, totally unsure of the future only knowing that I loved my baby girl already and working as a waitress at a dingy restaurant wasn't going to provide for me and my baby, I was engaged and planning my wedding for June 25, 2011 and living in the smallest apartment you've ever seen!
A year later...We're married (on 1/1/11) we live in Selma,CA in a house (!!!) I'm a stay at home mom (something I swore I would never do!) and I have the most amazing, wonderful, beautiful little girl in the whole world! Jane is 5 months old tomorrow!

It's *amazing* how so much can change in just one short year! I'm still getting used to California weather and I'll admit I miss my hoodies but reading about snow in September back in Minnesota makes me VERY glad to be here! It doesn't exactly feel like home yet but it's getting there!
Somebody suggested a couple months ago I write a blog, I love to read blogs and I love to write so I decided to give it a try! I'm not totally sure what will all be written about in this blog, so far I've come up with: My family, Parenting (what little I know about it) Coupons (one of my favorite things in the whole world) My attempts at learning how to cook and we'll see what else happens!