Preparing for trips

Happy Friday everyone! We are currently on the way to Atlanta because tomorrow we are going to the beach! You really don't realize how much stuff you need for a week until you have to pack it all... especially with an infant. Y'all should have seen Coreys face when I told him all the baby gear that was mandatory to bring- he thinks I'm insane haha. BUT its better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

About a 3-4 days before our trips I always make a list of what needs to be packed. I make everyone their own section and put the number of the item that I need next to it. Ex: Shirts (7). I start a few days in advance because there's so many of us and if I don't I will forget something. I remember things down to the morning of that need to be added to the list because packing for 6 is A LOT. As I pack I put a * next to the things that have already been packed instead of deleting them/ crossing them off so then I have the same list when we're packing to go back home.

Side note: I make a list for EVERYTHING. Errands for the day, trips, grocery, what I'm getting people for Christmas/ birthdays.

I'm very particular when it comes to packing suit cases. My kids will unfold every last piece of clothing in order to find something then just shove it all back into their bags *insert hand over face emoji*. So, over time I have figured out a way to eliminate that. I first lay everything out on the bed that they are going to need for the trip. Then, I pair all of the outfits together so they will know this shirt goes with these pants etc. I then put them into their bags in the order they will wear them- so the last day will go on the bottom and I work my way up. I put their socks, underwear and the girls bows in the zippered pouch so they don't accidentally get mixed in with the clothes causing their suitcases to look like a tornado came through lol.

Corey and I have separate toiletry bags but in mine I keep all the travel sized necessities such as toothpaste, shampoo & conditioner, a soap container, toothbrush containers, contact solution, body wash, lotion, razors ect. Already having the majority of the stuff we need in there is so nice because its just one less thing that I have to do.

(My little helper is so excited for her first beach trip)

I hope some of my tips help make packing for your trip easier!

xoxo

How to keep your littles busy at home during the summer

Yay for Friday! This week has just flew by and today was Jaiden’s last day of school! Since it’s now officially summer break for us, I wanted to share some of my ways of keeping my kids busy during the LONG summer days :)


Last year I was beyond nervous as summer was approaching. I had no idea how I was going to keep two very busy toddlers and a 6 year old from going stir crazy all by myself. After scouring the internet and getting advice from my mom and mother in law's I was able to come up with a plan that worked.. on most days :)

I went through their toys and separated them into plastic tubs (and freezer bags for the smaller things) and would rotate what I gave them to play with every couple of days. It's so funny how excited kids will get to play with their current toys if they haven't had access to them in a few days. I did this in order to keep things exciting. Playing with the same thing day after day can get boring. Imagine watching the same movie over and over again or reading the same book back to back. Not very interesting.

Our neighborhood has a pool but taking three kids to the pool by myself isn't ideal and honestly gives me anxiety just thinking about it. If the girls could swim without their puddle jumpers it'd be a different story. I bought a blow up pool from Walmart for around $20 and got bunch of pool toys and would also switch those out every couple of days. We also have a water table that the girls LOVE.  I would sit on the back patio as they played for HOURS at a time and when they began to get bored I would give them a popsicle. By the time they were done with their popsicle they were ready to play in the pool or water table again.

We will also play with water balloons from time to time. Corey is VERY particular about the yard and isn't a huge fan of water balloons all in the grass. The solution to this is you keep all of the water balloons in a bucket- when they pop the ones they have they have to bring back the same amount of popped balloons as they want you to give them. That way they are having fun and cleaning up after themselves at the same time.. MOM WIN!

CHALK AND BUBBLES!!! You can never go wrong with either of these. Jaiden and Scarlett would stay outside forever if I let them but Ophelia on the other hand... well she's my little drama queen. She hates getting hot and sweaty. We usually do chalk on the driveway so I will set up a fan in the garage so when she gets hot she can sit in there by the fan to cool off.. literally and figuratively lol.

Since Jaiden is older he doesn't last long with chalk and bubbles but he always ends up getting his sisters to "race" him across the yard. All 3 of them are very competitive so not only do they race each other, they also like to beat their own times.

If you’re okay with your kitchen/ table to get really messy, Publix sells a make your own personal pizza kit in the deli section. It comes with 4 crusts and all of the ingredients needed to make them. My kids love making their own pizza and then they have lunch. It's a win win.

This one is my kids favorite- but who am I kidding... it’s my favorite too lol. I bought cookie cutters  and the writeable icing. The kids get to make the shape cookies they want then decorate them with icing and sprinkles when they're done baking and cooling off. This does tend to also get messy but it keeps them busy and happy.

If its raining out we do a movie day. I let the kids pick out the .99 boxes of candy that they want from the store and I pop some popcorn and we watch a movie that at least 2 out of 3 of them agree on (you can't always please everyone LOL). When they get tired of watching movies we will usually play a board game or pop the pig.

What are some of the things that you do to keep your kids busy and happy?

xoxo

Lactation bites

Happy Friday! In honor of meeting my 3 month breast feeding goal I wanted to share my favorite lactation recipe thus far. As I've mentioned a couple of times before I have struggled with a low milk supply in the past so this time I have been super proactive about the situation. I'm constantly researching ways to increase my supply, maintain my supply and switching up my diet in order to insure that I am successful at breastfeeding this time around. With that said, I've tried A LOT of different things but the one recipe that I've come across that works AND tastes good is the one I want to share today. I love to bake- always have but I feel that even if you aren't a "baker" this recipe is really simple and you really can't mess it up.


Prep time: 15 min
Cook time 12-14 min

Ingredients

• 1 cup of peanut butter
• 1/2 cup of softened butter
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon  of vanilla
• 2 large eggs
• 1-2 ripe bananas, mashed (I use two to help offset the taste of brewers yeast)
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda (Corey was confused about this one LOL)
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 3/4 cups of old fashioned oats
• 1 cup of ground flaxseed
• 3 tablespoons if brewers yeast (I bought it at GNC)
• 1 1/2 cups of dark chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. With an electric mixer, cream the butter, peanut butter and brown sugar until smooth and creamy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Add the mashed bananas and mix just until combined.
3. Mix in the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the oats, flax and brewers yeast until well combined. Stir in the chocolate chips
4. Drop large balls of dough onto greased baking sheets. Bake for 12 minutes (one of my batches took 14 because the balls were larger) until they are set and starting to brown. Let cool for 5 minutes on cookie sheets the transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Notes
With my first batch I separated the bites a good bit because the balls were large and I didn't want them to touch. The recipe originally called them cookies but I believe that is an inaccurate description of them. They only expand a tiny bit so 2 inches apart is plenty of room for them. The original recipe also said it makes 24 'cookies'... I ended up with 27 lol.


If you try this recipe please let me know what you think and/or what you did or didn't do :)


xoxo

Why I sent my toddlers to preschool at 2

Happy Friyay! Corey and I attended the girls art show this morning at their preschool. Each child had the pieces of their 'best' art and a hand print hung on the wall in the sanctuary. It's so much fun because you have to basically walk the entire room in order to find each of their artwork so naturally you look at all of the other children's as well. One of the things that I love most about the drawings at this age is their stick people lol. Ophelia now gives her people a body and fingers and toes but Scarlett's is a head with arms and legs, no body LOL. SOMETIMES, she includes eyes and a mouth but when she does the eyes are always blue like hers.

We've been blessed to have not had to send any of our children to daycare. Jaiden attended mother's morning out when he was 3 and 4 at our church in GA. Unfortunately they didn't offer a pre-k program so he attended at a daycare but they had a different building for Preschool. I felt that it was important for him to be socialized with other kids his age because he was an only child and the only other child interaction he had was with my younger sister who is 5 years older than him. He has always enjoyed school and never threw fits getting out of the car which was a HUGE blessing. My brother and I were THAT kid that screamed and cried and even faked being sick to avoiding going to school when we were in pre-k and kindergarten (sorry mom).

We moved to NC in May of 2015 so Ophelia was 1 and Scarlett was 3 months and at that time preschool obviously wasn't needed. We found a church that we loved and one of the first things I asked about is if they offered a Mothers morning out (preschool) program. They don't which was fine but I knew I needed to keep looking for future reference. My mother in law's neighbor told her that the church that they attend has a preschool program so I looked it up and checked the reviews. The reviews were really good so I made an appointment and checked it out. I instantly knew that it was a good place for the girls to go to when the time was needed.

I'm not going to lie, one of the reasons I wanted Ophelia to go was because I needed a way to get things done. It's so hard to go grocery shopping with two toddlers or run day to day errands with them. She started in the two's class and she went 3 days a week for 3 hours each day. Ophelia is very advanced for her age, she always has been. She loves to learn and its almost like she needs it. It blows me away with how much information she is able to retain and I knew she needed to be challenged. You can tell her something once and she knows how to do it or what to do- she gets that from Corey. She's also very shy with people outside of immediate family so school has helped break her out of that shell and she's more willing to talk to people she doesn't know now.

Scarlett started preschool this past fall. She also started in the 3 day two's. She basically spoke her own language for the first two years of her life and I honestly think it was because Jaiden and Ophelia would always speak for her so she didn't really have to try in order to get her point across. Corey and I would worked with her to try to get her to pronounce things the proper way and she would say it back to us the right way in the moment but then later would say it her own way again. Preschool helped SO much with this. We can understand everything she says now and its no longer gibberish lol. This is partly because of age but I noticed a huge difference within the first month of school. She also didn't like to share- she was the baby (and still in her mind is because Blakely isn't taking her toys yet) and Jaiden and Ophelia would just give her whatever she wanted. School has helped with that as well but she still has her days lol. She has two friends at school that she constantly talks about and you can just tell that she loves them so much. She actually has to hug both of them bye every time I pick her up from school lol.

Overall I think its good for kids to have their own outlet and for them to be able to interact with kids their own age. Also to be in a routine. While you can do this on your own if you have friends with kids the same age or are in a moms play group- I think kids having to listen to other adults not just their parents is important too. It's also important for us sahm's to have a BREAK. The days that the girls have school usually go much smoother than the days that they don't.


When did y'all send your kids to preschool or why didn't you? I'd love to hear your opinions!


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Hello Blogging World

Hey, everyone! I'm so excited to FINALLY write my first post. I've been back and forth with the idea of creating my own blog for some time now and just decided to finally take the plunge and do it. I still have so much to learn but I think I've got the basics down. Now for an introduction.

My name is Shea and I'm a stay at home mom of 3 in North Carolina. My husband, kids and I have lived here for a little over 2 years and we made the move here from Georgia. I was born and raised in GA and my husband was born there but moved a couple of times throughout his childhood before making it back to GA. We have one son, Jaiden, who's 6 and two daughters, Ophelia age 3 and Scarlett age 2. We also have 3 fur babies all of which are pitties but don't worry they don't bite ;)

Random facts about me:
-I love everything chocolate
-I avoid spicy foods at all cost (except wings- all flats please!)
-Greys anatomy is my all time favorite show
-My favorite color is pink although I tend to wear a lot of black and gray clothes
-I only like Hawaiian pizza
-I want to have two more kids
-Fall is my favorite season
-All 5 of us are New England Patriot fans

When I'm not chasing around my littles (or cleaning up their never ending messes), I love to shop for home decor, clothes and shoes online... ESPECIALLY shoes HA. My husband and I have a silent competition about whose "shoe game" is the best. I'm a die hard online shopper and I call myself the queen at finding amazing deals. If there's a price difference of something or a coupon out there you can bet that I will find it. 98% of everything that I buy is online, even my groceries (thanks grocery pick up and delivery). I loathe having to go to stores to buy anything and I think the main thing that definitely puts it on my no no list is.. have you ever taken 3 young kids to a store by yourself *insert hand over face emoji* it's close to impossible.  But as well all know some things you just can't buy online.. like a new brand of jeans that you've never tried before lol.

xoxo