It's Crafts Time!!!!

Having a toddler is an exciting thing! It's definitely filled with exhausting days of entertaining. Some days are filled with so much entertainment that I'm ready for bed by 7:30pm. As exhausting as I can get, I wouldn't change it for anything.

I have recently become a SAHM during the week and I'm keeping my nursing skills current by working  the overnight shift on weekends. It works when you have children and want to be there for them. I am super blessed that my husband and I are even able to do this. Don't get me wrong, of course things would be a lot easier if I worked full time, but we both know and believe it's so important for me to be home with our little one. With my new schedule, it took a while to come up with some type of productive schedule for the both of us while we are home during the week. It's so easy to become a couch potato and put on tons of weight. Its hard to do that chasing a toddler around all day anyway. But I could just put on the TV and my baby would entertain herself by being a couch potato right along with me. But that just wouldn't do. So I looked up some schedules online to give me an idea of what a productive schedule for a toddler should look like. Although we don't follow this schedule to a tee everyday, I try to incorporate all these things in the hours we are awake!

Here's what our schedule looks like:

7am: Mommy wakes up. Personal mommy time: Shower, bible study and prayer.
8am: Baby up. Get her dressed and ready for the day
8:30am: Prepare breakfast. Eat and Bible reading at the breakfast table
9:15am: Take a walk OR playdate with friends
10am: Play time
10:30am: Snack time and story time
11am: Arts and Crafts
11:45am  Prepare lunch and eat
12:30pm: Nap time (mommy chore time)
2:30:  Play time/ music time
3:00: TV time
4:30: Prepare dinner
5:30: Learning activity (first words, alphabet, numbers, shapes, colors, POTTY training)
6:30: Dinner
7:15: Bath time
8:00: Quiet Time/ Story Time

The part that's real sketchy and we are working on---->
8:30 Bedtime

Although my daughter sleeps through the night most nights, we still have a hard time getting her to sleep for bedtime. She can lay in bed for hours until 10-11pm. I don't know how she cant be sleepy by 8:30 being that she slept so long ago for a nap. But, its a work in progress.

The new thing I added to my schedule was arts and crafts time. She is still a bit young so most of the crafts I am doing myself but she has a ball playing with every scrap I'm not using or playing in a bowl of cotton balls and popsicle sticks! It can be looked at as sensory play!

This week, we've been working on making art with our HANDS! We already created an autumn tree with my daughters hand prints being the different colored leaves. She wasn't a huge fan of getting her hands all dirty with paint but we got the job done. I also let her make handprints on a small canvas and let her take over to do some of her own artwork. She's quite the little artist!

Pinterest is an amazing website! I get all my arts and crafts ideas on it. One that I was dying to try was the salt water dough. You can make baby keepsake ornaments out of it. Today, I gave it a shot. All I needed was 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of salt, and 1/2 cup of water. Mix them all up and start rolling them in balls then roll them out. I took my daughter's hand and pressed it against one flattened dough and her foot on the other. Then you put the printed dough into the oven for 2 hours (depending on thickness) in 200 degree heat. I actually kept it in longer because it was still pretty soft. I also increased the heat to 350 degrees to get it done quicker. The dough should be rock hard once done. Once its done,  I waited for it to cool and then painted the prints with pink paint and labeled them. And BAM! There you have it:

Have Baby will Travel

My husband surprised me this year with a spontaneity that I never knew he had in him. Every year, in the fall, we celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. A time where our whole church comes together from all over the world and dwell together for 7 days. During this time, we pick a location of a list of places it will be held and stay there with Gods people and praise and worship HIM. Most people compare this time to a convention or a retreat. But to us, it's so much more than just that! It's a time set apart that God commands of us and it's a time of fellowship, food, laughter, and fun. The surprise my husband surprised me with was that we were going to France this year. France!  

This has always been a country I've always wanted to travel to. I couldn't ever imagine being able to afford going. But God blessed us this year in so many ways, he made our dreams come true. It was quite difficult for me to imagine an 8 hour flight with our 16 month old. But she was older now and I knew it wouldn't be as hard as traveling with a baby that was younger. So this was the time to do it. If we waited any longer, we'd have to pay for a third ticket. 

I wanted to blog about my traveling experiences with my little one and share my thoughts on my trip. First things first, I must say, the easiest way to travel on a long international flight is to travel overnight. My little girl stayed asleep as if she was sleeping in her own crib back at home. It was amazing. Not a peep from her. My fear was being that "mom with the baby that kept screaming" and being a hindrance to other passengers on the plane. But Juli proved both me and probably all other passengers wrong. It's a completely different story when traveling back home though. This flight was in the morning. She slept through the connecting flight, but the flight returning to America, she was up and starting to get fussy towards the end. Can you blame her though? I was getting fussy too! Who ever said international airlines are spacious and more comfortable, obviously never had to travel with a baby on their lap and a plane full to capacity. I felt like I was going to snap and just jump off the plane at one point! 

Besides the plane ride experience, my experiences in another country was an exhilarating one. Exactly what you think you'd expect from being in another country is what it's like. We had the first 24hours of jet lag and trying to reset our minds on a different time zone. So once that was over, we were good.

 My husband rented a car against everyone's warning of not driving in France. He's a brave man. Especially when they gave us a manual to drive and he hadn't driven one in forever. When we pulled out the airport, we took a deep breath and said a prayer to get us through this next week alive. I had a huge culture shock when it finally dawned on me that we were not in America anymore. From the main language to street signs, English was the foreign language here. The only thing I knew how to say in French was hello and goodbye. This would be an interesting week. 

 

It actually turned out to not be so bad. My husband knew a little more French then I did so we were able to communicate a little with some French people. Thankfully, we met some people who knew a little English. It was a big revelation to me when I realized that this language barrier is what so many foreigners in America must go through. Lets face it, the English language is a tough one to learn. We Americans sometimes don't even know all the rules! I built a better understanding and grew more compassion for those that don't understand. It helped to realize that communication is a huge ordeal. Especially in my line of work where I come across so many different cultures. It's important to get an understanding of the other person. No matter how you try to.

 

I ended up downloading all the street signs in Europe so we knew what the signs mean. Its funny, some of the signs had pictures on them illustrating what they meant just in case you didn't speak French. Well done, France, well done.

 

 Driving in France didn't seem as crazy as everyone was warning us of. The only thing I'd say was crazy was that French people SPEED! And we found out early that the middle lane is ONLY for passing. No coasting. Throughout our week, we drove to different towns to explore. And besides getting lost a couple of times and our lovely GPS losing signal, we made it around pretty good.

 

Mostly all the towns we've visited were what I expected France to look like. A lot of older buildings from like the medieval times. It was very historical and beautiful. I took a lot of pictures. Its a huge difference from Paris. Paris definitely is a lot more modern. What we quickly found out on just our 2nd day was that apart of French culture is that everything closes down at 7pm. And everything takes an afternoon break between 12 and 2. Being from America where nothing seems to ever close down, this was hard for us to get used to. I definitely understand where France is coming from though. Closing at 7pm allows for people to be home with their families at a decent hour. It's definitely something American culture has lost along its way. Family time has been overshadowed by work. I learned that "Family"  means a lot in French custom. Their meal times last 2 hours long. Another thing we had to get accustomed to. Juli couldn't sit still in her high chair for that long. But they like to serve their food with each course, one at a time. With a huge time lapse in between, serving cheese as a dessert after the entrée and wine with every meal was another thing I wasn't aware of with French culture. The food was exquisite and I can say now that I have eaten French food and tried French cheese. Not bad at all.  During the meal times, I kept telling myself, "Why rush?"  America has programmed it in our brains to rush. We seriously do live in a rushing and busy body like society. Take it easy people. Enjoy your food.

 

 

        

 

 

The Town of Chauvigny

 

 

We spent a day in Paris trying to explore everything we ever wanted to see. Not realizing that the Palace of Versaille isn't even in Paris, we stopped there first and toured this massively huge mansion. Even if I hit the lotto, I couldn't see myself living in a place this huge. I don't find it homelike. But that's just me. We spent so much time there trying to see everything, we were running out of time to tour Paris. So after 4 hours, we left and said we will definitely have to come back another time. Especially to see all of Paris. We did manage to make it to the Eiffel Tower. The lines were so long for everything, we just added that to our list of things to see when we returned. We'd definitely come back for an anniversary getaway someday in the near future!

Here's some trips of our exploration of Paris!:

 

 

 

 

 

The Palace of Versaille (Love the hall of mirrors!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eiffel Tower

My long life dream to see this baby in person! Its beautiful

 

 

 

 

Arc de Triomphe

 

 

 

The beautiful Notre Dame

Buh Bye Bag Lady

Have you ever felt like running errands took a lot of preparation and energy lugging around bags for you and your baby? I have. I only had a huge baby bag to work with and it was such  a chore lugging it around. Not only did I have that huge bag but I also had my own purse. I soon found myself not carrying a purse any more and just throwing my wallet into my daughters diaper bag so I wouldn't have to carry so much. I soon grew in desperation in finding a new baby bag that would accommodate both our essential needs and would be smaller to handle on a day out on the town. If any Momma's know what I'm talking about, you know my frustration. They made umbrella strollers to make life easier with travel, but they didn't make finding a toddler bag that was smaller in size easily accessible in stores. I couldn't find one anywhere! So I resulted in looking at one of my old time favorite stores, Vera Bradley! I always do quite extensive research before stepping into a Bradley store because if I didn't, I'd be there all day long trying to figure out what bag was best. I'd go on their website, see what options they have, read the reviews, then go on YouTube and see what people have to say about the bag and how much stuff they can fit in it. After my research , it came down to two different bags. I went into the store, and asked to see them. One bag was way to massive and would defeat the purpose. So I tried the smaller bag, which to my amazement, fit everything in it. It is kind of heavy but it's a cross body bag so it isn't too bad. Say hello to my new toddler bag:

Vera Bradley Carryall Crossbody in African Violet

 

Here's the info about the bag:

Details:

Adjustable strap

2 front slip pockets

1 zip pocket on back

Inside: 2 slip pockets

Zip top closure

 

Dimensions

11" W x 10 3/4" H x 5 1/4" D with 52" adjustable strap

 

It's a very spacious bag!

Retails at $72.00

But if you catch the sales, you can get it up to half off like I did! 

Let me show you what all is in this bag:

 

Can't really see but let me take it section at a time:

 

 

Main section:

I have my daughter's bib, burp cloth, and a change of clothes.  The blue tube is my medi buddy (travel first aid kit). The pink tube is my daughters travel utensils. I can fit my wallet, but I don't always keep this in the bag for weight purposes. And the striped pouch is where I keep my daughters changing pad, diapers, wipes, and diaper cream. 

 

 

Two inside pockets:

A notepad and pen, tissues, wet wipes, and my coin purse! (Another Vera item, in Petal Paisley)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside zipper pocket:

(My essential needs)

Lip gloss, lip balm, body spray, stylus, feminine products, eyeliner, eye drops. (Missing in pic~ mascara and lotion)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside Slip pockets:

 

My daughter's sippy cup and in the other one, I put my iphone 5 

I keep my keys and hand sanitizer clipped on the outside to the strap. 

And there you have it! A momma and me purse! I've used this bag for about a month now and I must say, it's way better then carrying around multiple bags! Yes it is a bit heavy which I knew going in after reading reviews, but you can't beat carrying a small heavy bag with 2 ways in carrying it versus a massive heavy baby bag. And once it gets too heavy, the beauty is that I can adjust the strap to make it a shoulder bag and hang it on my baby's stroller.

This bag can fit more things in it.  There is plenty of open space! When we go out I throw in some snacks for her and all is well. 

Give this bag a shot. You may like it.