Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Mommy Talk Tuesday! Coming Soon?!

I wanted to run something by you and see what you think! I love interacting with my readers on Facebook and Twitter and I LOVE discussing things that have to do with being a mother, babies, toddlers, and families! So I was thinking about having a weekly discussion post on my blog called "Mommy Talk Tuesday!". I would post a certain topic that would have to do with being a parent, or babies, or kids, or families and we could discuss it! Possibly even some friendly debate topics!

I'm not sure if I will just have the discussion in the comments or have a linky so others can blog about the topic and link up. What are your thoughts?! Do you like the idea?!

I'd also love to have a fellow blogger work with me on this so if you're interested please email me at mommyferg02(at)gmail(dot)com.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Sleep...What's That?!

It seems no matter how much you KNOW you're going to be sleep deprived as a parent, it's like you don't really KNOW until you are there in that moment of total sleep deprivation. I remember when I was pregnant with Noah, everyone told me "sleep now", "enjoy your rest while you can", "take advantage of sleeping in now" , etc. and I knew babies weren't born sleeping through the night but I really had NO idea how exhausting it really is to be a parent.

Then I guess I blocked it out of my memory or something because even though I went through it with Noah, I didn't remember how horrible it felt to come completely sleep deprived. Until about a week ago. Isaac still goes to bed pretty late. Usually it's around 10pm but every now and then it's closer to midnight or 1am! And lately he's only been going 4-6 hours instead of 8-10 hrs like he was doing. His naps are very random too. Sometimes he sleeps for 3 hours and other times it's only 20 minutes. What makes it harder, when you have two kiddos they rarely nap at the same time, so any hopes for getting a nap in myself goes out the window.

So that's why it takes me 3 days to write a blog post instead of an hour like usual. I spend most of my day trying to get one kid or the other to nap. I so enjoy blogging and will be so thankful when I can sit for an hour in peace and write a blog post, or read a book, or even take an hour long nap! Until then I will just keep trucking along, as I know many of you are doing!

So here's to all the sleep deprived mama's out there! We'll get through this and it's all worth it in the end! The word's I live by lately "THIS TOO SHALL PASS" :)

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Mom Blog Monday Blog Hop!

Are you a Mommy blogger?
Do you blog about your kids?
Do you blog about great things for Mommies?
Do you wanna meet other Mom Bloggers?
So Easy Being Green
With the announcement that Google will soon be pulling the plug on GFC, Mom Blog Monday is beginning to evolve! We will be rotating Social Media Outlets each week, featuring different ways to follow some of your favorite {and new} Mommy Blogs!
The rotation will follow this sequence: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, RSS/Email
All we ask is that you follow the 3 Co-Hosts: The Not-So-Secret Confessions of a First Time Mom, Luxury Living Frugal Style, and So Easy Being Green… the first three blogs on the linky! Then follow Spot #4 which is the featured blog of the week!
We would LOVE it if you’d grab our button and put it somewhere on your blog or in a blog post! This would help us spread the word. However, you aren’t required to. Please be sure to link up to the correct Social Media of the Week and leave us a comment so we can follow you back!

This week’s Featured Media is Facebook!

This week's featured blogger is…


Crazy Casa K
Crazy Casa K


Hi! I'm Mrs. K, mom to an adorable 13 month old little guy and a recent transplant to Southern California suburbia. Join me at Crazy Casa K, as I figure out how to navigate this new landscape while balancing motherhood, work and life...hope to see you soon!


Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Isaac is 3 Months Old!

I cannot believe it has been 3 whole months already! It's so funny how the months during pregnancy just drag, but once baby is here time flies!! 


At 3 Months Old:

-Isaac is sleeping 8-10 hours a night! 

- He is still nursing like a champ!

-He "talks" to everyone he sees.

-He ADORES his big brother and giggles and smiles at him whenever he is around! 

-He is trying to roll over from tummy to back AND back to tummy but hasn't accomplished either one quite yet. 

-Last time he was weighed (about 2 weeks ago) he weighed 13lbs 3oz! 

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Mom Blog Monday Blog Hop! {RSS/Email}

Are you a Mommy blogger?
Do you blog about your kids?
Do you blog about great things for Mommies?
Do you wanna meet other Mom Bloggers?
So Easy Being Green

RSS/EMAIL

With the announcement that Google will soon be pulling the plug on GFC, Mom Blog Monday is beginning to evolve! We will be rotating Social Media Outlets each week, featuring different ways to follow some of your favorite {and new} Mommy Blogs!

The rotation will follow this sequence: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, RSS/Email
All we ask is that you follow the 3 Co-Hosts: The Not-So-Secret Confessions of a First Time MomLuxury Living Frugal Style, and So Easy Being Green… the first three blogs on the linky!

We would LOVE it if you’d grab our button and put it somewhere on your blog or in a blog post! This would help us spread the word. However, you aren’t required to. Please be sure to link up to the correct Social Media of the Week and leave us a comment so we can follow you back!

THIS WEEK’S FEATURED MEDIA IS RSS/EMAIL!!

Please subscribe to each blog via RSS or EMAIL, NOT Google Friend Connect! 


Losing the Baby Weight

(Picture found on Pinterest.com) 
I kind of expected losing the baby weight to be a bit harder the second time around, but I didn't expect it would be this hard! I was so excited at first because right off the bat I dropped 10lbs..I assume from breastfeeding. Then after about a month I had lost 15lbs total...only 5 more to go! But here we are at three months  postpartum and those 5lbs have not come off yet. You're probably thinking..well it's only 5 pounds..it can't make that much of a difference. But it's all in my middle. I still look 5 months pregnant! It's so ugly to me. 


So I've been doing Jillian Michael's 30 day shred at least 2x a week and taking a zumba class once a week, but still having trouble losing those extra pounds. I think my big issue is food. I don't really want to diet while nursing and I'm always STARVING since I'm nursing. But I definitely need to cut back on the chocolate and cookies and junk food! 


So how did YOU lose the baby weight?! Or have you yet? How long did it take for you to lose the weight? What did you do to lose the weight?! Help a girl out here!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Fairhaven Health Nursing Blend Breastfeeding Supplement Review


Fairhaven Health products provide quality, clinically proven supplements to aid a couple in their journey from preconception to birth and nursing. There are products for those trying to conceive, pregnant mothers, and nursing mothers! I was given the opportunity to review Fairhaven Health's Nursing Blend Breastfeeding Supplement!



Nursing Blend is a daily supplement that is designed to provide the meet the nutritional needs of a nursing mother and her baby, as well as aid in her production of milk. It provides vitamins like Vitamin D that a lot of people don't get enough of. In addition to extra vitamins Nursing Blend also has fenugreek and fennel seed which as most nursing mothers know, can really help out with you milk supply! 

I was excited to try out this supplement. I have never had an issue with milk supply, but I knew I wanted to get all the nutrients I needed while nursing. I was a little bit worried about the fenugreek and fennel seed being in the supplement because I didn't want to overproduce. I did notice a small increase in my milk supply the first few days that I took the supplement, but I wasn't super engorged or anything. By getting the added vitamins and nutrients I need with this supplement, I also have more energy. I don't know about you, but since having a baby sometimes I'm so busy I forget to eat! I'm not saying this is a replacement for meals, but even if I miss a meal, I am at least getting the basic vitamins I need for myself and my baby through this supplement. 

I really recommend this product to nursing mothers or mothers who plan on nursing! Although it is not recommended to take while pregnant, you can begin taking it daily as soon as you give birth and start nursing! If you have milk supply issues and don't produce enough milk, Nursing Blend is a great supplement to increase your milk supply. If you don't have milk supply issues, like me, you can still take it! It doesn't cause you to produce so much milk that your miserable and engorged but it improves the quality of your milk and also gives you the vitamins you need to stay healthy while nursing! 


Buy It!
A one month supply of nursing blend can be purchased for $19.95! Visit http://www.fairhavenhealth.com/nursing-blend.html to purchase! 

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Mom Blog Monday Blog Hop! {Google+}

Are you a Mommy blogger?
Do you blog about your kids?
Do you blog about great things for Mommies?
Do you wanna meet other Mom Bloggers?
So Easy Being Green

We rotate Social Media Outlets each week, featuring different ways to follow some of your favorite {and new} Mommy Blogs!
The rotation will follow this sequence: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, RSS/Email

All we ask is that you follow the 3 Co-Hosts: The Not-So-Secret Confessions of a First Time Mom, Luxury Living Frugal Style, and So Easy Being Green… the first three blogs on the linky! Then follow Spot #4 which is the featured blog of the week!

We would LOVE it if you’d grab our button and put it somewhere on your blog or in a blog post! This would help us spread the word. However, you aren’t required to. Please be sure to link up to the correct Social Media of the Week and leave us a comment so we can follow you back!

This week’s Featured Media is Google+!


Friday, February 10, 2012

I Heart Pinterest!! +Recipe!

So are ya'll as in love with Pinterest as I am?! It is seriously awesome! At first I was like "what's the point" but then I decided to use it to my advantage! I followed everyone on my Facebook and started pinning recipes like crazy! Pinterest is seriously what inspired me to start meal planning!!

I have never been a good meal planner and would always just try and figure something out for dinner on the same day. But it was getting to where I'd ALWAYS be missing an ingredient or two for a meal and it was getting super frustrating having to run to the store every day. So I decided I needed to start meal planning and Pinterest became my meal planning life saver!

I started taking all those recipes I was pinning and writing them down to try for our meals each evening. When I was making my grocery list I would simply gather the recipes and write down what ingredients I needed to pick up at the store for each one. So now I have my little dry erase calendar on the fridge that I write each meal down for the day and I use Pinterest to find my meals!

So today I want to give you a recipe I found on Pinterest that we LOVE! It's called Poor Man's Lasagna and it's super easy to make and so yummy! I pinned it from the blog Fabulessly Frugal and just made a few modifications.

Poor Man's Lasagna


What you need:

  • one box Penne pasta cooked
  • 1lb ground beef or turkey
  • 1 jar spaghetti sauce
  • 1 block of cream cheese, softened
  • 8oz cottage cheese
  • 1 cup or so of shredded cheese (whatever kind you prefer-we used mild cheddar)
I cooked my ground turkey and added the spaghetti sauce to it and let it simmer. Also boil pasta as directed and drain. Put pasta back in your pot and add cream cheese (cut up in chunks makes it easier) and cottage cheese. Mix well. In a 9x13" dish layer the noodle and cheese mix and then the meat sauce. Add your shredded cheese to the top. Bake on 350 for about 30 minutes and enjoy!! 


This is some yummy, cheesy goodness! 

 


If you are on Pinterest feel free to follow me!! http://pinterest.com/mommyferg02/

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software Review & Giveaway!


I have always loved scrapbooking. I used to scrapbook with my mom back in middle and high school and when Noah was born I knew I wanted to scrapbook each month of his life! Well that lasted MAYBE the first 6 months before I got busy and distracted and didn't have the space for all my scrapbooking supplies and gave up.

When I found out I was pregnant again, I remember thinking how in the world I would keep up with a scrapbook for baby #2 when I hadn't even finished Noah's! Then I was given the opportunity to review My Memories Suite v3, which is online scrapbook software which allows you to scrapbook online! The best way to explain it is right on the website:

MyMemories Suite v3 software is a complete digital scrapbooking solution that provides a comprehensive powerful set of creative tools no other scrapbook software can offer. With its intuitive workspace and enhanced time-saving features, this application is perfect for a beginner to create a complete album in minutes, or to empower the design pro to build a scrapbook album masterpiece.

My Memories digital scrapbooking software has so many pages and templates to choose from anyone  will enjoy it! There are literally so many themes to choose from including babies, vacations, weddings, and more! It's easy to download  and is compatible with Mac and PC. It is super affordable too, considering all the many options and designs you have to choose from! I know buying the physical supplies at the store for the same amount of pages would cost much more! 

I really like this software! It's so much more convenient for me to get on my laptop and create beautiful scrapbook pages in my recliner, than pulling out tons of supplies and making a huge mess and spending hours creating a scrapbook physically! I love how easy it is to use and figure out! And if there is something I can't figure out there are tons of tutorials on the My Memories blog to help! It's really fun to design pages and pages of pictures that are such sweet memories to me! 

I also LOVE that I can share my work! I can save my work to my computer and send it to friends or post it on Facebook and I can even print it and have it made in to a real scrapbook to have for years to come! It's exciting to be able to do all that right from my laptop! 

I'm not a pro yet but here's one of my creations from  My Memories Suite v3! 

Buy It!
Win It!
One lucky reader will win the My Memories Suite v3 digital scrapbooking software! 

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Mom Blog Monday Blog Hop! {Twitter!}

Are you a Mommy blogger?
Do you blog about your kids?
Do you blog about great things for Mommies?
Do you wanna meet other Mom Bloggers?
So Easy Being Green
With the announcement that Google will soon be pulling the plug on GFC, Mom Blog Monday is beginning to evolve! We will be rotating Social Media Outlets each week, featuring different ways to follow some of your favorite {and new} Mommy Blogs!
The rotation will follow this sequence: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, RSS/Email
All we ask is that you follow the 3 Co-Hosts: The Not-So-Secret Confessions of a First Time MomLuxury Living Frugal Style, and So Easy Being Green… the first three blogs on the linky! Then follow Spot #4 which is the featured blog of the week!
We would LOVE it if you’d grab our button and put it somewhere on your blog or in a blog post! This would help us spread the word. However, you aren’t required to. Please be sure to link up to the correct Social Media of the Week and leave us a comment so we can follow you back!

THIS WEEK’S FEATURED MEDIA IS Twitter!!

This week's featured blogger is…



Hi!  I'm Jennifer, full time working mom of two adorable little girls.  My blog, Diary of a Working Mom, chronicles the craziness that is our our lives, with a few crafts, recipes, and giveaways thrown in for good measure.  I would love if you would stop by and visit my site! 





What A Week!!

I'm so sorry I haven't been around much this week and have been a bit behind on drawing winners from the New Year, New Babies event! It has been quite the eventful week for us! 
It started last week when Noah and I came down with a cold. I recovered quickly but Noah developed a bad cough. So we took him to the doctor and got him on some meds. Well Sunday, little Isaac started to develop a cough and was super congested. So I took him to the local urgent care since it was the weekend and they said he had early signs of croup and gave me some meds for him. All seemed well the rest of the week. Isaac appeared to be getting better and I even took him to his 2 month well checkup on Wednesday! Doctor said it was just congestion in his throat and he should be good as new by the weekend. 
Well Thursday afternoon, Noah fell down our stairs! Him falling down our stairs have been my biggest fear since we moved in to this house! Luckily he rolled sideways down them and not head over bottom, or it could have been a lot worse. But he did he the rail coming down and cut his head open! So we rushed to the doctor and he had to have one staple in his head! He had mommy and daddy both in tears! It was such an emotional day! No parent ever wants to see their child in pain :( 
So we get home and get settled in for the night and Isaac starts coughing again. This time he acts like he is struggling to breathe and if he's not coughing he's crying. He was pitiful. We finally got him to sleep around midnight and he woke back up at 4am screaming and coughing and struggling again. So we sat in the bathroom with the shower running so he could breathe. I took him back to the doctor Friday and they did all kinds of tests on my sweet boy. It was no fun. But they were really worried about him. Turns out all that congestion moved down to his lungs and they tested him for RSV and it came up positive. :( Luckily we caught it early enough we were able to avoid the hospital. They sent us home with a nebulizer and he is on breathing treatments every four hours. I had to take him back yesterday morning to be re-checked and he is doing a lot better now! The doctor said he should be good as new by the end of the week.  
So needless to say, my boys gave me quite the scare this week! I hate seeing them sick or in pain! I assume Noah got the RSV virus from his school and while it only seemed like a bad cold to me and him, it was much worse and harder on Isaac. I was at a doctor's office every day this week except Monday and Tuesday! But both boys seem to be getting better and for that I am SO thankful! 

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

This Thing I Call My Blog!

So I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about my blog, and where it's going and why I started blogging in the first place. I originally created my blog as an online journal of my life as a new mom. Noah was only 6 months old when I started blogging. I have always enjoyed writing and recording my thoughts in a journal so I thought, why not give blogging a try. 


Not quite a year later I started doing my first reviews and giveaways. I loved providing my readers with reviews of products that I loved and was given the amazing opportunity to review! As my blog began to grow so did offers to do reviews and sponsored posts, etc. And I would see other blogs with high value giveaways or even cash giveaways and keeping up with numbers and stats and I felt the need to keep up almost and so I looked for more reviews and giveaways to do and signed up for giveaways with other bloggers and just tried to keep up with the growing trend! 


While I do still enjoy doing reviews and giveaways very much, I miss the personal aspect of my blog. I LOVE writing about my family and my boys and my life! I don't have the most interesting life, but I think it's a pretty good one and I enjoy telling my readers about it. I know some of you just follow for the giveaways or have only started following during a giveaway, and that's understandable. But I do hope so of my readers enjoy reading about my life. 


So I have decided to continue to keep my blog a personal one. I have decided not to worry about the stats and numbers or how many giveaways I have going, or how BIG my reviews/giveaways are and just write about what I love-my family and my life. I want to share with you how my boys are growing. I want to write about my new workout routine. I want to share recipes with you! I just want to share my life with you! That doesn't mean I'm not going to have anymore reviews and giveaways. In fact, I have two to post within the next week! But they won't be as often and might not be as HUGE as other blogs. I will review products I feel that my readers would enjoy and benefit from. If it's not a product my followers would be interested in, I won't review it. I want my blog to be somewhere you can go to read about a fellow mommy or woman and relate to. 


So I hope this doesn't totally turn you off to my blog and I hope you'll continue to follow me on this journey I call life! Without my readers I might as well just write in a diary with a lock and key! :) 


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