babies – Page 2 – Mom Life in the PNW

Jenn

How to Make Potty Training Fun With Costco & Huggies Plus

Now, this isn’t an I know all things about potty training post because I am still in the process of trying to get my 2.5-year-old potty trained. She’s the size of a 4-year-old and I know the looks I get in public places when they see her in a diaper still are because she’s not wearing underwear. Little do they know, she’s big for her age. But that’s beside the point.

For about a couple months now, my daughter has been letting me know she’s pooped and/or peed and wants to be changed. She actually started sitting on the potty around the age of 2 and did pee in it once, but she hasn’t since. It could be because I kind of squealed and sat her down on her potty and maybe that frightened her, I dunno? Our real toilet is also very loud when flushed; It sounds like a jet engine, no joke.

But, How do you Make Potty Training Fun?

First, go pick up some Huggies Pull-Ups Plus from Costco.

You can save $7.00 on them right now through October 22. (if you’re still using diapers, you can save $8.50 on Huggies Plus Diapers too). I picked up the Pull-Ups Plus since they’re kind of like underwear and are easier for toddlers to slide on and off by themselves, especially if we’re not potty trained by the time our flight comes the 24th of this month. Those plane bathrooms are small enough without having to put a big toddler on the changing table, which I might add was too small when she was 7 months.

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Jenn

I quit breastfeeding my 1st at 23 Months and I don’t think I’ll breastfeed the 2nd

If you want a little back story, here’s my first post on breastfeeding.

Although I was intent on making it work for as long as possible, that doesn’t mean I was thrilled or happy about it. I wanted to do what was best for baby, but this time around I think I want to do what is best for my mental health and well being and just enjoy the 2nd baby and my other child as much as possible.

I was tied to the couch pretty much 24/7 for the first 6 months either pumping or having my baby girl latched to the boob. There’s just no way possible that I am going to be able to do that with a now needy toddler running around.

I was also so angry at my husband for being able to do the things that I used to be able to do, like play video games, go out to bars for a drink or bite to eat with friends, concerts, etc. I just became permanently annoyed with him. I call it angry wife post partum. This wasn’t ALL the time, but it was frequent enough to bother me since I felt alone.

Breastfeeding is seriously one of the most stressful things I have done. Not just because I never had my boobs free, but the constant pain, the low supply issues and never getting a good nights rest. After she started eating solids steadily, it became better. I wasn’t always needing to constantly whip out the boob even though she would have prefered it. I could go to the store for an hour without having to find a place to sit down and feed her.

I know I shouldn’t have to explain my reasoning, but I know I will get “why’s?” since I breastfed my first for so long.

Those are my why’s, so please don’t judge. Yes, breast is best, but so is a happy, sane mother.

Jenn

New Niece Paisley Has Made Her Appearance

Yup, there’s a new one every couple of months! Ha

She arrived safely on October 5th and is a healthy 8lbs 1oz, which is her biggest yet.

Look at that cute little chunky face.

I was hoping she’d come out looking more like my sister since most of her kids look like their dad, but I guess our genes are not powerful enough since most of our families girls look like their dads.

I cant even remember my baby girl being that little and it was only 17 months ago.

I’ve been contemplating whether I should or shouldn’t have another kid myself. I feel like I have angry post partum. Not so towards my daughter, but my husband. I’m pretty sure it’s still steming from hormones and me not liking him going out often or playing video games while I get to sit at the house with our daughter. I feel like mostly everything has changed for me and nothing has changed for him. He’s toned down a bit since I told him I’m tired of him running off to play video games upstairs when he could be enjoying that time playing with his daughter. All I know is that if things don’t tone down more, I wont be having another baby. And he knows this.

Anyone else ever had angry post partum at their husbands?

Jenn

Bird Themed Baby Shower For One of My Sisters

For the past couple months, I’ve been working on one of my sister’s baby showers (yes another one) all the while trying to focus more on blogging and my etsy shop. Etsy has been slow this month for me, so it’s given me a little breathing room to get stuff done in preparation for the baby shower.

Since my sister is obsessed with birds, I of course decided to do a bird themed baby shower since this will be her last child.

I bought most of my supplies from Joanns since I can use multiple coupons, which in turn saves me more money.

Bird Themed Baby Shower

Premade bird houses at Joanns are inexpensive. All you need is a little paint and some paint brushes.

The colors she wanted were mint and navy blue. I had a hard time finding mint colored items, so I made due with other color variations.

A bird house cant be a bird house without birds, so I then cut out a bird image on card stock paper and mod podged it onto the front. My plan was to stick it on top of a diaper cake. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get a better photo than the one I took at 11pm the night before the baby shower.)

For baby showers, I try to create stuff that won’t get thrown away. That way, my time, money and energy isn’t wasted.

I then created a bird themed name banner out of card stock paper and ribbon. I always do a name instead of “baby shower” or “welcome baby” because they’re more likely be tossed in the trash.

Name banners can be hung in the nursery by a crib or bed.

I found this pink chalkboard sign at Michaels on clearance for a couple dollars, but I didn’t have mint colored vinyl so I decided to paint it the same color as the bird house and applied navy blue vinyl. The vinyl wasn’t wanting to stick to the paint, so I had to put a mod podge gloss coat over it to get it to stay. It worked and gave it a glossy effect instead of matte and flat!

I found the premade bird nest at a vintage shop for a few bucks, so I grabbed it and applied it with some mod podge as well.

For the item below, I had a little something different in mind. I didn’t find the right type of twig branch I wanted to use, so I made the thick branch work instead.

I cut out double sided birds in coordinating colors to the theme (I decided to add in pink since navy blue and mint didn’t scream WELCOME BABY GIRL Lol) and dangled them from twine. Then I added flowers onto the branch with some mod podge.

Makes a great backdrop and nursery decor for a little ones bird themed room.

Again, not the best photo, but I had no other place to hang it with natural light near.

I also made some bird shaped bird feeders out of bird seed, gelatin, honey and water. My friend picked up the bird seed and it wasn’t the right type. It didn’t want to dry very well inside the cookie cutters and kept breaking in spots. These 6 were the only ones to survive and then I left them at home. Go figure. They were supposed to be a favor gift for those who didn’t win any of the games or diaper raffle.

And unfortunately, the baby shower day we selected called for rain. There was no real protection from getting wet since we were outside at a park, so we packed stuff up and moved it to my sisters small apartment since half the people didn’t come anyways. I hate that! But at least she enjoyed it and I guess that’s all that matters. But, that’s PNW weather for ya! Felt like the first official day of Fall and looked like it too.

When I set stuff up at the baby shower, I didnt get any pics and neither did anyone else besides that one. There really wasn’t a place to put everything to make it cute, but I made due with the space we had.

For food, we did potato salad, chips, sandwhiches for the kids, pinwheels for adults, deviled eggs, a vegetable and fruit tray in the shape of an owl.

One of my other sisters did the fruit tray and I did the veggies.

I left the eye area open to put ranch when we arrived at the shower. Then you top it off with a couple of cherry tomatoes as well for the eyes.

And yes, that is a purple platter. I couldn’t find pink or blue. Lol

So this is our bird themed baby shower. I didn’t take a picture of a couple of things, but she loved it all. If she didn’t, I’d have to beat her. Ha.

PIN IT:

Jenn

Traveling to Vegas With a Baby Part 2

If you haven’t read part 1 and would like to, go here.

The next day…

Checkout time is 11 am at most of the hotels in Vegas, but we had planned to leave at around 9:30am to go use our caesers buffet groupon which had stipulations of being there before 10 am.

So we get to Caesers Palace which seemed like miles and miles of walking to get to the buffet and we notice the line is non existent. Wow, that’s a first. Usually this place is sought after and super crowded.

Well, apparently since it was Memorial Day, they weren’t accepting the Groupon offer. Or well they would, but they told me it would be an additional $60 charge when the Groupon was already $69. Way to try to capitalize on the deaths of our fallen soldiers/service men/women Caesars. Dicks!

So now our plans for breakfast fell through. We were hungry, so we just went to the food court and had mediocre, overpriced breakfast sandwhiches.

It’ll make a turd as my husband always says.

After that, we had to go back to Harrahs because i realized i had left my new phones charger in the room. Good thing we still had a key and it worked so we didn’t have to deal with the front desk.

We had also planned to go to Costco to get booze, but realized again that it was Memorial Day and it wasn’t open. That’s okay though, because good ol’ Walmart is open all year unfortunately.

That’s our usual stop when we go to Vegas, so it was fine.

Next stop was checking in to the New York New York hotel.

Check in didn’t take super long, maybe 30 minutes or so. We ended up upgrading the park avenue room to a spa room for an additional $29 per night as advertised through the email we recieved prior to our stay.

ny ny las vegas

So we get our keys, go up to our assigned room, open it up and notice that peoples belongings are still in it. So we’re like what the hell.. its no wonder there are reviews of people’s stuff getting stolen. This is probably the majority of the reason why.

My husband goes down to talk to them and they say sorry and give us a room on a different floor and as far away from the elevator they could possibly give us, which was annoying. The room was nothing special. It was nice enough for what it was. The spa tub had a bunch of hair in it, so i didnt even want to get in it, and mold or crud around the jets that came off when I wiped it with a baby wipe. So housekeeping pretty much does a piss poor job cleaning, if they even do any at all.

My daughter had black feet from walking around for 10 min on the carpet. So gross. I washed her up and instantly put socks on her. Shampoo your carpets once in a while!

The following day we are out and about and go back up to our room to find that we’re locked out. So my husband again, goes back down to get our keys fixed. They said it wouldn’t happen again but it very well did the following day. This time i was pissed and went down there to the guest services desk where no one is to help you. All the other service people are checking people in and ignoring us standing there, so finally, i went up and interrupted someones check in to get help. She looked irritated but i didnt care. If they did their job right the first time, they wouldn’t be bothered by crap like this and then i wouldn’t be angry.

We didnt get a sorry, no resort fee comped, nothing for this irritating hassle. This hotel is one of the most unorganized ones i have stayed in.

The only thing decent was the bed. It felt comfortable.

The pool was like warm bath water. Wished it was colder on 100 degree days. I really hope they dont heat their pools? That’s pretty dang silly for the Nevada summer heat if they do.

The machines are tight, but the location and hotel is fun and entertaining. I will never stay here again though, but i will probably pass through.

This pretty much made our Vegas stay meh.

I’ll do an overview of Vegas with a baby in my next post.

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