From the Week

Boom! It’s Friday….ALREADY! Another week in the books 🙂

Monday wasn’t so fun (for me). I woke up feeling super sick, so I headed to the doctor’s to get checked out. They said it was just a cold, but I definitely felt like death warmed over. Not to mention, the coffee pot was backed up when I tried to start it, so it was like a one two punch of crap right to the face. Not too much else happened….we grabbed some Tims (helllllllo caffeine!), some groceries and a couple of beers for Tyler. I was able to snap some pics of Wes in our bedroom!

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He was getting super playful once grandma came in the room and all the giggles made me <3.

We had chili and THE BEST CORNBREAD I’VE EVER MADE for dinner. I had to eat it a bit early and super quick because I had to head out to work.

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Tuesday was a better day. I still woke up feeling pretty yucky so my mom was able to help out with Wes until my meds kicked in. I have been SO lucky with my mom being here- thanks to FaceTime, Wes recognized her right off the bat and has been stuck to her like glue her whole time here. He wants to be with her no matter what and even though part of me gets jealous about their bond, I am so happy that they have it because they don’t get to see each other often. <– that makes me sad!

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We drove down to Ikea in the afternoon and ended up getting all things for Wes. I don’t want to purchase any house items until Tyler is done with the renos..because you just never know how things turn out!

One of the goodies we picked up (rather, my mom bought. She has been on a buying spree while she’s been visiting!) was a tent with an attachable tunnel. Wes got the hang of it right off the bat, but my mom still wanted to demonstrate. Must’ve been the wine 😉

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I had to throw together a random dinner of leftovers and again quickly head out the door for work. It was my first ‘real’ day (not training) and it was so nerve wracking! More hints as to my part-time gig: BEER + AMBASSADOR. A dream job for me because not only do I get to work with beer, but I get to do it part-time. So my days are spent with Wes and only a couple evenings a week I am out adulting! It ended up being a great shift.

I also posted about the Grapple Toy Tether. If you haven’t seen that post yet, check it out! I am giving away one Grapple and the giveaway is open until next Tuesday! If you don’t have a kiddo that could use it, it’s also a great gift option 🙂

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Wednesday was pretty darn good. Actually, it was great. Wes woke up in a fantastic mood, I had fantastic pancakes for breakfast, and got in my workout while Wes napped. As soon as Wes woke up, we got in the car and headed out! First stop was to pick up some fabric and odds and ends at Walmart. By the time we finished, it was lunch time so we headed to National Westhills. I had never been to that location before, but I knew that it was similar to the other locations in that they offered an outstanding selection of craft beers PLUS it is very family friendly.

As soon as we got there, I was relieved to see that there were actually several other tables of babies there. PHEW! I didn’t want to risk being the annoying table. My mom ordered fish tacos and some wine while I opted for a flight of beers. Just my luck: I chose all new-to-me beers that were DELICIOUS! Wes was a saint the entire time. He was so happy just looking around and schmoozing the women around us. I kept telling my mom that I was so glad we checked the place out because I think Tyler and I (and Wes) will have to frequent it from now on. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

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After lunch, we wandered over to the Carter’s that was nearby and my mom went nuts. Carters= grandma crack. We walked out of there with a ton of new clothes for Wes, lucky kid! The afternoon was so stimulating for Wes that he fell asleep in the car on the way home, so I was able to stop and pick up a couple of groceries and WINE before getting to the house.

Wes was a huge snuggle muffin with grandma AGAIN. Seriously, why don’t I get all those awesome snuggles? I need them. We had mucho burrito for dinner because it was quick and easy and paired well with the wine we bought.

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Thursday was pretty good too even if it was a little more slow going. We had breakfast then watched Grandma make a cake.

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I was so excited when the mail came because my latest order of Bubbles & Balms bar soaps arrived! I ordered a variety of scents and can’t wait to try out a couple of the new ones. I know they’ll be good, because all the ones I’ve tried so far have been THE BEST. Seriously, the scents are so nice. But what wins me over is that the soaps keep my skin soft even throughout the yucky dry winters.

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I recently talked about their baby line of products which are equally great. My favorite is the bath and massage oil. It’s very relaxing for Wes AND I can even use it for my baths!

We hung around the house for a bit after Wes’s nap. His favorite activity these days is to crawl into his room and toss every diaper across the room. I know I could totally prevent this by putting the diapers elsewhere, but I actually don’t mind because it’s so darn cute.

I put him in the crocheted jacket my mom’s friend had made for him while he was in his room and it was just so funny. I can’t tell if it looks more like a bolero or a pimp jacket. Too cute 🙂

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We headed up to Airdrie for the afternoon for something to do. Mostly, it was to drive around but we did end up at Bulk Barn and picked up some goodies. Then Superstore on the way back because the kiddo needed more snacks for his snack drawer!

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He was happy to just go up and down the aisles and have mama bounce him around.

We had meatloaf for dinner and Wes fell asleep insanely early due to no afternoon nap. This made for a nice evening of adulting. Not productive, but adulting nonetheless.

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Have a great weekend!

Love Child Organics

It’s no secret that Wes likes to eat. At 12 months, he’s just about 24 pounds and growing. We started introducing solids to him just after he turned 5 months and the boy had no problem accepting just about whatever I gave to him.

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So he had the easy part- just eat the food. I, on the other hand, was a bit stress-ridden searching for products that were organic and free from crazy amounts of additives. The produce was a no brainer, but snacks and meals on the go were a bit trickier. There’s just so much out there that’s marketed for babies!

On one particular shopping trip, I happened upon the Love Child Organics brand and threw a bunch of food pouches and other snacks into my cart to see how Wes would take to them. The verdict? He was obsessed.

From then on out, I continued to keep his drawer (yep, Wes has his own drawer in the kitchen that is filled with snacks) stocked with Love Child goodies. Whenever I head out the door, I make sure to grab at least a pouch and a granola bar to have handy for those snacks (re: HANGRY) moments.

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I lucked out a few months ago and won a giveaway that included this awesome tote!

If you’ve never heard of Love Child Organics, here’s an overview of the company:

Love Child was launched in 2013 by parents Leah and John-Garrod-Cole with the intention of providing children with organic foods that are as nutrient-rich as possible. There are no fillers, additives, preservatives, refined sugars or GMOs in any of their products.

In addition to creating great food, they are also very socially conscious! AND they also struck the largest deal ever on Dragon’s Den (the Canadian version of Shark Tank) allowing them to continue to grow.

While the product line already incorporates a lot of yummy flavor combinations- including a lot of quinoa and green veggies- they recently launched 4 more baby meals which come in the resealable pouches! They include: vegetarian chili, veggie casserole, pumpkin risotto, and ratatouille. YUM.

Love Child recently sent us the four new meals to try in addition to some of Wes’s other favorites: Love Ducks, Chomp Bars, and Teefies. We jumped right into them!

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PS: Don’t put a ton of fun snacks in front of a food-driven baby. He was going bonkers wanting to eat everything!

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The new baby meals couldn’t have come at a better time because Wes’s appetite has been a bit wishy-washy ever since his 12 month shots last week. I desperately want him to get some good nutrition in, and the vegetarian chili hit the spot! He downed the entire pouch in one sitting.

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You can warm the contents either by pouring them in a bowl or dipping the pouch in warm water, but Wes has just started eating directly from the pouch and I wanted him to take part in the novelty of his new ‘trick’ so he ate it at room temp.

I’m so happy to support a Canadian business that provides healthy meal and snack options for my little guy, so we are definitely permanent customers!

**You can get 15% off your order of Love Child Organics products on Amazon.ca using code LCOMOM13.**

Don’t forget! I am giving away a Grapple Toy Tether on my Facebook page this week, too!

 

Grapple Toy Tether [GIVEAWAY!]

Hi friends and happy Tuesday! I hope you’re all having a great week so far. It’s been pretty boring over here on our end. I’ve been working every day since Friday; I’ve been pretty sick; Tyler has been working on house stuff; and Wes has been a grump grump. The last one I attribute to a wonderful combination of teething and having his 12 month shots.

Remember a while back when I talked about the Grapple? It was an absolute God send for meal time. Wes was having all too much fun tossing his toys from his high chair to the floor and I was constantly picking them up and having to clean the mess of dog hair from them. Annoying!

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I just so happened to stumble upon the Grapple when I was browsing in the children’s store and I knew I needed one. It suctioned to the tray and provided tethers for up to three toys. PERFECT.

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As soon as we got home, I stuck the Grapple on Wes’s tray and attached three toys. That was the first meal I didn’t have to spend majority of my time playing fetch! He loved being able to constantly play with his toys without having to wait for mom to pick them up.

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It’s so crazy to look at these photos now because he looks so tiny and chubby 🙂

Here’s a little backstory on the company–> The Grappleâ„¢ was invented, as many baby products are, out of sheer necessity…or desperation. After spending many meal times retrieving toys that their 9 month old son dropped on the floor, David and Amy Oh decided there had to be a better way. When they couldn’t find a solution in stores or on the internet, they decided to make their own. It wasn’t pretty but it worked! After being approached by people in restaurants wanting to know where they could buy one, the Ohs realized there was a true need for this product. They formed Boingy LLC and started off on the adventure of creating a product that was fun, easy to use and safe.

Not only is it made of food grade silicone (so it’s safe for your little ones) but it was also invented by a mom! Us moms sure have a knack for coming up with clever way to keep our babes happy, healthy and safe. Even better, the Grapple is portable so it’s a great accesory to have on hand at a restaurant. No one wants to have to hassle with cleaning tossed toys after they’ve been on a yucky restaurant floor. Ick.

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I sent my praises to the company, and Amy Ho (the inventor herself!) kindly offered to giveaway ONE Grapple to a lucky reader!

–>Head on over to my Facebook page to enter :)<–

Thanks again to Amy and even more thanks to the Grapple for keeping this mama from going crazy.

Don’t forget to check out their site here

And be sure to like them on Facebook and Instagram

 

From The Week

Happy Friday! My weekend is full of work work work, so I guess it’s like…my Monday? Eww I can’t think like that. Just popping in real quick to share stuff from our week 🙂

Monday: After breakfast we headed to the zoo! It was such a gorgeous day out that we needed to take advantage. It also made me secretly happy to see several misbehaved children there because it made me feel better about my own child! We saw just about everything there and Wes has his first taste of Grandma’s froyo before we left.

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Here’s the part where I toot my own horn about how I make the best french toast. ever.

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Only downside to the day was that Wes fell asleep JUST as we arrived at the zoo so he only had a couple minutes of shut eye the whole day! By the late afternoon he was overtired and it was a 2 person chore (me and my mom) to get him down for a nap. Then when he did go down, the kiddo slept until 5pm when we finally needed to get him up. His schedule has been WHACK ever since my mom got here!

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We had fajitas for dinner and somehow got wrangled into watching Dancing with the Stars. That show needs to END because there are no stars left to go on!

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Tuesday: The dreaded shots day. Ugh. He screamed for all 3 pokes but quickly mellowed out when he got grandma snuggles. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home and then decided to stay at the house just in case the dreaded side effects should kick in.

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He seemed to be fine for a while, but as soon as we tried to hang out on the patio is when he went downhill. He got super whiny and lost his appetite. It’s no fair to him though, it was an incredibly hot day and he has been teething so he was really going through the trifecta.

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We had some indoor naked time then mom and grandma decided margaritas needed to happen. PS: The Vitamix does an equally fantastic job at blending as the Margaritaville machine.

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True story: at the exact moment I took this picture, Elmo said- AND I QUOTE- “Ok, Elmo’s done being upside down now” BAHAHA.

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We had chicken sausages for dinner (so ugly to photo) and they were tasty!

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Wes seemed to be hit pretty hard by the shots and he actually woke up in the middle of the night. I had a hard time holding him to get him back to sleep, so after 2 tries, Tyler went in and finally got him back down. So Tyler, if you’re reading this you can totally put Wes to sleep all the time now. You’re obviously better at it.

Wednesday: We had plans to go shopping for some clothes for Wes, but he ended up taking a 2 1/2 hour morning nap. I was able to finish my workouts, shower and get myself ready for orientation at my new job. I felt bad leaving my mom with a really irritable baby, but there was really nothing I could do.

Before I left, I was able to get some somewhat happy baby photos in the backyard. Muscle tees for the win!

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My orientation went really well. I’m so excited for this part-time gig, but I’m also pretty darn nervous. Anything new scares me, but it’s in an industry that I love (hint: BEER) so I should be good 😉

For dinner, I made Hoisin Stir Fry Bowls with Spicy Peanut Sauce. It seems like every blogger in Alberta has been making this lately, so I needed to see what the heck the fuss was all about! Plus, we had practically all the ingredients already. The verdict? Delicious!

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Thursday: My favorite day from the week! It all started with breakfast. Well, I did my workout first (I am slowly getting addicted to early EARLY morning workouts) then threw together a parfait that was out of this world yummy.

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I mixed greek yogurt with peanut butter, layered with sliced bananas and some homemade blueberry maple pecan granola (recipe coming soon!) You guys, this is heaven in a jar. I grabbed a spatula to get all of the goodness out.

Once we all had breakfast, we headed out for a day of fun! As soon as we got in the car, I remembered I had a phone meeting so I had to pull over and my mom needed to distract Wes while I chatted for almost 30 minutes. Whoops!

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Wes had to do some paperwork before we left.

We finally got on the road and I stopped to get my rings cleaned while Wes napped in the car. (anything to keep a sleeping baby sleeping!) Then we headed over to one of the fabric stores and picked out some adorable prints for a top secret sewing project (HOPEFULLY more on that later 😉 ).

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Next, we headed over to the farmer’s market. We had some excellent coffee and perused the aisles for a bit before grabbing some salads to snack on. Wes even got to try some fresh fruit and loved it.

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Then……ICE CREAM TIME. I seriously have no idea how I’ve never been to Village Ice Cream yet, but holy wow was it amazing. I sampled a few flavors before deciding on Salted Caramel- by far one of the best ice creams I’ve had. Wes was getting a bit antsy and I’m surprised I successfully managed to eat my cone without dropping it. We headed home shortly after so the little guy could crawl around sans pants.

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Per the trend of the week, he fought his nap for a long time. Once he did konk out, I got to take the dogs for a walk/jog/run. Reggie keeps fake pooping so he can take a rest. No bueno, dog. We gotta keep moving!

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Again, I had to wake him up just before 5 so that bed time wasn’t absolutely ruined. According to my math, any time I wake this child from slumber, I am in for a world of hurt. He is so irritable and clingy and whiny and pooey. Oh well, it could be worse!

We had been out for a majority of the day, so I didn’t give much of a thought towards dinner. I quickly whipped up some chicken, broccoli and quinoa. Borrrrrrrring, but tasty.

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Oh, and today was our 4th wedding anniversary. Well, technically it wasn’t a wedding but it was the day we got married. On top of a mountain. Legally. We had only known each other 290 days and I already moved from Boston to Calgary to be with Tyler. Best day ever. Funny story: we used crappy $10 rings for the ceremony, but later that night he actually ‘officially’ proposed to me with a real ring! Cue all the feels.

I cracked open a bottle of some of our ‘special’ wine. It’s a bottle of Chardonnay we bought while in Napa while we were dating. Because it’s really romantic when he flies from Calgary and I fly from Boston and we meet in San Francisco and drive up to wine country together. Ah, to be dating again.

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And for your viewing pleasure, here’s a photo from that day–>

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Which brings us to….Friday! Guess that wasn’t really a quick post, sorry!

 

Small Shoppin’- Posh Panda

Happy Thursday everyone! The week is almost to a close ALREADY. How does it happen so quickly? 

Today I want to share with you an awesome small shop based out of Lethbridge, Alberta. Posh Panda is run by Kayla, a mother of two littles. She creates some of the cutest leather moccs and boots and I have been lusting for a pair ever since I started following her on Instagram. She locally sources all of her leathers and manages to find some of the best quality stuff!

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As luck would have it, I was able to get a pair of black moccs just in time for Wes’s first birthday! Not only did I get the pair so last minute, but I was also able to meet Kayla in person to pick up the moccs since she was in town to purchase more leather! Although our meeting was brief, I could tell how much care she put into each pair (poet?). Plus, she had one of her babes with her and she was dressed to the nines! So cute.

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Kayla had just redesigned the fit to accommodate both skinny and chunky ankles, and my son being on of the latter, was able to perfectly fit into the size 5/6. They were snug- but not tight- around his ankles and had lots of wiggle room to grow into.

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I love the new branding on the bottoms! PS: Wes dresses better than I do.

Most important factor: the stay on! He wriggled and crawled all over the house for hours and neither even came close to making their way off his feet. That’s such great reassurance for taking him out of the house because I’m pretty sure it would be the worst feeling ever to lose one while on an outing!

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He only cried because Layla wasn’t coming in his room! 😉

Not only does she make these classic moccs, but she also creates the most adorable lace moccs, moccs with bows, and boot moccs! There’s a size chart listed on her brand new website, but if you’re ever unsure, Kayla is super quick to respond to inquiries and could accommodate for special sizing.

If I ever have a girl, I need a pair of these Light Grey Striped Bow Moccs.

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I still can’t get over how incredibly soft the leather is for these! Like butter. Now if only my boy would stop growing so darn fast so he could wear these for a long, long time.

Cleaning is super easy- just use wipes!

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I think our next purchase will be these Iron Gray Classic Moccs or these Red Moccs (great gender neutral colors and perfect for holiday outfits!)

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I can’t stress enough how important it is to shop small- not only are you supporting your local economy, but you are getting a higher quality product! Kayla is no exception- I can tell she works her butt of for her brand. Her new website is gorgeous, the product is on point, and her service makes you feel like you’re not just a customer, but a friend.

Make sure to check her out on Facebook and Instagram too!

American friends, don’t forget! Your dollar goes farther in Canada, so these would be a bargain 🙂

Thanks again to Kayla!!