A Day in the Life

My new job as stay at home mom is going great. Dax and I have adjusted to all the changes and things are going so smoothly.... better than I ever thought they would. It's been almost a month now since I quit working and one of the best months ever.
As cheesy as it may sound, I feel more complete, satisfied, and most surprisingly, accomplished than I have ever felt before. Accomplished.... by staying at home with my boy. I knew I would be happier, less stressed, more satisfied, and like a better mom..... but this overwhelming feeling of accomplishment is what has taken me by surprise.
I had moments of feeling accomplished while teaching... that moment when the light bulb goes off for a kid, or when they tell you they love you, or when you know you've made a difference in their day. But this completely, 100%, overwhelming sense of accomplishment has never been felt until I started staying home.  This is what I'm meant to be doing at this moment in time. There's no doubt about it.

My first week of staying home I made a plan of attack... because think about it, how easy would it be to be to just sit my little butt on the couch all day in my pj's and relax.  I settled on a routine for Dax and I that would fit us and keep up both on track with life. Here's a peak at what our day is like...

Dax wakes up anywhere between 6-7am. We have a little bit of cuddle time on the couch and he usually wants a snack (a light breakfast... think granola bar or some dried cereal). After that he usually plays for a bit while I drink some coffee and finish waking up (it's a process that takes a little bit). Usually around 8am we have actual breakfast. After breakfast I start my chores. I am my most productive in the mornings so I decided I would devote most of my morning to my chores and all of the afternoon to Dax (of course if a teachable moment arises in the morning or if he wants me to sit and play with him or read a book I'll stop what I'm doing and do that). I searched all over pinterest for a cleaning schedule to use but ended up making my own..

This seriously has worked out great and is very helpful in giving me a goal/plan for each day. We also use morning time to go on walks a couple times a week around our neighborhood. Usually around 10:30 we'll go back to Daxton's room and read some books, sing songs, and do our yoga (I bought this book and we love it... Dax will bring it to me and ask to do it). Usually after this we go outside for about an hour until lunch. Around 12:30 or 1 Dax will lay down for nap. I use nap time as me time... time to sit, relax, blog, read (this was my hubby's great idea). The rest of the afternoon is devoted to Dax. We play, do art, wrestle, sing, dance, read.... basically whatever he wants to do. I've been making sure to do a planned project with him at least every other day. I believe kids learn most through play so I don't plan a whole lot... but I do want to provide some planned experiences for him.

Not my typical art project for him but couldn't pass up some Candy Corn foot print magnets. I ended up cutting these out, laminating them, and writing "Trick or treat, smell my feet" and them and making magnets.

Fall stickers

We made a road for his car

He is starting to get really creative with his buildings.  (I made the base for the house but he hunted down all the triangles and piled them on the top of it)

Toddler Spaces Part 1

So with the over abundance of new toys and gifts that Dax received for Christmas our house was in much need of some tender lovin care. So this past weekend I got hard at work and did some more work in both the living room and Dax's room. I rotate toys probably once a month but haven't been taking pictures each time (oops). But here we are today. Since this post is pretty picture heavy I'm only going to do one room tonight and the other room sometime in the near future
I wish I would have taken a before picture. This space in the living room was literally lined with toys from one end of the wall to another, just sitting on the ground. It was sad. Way sad. So after much love, introducing.... the revamped living room!

 Dax's entire place space! Looks much better than before!

 New shelves. Starting on the top of the shelf (left side) we have his wooden cars, abacus, train, wooden beads and stacking rings, ball basket, throwback phone, B-Links, food basket, homemade toys, basket of random things Dax has collected from throughout the house, and big dump truck.  The wooden box on the side of the shelf was a gift from my parents. It has different sorts of wooden toys inside and doubles as a chalkboard on one side!

 Dax's table set up with his nature basket, notepad, colored pencils, and wooden rocking horse like his :)

 This is Dax's random basket. Complete with things like a stethoscope, paper binders, chip clips, fake cell phones, and other completely random things.

 Ball basket.

 Cooking basket. Has a cake pan, spoons, and fake food in it.

 These cars are my favorite Target dollar section find EVER.

 Baby and boxes baskets :) Ideally this would be two separate baskets but I had to work with what we had.

Dax's farm and basket of animals.


So far this new space has been wonderful! It has stayed much cleaner (Dax can easily find what he's looking for minimizing random throwing around of toys) and there is such  a variety of materials that he can find something for any need he has.  Part two will be room updates..... stay tuned :)

A Few of My Favs...

So I was talking to a friend the other day who is expecting and she asked about what she should register for... soooo the things below made the list (warning:::: this is going to be a VERY lame post... it quite possibly will be a post that only other mommies can appreciate)

1. Diaper Genie....

oh how I want to kiss the person that invented this. Our lovely, precious tiny baby boy can sometimes resemble a man (if you know what I mean) and this wonderful invention keeps our nursery smelling nice and fresh. And it's so easy to change out the bags when you fill one up. I <3 it..... def. a must have.

2. Munchkin Bottle Warmer/Sanitizer

I don't know what I would do without this! It makes heating a bottle soooo easy. But the best part is the fact that it's a sanitizer. If you know me... I"m kind of a freak when it comes to sanitizing. Needless to say this sanitizer gets used multiple times a day for binkies, toys, you name, I've sanitized it.

3. Mobile above changing table

So my aunt got us the ADORABLE OU mobile. We had decided that we didn't want a mobile above the crib b/c we wanted it to be strictly a place for sleep, not a place to play, but we also wanted to use the mobile somehow. Well during my time working in daycares I learned one thing... keeping a child still while you change their diaper can be nearly impossible... soooo born was the idea of hanging a mobile above his changing table. Daniel built a little contraption to make it fit (he's pretty handy sometimes) and now it is one of Dax's favorite things ever! He just sits and watches it while we change his diaper! greatest. idea. ever.    (if I do say so myself)

4.  Huggies Pure & Natural Diapers/ Seventh Generation Diapers

So we've always loved the idea of using as much organic/natural/chemical free stuff as much as possible and started out with the intent of using only Huggies Pure and Natural. Well we were given TONS of diapers (pampers, regularly huggies, luvs, etc) so we used those when we ran out of our original stash of Pure and Naturals. Well Dax got diaper rash after diaper rash so we decided to bag them up and give them all to someone else. While after bagging away a ton of diapers Daniel's hands got red and started burning.... needless to say that was the night that we decided no more diapers that aren't chemical free.

5. O'Ball

This is Dax's favorite toy EVER!!  And mine :)   I found this at Walmart after Dax's shots and felt obligated to get it for him. It's soft, rubbery, squishy, light weight, easy for little fingers to grab a hold of, and rattles.... what else could a boy need?!  It was the first toy Dax reached for and we play with it all evening long.

6. Dapple Bottle Cleaner

So I only bought this stuff last night but so far so good. I wanted a dish soap that didn't have all the extra non essential stuff in (again with the as natural/chemical free as we can get) so that when we cleaned Dax's bottles nothing harmful was getting left on them. This stuff works really good, smells great, and is very safe for baby.... I'm a fan

7. Combi Shuttle 33 Stroller and carseat

I'm in LOVE with our stroller and carseat! Daniel was really picky on the carseat we would get and I was pretty specific on what I wanted a stroller to be like. We knew we didn't want the traditional travel system because its just way too bulky for us. And Daniel wanted a top rated carseat. Well this little wonderful combination was at Babies R Us and we fell in love. The stroller is super light weight, folds up really small, is easy to open and close, and the carseat just snaps right into it. And the carseat is highly rated, very padded, and is complete with a baby roll bar as I call it. It's perfect.


ok... I'm done with the lame mommy post. I promise next time I'll try to be more interesting!