talk about it tuesday: first dental visit

...this should really read "first dentist appointment as a life metaphor." so, you've been warned.

because hadley is oddly obsessed with dental equipment these days {toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss}, i was way more excited for this first visit than i should have been.

plus, the dentist had a baby the week our original appointment was scheduled {rude}, so i had way too much time to get amped up for this milestone. i mean girlfriend brought her own brush to the game. the excitement was mutual.

when we arrived, hadley was simply awestruck by all the dental hygiene paraphernalia.

however, once we got settled in the exam room, she became a tiny bit leery of the set-up. i fully expected this.

she teetered back and forth between brave/curious and hesitant/clingy the entire time. this behavior always feels very déjà vu-ish to me. i know that insecure feeling so well.

my mom says i the exact same when i was younger. so this all makes sense. and it is what makes me most confident as a mother.

like somehow i know how to be there for hadley because her feelings are my own. am i blowing your mind right now? probably not. the feeling is so hard to describe.

with hadley, a laid back approach to parenting seems to work best. i don't have push her, she will venture out when she's ready. pushing too early on anything backfires on me in a hurry usually in the form a meltdown. however, i don't have to hold her back either, she is plenty cautious on her own. i just have to hang tight and she'll come back to me when she needs reassurance. #life.

the only time hadley cried was when the dentist literally had her fingers in her mouth. i'll count that as a win. plus, i got the sweetest hugs afterward.

the whole team at little smiles was amazing. obviously hadley's teeth were crazy clean because she walks around with a toothbrush in her mouth.

{confession time} i did not realize how dangerous it can be for her to keep a toothbrush in her mouth at all times. what if she fell? OUCH. so the hygienist set us with a soft silicone banana brush.

it's a genius piece of equipment. dishwasher safe and easily chilled in the freezer for teething.

speaking of, we are just waiting on one last canine to pop through and then we should get a break until her 2-year molars try to make an appearance.

does anyone else get tired of using the "she's teething" excuse?

I'm like, "i know, i know, i said that last week, last month, last year. BUT FO' REAL, today is the WORST teething day we've had in awhile. i swear. i promise my kid isn't always this cranky."

but in my head i'm saying, "sweet lord, i pray it's those evil teeth turning my cherub child into a whiny lunatic."

"otherwise, she's just being rude."

big girl dining

happy monday!! we've had so many {fun and not so fun} things happen over the past week that i want to recap, but i really wanted to get a post in today on hadley's favorite topic these dayz...eating.

ever since we left the world of formula at 11.5 months, i've been worried {and slightly neurotic} about her eating habits. besides her initial birth weight {8 lbs 8 oz}, hadley has always hung out on the lower end of the growth curve. typically, she's between the 10th-25th percentile. WHICH IS TOTALLY FINE! but i feel like with a couple of stomach bugs and a picky eating patch, we could easily fall off the curve. plus, she always seemed too busy to eat more than a couple bites at every meal.

recently all of that has changed. she recognizes her hunger now and wants to eat immediately. in an effort to help us put our clunky highchair into storage, my mom gifted us with this darling gray pottery barn table. it is the perfect size for hadley's age.

i know, it is pricey for a kid's table. i looked at many different options and pined over this specifc table for months without taking the plunge. i really wanted something that would fit in seamlessly with our kitchen décor so we wouldn't mind keeping it out for a couple of years. i think my mom finally got tired of hearing me talk about it so she just ordered the dang thing.

a few months ago i also ordered the ezpz happy mat after the baby guy was bragging on it.

i was so bummed that it didn't fit well enough on the highchair to allow for the necessarily suction.

i pulled it back out when the new table came and wah-lah! it's perfect. it keeps her food in separate, neat, enticing sections. it also makes eating with ustensils less frustrating for her as it keeps the food and plate steady and still.

i will say though that hadley has figured out how to break the seal, remove it and dump all of her food on the floor. however, that phase {everything in toddler-land is just a phase} ended in about two days.

clean-up is a dream. i rinse it in the sink and dry it on the top rack of my dishwasher in between meals and then run it in my normal dishwasher cycle at night.

also, i'm TOTALLY not being paid to plug the happy-mat, but i did get an email with a discount code y'all can use:

www.ezpzfun.com

code: 2KN6NKT

also, for posterity's sake, i wanted to make a list of all the things hadley's eats these days. it's a short list and variety is not her forte. she is happy to a bite or two of anything, but definitely has her favorites:

- eggs (2-3 per day)

- deli turkey and ham

- rotisserie chicken

- pb sandwiches

- string cheese

- provolone cheese

- strawberries

- mandarin oranges

- grapes

- cherry tomatoes

- peas

- carrots

- apple sauce pouches

- annie's graham bunnies

- go-gurt {'frozen' series- vanilla flurries and strawberry ice castle...jon lovvvves these too}

- velveeta shells and cheese- she usually eats this with us once a week

- leftover cold pizza- also about once a week, but she'll only eat it if it's a day old and cold.

- milk and water are still her only beverages. if i know my girl at all, i know you she will be obsessed with juice so i'm putting it off as long as possible. i mean, i friggin love juice too.

after reading this again, i think my goal for the next month needs to be to add at least one more vegetable and one more fruit. any suggestions are so, so welcome!

iced coffee tutorial

after a month of procrastination, and in the spirit of monday, i thought this dreary morning would be the perfect time to share my iced coffee recipe. this recipe has been slowly tweaked and perfected over the course of hadley's life.

when hadley was first born, i quickly realized that daily starbucks was no longer feasible. putting a newborn in a car is like an hour long event...and that's if you've already consumed your coffee for the day. i've never been a huge fan of hot coffee so i started making keurig cups and then putting them in the freezer. lord, sometimes it felt like an ETERNITY before that dang coffee was cold enough to add ice.

since then, my coffee recipe has saved me a ton of money in stay-at-home momsville. so here's what you need.

1.) a large french press {i highly recommend this guy}

2.) h-e-b brand ground french roast coffee

3.) dunkin donuts "extra extra" creamer

i would say that you can substitute with your favorite coffee and creamer, but you can't. this is a carefully curated situation. to avoid bitterness and get the right amount of sweetness, this is what you need. so there.

first, fill the "beaker" with 5 cups of chilled water. and i mean like real measuring cups, not "coffee" or "expresso" cups.

next add 2.5 cups of coffee and stir in with spatula or long wooden spoon.

put the lid on, but do not press! let it brew in the fridge for 12 hours. i'd say "overnight" but any mom that gets 12 hours of sleep does not need my coffee recipe. she needs to go to hell.

in the morning, remove from fridge and slowwwwwly press the coffee.

fill a mason jar half-way full of ice. you don't have to use a mason jar, but it makes the coffee feel extra cold and makes you feel extra hipster.

pour in coffee and creamer. the ratio on the coffee to creamer is more of a personal preference. you'll have to do a little bit of tweaking on your own. i typically do 2/3 coffee and 1/3 creamer. mix WELL, otherwise you are drinking pure unadulterated creamer at the end.

served best with a mickey mouse clubhouse.

and if you're on the go, i recommend this mug. i received it as a christmas gift and i'm in love.

it's {surprisingly} well-insulated. the coffee stays cold forever and it has no straw. if you own a toddler, you know straws attract unwanted attention from tiny hands.

cheers to a well-caffeinated week!

confessional thursday {4.13.16}

i confess that i cannot believe i am now married to a 30 year old {i'll be 30 in july}.

when i met jon, he was a 24-year-old second lieutenant fresh out of west point. we were young and free and happy and sometimes a little bit crazy. i love that we have gotten to grow up together in a lot of ways. he's now my husband, a father, and a healthcare exec. he's been busy.

i confess i'm crushing pretty hard on motherhood these days. 18 months really seems to be a sweet spot. hadley's sleeping and just general schedule is rock solid. this makes things pretty easy, breezy. the vocab explosion helps so much with communication = fewer meltdowns. I totally get why people start trying for baby #2 during this phase. 

also, the relationship between these two has grown exponentially in the past few weeks.

she loved "helping" jon and my inlaws landscape our yard over the past couple of weeks. let it be noted, we now have like 20 rose bushes in our yard because they are "hadley's favorite" {jon's words}.

in less sunshine-y news,  i confess that we have hit a major regression in potty-training. i'm giving it a rest and following hadley's lead. however, in the my quest to stop buying diapers on the weekly, i have gone down deep into the cloth diapering rabbit hole.

i am obsessed. i have purchased three grovia o.n.e. diapers and three grovia trainers...and we have been using them exclusively for 2 weeks.

i thought i would hate it, but i don't. there's someone very home-on-the-range about it all. especially when I'm out in the back corner of our yard spraying them out with a hose {haha....poop}.

if you did the math, you know i made a pretty decent investment into this cloth diapering venture. HOWEVER, these grovia diaps have some sort of cult following and i should be able to resell them for close to retail when we are done. i know...it's weird, don't think too hard about it.

i confess that derby season has really snuck up on my this year. i'm scrambling to get invitations out this week. this is template i picked out.

now i'm trying to find some way to incorporate a photo of hadley into the invitation because #crazymom.

easter 2016

sadly, jon woke up at 2 am on easter sunday with a blistering fever so it was just hadley and i for her easter basket reveal. she got 2 monogramed swimsuits {rashguard style, we are the fairest of the fair}, a puddle jumper, sunblock, a brush and a new cup.  she is totally set for summer.

am i the only mom with a sippy cup addiction? i feel like i'm always in search of the "perfect cup." spoiler alert: they don't exist. they all leak {if dropped hard enough} and they all require major disassembly before entering the dishwasher.

pretttttyyy sure hadley's favorite surprise was the $2 neon hairbrush.

she totally turned on the charm for easter. it gave me all the feely feels. love her.

we hustled to get some mac and cheese made for my mom's brunch and get ready for church. i was proud of myself. even flying solo, i somehow ended up with enough time for pre-church photos.

hadley did so well in church! she had 7 family members to entertain her and make trips with her to the lobby for coffee cake. the best part- she totally lit up when they played "amazing grace" at the end of the service. i know she recognizes the song because i often sing it during difficult diaper changes {i mean, that's probably when i need the most grace}.

we then headed over to parents' house for an incredible brunch spread {my mac and cheese got a few compliments too}. i could tell hadley was starting to get pretty tired, but her uma saved the day with a bubble gun and an "easter egg hunt."

basically, we would throw all 6 easter eggs out onto the grass and hadley would gather them one by one and put them in her basket. all for her captivated audience.

when she was done picking up all of the eggs, she would clap and blow kisses to all of her adoring fans.

i love that she got some good quality time in with her uncle evan, auntie maddie, and uncle grant.

there is a lot of adoration happening here.

the big kids.

and i tried to get one pic of hadley and i before naptime.

you can't win them all.

happy easter!

confessional thursday {3.24.16}

i confess that i have looked at hadley's professional easter pics at least 100 times {i'm most definitely not exaggerating}. for one, kim did an amazing job of picking up on my little girl's personality in a short, easy 15 minute session. you can just see how tickled she was to hang out with a real bunny and chick.

secondly, i'm in awe of how much she looks like jon and like me in these photos. procreation is weird {and cute}.

i confess that hadley climbed out of her crib on her own yesterday morning and i am soooo not prepared for the next step. hell, i'm not even sure what the next step is. pretend it didn't happen and try to keep her in her crib for the next 6 months? move her to a toddler bed that she'll grow out of in a year? go ahead and buy her a big girl bed and come up with some to keep her from falling out?

basically, i've been pinteresting my life away since the ordeal and i have come up with the perfect solution from restoration hardware. wah-lah!

 except it's $3g and 1000% out of the realm of possibility.

with the help of my friends, i've been able to track down a couple of local guys who could build a replica for a much more reasonable price. stay tuned. jon still thinks i'm crazy for even entertaining the idea.

i confess that while i am so proud of the strides hadley has made towards potty-training, we typically call it quits for the day around 6 pm and switch to guns {diapers} for the night.

after dinner, we are both tired and all the potty enthusiasm is just gone. i'm sure i'm breaking all of the bootcamp rules, but i am so darn proud of my big girl and i don't want to push her too much on this.

i confess i am tired of the merry-go-round of allergies/illness/whatever that seems to be affecting our entire family. for the past month, it feels like there is always someone in our house battling some sort of yuck. today was the first day i can remember where we all felt "well."

we made the most of it.

i confess that i can hardly wait until friday when my brother evan and his girlfriend maddie arrive from kansas so we begin the easter festivities. we practiced our egg-hunting skills at playgroup last week and we are ready for the big day.

i confess that i scored this sweet chick mask from the egg hunt. hadley has been obessed with it. i wore it when i went in to pluck her from her crib post-nap.

it didn't go well.