Confession: my baby doesn't wear pajamas

Hi.  And ummmm....I'm sorry for my unintended blog absence.  I'm attributing the whole thing to the fact that when I upgraded my iPhone, the blogger app that I used to write random posts on my phone when I had time doesn't work.  What the heck?!!!  Does anyone that uses blogger know of any apps that still work?  They said when I googled it that they stopped updating the official blogger one, hence why it doesn't work.  And I get stressed out switching this whole thing to wordpress.

Anyways, I was cleaning out this cute babe's drawers of hi 0-3 and 3 month clothes and replacing with the 6 - 9 month clothes from his brother.  And btw - it's so fun having skipped a gender with a kid because it makes it SO FUN to open up these bins and see all these cute clothes that I used to dress Charlie in.  Oh and...I did a WHOLE lot of shopping for 6 month clothes.  And not so much 9 month.  Weird.

Ok onto the point.  What I realized when I was putting away all his clothes (besides crying because seriously - how is he growing so fast!?!?) was that I literally didn't use all of the cute hand me down pajamas.  He has worn only 2 pajamas in his almost 4 months of life.  And both were gifts from people to him - not hand me downs. 

Why and how is this??

He doesn't wear pajamas to bed.

Because I'm a lazy mom.

Or am I just a smart mom?

Who knows - but let me let you in on my secret.

All we have are the little half shirt things from the hospital (FREE - especially after you have been hoarding them with all 3 kids!) and like 3 of the half shirt things that are from Carter's.  He wears one of those every night and a swaddle.  He was OK with the swaddler things (we have like 100 of them and conveniently both my older children hated them), but then I discovered this and BONUS.  I never have to unswaddle him and make that loud and obnoxious RRRRRIIIIIIPPPPPP sound of velcro in the middle of the night.

You know when the baby is like half awake and half asleep and you have to change their diaper (because #stinkypoop) and the minute you rip their eyes pop wide open and they want to party?

Oh yeah, I kind of remember that from Maddie but not from Mikey - because I literally refuse to use the swaddle + pajamas.  Especially snap ones at night.  No thank you.  I'm a zipper mom. But those damn zippers are at the top of the PJs and the swaddle comes up from the bottom.  Completely doesn't make sense to me.  Let's get some engineer mamas designing these things!

So here is what my sweet boy still wears every night.

Free hospital shirt.

Swaddle (we are currently going both arms out too!)

That's it.  And here is the Carter's ones we have that we got from a baby shower with Charlie.

You guys.  Am I the only person that does this?  While I LOVE baby's in pajamas just like the rest of us...the fact that my kids are all July/summer babies doesn't help because I always feel like the 100 degree temps make it too hot for PJs when they are little and then by that point, they are too big for the cute 0-3 month ones.

This is not rocket science, I swear.  I'm really just lazy.  But Jimmy thinks I'm crazy to keep doing this and is like whining that Mikey is never in pajamas at night.  I'm all like - then you get up with him when he wakes up!  HA.  (Luckily that hasn't been too often, but I think we are on the brink of a 4 month sleep regression, so I'm bracing myself!).

But just for fun - here's a picture of him from each of his pajama wears.  They are so so so cute!   Just not at 2AM.  So we wear during the day instead.

Is there anything "weird" that you do as a mom?  Out of the norm?  Please please share!

It's Friday!?!

Guess what?  I'm surviving - we are surviving and day by day our little man gets bigger and more fun and more loved.  It's crazy how an hour of sleep {more} makes me feel like a new person!  But I'm not going to lie these first few weeks the days and nights and weekdays and weekends somewhat string together.  Our older kids are adapting and are possibly a little more ornery and have more of an attitude than before, but not sure if we should attribute that to a new baby OR their new ages!  Ha!

So here's a few things on this Friday!

{ONE}

While I'd like to tell you everything is all about baby Mikey around here, truth be told, with two other kids, that's just not the case.  Especially when we are prepping for big brother's FOURTH birthday.  I'm not one that likes to sit around, so Mikey and I have been spending our mornings (since Wednesday when Jimmy went back to work) out shopping - we take a break to feed in the car - and then get home around lunchtime.  What are we shopping for?  Mainly trying to finish out the nursery (now that we know Mikey's a HE) and birthday/birthday party prep for Charlie.  Who knew something so simple as turning 4 could require so much mama coordination.  But I'm happy to say...Charlie has his Batman cupcakes, napkins and pencils at school today (I even delivered when Mikey and I picked him up yesterday) and we are ready for the Ninja themed party at the local gymnastics gym Saturday afternoon!!  

Don't feel bad for me - we did this to ourselves by having ALL three kids in July!  Next July is already stressing me out!!

{TWO}

Yesterday we had some bananas that went rotten laying around.  I wasn't about to let them go bad - so I found a 2 ingredient recipe on Pinterest and threw in some fresh blueberries we had and OMG they are so good.  I didn't even tell my kids about them because I want to eat them all!

Check out the recipe here.

source

{THREE}

Ok back to baby talk (because you know I cannot resist it) - I blogged a while back about the essentials for baby #3 - but I added one to the list (I think).  Have you heard of the Dock-a-tot?

Well our Mikey, he's a GRUNTER.  Actually, that initial grunting when he was born is what got him a short stint in the NICU.  Thankfully it wasn't due to any major problems or respiratory issues like they had thought and the constant grunting stopped.  However, the kid grunts all night long.  And is a LOUD sleeper.  When we took him in for his one week check up on Tuesday, that was the one concern I brought up.  Her recommendation?  Move him to his room - he will be fine.

With that direction in mind, I was obviously nervous because he's SO little still and I like having him right next to me to nurse.  Charlie didn't stay in our room too long - but at least for a few weeks.  And I'm pretty sure Maddie was in our room for like 4 months (AH!).  I needed something to make me feel better about moving him into his big ole crib.  My high school friend, Jen, recommended the Dock-a-tot.  I checked it out and wasn't too thrilled about the high price tag....but was willing to give it a try for my sanity.

I got it on Wednesday and stuck it in his crib and let him nap.  He napped 2 hours straight!  WHAT?!  I was so perplexed because also...he was laying flat.  Which our other kids have slept in the rock n play and had a hard time transitioning to a flat crib.  First night?  It went ok - his tummy is still so little so it's not like a miracle "MY BABY SLEPT 10 HOURS" business - but he seems to like and will grunt around and put himself to sleep - so that's enough for me.

All the sides are breathable and it's super easy to travel with, etc.  We got the Deluxe size which should last up to 8 months old.  Final recommendation still TBD, but I'm liking it a lot so far.  And Mikey doesn't seem to mind either!

{FOUR}

Anyone else dying to see this???  It comes out today!

source

{FIVE}

Why not end with a picture of my THREE kids!?!?  (still feels weird to say that!)

I made them these shirts intended for when they came to the hospital to meet Mikey - well, they came up in them, but little Mike has just been whisked off to the NICU, so it was not the ideal "meeting" I had planned....so I threw them in them (bribed the bigger ones) and said "SMILE like you love each other" - because you know they do.

They make my heart so happy!

Linking up with:

Sept Farm | Oh hey Friday!

A. Liz Adventures | Five on Friday

Momfessionals | Friday Favorites 

Five new goods for baby #3

I took a nice little two week unanticipated blogging break!  Now I'm back.  With my sister's wedding, pure third trimester exhaustion at night, packing up pretty much our entire first floor and crazy time at work- haven't had any time to blog, which is always a bummer.  I've also not even had time to read people's blogs - so excuse me while I go back to some of my favorites and comment away!  But guess what?!? It's Friday and we don't have much going on this weekend so I'm ready for a break!

As July 21 is beginning to creep up on me...and baby #3 will be here in no time (6 weeks or less - WHAT?!!?!!?), I've been going through a mental list in my head of things that we actually need to buy.  Which, thankfully, is actually not much!!  (one definite perk of having a boy and girl already...having everyone two years apart...in the same month)

However, there are a few things I'm in need of.  Here is my short list:

1. Diaper Bag (backpack version for sure)

2. Camera for nursery

3. Nursing cover (combo)

4. New baby carrier

5. New breastpump through insurance

Mamas of multiple babies that already have a bunch of stuff - anything that I'm missing?

So since the list is short..here is what I'm thinking for each of these.

1. Diaper Bag

I said I think I want a backpack.  This is not a necessity for sure (as my Vera Bradley one that I used with Maddie is still in AWESOME shape), but I need some empty hands with these three kids in tow...so I'm leaning towards a back pack one so I can be a little more hands/shoulder free (my experience is just that they get so heavy and when I wear on one shoulder it can hurt so bad after holding and carrying around a while).  So which one to choose?

The one I have featured here is the Petunia Pickle bottom one that everyone does seem to rave about - which I think would be great...except for the price point.  I'm guessing this one from Skip Hop would likely be just as good for half the price.  :)  So I'm guessing that is more what we will go with!

2. Camera/Baby Monitor for Nursery

Well, we have had this Motorola baby monitor for 4 years now.  Eek.  I've read lots of articles and reviews saying that most people aren't that lucky.  While it's not perfect (not the clearest picture, can't completely turn the sound off, not so good night vision), it has FOR SURE served its purpose over the last 4 years.  We bought a second camera when we had Maddie and again, it's worked fine.  We could just go out and drop another hundred or so and get a third camera and just scan through like we do now...but I'm worried about the monitor/old cameras might stop working.  We have had to replace the cords many time (Jimmy finds replacements on Amazon)...but since it's not my favorite thing, I've been researching the Nest cameras.  They are A LOT more expensive (well especially when it's X3 kids), but when we eventually stop stalking monitoring our kids, we can for sure put these awesome cameras to use elsewhere in the house - like the playroom, basement, main room, etc.    I have a neighbor that uses 3 in her house (one for her son's room, one for the playroom and then for their main room) and loves it so much.  The only downside I can see is (A) wifi connection - have to have it and hopefully people don't break in and (B) if you are using your iPhone/any device, you have to have the app to view up and can't do anything else.  So I couldn't, you know, scroll through IG and watch my kids at the same time.

Anyone have thoughts, suggestions on this?

3. Nursing cover

So have you seen this super fancy schmancy nursing cover + car seat cover + scarf + cart cover combo?  It's soooo awesome!  I think back to the first nursing cover I had with Charlie with the ring, etc. and love this one for all over coverage.  Plus the fact that you can wear it as a cute scarf and then put it on the car seat.  I love it so much!

4. Baby Carrier

More kids....less hands....increases the need for baby carrying.  We do have an Ergo from Maddie, which I loved but she was born just before the next generation one came out that you can wear them forward facing - so I'm dying to try this one out!

5. New breastpump

While, yes, I got one with both Maddie and Charlie, they both got LOTS of use.  Lots.  Ugh, the sound of the pump is already hunting me.  But after nursing Charlie for 14 months and pumping constantly at work and then with Maddie for 12 months (and dragging the pump to two different countries...), I love that insurance provides a free pump with each birth.  I love it.  Best benefit ever.  I'll likely get the same one because it worked great.  It was so nice last time to have 2 pumps also for one to keep at my house stationary and then one to take back and forth to work.  Amazing!  (PS When I worked at Hallmark with Charlie, the had hospital grade pumps in their mom's rooms!!  So awesome!)

Other things we will for sure need to buy new are some new bottle supplies.

We started out as a Dr. Brown's bottle family and so far, it's worked out well for us.  While I did buy a few new bottles for Maddie - we now have TONS of bottles and parts, but it was nice to just buy new nipples for Maddie....so I'll be going through all the bottle parts and making sure they are in good shape and likely by some new nipples for the bottles in different sizes.  Oh...and for sure a new bottle cleaning brush - those get GROSS with each kid.

Obvious things also...diapers, wipes and some new blankets (we love Aiden and Anias and Charlie still carries his arround in our house after he wakes up in the morning).  Pacifiers maybe too?  Charlie never took one and Maddie didn't at first but then did and it was awesome!


What else?  Any other revolutionary baby items that I need to know about that you recommend?  I feel like I researched everything so much with Charlie, just a bit with Maddie and with this baby it literally hasn't crossed my mind because we have so much baby stuff in the basement.

Also, I completely forgot to send in the hospital pre-registration form (OOPS), as when I got all the paperwork at my first doctor's appointment with this baby, I just threw it in our file cabinet.  Luckily, I was clearing all those out for our cabinet painting this week and found it!  I don't know what I was thinking!!  Oh dear!

Happy Friday and happy happy weekend - if you can drink, please drink a few cold ones for me :)

Linking up with:

Sept Farm | Oh hey Friday!

A. Liz Adventures | Five on Friday

Momfessionals | Friday Favorites

4moms obsession

Just so you know, this is not something that anyone is paying me to do or say.  I just want to share with mom's out there a recommendation for a few AMAZING products.  

When you are a mom-to-be and go into a big box baby store to register is can be QUITE overwhelming to say the least.  I remember trying to prepare and get advice/lists from my friends that were already moms on what they really needed.  I scoured the internet for registry recommendation posts and bought the baby 411 book (which I would highly recommend as well - honestly that explained half of the products to me that I didn't know what we were used for).  One of the must-have items of course is a swing.  I had heard opinions from people on what to buy and what not to buy, but when my friend Vanessa posted about an awesome craigslist find swing she got for her baby-to-be way back when we were both pregnant, I figured we would go see just how awesome she said it was.  And that is when we were introduced to 4moms. 

I read all about this "spaceship type" swing called the mamaroo and so Jimmy and I decided to put it on our registry.  We were lucky enough to have some great friends at work that pooled some money together and bought it for us, as the price tag was a little steep.  But it was super cool looking at it sat in the nursery waiting for Charlie's arrival.

It turned out that Charlie loved it so much.  They made this swing to really mimic YOUR movements, as it slowly rocks your baby.  I know I have heard some babies that really don't like it and like the vibrating aspect that lots of other swings or bouncers have, but we stuck with just this one so Charlie never knew the difference.  It was great as a little baby when he was sleeping and we still even use it now every once and a while when he's restless and needs a little soothing but is a little too heavy for me to rock for 30 minutes.  Plus it's SUPER soft (we got the plush one), easy to adjust the incline and we've used it with our iPod a few times for some soothing music. 

Overall - so happy with this purchase and there are days when I seriously am so thankful for this because it does calm him down.

So onto the real product that I want to rave about.  This is a newer 4moms item and came out in October of 2012.  At that point, we had a 3 month old already and had our Graco Pack n Play that we had registered for and my mom was so sweet to buy us.  Charlie slept in that Pack n Play with the bassinet feature for the first month or so of his life (alternating with the Fisher Price rock n' play sleeper) and then we had the daunting task of figuring out how to fold it back up and get all the pack n play parts into the bag.  Literally - I feel like we are decently smart human beings, but assembling and un-assembling that pack n play was NOT easy at all.  When we were set to go on a trip to Omaha late October, we were dreading dragging it all with us and setting it up and taking it back down.  Dreading it.

That's when we saw that 4moms was coming out with a new playyard.  With a higher price tag ($300), I immediately wrote it off.  Just another way too expensive baby product that I refused to get sucked into buying.  Especially because we had a perfectly fine pack n play.  Jimmy however, watched all the videos and features on the Breeze playyard and was dead set that we NEEDED this thing.  I watched the videos, etc. and still told him I thought it was an absurd amount of money that we were forking over for an item we already had, but I let him pre-order it and he was so excited.  It didn't end up coming in time for our trip to Omaha, which was a bummer, but he was pretty excited when it finally came.

We have used it a few times when we have spent the night at my parents house (Christmas Eve and then when our power was out) and I knew it was easy, but I wasn't the one that was assembling it and un-assembling it.  This past weekend though?  We made another trip up to Iowa and took the trusty Breeze for Charlie to sleep in and holy moly - I fell in love and felt so good about this $300 purchase about 5 months after we made it.  Mainly because I was the one assembling and un-assembling this time.  We didn't get to Iowa until 11:30PM, so of course Charlie was a little restless after some decent car sleeping and all I wanted to do was get him to bed for real.  So simple.  Literally just take everything out of the bag, push the middle down, snap on the bassinet netting, stick in the hard bottom (after putting on the sheet) and that's it.  Ready for him to sleep.  He was fast asleep literally 10 minutes after we got into our room.  THEN - we had to move rooms between Friday and Saturday night because the hotel screwed up.  Taking it down, packing it up and moving rooms to set it back up again.  No problem at all.  I kept thinking to myself how annoyed I would have been if we had our old pack n play (and don't worry - it's still being used, my mom has it set up in her room at her house for when Charlie's over there and needs a nap).  It literally would have taken SO long to take it down and then put it all back up again.  I was so happy with the Breeze.  Time and convenience are everything when you are traveling and trying to keep a 7.5 month old occupied - and the Breeze delivered all of that to us.  Plus it was so easy to get into the bag and carry to the car.  I cannot say more wonderful things about this thing.

Here are some pictures of it from their website:

This is with the bassinet feature that we are still using with Charlie

Literally - this is ALL you do.

So I don't know if anyone cares, but I just had to post this because I couldn't be more satisfied with this thing.  The company is pretty cool and still small and began based off of a mom's focus group.  It's very obvious that mom's come up with these awesome products that they make because they are mom-friendly (if that is an adjective).  While the products are expensive, depending on what you are looking for, I really think it's worth the investment.  I have heard great things about their stroller (the Origami) - it even charges your cell phone (yes please), but with a super hefty price tag of $849, that one wasn't in the cards for us and our City Mini by Baby Jogger does the job just fine.  However, if you have extra cash to burn - it sounds great!!

They also came out with a bath collection which is pretty neat too that you can check out on their website - their tub is supposed to allow clean water to flow in and dirty water out (which if you have a kid that pees in the tub like mine does, that might be really helpful) and the water spout might be something I would invest in as well.

So there you have it.  My rave review on the Breeze play yard and really on 4moms in general.  If you are a mom-to-be looking for a play yard registry recommendation, I would highly recommend it.  Even though it doesn't have the newborn napper or changing area like some of the other ones do, I really think long-term, this one is perfect (I mean, I change my kid's diaper on the floor and I live).  It's such a "breeze" (pun intended) to assemble and un-assemble, I really think we will get way more use out of it by taking it wherever we need versus our other one.

Anyone else have the Breeze, Mamaroo or any of the other 4moms products and have a good (or bad) experience?  I would love to hear, as this is just my personal opinion!