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Mom’s visit + out-of-commission car!

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The weeks are simply flying by. Not only is the baby almost 7 weeks old, my Mom has been here for a good few weeks too. It’s been pretty great having someone in the house with me all day long, helping out with the baby while my husband is at work. Meaning, I can shower, get dressed and dry my hair all in one go, without taking a break haha! It’s fantastic, and definitely makes me feel like a million bucks when I can take a half hour or so to myself each day. I know I won’t get that luxury all that often, once she’s gone back.

Sooo, my car was actually out of commission the first few weeks that my mom’s been here. It was an easy DMV fix that I forgot about (plate stickers) that got pushed to the way-side since baby arrived (I completely forgot about it, honestly) and I gotta say the dude I was dealing with (all thanks to reaching out to them on Twitter because they didn’t return my phone calls and I wasn’t about to wait 5+ hours with a newborn at the DMV office) was excellent. I feel like he should’ve got a praise and a raise with all the help he did for me.

While my car was out of commission I ended up getting a 2017 Toyota Highlander Hybrid XLE for review. Perfect timing since we wanted to ride in style, and room (since the car seat is so huge it basically leaves the front passenger seat of my car almost unusable) to head to San Francisco one weekend. After all, it was my mom’s first trip to California so ya gotta take her to go see the Golden Gate Bridge. That’s my Mom in the above pic, taking some snapshots of Ocean Beach, in San Francisco!

Those SF hills are no joke.

And just because we have a new baby in the family doesn’t mean Alfie was neglected being the first passenger in the car. He most certainly was…and he loved it. He’s always close to baby’s side.

A roomy vehicle since we didn’t have to budge the front passenger seat with the car seat in the back. And the hands free button to open the trunk came in handy with the groceries and stroller…my goodness. We definitely need to upgrade our decade plus old vehicles. All these one week loaners are spoiling me and letting me know what I’m missing out on. Modern technology haha.

After that trip, we ended up taking the only sunny day in the last few weeks, and drove to Gilroy Outlets where she got a few goodie for herself (and I got some McDonald’s for myself heh heh) for all those grandsons (she has six grandsons by the way lol!!!). It’s finally supposed to stop raining. I do love the rain but I also want to show my mom around my favourite trails and sight seeing. I mean I want to show her around all the big tech companies like Google, Facebook and Apple HQs. That will happen soon!

And now this week coming we’re getting ready for more visitors. Over the weekend I met some of my husband’s relatives that I’ve never met before, so that was pretty cool…and now tomorrow his aunt who lives in Germany is coming to town!!! I’m so exited. I’ve actually only met her I think just the once, but I think she’s pretty great – so having her here will be fun. 

Just a little update. Follow me on Instagram stories to see daily updates. :)

Thanks to Toyota for loaning the gorgeous (+ spacious!) Highlander Hybrid XLE for the week.

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One month post-partum favourites

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Well it’s here and was definitely the fastest month of my entire life. Our little boy is a month old today, and I thought I’d pop in here while he’s napping and while I have a few extra minutes to myself, to talk about a few of my post-partum favourites that I think may be useful/helpful to other’s.

Lou Lou Co swaddle – I received a few swaddles from different brands as PR samples, and this one from Lou Lou & Co. is a PR sample too, but I’m telling ya right now I should buy one or two more of these. The material is super stretchy (think jersey material) so save this particular swaddle on him during the night times since he tends to kick his way out of the other one’s during the day (and doesn’t with this one, so I feel safe leaving him while I’m sleeping, in it). Honestly not sure i’ll be buying more (since we do laundry daily and have that swaddle clean for every night) because they’re kind of expensive, and the site doesn’t have free shipping – penny pincher over here ;)

Burp cloth oh the burp cloths we go through! My friend bought these for baby, and they’re a fantastic size, and one part (the middle) of the burp cloth is reinforced with extra fabric to catch all those vom-spills lol. It’s great! Plus, they’re SUPER inexpensive and good ‘n soft since they’re made of flannel.

UPPAbaby VISTA stroller – I love this stroller because it’s easy to plunk in the bucko, and go’wan. It’ll grow with him too, since he’s in the bassinet part of the stroller in the above photos. He gets wrapped up in a swaddle for our walks, and the VISTA has a perfect sized bassinet attachment for him, so no buckling him and fussing with him while he’s napping. My Mom is visiting from Canada and she bought our baby a warm swaddle that velcros, so putting him in that for our chillier walks, is the perfect combo with the UPPAbaby bassinet, and off we go!

California Baby Diaper Rash Cream – baby had a small diaper rash for a few days and this cleared it up so quickly! I’ve been using a lot of the California Baby products….on our California baby ;). Their super sensitive cream is great for his dry skin, too.

Zippered sleepers – Zippered sleepers in my opinion are the way to go (for us). The buttoned up one’s, especially during a dirty diaper change at 3am take too long for me to button up, especially when I’m tired and have him all changed and ready to settle down again for another nap/nightly feed and then boom – another loud toot and a dirty diaper, and I have to start the process over again (this happens way more often than I thought it would… lol).

Breastfeeding pillow – my neighbour (who isn’t my neighbour anymore lol) Nicole, told me about My Breast Friend breastfeeding pillow; it’s a big ol’ pillow that you can buckle onto your waist. I feel like I’m a jello-shot seller at a local bar when I’m wearing one, because it’s flat on the top (and has two “boobs” on either side for the baby’s head to rest/raise). K, I’m describing it horribly, but it’s amazing for semi-hands-free feeding, while sitting.

Bassinet – this is the bassinet we had on our baby registry and my sweet friend purchased it for us! It has wheels so I’m carting baby around in it everywhere around the house. It’s the most-used item thus far. It even has a nightlight on it, so when baby is making really weird noises in the night time I check on him easily.

Bird Rock Baby – these booties have been on baby probably 75% of the entire month. They’re easy to put on, super soft (fleece), easy to wash and don’t get kicked off by him flailing about. He’s already starting to outgrow the size 1’s (we have a grey pair shown above, and a gorgeous bright yellow pair). I’m definitely going to have to buy some (these were sent to me) – I LOVE them and have already been recommending them to friends.

Nursing bras – I received two LaMaze nursing bras before I had baby, and they were pretty comfy. Mind you, I don’t have anything else to compare them to. But I loved them so much I bought two more (from Amazon) for like $16 for the pair. They’re cotton, easy to wash and chuck in the dryer.

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spiffykermsbaby

Our baby has arrived!

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Our baby has arrived! I’ve been taking a bit of social media break since he’s been here, to take in all those newborn feels to cuddle this sweet little one. He arrived on Monday February 5, a big boy weighing in over 10lbs, 22″ long!

Taking a mindful approach to what I’m doing these days. I’m somewhat on an internet/social media break, but definitely post a few times a day to my IG stories on snippits of our days lately. This newborn stage, the whole being a new mom/parent thing is unreal and I want to soak up every last ounce all without distractions from what *doesn’t* matter. If that makes any sense. Many have reached out with congratulations and many more asked about how Alfie is dealing with being a big brother. It only took a few short days for him to become fully used to the fact that baby isn’t going anywhere and now he’s more interested in him, than us! Any time Alfie barked at baby he was removed from the room. So he caught on quick.

As for how I’m feeling, I’m (knock on wood) surprisingly great! Doc said I was “all-belly” (ahem…regardless of the rude comments I’ve received) and I asked for a belly band at the hospital which I’ve been wearing a few times a day, it helps make you feel secure when walking around, and it also I suppose you could say…suck everything back in. It’s interesting watching it all go sorta back into place. Haha. Every 3 days or so I take a photo of my belly to track the progress. I’m not obsessed over it, but it’s super interesting to see how quickly things have been squishing itself back into place. It’s wild to me. As of day 10 I was in my pre-pregnancy jeans (and they were too big!), and day 14 I was at my pre-pregnancy weight. I know this isn’t the case with everyone’s post-partum, so I’m happily surprised how well things are going on my end.

I don’t know if this sounds smug, or not — but I’m being honest with you. I thought for sure I’d hate my body after baby, that I’d require so much help around the house and be almost immobile, as everyone was telling me it would be so difficult. But it’s all been fantastic!

I’ve been a little lack-luster with my maternity wardrobe in the third/final trimester. I haven’t done many bump photos or even wrote about the pregnancy stages that I did in my first, and second trimesters. Living in the same clothing and rotating different colours of the same long-sleeved tee’s I’ve been feeling the most comfortable in. So it definitely felt good to shop my wardrobe again, and also receive some new goodies from prAna’s spring line (#mindfulprAna). So I thought I’d show you a little peek at how things are looking right now and over the past two weeks:

Day 6, 9, 12 and 15 (today is day 15!). Lol day 9 the belly was weirdly ‘pointy’ haha.

(And if you’re interested in shopping on prAna’s site, I have a 15% coupon code for you: MPSKS18 Note that it won’t work on sales/markdowns)

I know a lot of people enjoy documenting their birth stories on their blogs, but I’m not interested in sharing that with the world. I’ve mentioned this before, but we’re pretty private people despite me having a public blog and Instagram. Just as much as I’m not sure that I’ll be posting many photos of the baby’s face. I mean, I’m being mindful of it all – he’s gonna be his own person, and who knows if he even wants his pictures plastered all over the internet as an infant. That’s not to say I won’t post any, ever. But at this point in time I’m just leaning towards the “no” option lol.

Thanks for reading! Have a great rest of your week :)

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