Author: Becca Eby

We’re Having A…

Will Mini Bear be a brother or sister for our little Bear?
Will it be a bow or tie in our Christmas box?
Can you guess?
 Mini Bear’s tiny little foot

Still don’t know?
I’ll let Bear show you…

He approaches the box…
opens it up..
 and we see a hint of pink…

We’re having a precious little girl, and we couldn’t be more excited.  She should arrive near the end of April.  As you can see, I’ve already started her accessory collection.  The majority of y’all guessed correctly, so congrats on your good instincts.  You should probably go buy a powerball ticket.  🙂  Now we just have to figure out a name…

A New House, a Move, and a Baby

So, a few things have been happening around here lately.  If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook (which you definitely should) you know that we bought our first house, moved in, and have baby #2 on the way.  You know, just a few small things.  It has been crazy, exciting, stressful, and great, all at the same time.

At least this guy is the sweetest little Bear ever.  

The house is 1970s one story cutie that backs up to a creek and needs a LOT of work.  I’ll post before and after pics of each of our projects as we check them off our list, but it is going to be a looong process.  So far we have dealt with major plumbing issues, residual cat dander and pee, and some serious wood paneling.  We’ve asked ourselves many times, “Why did we buy a house again? and have yet to come up with a satisfactory answer.  We know deep down it will all be worth it eventually, but on most days I feel like we will be surrounded by boxes FOR-EV-ER.  We are doing most of the work ourselves, and let me just tell you that HGTV makes it look way too easy.  This junk is hard.  Crazy hard.  If you’re interested in coming over to remove wallpaper, I’ll love you forever.  I’ve decided to affectionately call the house the Duck Creek Ranch, so that it will grow on me a little faster.  Why Duck Creek Ranch? We live on a super cute creek filled with ducks, it is a ranch style house, and everyone in Texas loves a ranch.

For the first time ever, we hired movers.  I’m a bit of a gypsy and have moved at least once per year since the age of eighteen.  I’m now 33.  That’s a lot of moves, people.  I once could move all my worldy possessions in the back of my car.  Alas, those days are gone.  It took weeks of packing, 3 guys + us, a BIG moving truck, and many hours to get all of our crap into the new house.  I was pretty much useless because of my first trimester sickness and generally being pregnant, plus herding a toddler.  Poor Jed worked all day at his teaching job and then came to DCR every day after school to work until 9 or 10 pm.  He is the best, that man of mine.

I can’t believe I’m already almost half way through this pregnancy.  We found out the gender last week and have been slowly revealing it to family and friends.  I’ll share it on the blog tomorrow, so vote now in the gender poll.  After all, you have a 50% chance of being right.  Mini Bear is growing well, and I’m feeling so much better now that I’m firmly in the 2nd trimester.

How many times have you moved?  Share your craziest moving story in the comments.

A Graco Safety Party and Review of the NEW Graco SnugRide Click Connect 40 Car Seat

 Recently I had the pleasure of attending a Graco Safety preview party for a brand new car seat, The Graco SnugRide Click Connect 40.  At the party we learned a ton about car seat safety and the AAP guidelines, and about this new car seat.  I was so excited to receive one of the car seats to review for you.  The Click Connect 40 is different from our old Graco SnugRide 30 for a variety of reasons, the biggest being that it can safely hold kids up to 40 pounds and 2 years old in a rear facing position.  The SnugRide 30 only goes up to 30 pounds, and has much less leg room.  The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids stay rear facing until they reach age 2, and the Graco Safety campaign hopes to help parents reach that goal.  Will the Click Connect 40 really hold a big toddler comfortably?  We’ll find out.

 The Click Connect 40 has 8 different seat settings from comlete recline for newborns to sitting up for big toddlers.

 For The Bear to try it out we shifted to position 8 and put up the kickplate to protect the car.

The seat comes in 2 colors, Moonstruck and Mena.  We received a Moonstruck seat, the more gender neutral of the two.  Mena is beautiful, but has lovely pink swirls that aren’t little boy approved.  You can see a glimpse of the Mena design above, modeled by our demo doll from the Graco Safety Party.
 

 Here is the car seat set up for a newborn.  It looks so squishy and padded, even more than the newborn pad I had to by when the Bear was new.  I can’t wait to put Mini Bear in the seat in the spring!

 The newborn pad snaps out easily, and the seat quickly adjusted to fit our tall toddler.  Really, it took about 2 seconds..

 We installed it in the car using our latch system.  It seemed odd that the base hung off the edge of the seat by several inches, but that could just be our Honda Pilot.  It still seemed secure.  Please excuse my messy car.  True Life: I’m a Blogger.

 The kick plate is genius, in my opinion.  

 The major downfall of rear facing car seats is the loss of leg room in the front seat.  This is a small price to pay for our kids to be 5x safer than front facing.

Quick Facts:
Price: $219.99 at Babies”R”Us
Available: Online and in stores at Babies”R”Us
Colors: Mena™ and Moonstruck™ fashions
Features:
 4 – 40 pound weight limit— a full 2 years
 Base adjusts with 8 recline positions for most leg room of
any rear-facing car seat for baby comfort
 The Simply Safe Adjust™ harness systems allows parents to
adjust the harness and headrest with just one hand to fit
their baby’s height as their baby grows, all without having
to rethread the harness for extra convenience.
 Click Connect™ attachment which allows parents to
easily transition their babies from the car seat to the
stroller through a simple, but secure, one-step “click.”

Does the Bear fit comfortably?  Yes, he does.  At 16 months old he is weighs about 30 pounds and is about 31 inches tall (it is difficult to get an accurate measurement on a wiggly toddler).

Check out that leg room.  

Is the Graco SnugRide Click Connect 40 a good buy?  In my opinion, yes.  I love the idea of  using one seat from 0-2 that is safe and gives my babe this much leg room.  You can find the car seat exclusively at Babies R Us.  
The Graco SnugRide® Click Connect™ 40 – the first and only newborn to two-year infant car seat that actually grows with your baby from four pounds all the way up to 40 pounds. The car seat is designed for a parent on the go. The infant car seat can be easily removed from the base and used as a carrier when the infant is small, providing portability and convenience so you can easily move your infant in and out of the car without disturbing them.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recently made the recommendation to keep all children in rear-facing car seats until the age of 2. Graco set out to make this product so parents can keep infants rear facing longer while still keeping them comfortable.
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Graco. The opinions and text are all mine.

Pregnancy 2.0 Update – Months 1 and 2

I’m almost to the end of my first trimester!  I can’t believe it has flown by so fast.  I’m so ready for the energy and lack of nausea that comes with the second trimester.  It was so fun to announce the pregnancy and start to pray and plan for Mini Bear.    
After The Bear’s birth, it took me almost a year to lose the 42 pounds I gained during his pregnancy.  It was HARD work losing that baby weight.  I was back a few pounds below my prebaby weight, but still hadn’t rid myself of the dreaded c-section tummy.  The second I found out I was pregnant again, my uterus said, “Oh yeah, I got this. ” and proceeded to pop back out.  I made a promise to myself that I would not eat everything in sight this time and gain weight at a healthy pace.  So far I’ve kept that promise.     
 Month One
I felt great and was super excited to be pregnant again.  No big cravings took hold, and I was just a bit touchy because of the hormones.  
Month Two
All hell broke loose.  I was nauseous all day every day, and dizzy as well.  I couldn’t even get it together enough to dry my hair for this picture, which is a snapshot into the crazy.  I was so hormonal and snippy, I probably need to apologize to Jed and Fisher daily for years to come.  Still no cravings to report.  I had my first OB appointment and had a sonogram, which showed a little bleeding near where the placenta was forming.  This freaked me out and she ordered me to have no strenuous activity for 2 weeks.  She also told me about the wonder treatment for pregnancy nausea, Sea Bands.  Things got a little more manageable after that.  
I’ve created a little poll in the top right corner for you to vote for Mini Bear’s gender.  What do you think Mini Bear will be?  Vote in the poll and you have a 50% chance of being right.  

Our Easy Cloth Diaper Laundry Routine

One of the most intimidating things about cloth diapering a child is the actual washing of the diapers.  There’s a different routine for every cloth diapering family, but I’ll share the super easy routine that works for us.  We tried and tested 11 different types of cloth diapers and you can read about that by clicking the link.
Here we go.  We need a few items for our routine, besides the obligatory washing machine.  We use a plastic bucket from Ikea with a lid, bumGenius Diaper Sprayer, and Country Save detergent.
Step One: After The Bear soils a diaper, we spray it off in the toilet with the diaper sprayer.  We spray both poop and pee diapers, to help get the ammonia stink out of the cloth.  The diaper then goes into the bucket, and the lid stays on til we are ready to wash.
Step Two: We wash our cloth diapers every other day.  I turn on the washer on the heavy duty cycle with cold water, and let the water begin to fill.  I add 1/4-1/3 the amount of Country Save detergent I would use for a normal load.  I toss the diapers in, making sure the velcro tabs are closed so they don’t get crazy in the wash.  Close the lid and run that sucker.
Step Three: After the cold wash finishes, I turn the dial back to heavy duty wash, but this time in hot water, with no detergent.  Run it.
Step Four:  We pull out the diapers and hang them on the clothesline if it is nice out or from the shower curtain if it is rainy.
And we’re done.  We’ve learned a few things over this year+ of cloth diapering.  Never soak your diapers because it damages the waterproof liner.  Always double check your velcro/hook and loop.  Don’t be afraid to start using cloth diapers.  You CAN do it.
Do you use cloth diapers?  What is your cloth diaper laundry routine?

 

A Big Brother T-Shirt to Announce Our Pregnancy

When we found out we were expecting our 2nd wee one, I tried to come up with a sweet way of announcing the pregnancy to our friends here in Dallas, our family far away, and my bloggy folks.  I decided to hand embroider the announcement on to a t-shirt for The Bear to wear.  My hand embroidery skills are… not strong.  But hey, what’s life without a little imperfection?  

 I shot a few pics of The Bear in his t-shirt after I finished it, and sent them out to friends and family that live far away, with the caption, “The Bear has an announcement.”

 It took some of our friends and family a bit to figure out they had to read the shirt to get the announcement.

 Later we put the shirt back on The Bear to go see some of our friends at our regular Taco Thursday dinner. Such great reactions.

 The Bear also wore his shirt to my Young Life “retirement” party to share the good news with all our YL friends.

 Finally, I used the the pics to announce the pregnancy here on the blog.

 To make the shirt, I used a plain navy blue shirt that was already a part of The Bear’s wardrobe.  I have a collection of vintage felt and embroidery floss from and estate sale purchase years ago.  I used orange felt and navy blue floss and an embroidery needle that was waaaaay too big to stitch the design.  I fastened the felt into an embroidery hoop and stitched away after drawing the words with an disappearing ink pen.  I used the hoop as a guide to cut out the circle, and then stitched the circle onto the shirt.  Done.

How did you announce your pregnancy? 

I’m sharing this design over at Prudent Baby’s Embroidery Contest and at some other fun craft parties.

A Morning Sickness Cure – Seriously.

Y’all.  I have been down for the count for the last 2 weeks with morning (all day) sickness from the sweet baby growing inside me.  During my last pregnancy I was really sick from week 5-14.  My former OB prescribed Zofran, and it worked to an extent, but I was still pretty miserable.  This time the nausea, dizziness, and all around awful kicked in between 7-8 weeks.  I went to my new OB, whom I already love, last week and she recommended I try Sea Bands.  She also called in a prescription for me because I seemed so doubtful of the bands.  Friday night I was really sick and I sent Jed to CVS to get said prescription.  It wasn’t there.  Out of desperation I had him pick up the Sea Bands.  I did not think they would work.  At all.  But, it was worth a try.  The minute I put the 2nd band on, it was miraculous.  I immediately felt better.  I’m so not kidding.  I’ve been wearing them every waking moment since then.
The question I keep asking is, “Why didn’t anyone tell me this last time?”  Seriously people, WHY???  So, I’m telling you now.  If you are suffering, go NOW and get a pair.  We paid $11, but as you can see in the Amazon link below, you can get them for $5-7 online.
This is not a stigmata.  Don’t canonize me.
The one negative I’ve found for the Sea Bands is that because the beads are constantly putting pressure on your pressure points they leave a mark on your wrists and can be uncomfortable at first.  Trust me when I say I’ve tried every other “morning sickness cure” out there, and this is the only thing that works for me.  I’m ok with a little discomfort.  Other than that there are no side effects, which cannot be said for any nausea medication.  I’m now on day 4 and I hardly notice my Wonder Woman Bracelets of Power any more. Find Sea Bands on Amazon here.

You can buy them off Amazon for $6-7, or at your local CVS for $11.

What morning sickness cures have you tried?  What worked for you?  What didn’t work?

The Bear has BIG News…

He’s going to be a …
BIG BROTHER!!!
We are so excited.  Baby #2, who we are calling Mini Bear, is due at the end of April.  I’m about 9 weeks pregnant with tons of morning sickness to show for it.  I’ll post lots more fun details and the sonogram picture later, so stay tuned.  

Double Rainbows in Colorado

We took an amazing road trip through the western United States this summer with our toddler on board.  You can read more posts about our travels here, and more about Colorado here.  Everything about Colorado has this magical quality, even the weather. Storms move through fast and are unpredictable.  From our view at Trail West we could watch storms roll in over Mt. Princeton almost daily.  

 These rainbows appeared one afternoon and alternately faded and glowed as the storm took its course.

 You can see some of the collegiate peaks in the background, and the base of Princeton is just to the right.
Below you can see the storm over the top of Mt. Princeton.  Princeton is over 14,000 feet high, a true Colorado fourteener.  The summit is completely covered by the storm.