Baby Feet - Valentine's Day Edition

I really tried to get this up before Valentine's Day so you could try it as well BUT I was waiting until my family got theirs first before I showed them off here, so pin this for next year!

If you read my Christmas card post then you know how much I LOVE baby feet projects. So when I saw this pic from Pinterest I had to try it out. This time instead of having a husband laughing in the background, I invited over some other moms while he was at work. We still got some good laughs out of it because now that the babies are older (crawling and walking) the wiggle factor is exponentially maximized. It was good to have some extra hands around to entertain babies while they were getting their feet stamped. 

 Using almost the same process as before, we ended up with these:

("Almost" because I don't think I did this last time: to get the best imprint you should put the heel down and roll up.)

Then we added the slogan:

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!

Sincerely,

Jordan

Strollers, Love, and The Minimum Effective Dose

For about the past week I've been trying to pick out the perfect umbrella stroller to take to our DC trip in a few weeks. My husband and I talked about all the things we wanted in a lightweight stroller and I went out and found a few contenders. (In case you are wondering what made it to the final showdown: the Chicco Capri, Maclaren Quest, Uppa-Baby G-Luxe, and the Aprica Presto.) If you've done any stroller research, you would be like, "wow...that's a variety," because they really do have an extreme range in price and in correlating features. It's like trying to compare a Saturn to a Mercedes.

Yesterday, after spending about an hour at Babies R Us pushing my son around in several of the options, I finally just broke down and got the cheapest. It had the least amount of features but, well, the price just couldn't be beat for what we needed most, and the reality is that we just needed something short term.  Essentially, we bought the minimum effective dose.

Minimum Effective Dose (MED) is a concept I learned about in Tim Ferriss' 4 Hour Body. In it, he explains that MED is doing the least amount necessary to get the desired results. For him, working out for an hour every day was unnecessary because the same results came from working out for 20 minutes like every two weeks or something...(don't quote me on that, I don't remember the exact #s, but I'm close. You can check in the book. He also has a steroid use example; regardless the concept is the same.)

I couldn't think of a better example than what happened today, on Valentine's Day, when my darling husband got finished work and met me at the car with four carnations. Now, I wasn't expecting flowers and I was thankful that he thought of me on this loveliest of days but I was kind of surprised that it was just four carnations because my husband has typically put a little more effort into his flower selection (having them delivered or stopping at a store on his way home.) Plus, where do you find just four carnations? At an elementary school where you can send a flower-gram to a friend!? I thought maybe he had forgot about Valentine's Day and just borrowed them from a friend...and I asked him that too. He told me he didn't borrow them from a friend but how he got them is important. 

So some background information on my husband - my husband LOVES to take online surveys that give him a dollar every time he submits one. So every once and a while he gets a letter in the mail with a crisp one dollar bill in it and I always make fun of him. The last survey was a $2 survey but instead of sending him 2 crisp $1 bills they sent him a $2 bill! A $2 bill?! Isn't that cool!? I was impressed because who just goes around handing out $2 bills! So he jokes about me being jealous, that I can't make fun of his surveys and how he was going to keep it (away from me) forever. He has too - it's been in his wallet (as if it was gold or something) ever since.

Back to the carnations - so I was like, "how did you get four carnations?" And he told me that "these four carnations are equivalent to $2 worth of flowers, as in a $2 bill worth of flowers." I swear my mouth dropped! I never thought he would spend that $2 bill, especially on me. I seriously still can't believe it. I asked him why he didn't just use other cash and he told me "because I thought it would be cute and that you would appreciate it." OMG! Isn't he cute! Case in point: $2 of carnations = MED.

Back to the strollers: they were all awesome and I for sure had my heart set on the most expensive one and we could have easily just gotten it and been happy and out $200+ but is it really necessary? Especially when all the features we really needed were met in the cheapest option? Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It, and I may/may not be taking it out of context, "Can one desire too much of a good thing?" Heck yeah. The "good thing" was the lightweight stroller with some recline, back support, and a little suspension. The "too much" was the cup holder, the increased weight capacity, the ability to stand-upright; I desired the heck out of it but it's not essential. We just needed the MED.

The concept of MED can be applied to a lot of areas in life, especially parenting. As a type-A personality, I'm always focused on doing things to the max. My son doesn't need to be entertained by me every five seconds and I don't need to enroll him in every baby class in town. Trying to do all these things just gives me a whole lot of stress when all he really needs is the MED.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sincerely,
Jordan

P.S. - I hope I'm not the only one who has issues with MED - thoughts?

Is Pooping on Santa Grounds for the Naughty List?

Yesterday we took our baby to go see Santa at the mall and when we got there the elf at Santa's reception desk said that Santa had no more appointments for that afternoon. When did you have to make an appointment for Santa?

One of my mom friends told me she was there the previous week and another mom told her that she had to pull her kids out of school so they could make their Santa appointment. WHAT!? Seriously!? It's Santa not the doctor. Plus, I'm pretty sure skipping school will put you on the naughty list for sure.

So today - Santa Round 2. We switched malls (to one of the wait-in-line kinds) and got onto that lap without a wait. We finally snapped this classy photo and my husband grabs our boy and immediately makes a what's-that-smell face. Uh oh...we don't see anything leaking through the corduroys (which we discover are surprisingly resilient) but up the rest of the shirt and through the sweater...yep...he pooed on Santa's lap. No wonder Santa is grimacing in the picture...he's probably like "get this stinker off my lap!" I feel like the only way he is escaping loads of coal in his stocking was because he left Santa unscathed. Thank goodness!!!

Regardless, I would definitely add this to the list of things to do for baby's first Christmas. Recommended advice: bring a change of clothes. Most importantly, enjoy the time with your little one.

Sincerely,
Jordan

Making Christmas Cards With a Baby

In between all of the diaper changes and feedings and the employable activities, I try to get in some enjoyable activities; all work and no play makes for a very dull life.

My son is almost 7 months now and is now at a playful age which has been a lot of fun. It truly makes me grateful that I am able to spend this time with him.

This year when I sat down to make Christmas cards I figured I would just upload some pictures of the family and put it into some online card making program but I haven't quite been able to fit that into the laundry list of things I am trying to complete during my son's nap times. So finally, I gave up, and it kind of hit me that I should involve him in the process. (I'm sure you are now questioning my sanity as you read...but at the time I seriously thought this was a good idea!)

I went to pinterest for some inspiration and found several hand/foot print projects that I could possibly put on some card stock and throw in an envelope, see examples here:

via

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And I'm sure by now you must be saying..."what is this girl thinking...paint and a 7 month old, that sounds like a recipe for disaster!" Well, as it turns out, those are the recipes I am best at! I'm also from "I don't need no stinkin' directions!" family, so while I look at some nice inspirational photos I failed to read the inspirational directions. I decided I would just get a bunch of paint and see what worked out.

First, we stripped him down to his diaper - I definitely recommend.

Second, I painted his foot. I'm going to be honest...I have a very patient and happy baby. He was mostly intrigued by this.

However, the painted foot print came out kind of glob-y, so I thought it might be a better idea to lightly sponge paint on...again, my baby is very patient. 

 However, all good things come to and end...clearly you can see where this is heading... 

And at this point...I was basically about to give up. It took me forever to get these three prints and they were pretty bad. Plus, baby started to get fussy about not being able to touch the paint.

So much to my naivete, I figured, well if he wants to touch the paint...let's just go with the it. So after washing off his feet we moved on to painting his hand. He liked to play with the paint, the imprint wasn't too bad...but let me assure you - paint everywhere! Bad, bad, very bad idea. (And lets be honest...the color kind of looks like poop.)

It was at this point I was about to give up because this was just getting ridiculous and I kind of felt like an idiot by thinking this was a good idea. But in the back of my head: I know people take foot/hand impressions of their kids! I can't be completely out of it because somebody gave me a baby hand print cement thing for my baby shower. (I think that's still a little idealistic.) Plus, they did it at the hospital when he was born...how did they do that!? So I thought back and got smart.

I laid baby down on a blanket on the floor, (with the dog for entertainment,)

grabbed some old ink pads I had lying around and started to ink up baby's feet.

 

I started stamping away while baby played with his toys and Hunter.

(It was at this point my husband discovered instagram...)

Success! 

Resulting in a whole bunch of these guys...

 

That became this guy: 

So to sum it up...

How to take baby foot prints

Supplies:

Ink Pad

Cardstock

Hardcover book

Old towel/blanket

Steps:

1. Strip baby down to diaper.

2. Lay baby down on an old towel and load him up with toys.

3. Ink up baby's foot and press onto card stock that is supported by a hard book.

4. Decorate as desired.

Recommended Age:

Any!

 

Tips: 

- When making the Christmas Tree, for best results make sure the heels are touching.

- Don't expect to make cards for 200 of your closest friends. You are probably good for about 10-20 if your lucky. (Just tell the lucky recipients it's a limited edition print.)

- Most importantly, have fun!

Sincerely,

Jordan