Fashion Police Friday – 5.13.16

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Oh my sweet, sweet Reesie Bug!

You guys remember that little weekly installment I used to do called “Friday Fashion Police” where I would highlight one of Rylee’s AWESOME outfits from the week? Well my friends, Reese is prime age for picking out her own outfits and figuring out her unique style. I hadn’t been taking photos of it, when my best friend told me I should blog it like I used to do with Rylee. Can you keep a secret? I had nearly forgotten that I use to do that! So anyway, you all can thank Julia for the revival of this!

On this particular day, Reese had been wearing jeans with that sweet little butterfly shirt. But when she decided to tag along with Andy on a few errands, I told her she needed to change out of her jeans because it was too hot out. So she came out of her room in this fantastic ensemble. And she was SO proud of herself.

She is nearly 4 and SO much fun right now. She’s funny, witty as hell, loves to be a helper and when you say, “though she be but little…” she yells back, “I AM FIERCE!”

This child is perfection.

And as a true second born sibling, y’all may remember this skirt from about 5 years ago… seriously… where does time go!?

How I Whole30’d

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Background:

  • I have 3 kids, at the time of my first Whole30 they were 7, almost 3 and 9 months
  • I was still breastfeeding at the time of my first Whole30.
  • I worked full time, outside of the home
  • I worked out 4-ish times a week
  • I was the only one in my house to do it
  • I never read the “it starts with food” book
  • The real reason I did it: to trim down, maybe lose a few pounds to achieve my ultimate goal of fitting in my wedding dress by my 10th wedding anniversary

Favorite Resources:

  • Whole30recipes on Instagram was awesome. Every week they feature a new food blogger that shares tips, recipes, etc.
  • PDF Downloads on the Whole30 website. I used this area to do the bulk of my research before pulling the trigger. It includes a helpful shopping list download, how to eat out and more.
  • The day by day breakdown. This gave me a decent guide to know what to expect as I went.
  • Pinterest, of course.

Meals:

  • For breakfasts during the week I ate egg cups that I cooked the weekend before. Eggs, sausage, bell peppers and asparagus. Sometimes I’d eat a side of berries, sometimes not. They say you’re not supposed to eat at your desk…but well, ain’t nobody got time for that.
  • I’d always do some kind of “big dinner” on Sunday night like roast a chicken, or pork roast. I’d do a giant pan of roasted garlic potatoes and then portion out the leftovers to go with my breakfasts for the next few days.
  • Making my own mayo was super easy and definitely a MUST. I really liked mixing it with salsa and using it as a dressing for taco salads or a dipping sauce for homemade fries.
  • I hardly used any coconut milk and coconut oil. This is an interesting point because SO many of the friends/people I followed that had done a W30 in the past raved and raved about both of those things. So naturally, at first I thought that meant I was doing something wrong.
  • Lunches were typically leftovers from the night before
  • I got really good at modifying meals that were already family favorites.

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Favorite Meals (mostly because the entire family ate the SAME thing):

  • Taco Tuesday! Either as taco cups in butter lettuce, a taco salad or a burrito bowl over cauli-rice.
  • Cauliflower rice
  • Roasted chicken, roasted red potatoes, cooked carrots and brussel sprouts
  • Turkey burgers on butter lettuce topped with guac and my mayo/salsa mix, oven-roasted fries and fresh fruit
  • Spaghetti made with jarred (compliant) sauce and zucchini noodles

Burrito bowl: taco seasoned ground beef, lime-cumin cauli rice, bell peppers, avocado, cilantro, salsa // Steak, sauteed mushrooms, baked potato, asparagus // Southwest flavored turkey burger, guac, salsa/mayo mix, bell peppers, fries

Favorites Snacks: So technically, you’re not supposed to snack during Whole30, but a) I was working out a lot, b) I was still breastfeeding and c) I didn’t really care.

  • Lara bars. For the record they taste nothing like the “cookies” and “pies” they claim to in their names. But my favorites were the cashew cookie or the lemon bar. I ate one nearly every day.
  • Sparkling water. There are all different brands, but La Croix has a great variety of compliant flavors. Lime, Coconut , Grapefruit and Cherry-Lime were my go-to flavors.
  • Dry roasted almonds. Got them from Costco and a handful of them were a great way to put something in my stomach before my lunch time work out.
  • Apple & almond butter. This was always a good mid-afternoon snack.

Other tips:

  • Try to get someone to do it with you. I had a coworker, and a whole slew of online friends, doing it with me.
  • Pre-planning is everything.
  • Summer is a great time to do it because SO MUCH FRESH PRODUCE! and Grilling!

Things I learned:

  • I love black coffee. It’s still all I drink.
  • I LOVE BRUSSEL SPROUTS!
  • I ate a lot of meals out of bowls.
  • Good or bad, I am a serious creature of habit.
  • I didn’t really miss the bread or dairy.
  • I DID miss the sugars.

The results:

  • I lost 5-ish pounds.
  • I lost 5.5″ between my butt, belly button, true waist and hips.
  • I fit back into my wedding dress 6 weeks before my goal date!
  • Since I completed my first round, one of my sisters has done it twice, my mom has done it and now my other sister is doing it!

12 Months of Lincoln

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I was going to call out which of these are my favorites, but as it turns out they all are. I love all of them for slightly different reasons from newborn squish, old man sweaters, to discovering feet, to gummy smiles, to toothy grins, to so.much.personality. I know I’ve said it before but this boy… he owns my heart!

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Lincoln at 18 Months

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How is my little man 18 months old!? We had his well check this morning, so I thought it’d be fun to do a quick update! This boy is super laid back and so happy… Unless you’re doing something he doesn’t want you to do or he’s doing something you don’t want him to. Ha.

It’s been a little while sine I’ve done one of these, so there’s more than a little bit to catch up on. (A recap of the monthly pics might be fun!)

Lincoln started walking at 11 months old and it didn’t take him long to start running. Andy and I have so much fun watching him run after/play with his sisters. He really idolizes them (especially Rylee). Unless Reese is trying to boss him around. Then he yells no at her. Sometime followed by hitting, pushing or hair pulling. Good times! But his sweet side shows any time he sees or hears one of his sisters crying. He immediately stops whatever he is doing and goes right to them, puts his face inches from their face and rubs their back or pays the top of their head.

Homeboy was rocking a pretty solid mullet until his first haircut at 13 months old. To be honest, the poor kid needed a haircut at 9 months, but his mullet was just too good to not make part of his Halloween costume. So We (I) dressed him up as Joe Dirt. Fricken hilarious! Since then he’s had 3 haircuts and is due to get another this weekend. So far I’ve done all of them. They never look that great but his hair is so blonde and so fluffy yet wirey it doesn’t make much of a difference.
He says a number of words and has even said a sentence – “I want more!” Words include: please, up, no, mama, daddy, Dante, Rylee, Ry, Reese, hi, bye, more, cheese, night night. His first word was Dante. Just like his sisters.

The stats: height: 32″ (34th percentile), weight: 22 lbs, 15 oz (31st percentile)

Likes: me (I’m still his favorite!), playing outside, pretend cooking, dancing, sword fighting, Dante, brushing his teeth, baths, messing with you if you’re lying on the floor.

Dislikes: being told no, Meat that’s not ground beef covered in taco seasoning, Drinking milk out of anything other than a bottle (Too bad that’s gonna change as of today no more bottle. Cold turkey.) Getting pushed around by his sisters, Me putting him down.

Sleep: He may have taken the longest to sleep through the night, but he’s making up for it now. He goes down for bed SO easily. At bedtime, as soon as his PJs are on, he makes his rounds to the family giving loves and waving good night. Then I take him into his room and we sit in the rocker. Within seconds of rocking he points to his crib. So I kiss him goodnight and put him in his crib. As I turn around to walk out, he blows me kisses, waves and says “night!”  I miss the snuggles but I love the easy routine.

I really have no words to describe how much I love love love this little man. He has my heart. I just… I’m his biggest fan. And I think I always will be.


  

Adventures in Breastfeeding

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Nothing like coming out of semi-blog retirement and being all, “HEY GUYS! MISS ME? LET’S TALK ABOUT BOOBS!”

What can I say? I like to keep people on their toes.

It’s World Breastfeeding Week here on the good ole’ interwebs and something inside me has been calling me to write about this. There’s always talk {read: ridiculous debates} about breast vs. bottle, breastmilk vs. formula. It’s time to help shed some light on the standpoint of being somewhere in the middle. {get it!?} Both my girls were 100% breastmilk babies. But guess what, Lincoln is not.

And guess what else. That’s 100% okay.

We’re like Goldilocks and the three bears over here… only out of order, and we’re talking about breastmilk. Not porridge.

With Rylee, I never stuggled with milk making but I wouldn’t say I ever had an over-supply. Everything was juuust right. Then with Reese, I made a LOT of milk. So much, in fact, that my friends nicknamed me LilMissMilkGuns and I shared it with others. Now with Lincoln, I’m not producing enough, so I supplement with formula.

Somewhere around February or March, daycare was sending home reports that he gobbled down his bottle and was still crying like he was hungry. I took it with a bit of a grain of salt because I know that A) babies will drink more from bottles and B) breastmilk changes in nutritional value as babies grow so they shouldn’t need more. But after a couple weeks of that I started sending bigger bottles. As the month went on, I was struggling to keep up with the bigger bottles. My “extra” bottle I kept in the fridge would be used over the week to top off his bottles for daycare. I was adding pumping sessions before work if I had a few extra minutes. I was pumping on the weekends. I was drinking that nasty Mother’s Milk tea. I had a short work trip coming up, followed by a longer one a few weeks later. Needless to say, I was stressing.

The stress just wasn’t worth it. And it wasn’t working.

So I bought some formula.

To be honest, I was kind of expecting some big wave of relief to rush over me and then my body would be all “oh look at her not stressed at all. I’m gonna make more milk now.” But that never happened.

So I started supplementing. It was a pretty easy transition for Lincoln, thankfully.

Fast forward a couple of months to a week or so before Lincoln’s 9 month well check. I was getting frustrated with how little milk I was producing when I was pumping. He never seemed to have issues with not having enough over the weekends. I was ready to just throw in the towel with it all. I pressed on. Then at his well-check appointment the nurse was going over the standard questionnaire and asked about milk. I told him that Lincoln was getting both breastmilk and formula. Then he asked about how much of each. After some quick math, I realized that on average I’m still producing about 2/3 of the milk he needs.

Sometimes he gets bottles of 100% breastmilk. Sometimes he gets bottles of 100% formula. Most times, it’s some combo of the two.

Either way, I’m giving him everything I can. And he is happy. And thriving. And he loves me. And I am happy about that.

How could I NOT be happy about that?!

My point of sharing this story is this friends… Don’t get down on yourself if things don’t go the way you think they should. Don’t get down on yourself if things don’t go the way they did the last time. Do what you can because that’s all you can do. And certainly don’t get down on others for their baby-feeding choices (or in some/most cases, non-choices). Hopefully sharing our story will help someone feel better about the situation they are in, or at least know that there are options out there.