Adventures in Life: Planning for Christmas

I'm still working on Caleb's 5 month post (and hopefully will have some cute little chubby cheeks for you soon!) but in the meantime I've been making some Christmas plans and wanted to just share a few things with you.

Gift giving can be stressful for many people - making sure you have the just right gift for the people on your list. I have been using The Gifter's Holiday Tool Kit that Lauren from The Thinking Closet wrote.

Lauren breaks down gift giving into a 5 day, organized list. So if you like lists as much as I do, this will help you! Plus her videos are adorable. You will love her!

I also have some people on my list that are hard to shop for (you know you have at lease one person on your gift list that you have no clue what to get for them) and I saw an idea that is so good, I just had to share it with you...

If you have someone hard to shop for try looking for something they might enjoy at the Feed My Starving Children Marketplace.  They have gifts ranging from coffee to jewelry, decorations to puzzles. Each gift purchased not only supports artisans in third world countries but it also helps FMSC provide meals for malnourished children in 70 countries around the world. (For example a bag of coffee provides 33 meals! Anyone know a coffee lover?!) Great idea, right?!

I am trying to mail out our Christmas cards early this year because I did a combo baby Caleb birth announcement/we moved/Merry Christmas and Happy New Year card all in one. They turned out super cute and if you would like me to mail you one, just send me your address and I will add you to my list - I love getting real mail and sending real mail!! (You can send your address via e-mail at veronicalynnhill (at) gmail.com)

Well, that's about it for today...ok, I can't resist! Here is a squishy cheek picture!

And his big sister (not as squishy, but oh so cute!) 

Adventures in Life: Potty Talk

I have discovered that when you have a toddler there is lots of potty talk that happens. You know, the 4 letter words every potty training mommy uses.

poop.

toot.

wipe.

pee-pee...

Ok, that last one doesn't work, but you get the picture. These words are constant vocabulary around the house these days....and let's just be honest, as the wife of a plumber these words are pretty common year round for us.

We have been unofficially potty training Rebekah for quite some time. When she was about 10 months old, whenever I would take her diaper off to change her she would let out her pee. On me. On the changing table. Pretty much everywhere. So, I decided to try setting her on a little potty seat, just to try and see what would happen. This started a very long streak of her letting out both #1 and #2 on her little potty chair. For over a year she was still wearing a diaper but when I would change her, she would sit on the potty chair and usually let something out.

Then we had Caleb and moved. We suspended our use of cloth diapers and I became inconsistent with our pee-pee routine. She turned two and stopped wanting to sit on her little potty seat. The battle was just a little much for me to handle. But recently she has been showing interest in using the potty again, and she has been wanting some big girl panties.

We have been experimenting with Pampers EasyUps as a combo "big girl panties" and diaper in one. She loves that "just Bekah" can put them on and pull them up. They are nice and stretch so when it comes time to race to the bathroom because her 'pee-pee is coming out' it is quick and easy to remove. It was a little hard to tell which side was the front and which was the back, but I think we got it figured out. 

Before we moved in with Daniel's parents while we build our house, we used cloth diapers. If we were in our own house, I would probably use cloth training pants. But since we are using someone else's washer and dryer, we are going with disposable diapers, and I think these Pampers are going to work well for us when we decide to full on potty train. 

If you are interested in trying Pampers EasyUps, you can click here for a $1.50 off coupon! I received 4 free diapers to try out from Influenster. These opinions are all my own. 

Adventures in Life: Quiet Time Coloring

I always loved coloring. A clean, new, blank coloring book was always an exciting treat. Even as an adult I savor each new page in a coloring book. And I love that adult coloring books are a thing now. They are my favorite! 

One of my newest coloring books is also a devotional book. It's called 40 Days to a Joyful Motherhood. A devotional book for mothers. A coloring devotional book for moms. What a great idea, right?!

I have been enjoying this devotional book for the past few weeks, and while I have not completed all 40 of the days, I have very much enjoyed the the idea of this book. Each day starts with a verse or two from the Bible. It is followed by a few paragraph to full page of a devotion on the topic of motherhood as it relates to 6 different topics: self acceptance, self care, reconciling with grief, generosity, presence, and forgiveness. The devotion is ended by a prayer and on the opposite page is a drawing to color. 

What I liked about this book: I enjoyed that it could be a quick 10 minute quiet time or I could go deeper by looking up the included Bible passage and spend more like 30 minutes studying, meditating and coloring. I found that the pictures were simple enough to color and think about what I had just read. I also liked that there was extra space on the pages to write down thoughts, almost like a journal. I tend to write and doodle when I am thinking and this book provided me enough space to do just that.

There were a few ways I thought this book could be better. The actual book itself is kind of flimsy. The pages are thin and you could only really use color pencil on them - marker would go right through onto the next page. While the content of the devotional was good, I wished it would have delved deeper into what God's word says about motherhood. To me, the devotional aspect of the book was more 'milk' instead of 'meat' when it came to the study of the Bible. 

I would recommend this book to moms who are looking for a quick and easy way to get some relaxing devotional time into their schedule. It would be great for someone who doesn't normally have a quiet time, and would make a good gift to any mom who likes to color. 

I did receive this book free in exchange for my honest review. 

Adventures of Caleb: 4 Months

I am a little behind with this 4 months post, but here we go!

Dear Caleb, 

What a growing boy you are! You are 4 months old and every day is a new adventure in rolling, grabbing, and baby babbling for you. In the last month you have really started to enjoy being on your tummy and playing with toys. It is so fun to watch you reach for and grab toys. You love to look at them and then try to stuff them into your mouth. You are pretty persistent when it comes to trying to get things into your mouth. Your favorite toy is a stuffed ladybug that was also your sister's favorite...and sometimes she still likes to play with it too.

You are growing so fast that you are already wearing 6 month clothes and 6-12 month socks are to little for your cute chubby feet already. 

You do not have any teeth yet, but you are drooling enough to make me wonder if they will be coming soon. You are almost always sporting a bib because of your drool. I have had to buy a bunch of them for you. Your sister had tons of bibs but never needed them. 

You love your sister and she loves you! If you are crying in the car, usually her singing a song will quiet your cries. Your current favorite is Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. And she loves being the big sister to sing it to you. You just light up when you see her and love to watch her play. 

You still do not have much of a sleeping schedule. You will be awake for about 2 hours at a time during the day and then want to go to sleep. Sometimes you sleep for 30 minutes and sometimes you sleep for 3 hours. You normally take 2 short naps and one long nap and then sleep from 9pm to 9am with 2 or 3 feedings along the way. You LOVE to eat and you love to watch other people eat. I just know in a few months you well really enjoy eating big boy food at the table with your sister!

You are such a happy, sweet boy! Mommy loves you! 

Adventures in Building: This Is It!

It's for real! 

It's finally ours! 

We are now the owners of this 12 acre beautiful slice of land. We closed on Friday. At the closing we got to meet the seller and chat with her a little bit. She was very sweet and we are thankful she chose to sell it to us. Can I tell you a secrete? After hearing a little about the sellers story, I can't help but believe that God has been getting this piece of land ready for our family for years. 

Long before He planted the desire to build our own house and have our own little farm. 

Long before Daniel and I met, fell in love, and got married. 

Actually, around the time we were both born, the previous owners purchase this land. It had been farm land and didn't have anything on it. I don't know their whole story, but they decided to plant trees on the property. A thick line of pine trees around the border on 3 sides. And a beautiful variety of deciduous trees throughout the middle. For the next 30 years they watered the trees and maintained the grass. I'm not sure why they never built on the land, and we probably will never know. I didn't feel like it was a question I should ask her at the time. But from the first time we looked at the land, we knew it was what we had been searching and praying for. We had looked at several other properties and they were not nearly as beautiful as this land. And after the closing we stopped by our new land. And looking out on the land I just keep thinking that before either of us was even born, God planted these trees for us! Before we were born He knew we would be standing here, looking out on this great new adventure we were undertaking. Wow! What a great God we have! 

Hopefully we will have some building posts to share with you soon!! 

Adventures of Rebekah: On The Farm

For a long time now Rebekah has been interested in all things farm. Farm animals, books about farms, looking for big red barns, tractors, corn...the girl loves corn on the cob! (Cut it off and she wants nothing to do with it...oh, the life of a two year old!) We are excited to start our own adventure on our own little farm someday soon, but for now we read about farms and play with her plastic farm animals. 

One of our new favorite books is about a farm. And I love it because it is a "good-night" book. That's what I call books that are perfect for just before bedtime. It's called Night Night, Farm by Amy Parker. This 20 page board book is recommended for ages 4-8, but Rebekah is 2 and loves it. It is published by Tommy Nelson, and like all of our TN books it is super sturdy and holds up well to the not-so-gentle page turns of a pre-reader.

This sweet story visits all the animals on the farm as they are getting ready for bed. Each page is a different animal with a good night rhyme (we love rhyming books) and each of the animals says night-night in their own "language". Reinforcing the sounds that each animal makes. I'm always looking for books that are fun and educational at the same time.

Perhaps Rebekah's favorite thing is that on each page there are 2 mice that are making their good night rounds on the farm. She loves looking and finding the mice on each page and seeing what they are doing. At the end all the animals are asleep in the barn and we like to practice saying good night to each of them in their own animal language. 

This is a wonderful farm story and would be a great addition to any child's library! 

If you would like to win a free copy of Night Night, Farm for you own collection, or to give away as a gift, just comment here or on my Instagram picture of the book (here) before Friday. 

I received a copy of this book for free from Tommy Nelson Publishers, and like always the opinions here are all my own.

Adventures of Rebekah: Switching Things Up

I am a firm believer in naps. I know my mother would tell you that I was not always that way. I can remember as a child laying very still in by bed when I knew my mom was peeking into my room to see if I was asleep. I'm sure I wasn't tricking her, but I thought I was pretty tricky.

When I was in college, naps were my best friend! I would try to sneak a nap in most days before heading to the pool for swim team practice. But this post isn't about my naps. It's about Rebekah's naps...or more accurately the lack-there-of.

Rebekah has been a fairly good napper in general for most of her life, but for the past few weeks she had been having a very hard time with nap time. She is a typical toddler, saying "NO" to about half of the things I asked her to do. And every day after lunch she would say over and over "no go night-night" as we started our bedtime routine.

Sit on the potty.
No go night-night!
Get a clean diaper on.
No go night-night!
Put on her zippy.
No go night-night!
Get her night-night bear and pacifier.
No go night-night!
Turn on her air filter.
No go night-night!
Turn off the lights.
No go night-night!
Sing Jesus Loves Me in the rocking chair.
No go night-night!

You get the picture. She was determined not to go to sleep. Once in her crib she would sing, play, roll, talk, bounce, and pretty much anything she could do except for sleep. She wasn't crying, and the alone rest time was good for her but she really needed to sleep.

The other day my mother-in-law suggested we switch up her nap routine and try playing music for her to fall asleep to.

I can remember listening to music to fall asleep to when I was little. I can remember napping at my Gramma Seger's house. She had 2 upstairs bedrooms, one on each end of a hallway at the top of the staircase. She would put a tape player on the blue and green hallway carpet between the two rooms and play music for the cousins who were in bed to take a nap.

Anyway, I thought it was worth a try to see if music would help Rebekah fall asleep. We started this weekend. And she napped! I tried it again on Monday, and she feel asleep for nap time for the 2nd day in a row! Tuesday was a bust because of a few different things - one of them being that her pacifier (which she called her ga-ha) broke while she was in bed...oh the drama!! We are trying again today. I played her the same CD we use in the van when it's time to take a nap. It is called Hidden In My Heart: A lullaby journey through scripture. It's just soft, soothing music with simply sung scriptures in the songs. 

How about you? Any tricks to get your toddler to nap? I would LOVE to know what worked for you!

She has been wanting to play "nap time" lately. Here is when she was playing nap time with Caleb, her baby doll and her night-night bear. 

She is very convincing, is she not?