Heuristic play: here’s what’s in my infant-friendly treasure basket
Take a minute and think about the toys that we provide for our infants, they are mostly plastic and feel/taste the same. Boring! The Treasure basket allows you to create a base basket full of 20-30 multi-textured, multifaceted, objects for your baby to explore daily for about half an hour to an hour. Eventually the basket can contain up to 60-80 objects as you slowly build more items to keep the baby interested.
7 ways motherhood shocked the hell out of me
Full disclosure: I have been a mother for nearly six weeks now. I didn’t think it’d be easy, but when my pregnancy went extremely smoothly I got to thinking that maybe, just maybe, my baby would be easy and being a Mom wouldn’t be too hard. Lo and behold, there are definitely a few things that shocked the hell out of me in both regards.
Cotton candy, a ferris wheel, and magic sparkles: all signs point to a whimsical birth announcement
Sarah and Chad wanted to announce their baby’s sex a little non-traditionally, so they contacted Le Cape Studios and asked if the team would tag along at a carnival. The ever-present but still quite subtle blue (the balloon, cotton candy, even their shirts) is such an awesome touch — not to mention the badass ferris wheel shots.
How do I respect friends who openly spank but protect my kid from seeing it?
In our family we are firmly anti-spanking, but we realize that many of our friends and family members are not. We respect that they’re making decisions that work best for their families, but I don’t want my son to see his friends or family members being spanked.
I used garbage, spray paint, and felt to make my kid a jet pack
I originally got this idea from a pin on Pinterest — and immediately knew my son would need his own jet pack. Gathering the supplies was super easy (we already had almost everything in our house), and the end result is a costume prop he’s THRILLED with.
How do you successfully share a bed with more than one kid?
I’m wondering how other families have successfully shared a bed with two children — it seems unfair to put our older daughter in a bed on her own so that the younger one can sleep with us. How did your family manage to co-sleep with two kids?
A day in the life: let’s follow this family of four and their dog around for a while
I love love love “day in the life” type family sessions (you guys might remember Ariel’s family photos by Jenny Jimenez last year — the same ones that featured those fab Care Bear suits). You get SO MUCH MORE from your family session when the photographer sticks around for more than an hour.
A stylist’s advice on the best haircuts for post-partum hair loss
After my baby was born, I lost about half my hair. Apparently this isn’t uncommon, even though nothing I read forewarned me about it. Now its growing back, though, and my face is framed by a halo/ruff/mane of little half curls. They’re too short to be pulled back, too numerous to be clipped back, and it’s too hot to wear my hair down.