Baby Book

I mentioned before that I had several fun baby showers.  At one of my showers, my friend Jacque had the guests do a little activity and she said she would give me the activities later.  I said okay and knew I would see them eventually.  Well a few weeks before I had Olive, a package arrived at my door.  Jacque said she'd like for me to open it at the hospital when Olive was born.  No problem!  I tucked it away with my hospital bag and brought it along when we headed to the hospital.  

The night Olive was born I was exhausted but could fall asleep.  While laying in the less than comfy hospital bed, I remembered that I had a package to open.  So while my hubby and baby were snoozing, I opened it.  

First, I opened a scrapbook.  I was already impressed because I knew that scrapbooking wasn't Jacque's favorite thing in the world.

 I opened it up to find pictures from the event documenting all of the guests, gifts and fun times that were had by all.  Then I see where the activities from the shower came into play.  Jacque designed these cards with Olive's name on them and the guests filled them out.  She inserted them all throughout the scrapbook with pictures.  Isn't this sweet?!?!  

 She even left me some blank pages in the back of the book where I could put the cards from the shower.  A much better idea than the ziploc bag that I have them in right now :)  This girl seriously OUTDID herself!!

Thoughtful Gift for Baby

I've mentioned a billion times that I teach at an amazing school with wonderfully supportive parents.  They have been so good to me for the last 9 years and I'm still trying to process the fact that I won't be teaching next year.  I've be extremely lucky to find this place and it has been such a blessing to me.

I missed the last 2 or so weeks of school since I had a baby and had a sub during that time.  I just recently went into my classroom to survey the work/packing that still needed to happen.  I came in to find a fun gift on my desk.  I was surprised because I'd literally been showered with gifts several times as the year was coming to a close.  I looked at the tag to make sure that it was for me and it was :)

Here's an example of the kind of gifts these sweet families put together for me.

 Each person in their family picked out one of their favorite books to give to Olive and then wrote us a little note on the inside cover.  I was lucky enough to have ALL THREE of their kids during my time teaching in Utah.  Everyone participated: mom, dad and three kids.  

Here were the books that they choose:

 I dare you to find a more thoughtful gift for a book-loving teacher :)

Weekly Wrap Up

Hello, friends!  June is flying by and we are really enjoying summer at our house.  Here are the best things that we did this week:

1. We went on a little 1st Father's Day road trip with our family.  We had a great time and it was a success.  Tune in this weekend for my tips to traveling with a newborn!

2. My cats are back to their usual selves (after bringing home a baby 3.5 weeks ago) and are making themselves right at home again :)  Topher thinks he'd make a great table runner.

 3. My husband came up with the great idea to get Sweet Tooth Fairy cupcakes for dessert one night.  I didn't object :)

4. I had a Starbucks date with a friend this past week and she snapped this picture of Olive... one of my favorites to date!

5. News Flash: Olive Garden now has POLKA-DOTTY STRAWS!!  Well it's actually just the wrapper and not the straw but they are adorable!!

Linking up with TheLaurenElizabeth and InstaFriday.

Hope you have a great weekend!!

What Whitney Wore

Putting together outfits every day has become a bit of a challenge with a 3 week old baby girl.  Being a mom is pretty time consuming.  Sometimes we just snuggle the days away and jammies suffice.  I am excited to say that I did shower, leave the house and put together outfits on many days this week.  Here are the looks that I came up with:

1. Royal Stripes

top - Loft

earrings - Francesca's

flower pin - JC Penneys

skinnies - Motherhood

gold flip flops - Payless

2. Coral Stripes

top - Loft

headband - JCrew

skinnies - Motherhood

earrings - Claires

sandals - Payless

 3. Road Trip

top - Loft

scarf - Gift

headband - Target

skinnies - Motherhood

gold flip flops - Payless

Thanks for stopping by!   Leave a comment; I'd love to visit your blog!

Linking up with The Pleated Poppy, Style Elixir, Wardrobe Wednesdays, 

Casual Fridays, Favorite Fashion Fridays.

The Mom Learning Curve

Sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed with all the new things I need to know with my new found "mom" status.  I realize that a baby needs her mom and needs to be loved but I get a bit bogged down in all the other stuff.  I'm going to share some of the things that I have come to realize lately because pre-mom Whitney was clueless about all of this...

1. When you launder baby items, you should use special detergent or an odor/dye free detergent.  We had a coupon so we bought some DREFT.  My hubby does all the laundry so in the midst of changing loads he asked, "Do I need to put in a dryer sheet?"  I didn't know so my good friend, Google, helped us out.  Apparently, you should NOT use dryer sheets on baby items via The DREFT FAQ page

2.Apparently antihistamines and producing breast milk DO NOT go together.  Darn allergies.  Everyone and their mom loves to lavish unsolicited feeding, child rearing, baby care advice on you.  Good thing I have some helpful doctor ladies around that have give me solid advice.

3. Diapers are expensive and you will go through a TON... literally.  Good thing they sell those puppies in bulk.

4. Being a new mom requires you to become very good at doing this one handed... doing your hair, make-up, brushing your teeth, washing one hand at a time, dishes, cooking dinner, blogging, making lists, using your phone, etc.

5. Moms wake up at the slightest baby noise and dad's would sleep through a train going through the house.

6. Being out in public with your baby and needing to use the restroom becomes a tricky situation.  You clearly can't leave your baby in the shopping cart while you pop into the restroom.  Soooo you have to park your cart, hold your baby and take them into the stall with you.  #awesomebondingtime Or shop QUICKLY and hurry home.

7. The world is not a very stroller/baby/mom friendly place.
Let me give you some evidence of this...
Homegoods and Einsteins have public restrooms but NO changing stations so I had to leave the store and change Olive in the car.
All store doors are heavy, hard to open and aren't easy to get through with a stroller.
Parking spots are too squishy; it's really hard to park and get the car seat out without bumping into the car next door.
Restaurants have sketchy car seat set ups.  Some are prepared for a car seat and others look at you like you are crazy for bringing a baby to their eating establishment.
I will say that other moms are helpful and many times grab the door for me when I get stuck.

8. Babies need a full time laundry staff!  Olive goes through several outfits, blankets, bibs a day and it's a challenge to keep up with all of her pint sized laundry.  Luckily my husband takes care of this job.

9. You have to pack so many baby things in order to be prepared when you leave the house.  I've got two changes of clothes, 10ish diapers, wipes, extra paci's, blanket, bottles, insulated milk carrier, hand sanitizer, bibs and more.  I should probably add a change of clothes for myself seeing as I've already been barfed on or slimed while we were out and about.  It's like packing for a weekend getaway to go to Target for a quick errand.  Luckily, I'm pretty good at keeping her diaper bag stocked so that I'm able to just grab her bag and go.

10. Everyone will want to talk to and TOUCH your baby!  True story... strangers will grab her hands, kiss her feet and want to hold her.  Good thing we've already had the stranger danger talk... I guess I should work on my mean face to scare people away because the combo of my smile and Olive's cuteness... we must be some sort of serious people magnet.

11. I remember hearing people say that new moms need to remember to eat meals, brush their teeth and shower regularly.  I use to think this was silly because who would forget to do these things, but people, it's TRUE!  Lunch time rolls around, my stomach is growling fiercely and I realize I never ate breakfast.  These little people are intense!

12. There are a million baby gadgets out there to buy.  They are expensive and it's hard to know exactly what your baby will like.  You can get by without a lot of them and some will literally save your sanity.  I'll have to come up with my favorites list and my can do without list for a future post.

It seems like all things baby related are somewhat controversial so do what is best for you and your baby.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

I hope you have a nice & relaxing Father's day, Dad!

 Flashback to almost 32 years ago...

I'm impressed that you were sporting a monogrammed sweater :)

We are all lucky to have you in our lives!!  Love, Whitney

Happy 1st Father's Day!

I'm sending Happy Father's Day wishes to my sweet husband, Olive's dad.

Dear Kevin, You've been a dad for 18 whole days and who would've thought we would be so happy to say that we aren't sleeping great, we've been pooped on literally, we are no longer the boss of our schedules, we've been sneezed on and leaving the house to run an errand requires packing a suitcase??  This tiny little girl has stolen our hearts.  Your Little Liv sure does love you a ton already.  We are both lucky to have you!  Thanks for being such a helpful, supportive and loving dad.

Love, Whitney & Olive

Tips for Packing

I'm working on packing up my whole life and moving across the country.

I have pinned several tips for packing 

but I'd love to have any of your expert tips :)

These are a few of my favorites:

Leave clothes on their hangers.

Color code boxes by the room they need to end up in.

 

Pack your plates vertically because they'll be less likely to break.

via buzzfeed

(this link has 33 more great tips for packing)

Relish the Charms of the Present

via laybabylay

Weekly Highlights

The highlights of my week were...

1. Enjoying the baby smiles that show up more and more these days

2. The whole family is enjoying the plentiful supply of fruit these days.

3. My parents were in town to meet Olive and we got to do lots of fun things.  She loved all the extra attention.

4.  We went to our first baseball game of the season.

The baby loved it and I loved the Dippin Dots :) 

 5. It's been a while since I'd been miniature golfing so it was fun to go with my parents.

Linking up with TheLaurenElizabeth and InstaFriday.

Family Mobile

Kevin said he had an idea that he wanted to run by me a few weeks ago.  He said he was thinking of trading in his car to get a larger family mobile for us.  I wasn't thrilled with the idea because I was hugely pregnant, trying to wrap up the school year and preparing to have a baby.  I told him that if he had time to look at cars and do research on a new/used car, then he could go for it, but I wouldn't be much help.  He said he was thinking it would be hard for me to get a car seat in and out of my car so he wanted to look for a smallish SUV.  So he busied himself looking at local cars for sale and narrowed down the field.  He surprised me with my favorite Jamba Juice one afternoon and said he wanted to show me his top 3 picks of used cars.  I figured we might end up going home with a car because Kevin had been researching things for weeks and the last time we looked at cars we went home with one that day.  I appreciate the fact that he did all the leg work and I got to come in at the end to approve the deal.

I tend to have expensive taste so I tried not to look around too much and just wait to see what Kevin found for us.  It turns out that the one car that caught my eye was Kevin's top pick for us.  He'd arranged for us to do some test driving.  I peeked inside several cars and we went for a drive.  We ruled out some for reasons like odd interior color, not a cute car and loved some because of the extras and size.  We both agreed on our favorite and borrowed it to go out to dinner to talk it over.  We felt good about the trade in and headed back to the dealership to seal the deal.  A few hours later after many signatures, raiding the salesman's candy jar and cleaning out our car, we were the proud owners of a new to us car!  I'm loving it already.  It's bigger, safer and car seat friendly.  I've already changed many diapers in the back which would have been impossible in my previous car.  Great find Kev!!

We said goodbye to the Insight on May 22

and HELLO to the Nissan Rogue!!

I'm always surprised at the things my husband pays attention to... as we were driving home with our new car he asks if I've ever heard of a "Push Gift".  I had but was shocked that he was bringing it up.  (If you haven't heard of a push gift, it's a gift that you give your wife after she goes through all the pushing of child birth).  He went on to say that he hoped I like my push gift :)  How could I not?!?!