My two favorite books from March

I don't have a lot of time to read these days but I do make room during Hudson's morning nap, to read at least a chapter. I don't trust myself to read before bed because I am a "one more chapter" kind of girl and before I know it the book is done and it's 4 am!
Last Month I read two great books, the first is a MUST READ for anyone with a baby (or two) ;). Seriously Healthy Child, Healthy World is an amazing book. It made me strive harder to create a green home for our little Hudson! This is a great read even if you don't have a baby around!

Next was Reading with Babies, Toddlers and Twos "A guide to laughing, learning and growing together through books". This has been my go to guide for reading with Hudson. It talks a lot about the importance of reading to children but it goes even further and lists the best books for each age group. Hudson has loved every suggestion and it has really inspired me to slow down and read with him more often. We went from 1 or 2 books a day, to  10 - 12 books a day!!!

I hope you'll give one of these books a try, honestly they have been two of my favorites!!

In other news: WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!! ;) More info on that in another post but I just wanted to let you know! ;)

It's black . . . it's white

It's black it's white,
It's a pillow for my living room!

The above was funnier if you think about Michael Jackson's 'Black or White' song! Only a little funnier . . . maybe not funny at all. :(

Since I tackled those black and white elephant curtains for Hudson's nursery, I have been on a major black and white kick. I don't know what it is but something about black and white warmed up with a little light beige is seriously floating my boat these days. I was at Ikea looking for some toy organization options (trying to avoid just piling them into baskets) and this railroad pillow was calling to me! It's Ikea's Stockholm pillow and for $19.99 you get the pillow cover and a feather insert! :) I paired it with a little light beige pillow on our wingback chair!

Next black and white purchase was . . . this baby blanket from Spearmint Baby. The Eco Cross blanket was a bit of a splurge item for us but it was well worth it! I always put a blanket on the living room floor for Hudson so I thought something that looked nice was important, something that holds up to the occasional spit up or bottle spill was equally important! It's made from 80% recycled cotton and it has held up to many . . . many washings well.

I hope you are enjoying our little black and white touches as much as I am!
From these pictures you can probably tell we have switched the living room up . . . yet again! I am writing the post for that up this week, should be up by Wednesday. Long story short . . . we needed more room for Hudson's track and field training (aka. learning to walk)

I'll be back tomorrow with my two favorite books from March!

Hudson's Nursery Update

There is so much cuteness available for babies! It is all I can do to keep my wallet shut while shopping. I am working on our new must haves list for babies (if you haven't seen my last list it's here). But I wanted to share a couple updates on Hudson's nursery. First off it is still my favorite room in the house, the two toned paint scheme really floats my boat and with a couple of added touches it's finally done . . . just in time to move. ;).

We didn't change much, well we really change anything, we just added some special touches. First we added different pillows to the chair. It's a long story involving pee, and some pretty amazing poop, long story short the chair was cleaned and we had to get new pillows. They are both from Ikea. I love the black and white one, and the teal one has such a nice velvet texture to it.

We couldn't fit a lamp or a floor lamp in Hudson's room so I was thinking of maybe adding a sconce? But while I was at Ikea buying pillow covers I saw this eye chart sign that lights up! Perfect!! It's kind of graphic and sits flat against the wall.

Next was my absolute favorite purchase for Hudson ever . . . this Danish Mobile. It cost almost as much as his crib but I loved it!!! I can see it hanging inside a tent when he's older, or just in the corner of his room! Heck, I love it so much if he doesn't want it when he's older I might just hang it above my bed! ;)

With Hudson up and trying to walk with the grace of a three legged, sleepy baby deer I figured something soft in his room might be a good idea. I ordered this floor pouf from etsy (here's the link to the store). The shop owner let you pick the fabric and the piping and I should also mention that it is very good construction. The pouf cost just over $50 with stuffing and everything.

We needed a small table beside the chair. We were just placing the bottles on the ground and that led to the great bottle leak of 2013 on the carpet so I found this ceramic OWL side table. I loved the little table and if you can't put a huge ceramic owl with a flat head in a babies room . . . where else are you going to put one?

The owl is from Urban Barn.
The corner of his room is looking about the same, a few more books and toys but generally the same as it did 8 months ago.

Lastly, I had to share the best $7 I have every spent. Sneaking in and out of a babies room has never been easier! I ordered mine off of Etsy, the store is called Latchy Catchy.  It catches the door latch so you just open and close the door. Lee noticed it and asked how much it cost. I thought he was going to say it was silly, I answered $7 and he said it's worth $100!! ;) haha

I hope you like Hudson's room as much as we do. I was a little sad that we had just finished his nursery and now we are moving, but it has given me some ideas on things I definitely want to do again in his new nursery, and some ideas of things I wouldn't do again. More on that in another post! :)

4 Steps to an Organic Bed

I am not sure I have ever valued sleep more in my life than I do right now. . . a 9 month old baby can make that happen. I have spent more than 1 early morning laying in bed, staring at the video monitor praying for those wiggly arms and legs to calm down and fall back asleep. And I'm not going to lie . . . I have bartered with god at some very un-godly hour for just 10 more minutes of sleep. There was also one very desperate morning when I offered Lee $100 to get the baby . . . I think he could sense my desperation because he didn't even point out that we are a single income family so, me giving him $100 was essentially, him giving himself $100. ;)

We decided that investing in our sleep at this point in our life would be a very good idea. I searched for organic bedding, mattress pads and pillows. Creating a completely organic bed has been on my wish list for a few years now, and while we haven't taken the plunge with an organic latex mattress, we did take the plunge on an organic latex mattress pad and organic latex pillows

I started with an organic latex mattress topper, after sleeping on it for 4+ months I can honestly say it was so worth the investment. We were planning on eventually investing in an organic latex mattress, but the mattress pad is working out so well for us we've put any plans for a new mattress on hold.

Here's our Organic 100% natural Latex Mattress Topper details:
-It's from Sleeponlatex.com We were really happy with their customer service, they helped us pick out the right firmness for us and shipping was fast.
-No Fillers or synthetic latex, only natural latex.
-It is OKEO standard certified to be free of any harmful chemicals and is certified to only contain latex from organically grown rubber trees.

Lee mentioned that he felt cooler at night, so I looked it up and because these toppers have holes in the latex foam it actually keeps you cooler. That was enough for Lee to hear and ordered up the pillows as well, because nothing is as satisfying as the cool side of the pillow. They are made from the same Natural Latex as the mattress topper, except in a rounder shape (if that makes sense), and they are kind of like sleeping on a cloud! Honestly if you don't need a new mattress topper or it's not in your budget right now, a couple of these pillows will rock your world. They also have different pillows for side sleepers and for back sleepers. I am a side sleeper, and Lee is a back snorer . . . errr I mean sleeper, so we each got our own pillow fit perfectly for us.

So after the mattress topper and pillows were ordered we had the healthy foundation set, on to the fluff . . . organic fluff that is. We chose organic sheets from Target . . . seriously organic sheets for around $50 I am in!
We used the same organic cotton, woven blanket also from Target. And because I need something a little warmer (we live in Canada), we picked up the organic pin tucked duvet cover from West Elm.

And that's all there is. It was a bit of an investment but seriously, sleep is at a premium these days so it was money well spent. We are very happy with our sleeping situation. One thing we weren't expecting but some of Lee's back pain went away. He has always had a bit of back pain (nothing serious) but it's mostly gone now. :) I have recently had some back pain start up but I blame that on our 26 lb 9 month old not our bed. ;)

In conclusion, my 4 Steps to an organic bed are:

1. An Organic Latex Mattress or and Organic Latex Mattress Topper 
2. Organic Latex Pillows
3. Organic Sheets
4. Organic Duvet Cover

*I received a few questions on the second photo, yes that is a zippered mattress pad cover. They are made from 100% Bamboo and are completely washable. I would definitely recommend the covers from Sleep on Latex as well. Then you can just wash away the dust bunnies or dead skin (gross I know but somebody had to say it).

Good Housekeeping

Too excited not to share, looks like we snuck into Good Housekeeping's

April Issue!!!

A small feature but seriously a dream come true! There was a phone interview and everything, it was pretty cool. I have flipped through the pages of Good Housekeeping since I was a kid, dreaming of what my future house would look like. My mom and grandmother have always had stacks of Good Housekeeping around so to be inside the magazine feels very full circle for me!

Thank you again to all of our readers! Things like this are only possible with the support of amazing readers like you.

 

I will be back tomorrow to share our new organic bed :) Because with a 9 month old sleep has become a precious commodity. ;)

Pack it up, Pack it in

Let me begin . . .

We are MOVING!!!! And we are pretty excited about it!

I will start from the beginning. Lee has always had a bit of a commute to work, about 50 minutes each way . . . that's almost 2 whole hours lost in traffic (and that's assuming there were no major accidents or incidents on the roads).
That alone was enough to have us thinking about moving, but Hudson is another major reason. He is a little boy and all the 'warnings' I've received about little boys from friends basically leads me to believe we needed a bigger yard, and stain resistant everything. ;)

We decided to list the house Feb.27th and we had 5 offers from 6 showings by Feb. 28th. We weren't expecting it to go that quickly so we hadn't bought or really looked at anything, so we are a bit behind the gun. So what I really mean is we're homeless, with an 9 month old baby. ;) We are lucky and have late closing dates so we don't have to be out of here until the end of May.

While we don't have a house yet we do have an area picked out. We are moving to a beautiful town with a small town feel, close to beaches and not too far the city! And the best part is, it will be 10 minutes from Lee's work!!!! To say we are excited would be a huge understatement.

As soon as we know where we are moving I will let you know. We are moving to a more expensive area so while we will be increasing our budget, we will be decreasing our house size by almost 1000 square feet, and definitely looking at older homes. But older homes have tons of character, so I am super excited . . . at least until I have to downsize my shoe collection, say it ain't so!! ;)

So that's our BIG news.

It's Official

Hi, my name is Ashli.

I have been gone so long I feel like I needed to introduce myself again. ;)

All joking aside I wanted to thank everyone who sent me an email or a tweet or a message making sure we were ok. We were just fine. Life gets busy with a baby around, I wanted to get our routine and life under control before I could find time for my first baby (the blog).
It's been a really nice break and I can now report that most days, our life is routine and under control . . . most days. Although once a month, on the full moon, he goes a little crazy and is a little hard to handle (I now have a better idea of how Lee feels once a month ;).

Hudson is a bouncing 9 month old baby now. He can walk with limited assistance, he can pull up on everything, but has almost no interest in crawling! He eats everything that's put down in front of him (including a lemon wedge once, he made a sour face then went back for more). He is such an easy baby, he can go days at a time without crying, he sleeps through the night, and easily entertains himself. Although he doesn't travel well, he has about a 30 minute limit in his carseat before he turns into part baby, part zombie and starts growling and trying to eat his feet.

Honestly the last 9 months have been amazing, especially this month because . . .
Hudson's Adoption Order finally came in the mail and he is now officially our SON!!!!!! There is no word big enough to explain how happy we are. I am a mom, Lee is a dad and Hudson is our son, we are a family!

I put together a little video to commemorate this huge milestone in our lives, if you have a second please have a peek.

 The journey might not have looked exactly like I thought it would, but what I wake up to everyday looks exactly as I always dreamed (although honestly in my dreams my baby didn't wake up until at least 9am, reality looks slightly different . . . about 3 hours different to be exact). ;)


I will be back this week with an update on Hudson's nursery, an update on our new bed (errr. . .  kind of) and a HUGE announcement tomorrow!!!

Thank you again for all the love and support while I was gone!