Help Baby Faster with NeilMed Naspira Aspirator

Disclosure: I received products from Moms Meet in exchange for this post. All opinions expressed are my own.

 My daughter is almost two, and she has been very blessed to rarely be sick. My 7 year old always had a stuffy nose and I remember frequently having to suction his nose out so he could have a little bit of relief. When I first heard about aspirators that use suction from someone's mouth, I was honestly grossed out, but I've heard so many moms say how much they love these products, so I was excited to try out the NeilMed Naspira Aspirator!

Crochet Winter Hat

I have fallen in love with these winter hats with ear flaps! They are the only hats my 18 month old will leave on and I love that I can tie the strings under her chin to make sure she stays warm when we're out and about...

I used the 9 month pattern from Alli Crafts since my daughter is still super tiny, and I added a flower which I learned how to make from Crochet Rochelle. These hats make wonderful gifts, and they stretch well to fit baby's head for quite a while!

DIY Baby Food: Peas

My baby girl is now one and no longer eats "mush", but when she was just learning to eat solid foods, I decided to try making some of it. I was shocked at how easy it was!

To make peas into baby food:

1. Purchase frozen peas. I bought frozen peas at our local Aldi...I was even more thrilled to find their organic peas super cheap. 
2. Use a steamer basket in one of your pots. Fill it with about an inch of water (make sure it doesn't come over the bottom of the basket). Cover with a lid.
3. Put that on the stove and when the water boils, pour the peas into the steamer basket. Cover.
4. Let it steam for 3-5 minutes and check to see if the peas are tender. I had to stir mine because the middle peas would still be frozen together.
5. After the peas are tender, remove from heat and rinse in cold water to stop them from cooking more.
6. Pour the peas into a blender or food processor. Puree until smooth, and add water as needed to get the consistency you want. I usually had to add 1/2 cup or more so they would blend.
7. Pour the puree into an ice cube tray and freeze. When they are frozen, you can remove them from the tray and put them in a freezer bag.
8. When it's time to eat, put a cube of peas in a bowl in the microwave. I heated ours on 50% power for 45 seconds and it was perfect. If it's too thin, add some rice cereal to thicken it up.

This might seem like a lot of steps, but it truly goes quickly. I bought my peas for $0.89 and would get at least 1 1/2 ice cube trays worth, with each cube making about an ounce of food (12-16 ounces total?). The store bought baby food was $1.19 for two containers of baby food.  All in all, it was worth the little bit of effort to save some money and to know baby girl was getting food with as few preservatives as possible.

Thank you Parents.com for your guidance :). I’ll be linking up to Making Your Home Sing Sunday, Mama Moments Monday,  Mom’s Library, Clever Chicks Blog Hop, The Mommy Club,

Snuggle your little ones with Huggies

I participated in an Influencer Activation Program on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Huggies & Target. I received samples for this review and a promotional item to thank me for participating.

Prior to July, my husband and I had been out of the diaper game for a few years. It was a lovely break, and now that I am back into full-on diaper mode with our daughter, it's nice to feel a bit more experienced this time around. With my oldest, I used to have to take his socks off at each diaper change because he would inevitably kick the dirty diaper and require new socks as well. Now, I feel confident in leaving baby girl's socks on throughout the diaper change without her kicking the dirty diaper.

Butterfly Mobile

When I was expecting my boys, we were in school and had a very small income. I spent as little as possible and we relied mostly on gifts or hand-me-downs from family and friends. Suffice it to say, decor was basically non-existent for my boys.

This time, however, I have loved decorating a nursery for our baby girl! The room she is in was already painted a sage green and I knew I wanted lilac/purple butterflies as the accent. My husband declared that purple wasn't girly enough and pink needed to be involved, so we ended up with purple and pink, and I love how her little corner of our home has turned out.

After searching for a mobile that fit the style of the nursery and not finding one, I decided to make a mobile for our daughter and here it is:

I used the butterfly felt soft toy pattern at Sew Sweet to make the butterflies. The only things I did different than she did, was to stuff the wings so they wouldn't flop down while hanging, and I sewed circles/hearts onto the wings. This was a great project for me while pregnant because it kept my hand busy while I was sitting/resting (which I had to do a lot!).

I sewed some purple ribbon to the backs of the butterflies and glued them to the inside hoop of an embroidery hoop I bought at Walmart. I glued more ribbon to the hoop and hung it from a hook.

It’s a Girl!

I’ve been keeping a little secret, and you can tell by the title that we are finally getting a little girl in our family! Everyone is very excited, and my boys are so glad that I won’t be the only girl in our family anymore. She will be joining us sometime in July and I can only imagine how much things are going to change around here…I’m so used to dinosaurs, dirt, cars, and everything boy!

As soon as we found out, I came home and started looking for patterns to start sewing for my sweet little girl and here’s what I’ve come up with so far: The top two pictures are from Made by Rae’s Little Geranium dress pattern. I love the details from the gathered waist to the cute little pocket and can’t wait to dress up my little girl in this. I think this pattern is more complicated than other dresses and definitely more time consuming because of the gathering and lining.

The bottom dress is the Peasant Dress from Sew Much Ado. This is a perfect dress for beginner sewers with mostly simple lines and a casing with elastic at the arms and neck. I added purple ribbon on the bottom to make it a bit more girly but think this will be perfect for the summer heat.

I found the idea to make the peasant dress and matching diaper cover from Quilt Story. You can find the diaper cover pattern at Made. The diaper cover was tricky for me because it doesn’t lie flat as you are making the casing…a little annoying for someone who is obsessive over sewing.

So, there will likely be more pink, frills, lace, etc here in the future. I can’t wait to share it with you :).

Fold & Snap Bib Tutorial

Last year our friends had a baby girl so I decided to send them a few fold & snap bibs. These bibs are wonderful because you can either leave them open to protect baby’s shirt or snap up the bottom to catch crumbs as they fall from baby’s mouth.
I first saw the idea on Made by Rae and fell in love with these simple-to-make, practical bibs that are so easy to personalize!