I discovered it one morning when I was trying to put on my make-up and hold a wiggly and fussy Josey at the same time. I needed her to be still, so in desperation, I turned on the tv and found Dora. She loved it. It was hilarious to watch her interact with the show.

Since then, that is our go-to show for when we need both hands for a few minutes. Call us bad parents, if you must, but I am grateful to find something that makes her so happy when I must use both hands for whatever I’m doing. Even if it’s tv!

Here’s a clip of her watching it and dancing around/talking to Dora:

And for those of you who enjoy comedy, here is Brian Regan discussing Dora the Explorer. (Skip ahead to 7 minutes into the video.)

It is especially hilarious if you’ve ever seen the show before. I can’t watch it with Josey without hearing his voice during the “map” song!

(If the video doesn’t work for you, here is the link. Enjoy!)

~Meghan

Until the nasty stove that came with our house died. Actually, the oven died while the stove top still worked.

The people who lived in our house before us apparently NEVER cleaned their stove after cooking, and the result was food so charred to the surface that NOTHING I did in years of cleaning could remove it.

I was eager for a new, clean stove, but I couldn’t justify buying one because it cooked just fine.

I had tried everything. Hired professionals before we moved in. Scrubbed, scraped, and wiped it down. Used every tip I could find on Pinterest. Nothing worked.

And then the oven died. Suddenly our low priority oven became a high priority to replace!

I looked and looked, decided to get an LG stove so the stainless would match seamlessly, and started shopping deals. Since we will have this stove for a long time, I wanted to get one I would love. But I did NOT want to pay full price.

My friend, Jenn, is an appliance shopping wizard. She can get anything for a great price and walked me through it. We ended up getting our new stove at about 25% off including tax, shipping, and hauling away our old one. Heck yes!

It arrived yesterday, after about a month with no oven. Ours has a small oven on top and a regular sized one below that can do convection baking. Woo!!!

There are 5 burners…and they’re all clean!

And the middle burner also comes with a griddle. That was kinda cool.

I’m so excited for a new stove/oven in our house!! I love it and had to share the excitement! Yay!

~Meghan

But, in the effort to keep it real around here, I’ll just tell you that being a mama isn’t a Hallmark card.

My house gets messy in no time.

I had to cut my shower short yesterday to get Josey because she woke up and was crying in her crib.

I’m still trying to lose baby weight, but I skipped my run yesterday.

Then I called my husband and said, “I didn’t run today, and I don’t want to talk about it. So don’t ask me about it when you get home.” I’d rather warn him than snap at him out of frustration at everything else in my day being off.

I haven’t worn make-up in two..three?…a few days.

My hair is usually in a ponytail or something even messier.

Most days I don’t know what I’m making for dinner until it’s time to eat.

And I actually begged my three month old daughter to quit crying and just eat yesterday. Then I gave her some Tylenol and a hug. And got out the pump.

I have prayed for patience, strength, and calm.

But in spite of all the craziness going on with a teething, hungry (growth spurt), 16 pound, 7 ounce baby who wants to be held non-stop right now, I can say that I still wouldn’t trade it for anything.

When she was screaming in my ear for 20 minutes straight yesterday, I just pulled her back so I could see her face and said, “I love you.”

Not because I am some kind of awesome mom or have saint like patience…or have gone deaf and don’t mind the screaming. It’s because it hurts me to see her hurting, and she really must not feel good. My little ray of sunshine doesn’t cry like that often.

And when you’re little and miserable and want to be held non-stop, you need the person taking care of you to look at you with love instead of exasperation. And so, I want her to know that from the very beginning, she has been loved no matter how my day was going.

And that I will pick her over shaved legs.

And pretty hair and make up.

And a clean house.

And a structured day.

And a back that doesn’t hurt.

And sleep.

You always hear that about a mama’s love. And I guess, in that way, Hallmark got it right.

(Just don’t expect my house to be clean if you show up unexpectedly.)

~Meghan

It was an early mother’s day lunch since we won’t make it out to Covington on Sunday. Lisa made chicken salad and set a beautiful table, and I brought a big bowl of cut up fresh fruit and some yummy strawberry lemonade.

I actually made a HUGE batch, and this is all that was left. I didn’t want to make a punch- just a simple lemonade.

But the color still made it nice and pretty in glasses on the table, and it was much healthier than most punches anyway (which often have sprite/ginger ale, sherbert/ice cream, etc.).

If you want to try it for yourself, here’s what I did:

2 cans of lemonade concentrate

1 carton of fresh strawberries, washed and tops cut off

water, to taste

I combined the strawberries and the two cans of lemonade concentrate in the blender on liquefy. Once it was a nice, smooth mixture, I poured it into a huge bowl.

Then I added water until it was the strength of flavor I liked. I covered the bowl and set it in the fridge to chill overnight and really let the flavors infuse.

That’s it! So yummy and easy.

I think it would be so cute with some lemons and strawberries sliced and floating in it, but I didn’t do that. It was a hit anyway.

If you want a pretty but simple, fairly healthy, bright drink to serve this Mother’s Day (or anytime), try this one out!

  ~Meghan

The recovery is hard and painful. I coughed in the hospital and cried. I laughed when we brought her home, and it sent me reeling in pain.

Nursing hurts because not only is it a painful thing on its own at first, but it also hurts to have the pressure on your incision. So you have to find creative positions in which to feed the baby. Which is especially difficult when people come over, and you want to be modest.

But then, six weeks out, you just start to turn a corner. It hurts less. And eight weeks out, you feel like a different person.

Since then, I’ve only had to use ice packs a couple of times. I still feel pain sometimes when or after I exercise, but I’ve been told it will take until 6 months from the date of surgery before I feel 100% again.

So, when things began to turn around, I started to look in the mirror and judge.

Stretchmarks? Check.

Flab? Check.

Scar? Check.

Loss of muscle tone? Check.

Belly hanging over my scar? Check.

I won’t even go into my weight.

I waver back and forth between self-loathing and pride. I hate how my body looks now, but I am amazed at what it accomplished. I grew a baby – a mammoth baby that was too big to fit through my pelvis- and brought her safely into this world.

I might have stretchmarks, but I sure as heck earned them. I carried a 9 lb, 2 oz, 22 inch baby in my 5’2.75″ frame. DANG. I don’t like the stretching, but I’m proud of what it represents.

I carried a life. I grew a strong, beautiful daughter. I intend to do it again (and again) someday. I don’t regret what I gave up.

But then I look in the mirror and compare myself to the other moms I know that are tiny and fit within weeks of birth. Even some who had c-sections.

At first I felt sorry for myself. And then I decided I was going to kick this fat to the curb now that I was physically capable of doing something about it.

So I started the couch-to-5K program. I hate running, but it seems like I am jealous of every runner I know, so that’s the body I want. This program has actually made it manageable for me so far, though I am doing it on the treadmill for now, thanks to allergies and Georgia heat.

Then, when we went to the mountains, Tom and I went hiking a lot. If you would have told me a month and a half before that I’d be hiking all over while carrying a 15 pound baby girl, I would have laughed you out the door. But it happened!

I’ve also changed my diet, both for my sake and for Josey’s. I’ll go into more of that later. I told Tom that if I don’t get healthy and fit doing this, I give up. It’s donuts from here on out. haha

So, here I am. Three months and some change from having my abdomen sliced open and a watermelon sized baby pulled from it. It’s nice to know that it really does get easier after the first several weeks.

It’s still a mental, emotional and physical battle to get back to a body I feel comfortable with, but I’m making the strides.

And I’ve found that as long as I’m doing what I can to be healthy, I give myself a lot more grace for the fact that I don’t look just how I want yet. I know I’m doing what I can.

If you’ve got a c-section ahead of you and haven’t gone through it before, take heart. It’s hard. But it gets better.

And it’s definitely worth it.

~Meghan

Not much has changed except that now we can see her expressions as she hears it. So fun! She LOVES it.

And I think she especially loves all the attention of having her daddy play guitar and sing to her. Thankfully, she likes our music because we don’t play nursery songs so much as stuff we like (everything from punk to John Mayer to oldies). haha

Here’s a video where Tom was playing a song called My Life Story by MXPX, and Josey was having a blast.

I can’t wait until she has her own guitar and Tom is teaching her how to play. That should be pretty cute.

~Meghan

But when it’s just our little family at home, she has a lot to say, laughs a good bit, yells when she wants something, and kicks around and waves her arms like crazy. And yes, she sure knows how to cry.

And how to fake a cry.

And how to fake a cough, even. Her pediatrician and I had a good laugh when she faked one during a doctor’s visit last Friday. That’s probably the one place she isn’t going to fool anyone.

Here’s a video of Jo “talking” to me and Tom. It’s so funny to us the way that she will make noises as if she is saying separate words and full sentences. We also love her various expressions as she shares her thoughts.

Watch out, world. It looks like this one might be as loquacious as her mama.
~Meghan

I’m so glad we’ve got a baby of our own so we can make movies with her now that she can roll her eyes at later. Ya know, when she’s 13.

Until then, we’re gonna crack up as she rocks out.
~Meghan

ps- If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, just skip to the chorus and watch from there. The end of the video gets some great air guitar going on.

ps2- This was filmed at our rental in the mountains.

In the past, I’ve made the liquid version, but this time around, I wanted to do the powdered kind to see if it would work as well. I was cleaning out my laundry room and thought it might also be nice to not have a five gallon bucket of soap in there taking up space.

So, here is the powdered homemade laundry detergent recipe I used (thank to the Duggar’s website):

*1 grated bar of Fels Naptha Bar Soap

*1 cup of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

*1/2 cup of Borax

I also added some Purex crystals to the batch I made for me and Tom, for the scent. I left a smaller batch “crystal-free” for Josey’s laundry.

Mix all ingredients, and you’re done!

You use a tablespoon of detergent per load. Easy, peasy!

I made a double batch for mine and Tom’s laundry. Here’s a picture:

I have nothing against the liquid detergent. It has served me well for the last two years!

But I am LOVING the powdered detergent.

Not only do I get to keep it in a cute little jar with a cute little tablespoon to scoop it, but it takes up less space, makes less mess, and it’s even faster to make. I also don’t have to haul around a 5 gallon bucket every few weeks to refill the detergent dispenser.

Another benefit that I didn’t think of until I was traveling with a baby, is that it travels easily! I can always count on something getting dirty from spit-up or an overflowing diaper or…something!

So now I just scoop a few tablespoons into a ziplock bag and pack it when we go out of town. I don’t have to worry about stains!

(Here’s a tip, if it you don’t have any stain removers on hand: Rinse the spot off then make a paste of the laundry detergent and water. Rub the paste into the dirty spot. When you can, launder as usual. I did this with a onesie that a diaper had blown out on, and it washed right out two days later when we got back from vacation!)

So if you’re trying to decide between the two, this is my vote!

~Meghan

One thing I always get a kick out of when on vacation is the way people decorate …and I use that term loosely…their vacation homes. It seems like people just buy random junk and then, when they can’t think of where to put it, they say, “I know! I’ll put it in the cabin!” (Or beach house if that’s what they own.)

I did a quick once-over of the cabin while Tom was showering on our last morning there. I mention what Tom was doing because I didn’t get to take a picture of the towel holder in the bathroom. It was a tiny wooden stirrup. Yes, as in where your foot goes on a saddle. And it had what looked like was a miniature sheriff’s star on it.

…exactly.

I keep looking at this picture and wishing I had paid more attention to this weird statue on the porch by the bench on the right. I have no idea what this thing is about.

Moving inside, it was very obvious that the owners were very patriotic.

Even the fridge was patriotic…

But the fridge was also home to a freaky gnome. (I find all gnomes freaky. They’re not for me.)

Here’s a random face on the wall.

There was also a lot of stuff to reference skiing. Which I would get if we were in the mountains of some other state, but in Georgia, nobody skis. Or have moose roaming free.

In one bedroom, there was a wall of famous people with plastic instead of glass in the frames. Our take-away was that they are Elvis fans. And that they don’t want someone to knock a picture to the floor and shatter glass.

In the other bedroom, there was a really random assortment. An old photo of two young men about to have a duel next to an “ethnic Raggedy Ann doll” (I looked it up online, and that’s what it’s called).

All of that was surrounded with bear paraphernalia (which at least made more sense because there actually are bears in the north Georgia mountains).

On the other side of that bedroom is a picture of what I assume to be the owners’ grandkids dressed in saloon attire, a mirror surrounded by antlers, a canteen, and a metal star.

And then there’s the decorative stuffed fox on the mantel. Next to the vase of fake flowers and the potpourri being held up by antlers.

That was our favorite. We were tempted to put it on the ground and see what the dogs would do, but then I decided that I didn’t want to have to pay for damages to an animal that was already dead.

It’s fascinating to me to see the things people think make a place look decorated and homey. I really did love the cabin we stayed in, but it was no exception to the “vacation home is a place for all my random crap” rule that people seem to live by.

I actually look forward to seeing all the weird stuff that people use to decorate their home(s) away from home. What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever come across in a rental?
~Meghan