^^^one of the last bottles Rooney ever had

Formula to milk:

We decided to wean Rooney from formula to organic whole milk. There didn’t seem to be an awesome alternative for whole milk (for our family), so we did what families do and introduced her to cow’s milk. (A couple months later, we switched to coconut milk.) Anyway, the milk switch for us went quite smooth. We did it before we switched to sippy cups, because I thought it would be easier. She didn’t seem to notice much of a difference in taste.

1. When you’re ready to switch, you’ll likely be using 100% formula or breastmilk*.
2. Switch to 50% milk + 50% formula. I would mix 4 oz of formula and then add 4 oz of milk. We did this for a full week.
3. Switch to 25% formula + 75% milk. We did this until our formula was gone, so as not to waste it.
4. Switch to 100% milk. The first couple times she had straight milk, she would take the bottle out of her mouth and look at it, and then put it back in. Almost like she was thinking This looks right, but tastes a little different. Still, she would drink the whole thing (8 oz bottles)!

That’s it! It was fairly easy for us. I have no idea how much whole milk tastes like breast milk or formula, but my daughter didn’t seem to notice until she was drinking 100% whole milk.

Bottles to sippy cups:

I was really not looking forward to this transition. The bottle had been our crutch, you know? Sometimes it was the only thing that could calm her down if she woke up screaming. But, it had to be done!

1. Buy sippy cups. We use the 10 oz. Tommee Tippee Explora Lil Sippee cups (with handles and without). They leak occasionally, but the soft spout is supposed to feel just like a bottle. You can start to introduce these as early as 6 months. I will likely do that with my next kid.
2. In the morning, instead of giving them a bottle, put them in their high chair with a sippy cup and some food. Rooney much preferred a banana over milk, so I used her excitement for a “nana” to our advantage.
3. If they have a meltdown or begin to hit themselves in the head (which is what Rooney did for some reason), decide how strict you want to be. I usually gave right in if it happened for breakfast. At night, if she got upset we’d just put her down for bed without a bottle (her bedtime was close enough to dinnertime that I didn’t think she was hungry).

We just kept offering the sippy, and she got better and better at drinking out of it, and she eventually stopped throwing a fit. Her bottle was her comfort, but after a few days she got more used to the idea. Then, after a week or so, we were completely done with bottles. The daytime feedings were easy to drop so it was really just the morning and night ones that were hard.

Our pediatrician said to get her off bottles by 15 months, so I’m glad we were able to do that. And it has been awesome to not have to wash them!

*We didn’t breastfeed long (4 weeks), so I can’t speak to transitioning from breastmilk/breastfeeding to milk. I think Mama Natural has a great post on how to wean from breastfeeding.

The post How We Transitioned From Formula in Bottles to Milk in Sippy Cups appeared first on Words of Williams.

This Video Is All About:

• Where we were when we decided to take Financial Peace University

• My (fake) love language

• How long our first budget took us and why it ended in tears

• The first line item on our budget

Watch the other three videos to hear how we learned about money growing up, the college years and our first jobs, and our early years of marriage.

Related Blog Posts:

• Deciding to take Financial Peace University
• Download our free budget spreadsheet
• How to Make Your First Budget

The post Our Money Story, Part 4 (FPU & Our First Budget) appeared first on Words of Williams.

My Favorite Breakfast

Eric used to eat peanut butter toast every single morning and I used to eat a peanut butter sandwich for lunch every day. But we wanted to cut down our grain intake and in doing so I found my new favorite breakfast: organic celery and sunflower seed butter.

This wasn’t an overnight switch. It was probably a switch of 1.5 years. {We’ve found it’s best for us to slowly replace certain foods/habits one at a time with better ones, even if it’s ever so slight.}

Over time we switched from:

• white bread + peanut butter
• to wheat bread + peanut butter
• to wheat bread without HFCS + peanut butter
• to wheat bread without HFCS + natural peanut butter
• to celery + natural peanut butter
• to organic celery + sunflower seed butter

Baby steps! A variety of nut butters is really good for our diets. We like peanut butter and sunflower seed butter (my favorite brand is SunButter) but aren’t fans of almond butter. Many peanut butters have added sugar, so check the ingredients if you are worried about that. We get ours in the Hy-Vee Health Section (though you still have to check labels there).

What’s your go-to breakfast?

*Get a $1 off coupon for SunButter (gluten-free) here.

*My coworker heard that if you eat a vegetable before 10:00 am, you will eat 25% less food all day. I can’t seem to find the research on that, but it’s still crazy, huh?

The post Eat This, Not That / 02 appeared first on Words of Williams.

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Our Biking Gear

You could probably get by with less, and the biking gear you choose for your family totally depends on your needs, your wants and the level of safety you wish to exercise (pun intended). Some links below are affiliate links.

Bikes

• Linus Mixte 3: Again, you can read about Kelsey’s purchase here, but she really looks great on this bike. Like, it-was-meant-for-her good. And I’ve been so pleasantly surprised that she loves riding it. She often requests family bikes rides and a couple times she’s gone by herself for a quick run to the grocery store after Rooney goes to bed to pick up some food or a Redbox movie.

She wanted a city bike that was comfortable, easy to ride and super stylish. Her objectives are commuting to and from places of interest (the ice cream shop) and family bike rides. The internal gears are super slick and easy to use for her.

• Motobecane Phantom CX 61mm: I’m 6’2″ so it was important for me to have a large frame. I ordered my bike from Bikesdirect.com. And, yes, it concerned me that their website is so shady-looking. But, I have a friend at work who ordered a bike from there as well and another biking friend who recommended this particular bike for the things I wanted to do.

I wanted a bike that I could use to cruise to the grocery store, to the farmer’s market and on trails for family bike rides, but also something that I could take out with friends who have road bikes and somewhat keep up. If I had the money, I would totally also get a Linus similar to Kelsey’s. Maybe someday. I’ve made some updates to my bike to make it more comfortable, including a new seat – the Linus touring saddle (eggshell), Ritchey adjustable rise stem (to raise the height of the handlebars) and Bontrager cork tape (the stuff that came with the bike was junk).

Here are some additional items that we felt were essential for biking as a family:

Helmets

Kelsey and I grew up in small towns and we never wore helmets. It was pretty weird for us the first time we rode with them on. It felt so silly, but it’s really necessary this day and age, especially riding around a big city.

• Kelsey’s helmet: Sawako Ribbon Green
• Eric’s helmet: Bern Macon Summer Matte
• Rooney’s helmet: Bell Infant Sprout

Child Carrier

We himmed and hawed about this for many moons before deciding on the rear-mount child carrier. It was between the rear-mount carrier and a trailer-style carrier; we didn’t really consider any where the child rides in front of you, although they do look interesting, I feel like it would be hard to steer that way.

We had intended to put the seat on my bike, but for some reason the way it was positioned it was messing with my brakes. It’s probably better for Roo to sit with Kelsey anyway so they can ride on Wednesdays.

• Rooney’s seat: Copilot Taxi Child Bike Carrier

Lights

A must-have for riding at dawn, dusk or dark. We keep it simple with these: Bell Wo Light Set.

Locks

Again, we grew up in small towns where jumping off your bike while it was still moving and heading for the pool diving board was common practice. So, locking up our bikes is still new. We went with simple cable locks.

Miscellaneous

• Water bottle: Polar Insulated 24 oz. to stay hydrated on the ride.

• Topeak tourist rear rack: I got this so I would be able to haul groceries and other goodies. I rode my bike to work one day last month (during Bike to Work Week) and needed a place to hold a few things like deodorant and cologne to spruce up once I got there, so I strapped my messenger bag on the rack and it was pretty slick.

• Repair tool kit: This includes spare tubes, tire levers, CO2 cartridges and a multi-tool.

• Under-saddle bag: Holds the repair tool kit mentioned above.

Future Needs/Wants

Probably more wants than needs, but I’d like a pannier for easy storage when I ride to work, or somewhere that requires me to carry stuff with me. I could use a backpack, but I sweat entirely too much for that to be a viable option. (I’ve asked for a pannier for Father’s Day )

Kelsey needs a little pouch to keep her phone, cash and other small items as well. She has a basket that she got before her bike, and unfortunately it just doesn’t fit the bike as well as we’d hoped.

This post was way longer than I originally thought it would be. When I started writing, I just kept thinking of all the little things we’ve had to get to make it easy for us to jump on our bikes and go somewhere.

What’s your experience been with family bike rides? 

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It shocks me to see how much Rooney has changed in just 365 days. Especially that last one! Her hand is in her mouth in both photos, but she’s grown so much! And her hair is getting so long!

The post Family Photo Time Capsule appeared first on Words of Williams.

I cut out one full day of work (Wednesdays) and because Rooney goes to day care at the church where I work, I get to see her 19 hours MORE per week than I did when I was at my old job. I added this up the other day and was shocked. You’d think the number would be closer to 9. But NINETEEN? Whoa. This has been great for me in my role as a mother.

But as a wife?

Well, it has affected our marriage a little bit.

Eric has a hard time working on Wednesdays now. He usually comes home really bummed. One day he even left work at lunchtime and hung out with us for the afternoon instead. Sort of like a mental health day. (There are men who love going to work and want their wives to stay at home with the kids — but I’m not married to one of them. Eric would love to work part-time just as much as I do!)

I did some more math and figured out that he actually gets to see Rooney about an hour a week LESS than before

Which I feel sad about, because that wasn’t part of the plan. I’m not sure we could have anticipated that.

And because he and I used to work together, we get to see each other less, too…

I am trying to be happy about finally being fulfilled with my work, but it doesn’t feel fair. I feel lucky, but also guilty about how good I have it! My goal was not to make him sad…only to make me happier. When Tuesday night comes around I just want to scream I don’t have to work tomorrow! but I feel like I have to keep it inside.

How I Try to Ease the Pain

• Errands. This is a big one. I take on most of the errands now (which I do not mind at all … I kind of love it!) I run errands over my lunch break at least three days a week. I get a (boss-approved) one-hour break and I work very close to Target, the mall and the grocery store. It is awesome. I love getting to do quick errands by myself and get things done. I’ve used my break to go to Walmart to get Eric the oil and filters he needed to change the oil in our vehicles (because he is awesome with cars). I’ve gone to Target to get him a beard trimmer when his died. We literally do not have to run errands in the evenings or weekends anymore because I can get them all done during the week. Rooney and I have also occasionally gotten groceries on Wednesdays (like we did this day) to make sure we’re fully stocked. This means Eric doesn’t have to get them, and we can focus instead on family time when we’re together. This helps give him more margin in his life.

• Emails + texts. I email him extra on Wednesdays (when Rooney naps) to help him feel connected to us. Our relationship started and blossomed over email and it’s something we both still love to do. I’ll tell him about Rooney’s big poop, what time she got up that day or send him a good blog post I read and think he’ll like. Rooney still naps about four hours a day so I spend some of that time pouring into Eric. I also text him photos of her at day care so he can see that side of her life, or photos from her at home on Wednesdays.

• Visits + meetups. On Wednesdays Roo and I have gone to visit Eric at work a few times, to cheer him up! Or, we’ll meet him for lunch (like we did this day) or frozen yogurt after work so he has something to look forward to!

I’m starting to learn that each change we make as a family will have side effects … some that we anticipate and some we don’t, some positive and some negative. We both know this was the right move for our family (he’s seriously really happy for me, just a little jealous), and these little adjustments have helped us keep everyone happy and balanced! It’s still not perfect, but we’re trying.

The post How Working Part-Time Affects Our Marriage appeared first on Words of Williams.

Watch the video to learn:

• How we each scored low rent the summer after college

• How much student loan debt we had after graduation

• Why we decided to buy a house

• House expenses we didn’t expect

• Why we got our first joint credit card

• Our tipping point when we realized we needed to get help with money

P.S. I’m not awkward at all at the end

If you have budget or general money questions
you would like us to answer, feel free to email us.

The post Our Money Story, Part 3 (Engagement + Early Years of Marriage) appeared first on Words of Williams.

Minivans are one of the greatest inventions ever. Ten years ago I would have laughed in your face if you said that to me, but today I’d tell you that you are most definitely right. Not only do I have a kid now, but I’ve also grown up a lot and I’m a lot wiser.

Minivans might not be the coolest vehicle on the market, but I’m not interested in cool. Here are six reasons I’m a minivan mom:

1.

Stow ‘n Go. I mean, really. I could make my case on this point alone. I grew up with a minivan, and whenever we needed to haul something my parents had to take out the entire bench seat from the back and leave it in our garage. Well, some genius decided that was a horrible way to do things and made it so you can collapse all the back seats in the minivan and they fold right into the floor! Not only that, but while the seats are up, you can store things underneath the seats. When we had our Jeep, we had to borrow my dad’s 15-passenger van when we went to Ikea. Now we Stow ‘n Go!

2.

Easy access to Rooney. On longer road trips, I often have to sneak into the back seat to feed Rooney. Or console her. Or replace her pacifier. Or clean up vomit. This could not be done as easily in an SUV with a center console.

3.

The price was right. Sure, a new minivan isn’t cheap. But we are. So we bought a six-year-old used minivan and handed the salesman $1,200 and traded in our Jeep. The price was definitely right for us, and we don’t have a car payment hanging over our heads.

4.

Automatic doors. I was on maternity leave when we bought our minivan. I was getting really tired of using my left arm to carry the infant car seat and diaper bag and using the other to open the Jeep door. Not only that, but I then had to hoist the car seat up into the vehicle. Now I press a button and the door magically opens. I even use this feature when I’m just carrying groceries. My back has never been happier.

5.

Gas mileage. Honestly, I don’t care much about gas mileage or keep diligent track of it. But spending less on gas means spending more on other things like food or clothing. We used to have a Jeep Grand Cherokee, so it’s not surprising that we get about five more miles per gallon with The Ram Van.

6.

Eric is a minivan dad. Honestly, Eric really wanted a minivan. He loves all things practical. I would have had to put up a huge fight to NOT buy a minivan, and it just wasn’t worth it. As soon as we found out we were pregnant, he was planning this purchase. He often went to look at minivans and then would come home and tell me how awesome they are. He was the one talking me into it. And I’m so glad he did.

 What’s your opinion on the minivan? (leave a comment below)

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