Wild Sunshine and Lemonade

wildsunshine

Life with Two vs Three

by Leave a Comment

I wondered quite a bit how my life would be different once number three arrived. After all, I thought the transition from one kid to two was super easy, and actually easier than just having one! I’d read about three. Three = the most stressful number of kids (with four being the easiest… umm… no thanks). Three = you’re outnumbered. Three = what were you thinking?

Three = Larkin Mathilda, born on her due date (April 6th). 7lbs 13oz.

DSC_0431 copy

  • I don’t feel suddenly outnumbered… because I’ve been out numbered for 2.5 years. When you’re home with them all day, you were outnumbered at #2.
  • NOISE. In addition to the sibling squabbles and never-ending talking, three adds crying to the mix.
  • There is a new reason to test the boundaries and call attention to oneself. Hence the four year old who insists on tattooing her face at quiet time (Check it out on Instagram @wildsunshineamanda).
  • It’s 3-o’clock somewhere, right? I am no longer ashamed to have a glass of wine at 3pm.
  • The days of sitting comfortably on the couch to nurse the baby are over. I am constantly nursing this child while walking around, cooking dinner, wiping bottoms, etc.

 

What didn’t change?

  • The “I need my poopy bottom wiped” request as soon as I sit down to nurse the baby.DSC_0385 copy Yeah, not much changed in that department.
  • Transit time to leave the house. Yup, you read that right. I remember vividly when #2 arrived, getting out of the house (and really into the car) took infinitely longer. While I maintain hope that child #1 and perhaps child #2 can get themselves into their own carseats with minor distraction, there are still old snacks to eat, books to discover, and seatbelts to play with as I try my hand at wrangling them. Conclusion: it takes the same amount of time it used to. I aim to pull out of the driveway within 45 minutes of heading to the car.

 

The HARDEST thing? With a 2.5 and 4.5 year old who have become obsessed with the pool on these humid 90 degree days, it breaks my heart to have to say no. We can’t always go to the pool or be there all day because the little one can’t get in and it’s just too dang hot. What’s a mama to do? We take advantage of cooler mornings and late afternoons and they’re still getting plenty of practice being little fish.

DSC_0344 for pinterest

photo signature green bee

 

84 weeks pregnant.

by Leave a Comment

Welllllllllll maybe only 39, but who’s counting? Somewhere around 37 weeks I get really tired of being pregnant. I’ve lost all ability to be productive. I can’t sleep. I feel huge ALL the time. Even my maternity clothes stop fitting and I have to do laundry every 2 days. Oy! At least I forget all about these things in a few months and remember the good parts.

39 weeks

And the heat! In NC, March has been a heatwave. I mean days in the low 80s… which to me feels like 140 degrees.  I’m burning up. Good thing I’ve never had to endure a summer baby, I don’t think I’d survive.

How am I feeling these days? Let’s see, everything hurts as it stretches and gets ready for delivery (which is actually pretty amazing). There are approximately 1,000 things I want to be doing outside but cannot because they involve heavy lifting, shoveling, etc. I have two kids who have been sharing a room for 1.5 months and have yet to stop talking to one another before 9pm, so both are constantly sleep deprived and cranky. This mama is losing patience!

Yet through it all I’m trying hard to be aware that these are the last days to freely play outside, climb trees, and go hiking without the extra time to bundle a baby/change a diaper. At least for a little while 🙂 So I’m enjoying this time with my two littles as much as possible.

And we did manage to finally install our kitchen backsplash (more on that in a future post), so I can’t say I’ve been totally unproductive.

Gender: my guess is still a girl. Weight: 40lbs gained (5 lbs less than the other two at this point). Cravings: Salad and citrus. Can’t wait for: running again!

 

photo signature green bee

Sawyer’s Meatballs

by Leave a Comment

This is such a short anecdote, but I’m much better at typing things out than writing them down and I don’t want to forget the silly things!

We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner the other night. Sawyer didn’t finish all of his, and soon we got to goofing around with daddy in the other room. Sawyer disappears, comes back in and throws his last meatball at daddy’s head, then laughs hysterically. See this– this is his I’m gonna do something crazy look. Watch out!

january 5

Umm… how do I keep a straight face? Yeah, I didn’t. Neither did John. I think we eventually told him not to do it again. Gotta love a 2 year old!

Mom-of-the-year,

photo signature green bee

Oh baby names

by 1 Comment

I love naming babies. But I find it’s so much easier to come up with names I love when I’m not pregnant. Throw an actual baby into the mix and suddenly those names are either vetoed by my traditional-minded hubby or I’m suddenly thinking there must be something better or more ideal out there.

Add to this that baby #3 is a surprise, and we now have to go in with two names. Yikes – me and my first world problems! We have our boy name picked. But for a girl, it’s a real toss up. I have always loved Larkin for a girl, although it seems a wildly unpopular name choice on the baby name forums. Hazel was in the top for a long time. Then there’s my love affair with Indiana/Indie. Even Wilder has been a frontrunner. And don’t forget about River, which was probably close to my #1 girls name before Kelly Clarkson used it.

Good thing we have ~7 weeks to go, since my guess is that this baby is a girl. Fortunately we have two potential family names to use as a middle name: Mathilda or Eleanor.

Anyone else only seem to struggle with girl names?

photo signature green bee

Farm dreaming and 35 weeks!

by Leave a Comment

Long about this time every year, in the dead of winter, I start daydreaming.

  • I dream of open fields of green grass and their fresh cut smell
  • I dream of big blue skies instead of being surrounded by stark naked trees
  • I dream of a cute white farmhouse — a slight downsize from our current home even though our family is still growing (tiny house junkie here)
  • I dream of summer days splashing in hoses in bright sunshine followed by summer nights around a firepit with a sky full of stars
  • I dream of soft sounds of a horse, a few goats, and enough chickens to feed our weekly 4-5 dozen egg consumption.
  • I dream of rows of grapevines and the smell of fermenting grapes as we stomp bucket after bucket full, ready to embark on the fine craft of winemaking on a larger scale.
  • I even dream of the smell of manure.

I wasn’t raised on a farm, but I grew up near many. I lived an unplugged childhood, running through grass and catching bugs. Don’t get me wrong, we live in a great house in the best neighborhood. But I still dream about open fields and a smalll farm. Maybe someday…

Am I the only one with these winter daydreams? photo

PS: maybe the fact that I’m 34 weeks along has something to do with it. Wowzers! Time needs to slow down!

photo signature green bee

Is it a Sawyer, or a cat?

by Leave a Comment

The other day as I stood in the kitchen making lunch for the fam, I made a fairly large pasta bowl of pimiento cheese (hubby was home… he can devour some pimiento cheese). I set it on the table and went on getting the rest of lunch ready. When I turned back around, the 2 year old had climbed onto the table, was on all fours, head in the pimiento cheese bowl, LICKING IT with pure happiness.

I stood there in awe. “Sawyer! What are you doing? You’re not a cat!” (we do have a stubborn white cat who is forever contaminating unattended food bowls).

Sawyer looked up at me with a grin and said…. “meow.”

photo signature green bee

Paleo Pregnancy – addicted to crepes

by Leave a Comment

Ever since Pippa started eating solid foods, we’ve been casual followers of the Paleo and WAPF nutrition guidelines. I say casual because we do occasionally eat beans out of the can, rice, and we do eat dairy (although we do keep our dairy to yogurt/cheese/kefir, i.e. the fermented set). Knowing we would love to have a third child I made sure to eat extremely healthy last spring and summer. And here I am in the third trimester, yet again trying to give a sh*t about what I eat because… I’m hungry. ALL the time. And I want carbs. Bread. Cake. Rice Krispy treats. All the stuff I know will not grow a healthy baby.

At least we abide by eating a lot of meat and after purchasing a quarter cow last summer, we still have a good supply of grass feed beef in the freezer. In the words of my kids “we love MEAT.”

I also have never been pregnant in the winter when it’s hard to make it outside with a 2 and 4 year old. So my instinct is to eat. And hibernate. We spend 15 minutes getting ready for 10 minutes outside before they are cold. And another 10 minutes getting undressed and putting our winter gear away. Then I’m ready for a nap.

33 weeks preggers y’all.

So what have we been eating?

  • lots of soup with bone broths
  • stew beef in the crockpot
  • almond butter stuffed dates
  • dark dove chocolate (it’s my vice, can’t help it)
  • apples and cheese
  • paleo crepes (I make these almost daily at quite time in our house so I can eat an entire plate in peace)

Thanks for letting me vent. And sorry about the lack of photos. We just got a new computer, a Mac (and I am SO excited for the photo editing opportunities!) but am still in the process of moving photos and learning the ropes. I promise, more photos coming soon!

photo signature green bee

12 Money Saving Tips for Moving to One Income

by Leave a Comment

 

SAHM tactics photoIn November of 2012, I took the leap of faith and started a new career as a SAHM (stay at home mom). As much as I loved my job, I just could not shake the feeling that my heart was at home with the little Bean. Mom always said I liked to “jump and the net will appear.”

The question hung in my mind for over a year:  How does one go from relying on two full time incomes to just one?  Can it be done without downsizing our house?  Can it be done without sacrificing the quality of food we eat? I came across tons if information, but it all boiled down to “if you want it badly enough, you’ll figure it out.”

How frustrating is that sort of advice? Super frustrating until you make it happen. Just in case you are wondering about that bit of magic that helped us reach our goal, here is what we did. It took a solid 8 months of work on our part, researching and phone calls and evaluating our wants vs needs to cut enough out of our spending to make this happen.

12 Money Saving Tips I used to Quit my job and Stay Home with my Kids

  1. Refinance your home and any rental properties if you can get a lower rate. We saved a few hundred dollars by doing this for our main home an a rental property under the(then new) FHA Streamline program.
  2. Consolidate insurance. Switched car insurance to the same as our home insurance to save money. Make sure your insurance for all property is with the same company!
  3. Paid off my grad school loans (good riddance!)
  4. Build an emergency fund. For us, this meant eating rice and beans for months and put the savings away to build our emergency fund. Boy were we glad to have it. Big stress reducer in those first months on one income!
  5. Utilize pre-tax savings for childcare and health. Took advantage of the FSA daycare allowance so that we essentially got pre-tax money back for what we paid in daycare costs.
  6. Energy savings. Put new windows in the house in 2011 to save on our heating/cooling costs, then paid off the loan on the windows while I was still working.
  7. Implement a monthly budget.  I highly recommend the MINT app (I use it on my iPhone every day) to track where you are in each category. Otherwise I get a little wild with Amazon Prime.
  8. Use cash. We started paying for items in cash where we previously used our credit card.  We still use the card for certain purchases (ie gas) but not having that giant bill each month has helped us be more conscious of where our money goes.
  9. Meal Planning. Every week we figure out what we will cook and the ingredients, then buy accordingly. I also used to tally up grocery costs in my head as I shopped to stay under budget (doable with one kid, not so much once you have a hoard of them).
  10. Bought a Costco membership (2017 edit: now that we have 3 kids eating a ton of food, we almost exclusively shop at Costco. And we eat Paleo. It helps big time)
  11. Find something you can do at home to make a little extra. I put my love of surfing and art to good use and began to create decorative wooden surfboards.  I sold them on Etsy (www.surfpixie.etsy.com) until recently to make a bit of extra cash. Hopefully I’ll get back to it in a few years. But let me say that starting out it was not easy. My “side job” ate up every single evening of my spring and summer when Pippa was one. I dragged her downtown with me on numerous occasions trying to get a business license, to the hardware store for lumber, I cut wood during her naps, and drove to Fedex at 11pm some nights.
  12. Check your tax deductions with a single income. This is perhaps the BIGGEST item. The addition of a child (or two) plus the loss of my income meant we were in an entirely different tax bracket and saving a not-too-shabby amount of money.  Not sure where you would fall?  Try the IRS calculator or Your Money Page  

Good luck! And I’d love to hear more ideas about what worked for you.