This year for my birthday we had our 20 week anatomy ultrasound for our second baby! It was a fantastic way to celebrate being 33. I can’t remember looking forward to my birthday more. I loved keeping Jackson’s gender a surprise for his birthday, but for this baby we decided to find out. It…
Category: Motherhood
Traveling with Babies: Tips, Tricks & Packing Lists
Over the last year and a half we’ve been so blessed to be able to take our baby to both coasts to meet great-grandparents and enjoy the ocean. We first took 4-month-old Jackson to Southern California for Spring Break last year and then this summer for our 10th anniversary we took the then 18-month-old…
15 Months into Motherhood
I know that 12 months is the big mile stone for most parents, but for me 15 months is the one I keep thinking about. I started full time nannying my little godson at 15 months, and I’ve been counting the weeks until my own son is that old. Five years ago, I left…
Taking Babies on Winter Walks: Tips, Tricks and Gear
The toughest thing about Wisconsin life for me is icy winter days that keep me indoors. We’ve had, on the whole a pretty mild winter, and last week February seemed to forget that it was winter all together and we hit 70 degrees Fahrenheit–an all time record! But we’ve gone back to our regularly…
A Season of Tenderness: A Post for Our 9th Anniversary
Today is our 9th wedding anniversary and Jackson’s half birthday. It seems fitting to celebrate both as interwoven as they have been these past six months. It’s hard exactly to describe how having a baby has changed our marriage, some moments have been the most beautiful and then hours later some of the most…
Godparents and Baptism: Joining God’s Great Family
This past weekend for Pentecost Sunday, Jackson and I got to renew our baptismal vows while spending the weekend down in Illinois with my goddaughter Teresa and her family (Evan was in DC with his students). That is one of many wonderful things about the sacrament of baptism — several times a year as…
5 Months into Motherhood
Spring in Wisconsin comes quietly and gradually. Grass stretches and greens up slowly, buds extend off naked branches subtly, and then one day you look around and daffodils and snowdrops and woodland violets are suddenly dotting the ground like little yellow and white and purple fireworks. So it has been with motherhood,…
13 of My Favorite Books for a Natural Hospital Birth
For many years I have loved reading books and blogs about babies and birth. Long before I was pregnant, or even trying to become pregnant, I have had a strange proclivity to peruse the 618 & 649 sections of the library, bringing home books on colic, toddler boundaries, and baby brain development, long before I…