4 Steps to Making Labor Easier - Guest Post

Who isn't looking for ways to make labor easier?  I'll never forget how scared I was going in to my first labor (little did I know my first would be 9 pounds 9 ounces...).  I spent hours reading books and reading up on delivery stories.  I'm excited to share the below guest post with 4 Fantastic Steps to Making Labor Easier!

Expecting moms have much to prepare for when it comes to getting their home and their body ready for delivery day. Making theses preparations usually satisfies a mother’s need to nest as well as helps her feel mentally prepared to take on labor. Here are a few tips to help you stay organized.

Exercise
When you first discover that you’re expecting a child, making a doctor’s appointment with an ob-gyn is the first step to beginning a healthy pregnancy. From there you can learn about how to alter your diet to be sure you and your baby are getting plenty of nutrients. If you were already in an exercise regimen before you became pregnant, speak to your doctor about continuing your physical activities and how to alter the intensity and regimen to keep it safe for both you and baby. It used to be believed that exercising would cause miscarriages in women, but that’s not true; women who exercise during pregnancy generally have an easier time during delivery with muscle control and managing their pain.

Prepare the Nursery
At home, preparing a room or space as a nursery can be a very fun and creative preparation step. Not only will it satisfy a mother’s nesting needs, it will help you relax knowing that your baby has a safe place in your home to grow up in. Be careful when putting this space together, you don’t want to overexert yourself and painting is not a safe activity for you to help with. Get the help of your partner or family and friends. A nursery can be anything you’d like it to be, but standard furniture includes a crib, changing table and nursing chair. Stocking up on onesies, diapers, and toys can also help with your nesting feelings.

Childbirth Classes
Attending a childbirth class is a great idea for an expecting mother whether it’s her first child or third. It’s a great place to learn about your birthing facility, what pain management options you have and other optional procedures like cord blood banking. Knowing your facility can make you feel more comfortable about delivery day being able to visualize where you’ll be during labor. Your choice of pain management, whether it’s natural or medicated, is up to personal preference barring any medical needs. Outline what you’re comfortable with in a birth plan for your medical team. Optional procedures, like cord blood banking, are good to learn about and consider for the future health of your child. Cord blood banking is where the umbilical cord blood is collected to be saved and potentially used in the future to treat certain medical conditions. This is something that should be discussed and planned ahead for with your doctor.

Pack a Bag
Packing for your hospital stay a few weeks before your delivery is a good idea to do. Packing is easy; loose, comfortable clothes for mom, slippers, toiletries, and outfit to come home in and of course a cute outfit to bring baby home in, and anything else to keep yourself comfortable during your hospital stay. Having copies of all of your medical information and birthing plan is a great idea to put in there as well. If you have things that need to be grabbed last minute, like a camera and your phone charger, keep a list in an accessible place so you don’t forget anything.

Finally, moms need to remember that childbirth is a natural process so mental preparation is just as important as physical prep. When delivery day comes, you’ll be able to go into the delivery room with confidence and excitement as you welcome your new family member.

This article was written by Alan Cassidy, an active writer within the blogging community covering maternity and childbirth, and always advocating for infant and children’s health. Connect with him on Twitter @ACassidy22

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Gardening time!

We've been busy gardening on the weekends around our house.  Our most recent project was planting these bushes along the back fence line.  I'm absolutely in love with the visual effect of the green grass, the purple-ish bushes and the silver solar lights. 

If it wasn't for the rain upcoming this weekend, my vegetable garden was next up on the list of tasks.  I can't wait for home grown tomatoes!

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Southern California Elementary School Smashes World Record and Shows Commitment to Arts

Nestled in Southern Riverside County, California is an elementary school that should be a model for all public schools.  Amidst the seemingly never ending California State budget cuts, Lisa J. Mails Elementary School in Murrieta showed how important the arts are.  Last Friday the school set out (and succeeded in!) breaking the World Record in the largest art lesson!  Correct that - it SMASHED the World Record by more than 200 participants! 

Lisa J. Mails didn't start out to be a performing and visual arts magnate school, but through the extensive support of the school staff, the parents and the district, it has become exactly that school.   Parents will commute in for their children to be a part of the well rounded education that it offers.  Watching the focus and determination of the children in beating the world record (yes it will be in the Guinness Book of World Records!), it couldn't have been a more appropriate school to hold the record for World's Largest Art Lesson! 

The previous record was set by an elementary school in England last year.

As a child during the Prop 13 era, I remember how strongly my mother fought (with other fantastic parents) to help keep the performing and visual arts a part of schools.  As school budgets shrunk, the arts were some of the first big cuts made to schools.  Back then it was ingrained in me how crucial the arts are to a child's education.  I was privileged to be able to participate in countless Broadway style (ok, so it wasn't really Broadway, but to us kids it felt like it!) stage productions like Hello Dolly, Bye Bye Birdie, Lil' Abner and more.  All of those productions were funded by the die hard parent organization that was determined to keep the performing and visual arts a part of childhood. 

Did they form the person who I grew up to be?  Absolutely.  Are the visual and performing arts valuable to raising well rounded kids?  Without a doubt.

Congratulations Lisa J. Mails Elementary School in showing the World how dedicated you are to providing a well rounded education for our children!


(Actual sign in the courtyard garden of Lisa J Mails Elementary School)

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Environmentally Friendly Kids Birthday Party

Greening up as many aspects of my life as I can is super important to me.  I'm not ready for drastic changes yet, but I work every day to make small changes whenever possible.

While I was stocking up on supplies for my son's Birthday Party I found these fantastic eco-friendly plates and forks.  I found them at Smart & Final and the prices were only about $1 more per package so it was an easy switch to make!  They are compostable (so excited about this since I am getting ready to get my compost up and running!).  The plates are made from Sugarcane and the forks are made with plant starches so they are made from a renewable source.  They were also super sturdy and without the label no one would have ever known they were so eco-friendly!

Making the Birthday Party more eco-friendly was one more easy step in becoming more green!  The water bottles we used for the kids were also made with less plastic than normal water bottles, but I'd love to find an easy way to make that aspect more eco-friendly too!  I'm thinking that re-usable cups (that would also work as a party favor) with water might be my next step.

What ways have you found to green up aspects of your daily life?

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Corn Chowder - Comfort Food for a Tough Week!

This week has flown by in a haze of naps and nausea.  We've been dealing with the stomach flu with the odd cold mixed in.  Next time I'm going to hand out small bottles of hand sanitizer as party favors!!!

Tonight was the first night all week I had any energy to actually cook dinner and I knew I wanted it to be my comfort food - what my mom always made me when I was recovering from being sick.  Her Corn Chowder is one of the recipes I'm so happy I was able to learn how to make from her before she passed away.

I made it tonight and the boys absolutely loved it and I sent some over to my neighbors who are also wrestling with the same stomach flu.

The recipe is super easy to scale up if you need to make more and it's great paired with biscuits or Hawaiian rolls.  To make it interesting I used purple potatoes (you can buy them at Henry's) and it added a cool element.

Mom’s Corn Chowder
Ingredients:½ pound bacon, cut-up
1 medium onion, chopped (about ½ cup)
2 stalks celery, (chopped about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cups milk (skim is okay)
½ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 can (17 ounces) cream-style corn, kernel corn is also fine
2 cups cooked potatoes (* see below)
Snipped parsley
Paprika

Directions:Cook bacon in 3 quart saucepan until crisp; drain, reserving 3 tablespoons fat in saucepan. Cook and stir onion and celery in bacon fat until onion is tender; remove from heat. Stir in flour. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is bubbly; remove from heat. Stir in milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in salt, pepper, corn and potatoes; heat through. Be sure to let boil until the chowder is thick as it is better that way! Stir in bacon. Sprinkle each serving with parsley and paprika if you desire.

*Mom would use a portion of the bacon fat to cook the potatoes, that had been cut in to about 1/2 inch square cubes until tender. Cut the potato as if you are making fries, then cut each strip in to squares before cooking.

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Disneyland Monorail - Wordless Wednesday

Happy Leap Day!

In honor of Leap Day Disneyland is staying open 24 hours and in honor of that I wanted to share this very recent picture we took while riding in the front cabin of the Monorail at Disneyland for Wordless Wednesday.

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Energizer Light Up A Life Campaign - #EnergizerCFK #CBias

Here in Southern California we have one major weather event that everyone should prepare for but frequently don't - and that is earthquakes!  After a major earthquake, the purchasing of supplies goes way up, but that's the opposite of the way it should be!  Instead we should be stocking up on batteries, flashlights, water, first aid supplies, etc. before an earthquake occurs.  (In the area that I live in most of the power lines and other critical utilities are underground so we aren't as susceptible to rain storms affecting power).

I feel so fortunate to be able to be involved in the Energizer Light Up a Life Campaign to put together an emergency kit for the local Boys and Girls Club.  The Boys and Girls Club is a fantastic organization that works to keep kids from being latch key kids and to enable kids to have a safe place to go after (and before!) school that will assist in kids growing up happy and healthy.  I can't think of a more important place to send an emergency kit!

I headed down to my local Walmart (you can follow along on my journey on Google+ here.) to load up on Energizer batteries, Energizer flashlights, first aid supplies, non-perishable snacks and water bottles to include in the kit.

The kids helped me pack up the kit and even created a sign for the side to make it easily identifiable in an emergency.

The Boys and Girls Club was so appreciative for the donation with copious thank you's in the midst of kids running around using the facility!  Right then I knew that I wanted to be involved in more campaigns like this.  Our life has been so hectic and busy that I had just let my volunteering and donating become less frequent as it once had.  Seeing my boys be proud to bring this emergency kit to a deserving organization showed me they are ready to be more involved in similar activities also.

Would you like to get involved in the Light Up a Life Campaign?  Go here for more information and be sure to report back to the website that you participated!  The goal is to inspire 20 million people to Light Up a Life by 2020.  Like the Facebook page here, follow the campaign on Twitter here.  Every bit helps!

Note:  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias but all opinions are completely my own and I'm honored to be a part of this campaign!

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Super Mario Cupcakes with Nintendo 3DS Cake

To go with our "gamer" Birthday party theme, I had to figure out the perfect cake.  My son eventually decided he wanted a cake in the shape of his Aquamarine colored Nintendo 3DS.   Super simple to make (I used the Salted Caramel Cake/Cupcake recipe here) and used a regular 13x9 pan.  Covered in fondant with a few simple touches it actually looked pretty cool!

I am giving my absolutely fabulous neighbor the nickname of "Martha Stewart", it's not the REAL Martha Stewart, but she gives her a run for her money when it comes to the household and baking/cooking!  She came up with the absolutely fabulous idea of creating fondant mushroom cupcakes to go alongside the cake to bring in the Super Mario theme (which fits perfectly with the "gamer" theme).  With a little rolled fondant, circle spots and a scoop of frosting on top they came out amazing and grabbed by the kids at the first chance they had!

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Angry Birds Water Bottles for Kids Birthday Party

It's Birthday time in our house again!  For this party we went with the "gamer" theme.  My boys are definitely getting older so it's getting tougher and tougher to find an appropriate theme that isn't embarrassing, but is still cool in their eyes.  Wandering the aisles at our local party store was disappointing.  My son really just wanted the Angry Birds theme since it's a game all of his friends like.  You'd think with how crazy popular that game is that it would be super simple to track down themed items.  Apparently I couldn't be more wrong!

With a little creativity we were able to add some Angry Birds fun in to the party.  My son (who loves drawing Angry Birds pictures in his free time) drew small pictures of each bird character on small slips of paper.  We removed the regular labels on water bottles and replaced them with the pictures he had drawn.  If you are running short on time, printing a custom slip of paper would also work.

Super simple idea for a kids party!  The kids all absolutely loved them and were claiming their water bottles by the names of the characters (also made it very easy for the kids to remember which water bottle was theirs and drastically reduced swapping bottles by accident!).

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Light Up A Life Campaign for Kids #EnergizerCFK #CBias #ChampionsForKids

When the lights go out kids are the most affected.  As adults it's easier for us to understand why the lights may have gone out and know what to do.  Anything from weather to other natural disasters can cause the power to go out.  Here in Southern California, we don't have to worry about blizzards, hurricanes or other culprits, but we do very much have to think about Earthquake preparedness. 

Checking/restocking and adding to your home emergency kit is something many of us don't think about until its too late.  I grew up in the Bay Area and remember in vivid detail the '89 Loma Prieta quake.  To this day it affects so many of the choices I make!  I keep an elaborate first aid kit on each floor, extra non perishable food and always start to freak out a little when my gas tank gets below 1/4.  My husband still gives me a hard time about this, but he's never been through a major earthquake when all the gas stations go offline for an undetermined amount of time while they check for leaks, etc.

I'm so excited to be given the chance to participate in the Champions for Kids - Engerizer Light Up A Life Simple Service campaign to put together a preparedness kit for a local non-profit organization.  The goal is to put together a number of items to help keep kids safe in the event of an emergency.  It's an easy campaign to participate in and Energizer is looking to mobilize 20 million people by 2020 to participate.  Go here for more information to get involve and let them know you are participating!

I'm putting together a first aid kit, along with a flashlight, Energizer batteries, water bottles and a few other goodies to donate to a local Boys and Girls club.  I couldn't think of a more important place for kids to feel safe and taken care of in the event of an emergency!

Will join me and everyone else in taking a few minutes out of your day to help?


Note:This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias.  The opinions expressed are completely that of my own.  #CBias #EnergizerCFK

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