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Dana
*This post was first published on 1/4/17, and republished on 3/19/17. NEW sales are going on through the links provided. The start of a new year always sparks ambitious resolutions, new life goals, and big plans and projects. Most of these usually have something to do with health or fitness. But, as we move toward spring, those goals sometimes start to fade. Whether you want to lose weight, get toned, improve flexibility (“I’m very bendy,” -Phoebe) or just get your butt off the couch and be active, you need to dress the part to make…
Tribe, friend squad, mom club, girl team, whatever you want to call it. I don’t have one. I don’t have one set of friends who are my go-tos for shopping trips, coffee dates or girls’ weekends. There isn’t a trio of girlfriends I text every day, or even see every month. And guess what? I’m good. I feel SO lucky to have the incredible friends I do. They are spread throughout my little world, from all areas of my life. My circle of friends is actually more like several small…
February has been … hard. Not with my little guys. Not with my big guy. Just with my own heart and mind. I’ve been in a daze since February 3rd. It was the day I realized my website had crashed and was gone. At first, I wasn’t panicked because my hosting company said they backed up my site, as I knew they were supposed to do. Great! But hours and hours of online and phone chats with them later, we realized the only backups they had were after their server crashed. So, every time they offered…
I’ve never pretended to enjoy cooking. I just don’t, not even a little bit. I love good food, and I love finding yummy new things to feed my family. I just despise the lengthy preparation before you get to enjoy the meal! This often leads me to feel like I’m preparing the SAME FOUR MEALS over and over because, A) they’re easy to make, and B) everyone will actually eat them. So, when a friend gifted me two family meals from a meal delivery service, I was anxious to see if I would enjoy it more…
I’m a pretty patient person. I don’t growl or grumble when I have to wait in a long checkout line. I just smile and wave when someone cuts me off in traffic. I count to three and breathe deeply when my children are making me feel like I’m losing my ever-loving mind. I understand there are so many things in life that just take time, and there are so many instances where having patience can put you in the best situation. Yep, I got that. But I also know the feeling of that desire to have…
This was the day I had been picturing in my mind for years. It was the day I would bring a baby into the world for his parents. I couldn’t believe I had been given this honor. What a life-changing experience and an absolute dream come true! My journey of becoming a surrogate started five years prior, and now we were about to welcome this sweet baby boy into his family! While it didn’t go exactly as I’d imagined (as tends to happen with everything, right?), it was still the most beautiful thing I’ve been…
*This is the twelfth piece in my surrogacy story. Thanks for following along! I never fully understood the complete role of nurses until I spent 80 days in their care. While I was at UF Health on bedrest, the nurses and PCAs took care of me, physically and emotionally. They made me laugh, calmed my fears, and made me feel connected to the “outside world,” all while making sure I was comfortable and getting everything I needed to take care of myself and the baby. Including a late-night bowl of cereal while I watched Jimmy Fallon. I saw my…
I shared My Current Obsessions a few months back and had a lot of fun (and good feedback) with it, so I’m sharing a new version of some of my everyday obsessions. A fun way to kick off the weekend (and surround myself with all these yummy things)! Thin Addictives: These are my go-to snacks at the moment. A pack of these with some iced almond milk–yumola! Just enough sweetness to make me think I’m eating cookies, but no guilt. I let the boys try a bite and two of the four liked them … so…
We are all moving into Christmas mode at our house (yaaay!), so I’ve been looking back at the pictures I took over the last few months (AMAZED at all we squeezed into this fall and how fast it went by), and trying to catalog the memories. There were so many moments I didn’t have time to share on the blog or Facebook, so I thought I’d do a wrap-up now. One more glance at the fall fun, then on to immerse ourselves in all things Christmas! *Fall = baseball for Miles and t-ball for Sawyer…
*This is the eleventh piece in my surrogacy story. Thanks for following along! When I checked into the hospital, we prayed that I’d be there for a very long time. That sounds strange, but if I was in the hospital for three months, that meant three months of that sweet boy growing in my tummy and not struggling to survive in the NICU. So, first we prayed I’d still be there for Sawyer’s birthday on October 20 since that was two weeks after my check-in. And then we hoped I’d still be there…