Christmas Tradition

Merry Christmas everyone!

Even though we are having a very lowkey Christmas this year, I am very excited. This will be our first Christmas together as a family. Last year was our first Christmas as a married couple but we traveled for Christmas so we did put up a tree or anything. And we did not have Emily so this is our first Christmas where we can start new traditions together.

Breastfeeding and Its Trials

So learning to breastfeed was the hardest thing ever, for me anyway. One may think that it should be easy and instinctual; mom produces the milk, baby latches on and drinks the milk. This is not the case. No matter how prepared you think you are, experiencing it is another matter. Not only is this new to mom, but it's new for the baby as well. While mom learns how to have the baby latch on properly and her body produces milk, baby is learning how to latch on and suckle.

So here's my experience on figuring it all out.

A Very Natural Childbirth

It has been 7 weeks since I gave birth to Emily. And I just want to say that giving birth is still the most awful thing I have endured. Don't get me wrong, the end result was worth it.

One Year 10/11/13

One year has flown by. And I don't even mean it figuratively; I mean it literally. So much has happened since the day we got married, it's hard to believe that we are here celebrating our one year anniversary. Of course the most important being that we now have Emily in our lives. And today also marks her being one month and officially leveled up from newborn to infant. (And soon in the future, hopefully, I will be able to blog about that special day)

Honeymoon Adventures Part 1

Now that we are playing the waiting game and I am finding ways to fill my time to keep me distracted, I realized I never shared our honeymoon photos. Or even talked about it. And it was an amazing trip!! Well, one of the reasons why is that we have photos but we have a lot of footage on the GoPro that we wanted to cap and share. Unfortunately, that footage is inaccessible at the moment so when we can get access to them again, I'll try to cap some and put it up in the album so check back in a bit.

So, I am finally going to talk about our awesome honeymoon and share pictures of a time when I did not have a belly. Also, I am breaking this up in 2 parts because I want to talk about the food separately. It was so delicious that it deserves its own post.

Full Term! (Update, Hospital Bag List, Name Reveal)

I made it! I am officially full term at 37 weeks. A good time for an update and sharing what's in my hospital bag. Hopefully she won't come this early but you never know. And, really, it's not likely. Only 5% of pregnant women actually deliver on the due date they are given; hence why it's called Estimated Due Date. (A reason why I tended to tell people 'mid-September' when they ask when I was due. I digress.) And I learned the first time pregnant women have a tendency of going into labor PAST their due date. So yeah, ideally, I would love for her to arrive the first week of September but baby has all the control right now.

How close to the due date will she arrive?

Oh, and we finally have a name for Baby Lyons!

A Minimalist's Guide to Baby Things to Start Out With

35.5 weeks! Where has the time gone?! Although, I have to say that July was a little slow. It was the same routine with just a few things to look forward to. Nothing new was happening at my prenatal visits, which is good since that's what you want. No surprises or problems is most definitely a good thing. Sure I had the baby shower, concert and Harry Potter night, but the rest of my days were pretty uneventful. And there wasn't really much baby stuff to do.

August is looking to be more exciting because that is when everything is happening (besides baby coming). We have our baby classes to look forward to and other events that we are going to on the weekends. And since it's coming closer to baby arrival time, prenatal visits are going to be more interesting since we will be talking about the delivery process and having last minute tests done.

I did want to share my list of baby things that I decided on getting. Not only because every mommy puts up this list, but I feel there aren't enough lists for people like me, the minimalist. We decided from the beginning that we didn't want a lot of crap for the baby so when I created Baby Lyons' registry, I made sure it only had items that we absolutely wanted. And it was items that we would need right away or soon after Baby Lyons was born. I'm not going to lie, resisting the urge to buy all the cute clothes, blankets and toys for Baby Lyons has been hard but my will power prevailed.

Sure it's pretty, but you don't need half that crap

Definitely don't want this

So here it is, baby things for the minimalist: