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January 2018

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A few of January’s Favorite things

This blog post will be part of a monthly series collaborating with other bloggers to co-host each our favorite things, we hope you enjoy this series and check out each of our other co-host through the links below!

Oh January, what a time for starting fresh and moving forward on the new year and what a better time than to discuss some of my favorite things. As I began this first post this month I started to think of the meaning of January, why this historically coldest month (at least here in Michigan) begins our new beginning and new year. History tells the story of how the Roman’s followed the lunar cycle and their calendars reflected the moon’s phases but often these days would fall out of sync with the seasons and therefore it needed to be corrected.

The solution was to use the Egyptian calendar which followed the solar cycle, so the Roman’s changed their 10 month calendar from starting in March and added two months, January and February. January, the new first month of the year was named after the Roman god Janus. Janus, the good doorways and beginnings, was portrayed as two-faced with one face looking back into the past while the other looked forward into the future. When I think of January this way it feels symbolic of how I begin my new year, tailoring my new year’s ambitions upon the reflection and lessons learnt from the year before. I am trying to begin and end each month this way as well this year, reflecting on the lessons learned of the month and how to optimize the following month to come out more knowledgable and on track than the month before.

I am looking forward to sharing  some of my ‘favorites’ as we will call them in these monthly posts and reflect on these at the end of each month as we move forward into the following month.

  • Favorite place I went this month: The hairdresser, does that even count?! Well for me it’s a rarity that I take any self-care or do anything like that, so for me this counts big time. It was just a simple cut, but I needed it between the boys pulling on it, my first color last year, and all the dryness of summer and winter. I think we ended up taking 4 solid inches off, which feels like a lot! I love my long hair so it was kinda sad to see it go but it was really nasty and full of split ends so it needed to go… bye bye bye! It was a heavenly trip of both silence and adult talk… give me a glass of wine and it would’ve counted as a girls day out.

  • Favorite recipe I made: I struggled with narrowing this down to just one, but alas I used my kids and husband as a tie-breaker and asked them. It was unanimous they are obsessed with these Brown butter Cinnamon Rolls with cream cheese frosting. I love browned butter anything, then top it with carbs and cinnamon and sugar… hello! These are pretty drool worthy and in my opinion a great start to your new year, which is why it was a must have for our New Year’s day. I’ll be posting the link to my recipe as soon as I add it to the blog 🙂

  • Favorite outfit I wore: I have to say that this month, although it’s going to end on a high note of (gasp) 50 degrees today here in Michigan, has been brutal with feet upon feet of snow and bone-chilling negative temps with even colder wind chill, thank you Lake Michigan for all those gusts. So I have not been really in the mood to get super cute to shovel snow 3 times a day and pick up my daughter from preschool because we have mostly been locked within the confines of our house due to the nasty weather and sickness around us. There wasn’t an outfit that stood out to me except my pajama pants and thermal shirt, which I was completely prepared to write about, until I pulled out this shirt the other day and its softness melted into me and my kids couldn’t stop touching it… ugh maybe I shouldn’t wear this again only popped up a few times because of that though… haha only moms of kids like mine will get that, my kids are obsessed so the touching kinda never stop. I know I will miss it someday. I digress, this shirt says it all… Wife, Mom, Boss, yep you heard that right, but I’m pretty sure it should be written the other way for me – Boss, Mom, Wife, ‘cuz that’s kinda how it is in my house. Who doesn’t love these shirts, I’d love to know your favorites too! You can find them here.

  • Favorite Show: I get so bummed out at the end of fall when the season finales begin and then I have to wait until January or sometimes February for the return, it’s cruel. I get it though, it’s busy, football is on and blah blah blah, I’m just glad we DVR everything because I can’t remember all the shows times and days anymore so I would miss the shows entirely if not for that baby. I had my calendar set for the return of Scandal though, it is the last season and I’m slightly bummed. Partially because I literally just got caught up binge watching it last Spring while my husband was on work trips so it feels like it can’t be the last season. Also, it feels like Olivia is fallen off big time so that’s depressing to end it on that note. The last 3 episodes have been pretty good so I’m hoping that Shonda Rhimes does this show justice and it ends well. Don’t worry I’ll let you know 🙂

By the way I think watching this show finally got my husband to have wine with me, I think these stemless wine glasses like these helped make him feel it was more masculine 😉

 

  • Favorite Kids item: I have so many favorite kids items lately, it seems like the boys have brought out a completely new side of me. Santa was so amazing this year to our kids and so the twins were given these Kindle Fire Tablets that they are incredibly obsessed with.  I have to hide them or they go ballistic and won’t do anything else. They are amazing though and I’m working on an entire post just about these so I’ll just leave the link here  to these now and the post will be here when I’m finished!

  • Favorite Beauty item: I love all beauty products but this time of year I’m all about the moisturizer and skin renewal! I’m obsessed with this Rose Water Face toner and my daily defense moisturizer, both are a stable in my beauty regimen, You’ve got to check them out, here is a link to my two favorite items here:

         Rose Water

       Facial Moisturizer

  • Favorite Date Night: Date Nights became crucial to our marriage last year and we have really tried to make sure that we find time to do them, even with all the craziness of having four kids, travel, holidays, work and budgeting. It became quite evident last year that the demands of career and kids along with a lot of personal struggles were hindering our marriage from evolving and growing. We were putting us on the back burner and it set our marriage on fire. Having multiple kids under a certain age is tough, especially when two are 2-year-old twin boys, a high energy 4-year-old, and my oldest who is hundreds of miles away from us. The strain became too much and the resentment too high even though we both were doing all we could for the family it didn’t feel synced. Luckily we live near family now so we enlisted the help from our parents so we could once a week or once a month step out of our house and just get some breath together and it blew our doors wide open and changed our world. So since this month we had so much going on and had honed in date nights the month before to have more family centered togetherness we were in need come mid-month, which was perfectly synced with my husband’s birthday so it worked perfectly. We spent last weekend both doing a family date night with our middle daughter and a solo midday brewery birthday date. We have a few amazing and local breweries that we were able to hop around to and had a blast doing so. If you’re ever in the southwestern Michigan area here are a few must try breweries:
    • Greenbush (Sawyer, MI)
    • Haymarket (Bridgeman, MI)
    • Watermark (Stevensville, MI)
    • Silver Harbor (Saint Joseph, MI)
    • North Pier (Benton Harbor, MI)
    • The Livery (Benton Harbor, MI)

  • Favorite Drink: I’ve been a bit lame this month, usually I have some fun drinks around the new year and I experiment with some new cocktails but this month has been all about the Wine. Yep. Red Wine. Yep. Boxed Wine.Wait what? You heard it… RED BOXED WINE??!! Trust me, I was there with you but this one is different, and I’m a bit of a wine snob but I’m also a bit frugal too and with 4 kids we may go through a lot more wine than I want to share here… haha… but for real. Also, last month my husband for the first time drank wine with me… and now he’s hooked, so it’s kinda our evening thing now.

I’m all about this Bota Box, let me count the ways:

  • It contains the amount of 4 bottles of wine in one box
  • It has its own little cute wine spout
  • It sits perfectly on your counter
  • If your kids grab it, no glass will shatter
  • The box is made from recycled cardboard and the entire thing is recyclable (at least I recycle it all)
  • It’s inexpensive… four bottles for $16 (it was on sale, I believe it’s usually $25, still a good deal)
  • It’s delicious, y’all seriously need to try it!
  • Favorite Target find: Our Target is closing!! Cue the tears and anger. This Target was built when I was in middle school… so a couple of decades ago and now it’s closing which is devastating because we have NOTHING in this area, it felt promising that we had this gem still here. It’s 45 minute to the nearest Target now, going from living in Charlotte for most of my adult life to back here in nowhere MI it really felt deflating to hear this sad news. Alas I did make a purchase for Christmas online for my girls… two of the cutest little Owl pajama onesies. They are so warm and fuzzy and they just love them! Benton Harbor Target…you will be missed but we’ll always have .com.
  • Favorite Activity: This month we didn’t do a lot of activities since it was super cold to go outside and the boys were sick for most of the month so not really feeling up to their self. I did manage to catch them helping me shovel the snow and play in it one afternoon when the winter snow gods gave us some relief and sun and it was only 36 degrees out!

We also managed to make it to our local Children’s museum last week for a few hours of play.

  • Favorite Restaurant and favorite food: We are very loyal to our local restaurants and are so happy to have some amazing choices since our little town has come so very far in that category. We are patrons to one place in particular that has out heart, Silver Harbor Brewery. It’s a brewery, but the food sometimes even outweighs the beer and the atmosphere outweighs it all, so win, win, win. And they are family friendly so quadruple win! We often take our girls on a special date day there and they always enjoy it, this month was no exception!

Whew! January you have come and gone quite fast this year but you were full of so many favorites, even some not mentioned here. I hope these favorite resonated with some of you or gave you some new thoughts for the next months. Don’t forget to check out the other co-hosts and their favorite for this month and check back next month for the continuation of this series!

Jordan @ www.southernsweetandsassy.com

Nicole @ www.alamaxfield.blogspot.ca

Miranda @ www.mirandasouthern.com

Vanessa @ www.mysweetlifesong.com

Holly @ www.sunshineandholly.com

Kids, Natural/ Homemade

Natural Homemade Baby and Toddler Wipes

When my second child was born there was a huge recall on various brands of baby wipes which were causing babies to develop chemical rashes from the ingredients in the wipes. Thousands of babies were affected by the wipes which made me rethink what I was using. The convenience of disposal wipes is something that I have unfortunately not been able to give up yet even as an earthy mama. I have made my own cloth wipes and have used cloth diapers and although I used them a ton with my second child it was so nice to have things on the go when sticky hands or dirty hands needed some attention and there wasn’t a bathroom near by. I use the  medical baby wipes for changes at the house and take the round plastic container with me to parks for cleaning dirty hands, feet and faces.

Here’s how I make the wipe solution (I doubled this version in the pictures):

First I take 1 Tbsp of Coconut Oil ( I like to heat mine up for a minute in the microwave to liquefy it).

Then I add 1 tsp of Witch Hazel, 1 Tbsp of baby soap (I use Dr. Bronners but you could use any mild baby wash you would use on your baby), about 5 drops of lavender essential oil (I also use about 3 drop of orange essential oil, I just love the smell and orange oil is a natural astringent) and then I add about 1 1/2 cups of warm water and mix with a whisk until it all combined.

 

 

 

I sometimes do this directly in the container but I prefer to mix in a spouted glass cup and pour the solution on the bottom of the container and then layer the wipes a few at a time, pouring the solution on the layers to make sure the entire set of wipes are damp. I then leave just a small amount on solution in the container and make sure the wipes aren’t drenched but damp throughout. And viola your homemade wipes are complete!

You can use these wipes, which are similar to the ones we had at the hospital to use on our babies. I’m obsessed with these and actually they are so soft you could just use with water in a pinch.

Or you could buy paper towel and cut with a serrated knife like I did below and place into a large plastic container. I either by this kind from amazon on a monthly subscription or from Costco.

 

 

List of Supplies used:

Medical Cloth Wipes

Coconut Oil

Witch Hazel

Paper Towels

Lavender Oil

Containers

 

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