Claire's 15 month update and stats

Birth:

7 lbs 8 oz

19 inches long

Two Week Appointment:

8 lbs 8 oz 75%

20 inches long 75%

Two Month Appointment:

12 lbs 4 oz 75%

 21 inches long 75%

Four Month Appointment:
  16lbs 5oz  75%

25 inches long 75%

 

Six Month Appointment 

19 lbs 75%

27.5 inches long 95%

 

Nine Month Appointment

20lbs 3 oz 75%

28.5 inches long 75%

 

1 year appointment

22 lbs 0 oz 80%

31 inches long 95%

 

15 Month Appointment

23lbs 12 oz 50%

31 inches long 75%

 

Stats:

Wears 18 month clothes now although the 18 month size pants are a little too big for her still. 12 months are to small so she needs an in between size. I put away all her 12 month clothes into storage already and purchased all her new clothing within the last month and a half. FYI Target has a new brand out for babies called Cat & Jack and it's so cute! The shirts are only $5.00 so go check that out. 

Sleeps through the night, 8:00 to 8:30 without waking up. If she does wake up she puts herself back to sleep so I usually just wait and listen to her on the monitor to make sure she's okay. 

Down to one nap a day which ranges anywhere from 1 hour to 3. Usually around 2 hours though. 

Eats all the food we eat and only has a bottle at nap time/ bed time now. She loves cookies, chicken nuggets, eggs, pasta, and french fries. I am trying to make sure she has a more balanced diet now, which in turn makes me have a more balanced diet so win win. 

She can walk now, she actually started walking about 3 weeks before she turned one but would still crawl every now and then like most babies. She officially started walking all the time about 3 weeks after she turned one. Now she is running, literally all over the place. 

She still whistles, and now loves dancing. She is very aware of music, and loves to lead the music in church when everyone is singing. 

She loves people! She will go up to anyone and just ask them to hold her. It's so cute. 

She has all her molars in and most of her teeth in now actually. We are just waiting on her k9's.We have started brushing her teeth and she really likes that a lot. 

She can say about 30 words right now and knows some body parts, some colors and animal sounds. She is so smart, our pediatrician actually said we will have to watch that to see how she continues to develop because of how fast she is learning everything. 

As for us. I recently had another miscarriage earlier this month (December). We were so excited to be pregnant but also a little overwhelmed. We do want our kids to be close in age but have decided to wait for a little bit before trying again. I have been diagnosed with progesterone deficiency which is why I have miscarriages. Basically my body doesn't produce enough progesterone at all and so we are looking into ways to regulate that. 

Zack recently graduated from his electrician school at the top of his class. I was so proud of him and he got a lot of awards for being at the top. 

We also moved! We honestly weren't planning on doing that but things just worked out and we ended up purchasing a house in Payson Utah. We have loved living here and although we know we wont live here forever we will be here for a while and we are excited to be apart of the community here. 

I am planning on blogging more in 2017. I kind of fell off the track with it when I started my new job but I really want to get back into blogging more. It's been so fun looking back at all my posts from earlier this year and I don't journal very good so this is a good way for me to do that. 

Here are some pictures from the last little while. Thanks for reading!

XO

Caitlin

Holiday Gift Guide 2016: Gifts for her $25 - $50

I got this idea from the amazing Jennifer Ross over at Pretty Neat Living. She does a holiday gift guide every year and I thought this would be fun to do on my own blog. Hope she doesn't mind that
I am piggy backing off her idea. Please go check out her site here to find her reviews and gift guides as well.

Today we are doing the category of gifts ranging in price from $25 - $50.
For Her:
 1. Sonix phone charger.  Retails for $45.

This is the perfect gift, especially for someone who uses their phone a lot. I have found that I needed a portable phone charger more often now. I use my phone constantly, for pictures, for social media, for internet research, for how tos, etc. I mean we all use our phone on a daily basis so a portable charger is a great gift for someone who may need that extra battery life but doesn't have access to an outlet.

2. Plaid Boucle Square Blanket Scarf. Retails for $35.10

I love scarf's. This one is perfect for winter. I especially love the colors as it reminds of Christmas. I haven't actually seen it in person but I think this is the perfect plaid scarf to have on hand. It's also on sale so that's a great bonus.

3. Target Tote Bag. Retails for $29.99

I want this bag! It's the perfect bag for a carry on for flights, or for a long day outing like to the zoo. It's also a great diaper bag. I am always looking for a bag with lots of pockets. I don't carry around as much stuff as I used to but this would be a great every day bag to have.

4. Skull candy Headphones. Retails for $29.99

Headphones! My husband loves this brand so when I came across these in this gorgeous coral color I knew I had to include them on this list. These headphones are known for being noise cancelling so the surrounding noise around you isn't distracting you from your task. These would be great for someone who spends a lot of time on the computer. I would use these daily and am hoping my husband sees this list and gets the HINT that I love these. (Will it work?)

5. Erin Condren Life Planner. Retails for $55.00 Use this link here to sign up and receive $10.00 off your first order making it $45.00 (plus shipping).

This is my planner I currently use. Check out my planner Instagram here. I love this planner. A planner is a great gift for someone as they start the new year, it's a way to map out your life so your goals can be accomplished. Planning helps with my anxiety and I am so grateful I have found the planning community. It's fun to share spreads with each other in Facebook groups and to gain inspiration for your planner from others. If you know someone who would love a planner this is a thoughtful gift that they will love for the entire year.

6. Two Faced Grand Hotel Cafe Holiday Gift Set. Retails for $49.00

Look how cute this set is. This is for all the makeup lovers out there, this gift is perfect because it's already in cute packaging. Just put it under the tree and you are good to go. I love the color scheme of the different palettes and feel that I would use all the different shadows. For someone who loves makeup this gives them a variety of blushes, a mascara, and eye shadows. It's a great collector's item as well.

Well I hope this was helpful for you. I will be doing another post this week on gifts for him in the $25 - $50 category and I will be doing two more posts of gifts in the $50 + category. I have a lot of great ideas for those gifts. Now to link this post to my husband's facebook so he sees what I want.

XO
Caitlin

 

Mommy Favorites 13 Month Old

These posts will highlight all of the products Claire and I have been loving for the past month of her life. Most of these products are toys, books, or other items that make my life and hers easier. I hope it's helpful for those of you are have babies and are getting to this stage in life.
I have to say I think this is my favorite stage so far. She is so fun right now. She can walk which has been so entertaining, she can communicate a lot better now. She knows a few words in sign language but she can mostly tell me what she needs by talking and showing me. She sleeps great, naps great and is just a fun baby to be around. So here is all of our current favorite things for her.

1. B. LucKeys: Claire is really into keys right now. Anytime we are going in the car, which seems like a lot lately, she always try's to grab for my keys. She can say keys and points at them and goes keys keys keys until we give her some. These baby keys are perfect! They have the metal end so she can chew on them, they aren't pointy at the end so if she falls with them in her mouth they wont stab her. The main key makes sounds when you press the buttons which is a lot of fun. They are awesome and I highly recommend purchasing them.

2. Baby Einsteins Learning Piano. This piano is awesome. I love music and want Claire to learn to the play the piano. She'll take lessons in a few years but until then I can teach her the basics at home. For now this is a great introductory toy to the piano. It helps them learn numbers, animal sounds and instrument sounds with the different settings that's on the piano. Then it plays classical music from Beethovan, Vilvaldi, etc. It plays 20 different musical melodies so I don't get sick of the same song being played over and over which is good.

3. Vtech touch and play phone. We got this toy to try and divert her from grabbing our phones. Of course she still would rather have our phones but she likes this one for a few minutes. It's nice because it has sound, the apps do different things when you touch them and you can call people. Claire is so smart so when I answer my phone she'll pick up this play phone if she is near it and say hi, just like I do.

4. Carter's baby onesies. I love onesies. I know some mom's it's not their favorite thing but I love it. Especially during the summer because most of the time she would just wear a onesie. I am still picking her up and holding her quite a bit so they work better for me because then her shirt doesn't get all bunched up from me holding her. I love the five pack ones you can get for $13.00 or so because I feel like that is the best deal.

5. Walmart Pajamas. All of her pajamas right now are from walmart. They are great. So inexpensive, they have the zip up footie pajamas I love as well as sets like this one. Claire loves anything Mickey and Minnie right now so this is a perfect set for her. She will be getting a lot of pajamas for Christmas this year.

6. Yogurt Melts. Claire is only on solids now. She has a bottle occasionally but its only about 3 times a day. One in the morning, one at nap time and one before she goes to bed. The rest of the time she eats regular food. For breakfast we do anything from eggs to waffles. For lunch we do chicken nuggets, ravioli, cheese quesadillas, vegetables, fruit smoothie, sandwiches, etc. Then for dinner she just eats whatever we eat. She needs some snacks in between meals and usually I go for cheerios, fruit, applesauce, but these yogurt melts are awesome. She loves them and they are already the perfect size for her so I don't have to cut them down or anything. Highly recommend them if you are looking for a snack.

7. Paw Patrol. Claire is really into show's right now. Paw patrol comes on in the mornings on the nickelodeon channel and she loves it. Of course because it has puppies. I usually try and limit her TV time to only about an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. This show keeps her occupied while I do laundry, and get other chores done around the house.

8. 101 Dalmations. Anything to do with puppies Claire is all over right now. So this show I watch at least once a day. Usually it's right when she gets up from her afternoon nap, she is still kind of groggy, and takes time to get her energy up to play. It isn't a very long movie so it's good for that time frame right when she wakes up from her nap.

9. Fisher Price backpack. Last but not least is I got a new diaper bag. I know I've gone through 4 already. I really needed a good sturdy backpack for a diaper bag. I don't use it every time we go out but when we are at my parents or in laws for family dinner, or she has to go to daycare for 30 minutes at the gym, or we are going to church we need a diaper bag. It's easiest to have the backpack because then we have both arms free and we can chase her around. Since she is walking this is what we spend most of our time doing. This bag is great because it has pockets for so many things and can fit everything we need in it plus more.

There you have it our current favorites for this past month. Thanks for reading and I hope you got some great ideas. Please share some things you have found helpful as I am always looking for new products.

XO
Caitlin

Scriptures to help with depression & anxiety

Many of you know of the struggle I've had with mental illness over the last 10 years. I feel great right now, and my postpartum anxiety is finally at bay so I feel like I can share this with a perspective of looking into the glass instead of being on the other side of it trying to get out. During my bouts of depression saying prayers was one of the hardest things for me to do. I didn't pray as much because I felt unworthy to pray. I felt that I was too worthless and not good enough to pray. This is so untrue, I know this now but in the middle of it no matter how many times I tried to tell my self that was untrue I never grasped that concept. Reading scriptures and conference talks was what helped me the most. I felt they gave me the strength that I needed to keep going and it also gave me a testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ and how he can help me with my struggles.
I had a list of go to scriptures that would help me the most, as well as stories of prophets and apostles who also struggled with mental illness. Did you know these stories exist? They do and I hope this list will help some of you. Remember that "the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" (Doctrine & Covenants 18:10) , and you are worth it, I promise!!

Old Testament
Deuteronomy 3:22
Deuteronomy 31:8
Joshua 1:9
Psalm 13
Psalms 40: 1-3
Isaiah 41:10
Jeremiah 17: 7-8

New Testament
Matthew 5:4
Matthew 26: 37-38 (one of my favorites. It talks about when Christ was going into the garden of Gethsemane and how his soul felt. This one helped me the most realize that even our Savior has felt these feelings)
John 3:16
Romans 8:35-39
1 Corinthians 15:19
2 Corinthians 1: 3-4
Philippians 4:13

Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ
 2 Nephi 4
Mosiah 27:29
Alma 8:14
Alma 26:27-31
Alma 36: 1-24
Alma 37:45

Doctrine & Covenants
Section 18:10
Section 121: 1-9
Section 136:29

General Conference Talks
April 2009: None were with Him Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Oct 2009: Hold on Ann M. Dibb
Oct 2013: Like a Broken Vessel Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

XO
Caitlin

How to make Erin Condren Life Planner Stickers: Heart Checklists

The planner sticker series is back. Honestly it's really time consuming to create these posts so I almost didn't write this one. But let's get into it. The first heart checklist boxes I am going to show you how to do are these ones:

(I will do ombre heart checklists next time)
If you haven't read my original post in this series please go do so now. This post will go over the basic things you'll need to create this checklist. The main one being digital scrapbook paper you will be using for your designs. It also covers what software program you will need to design the stickers.

For these posts I will be using the silhouette studio free version.

Step 1: Open your design studio and we will start with full boxes!
First you will want to change your page settings to say 8.5 x 11 for a normal sheet of printer paper.

 

Step 2: Find the draw rectangle box and draw a rectangle on the paper.

 Step 3: Once you have your rectangle on the left you are going to click the mouse sign again so you can work with the rectangle, otherwise you'll just draw another rectangle on the page. Once you click the mouse you will click on the rectangle.  Then in the upper boxes you will click on the window that says scale.

 In this scale window you are going to uncheck the lock aspect button, and for the width say 1.5 in and for the height say 1.9 inches. That makes it the perfect size for the Erin Condren boxes.

Step 4: Now that you have your base for the initial background color you are going to use the color drop feature to change it to match your digital paper.
In the upper right hand corner of the page you'll see a box with a bucket.

Click on that box and then this drop down menu will appear on your right:

You'll see the color dropper there on the first row: 

Click the color dropper and drag it to your pattern and click on a color in the pattern you want to make your background for your heart checklist. Once you have filled in the box with the color you like it's time to create the second box which will be the transparent box that goes over this box we just created.

Step 5: Repeat steps 2 & 3. Only instead of resizing the box to 1.9 x 1.5 you will resize it to be 1.695 x 1.276. This will be slightly smaller but still leave a border of the original color. We are leaving the color of this box so you don't need to change it.

Step 6: We are going to change the transparency of the box we just created it. In the upper right hand corner you are going to click on the box that has the pattern in the middle of it. Looks like this:

 When you click on that box this menu will appear in the right hand corner.

You will want to click on the advanced options to have this drop down menu appear.

Where it says transparency (at the very bottom) you will type in 60.4 to change the transparency level. Next take that box and put it on top of your colored box we created.

Now to make them even you will go and click on the align button (highlighted blue in the above picture) and click on align center. Then highlight both of the boxes by right clicking on dragging your mouse over them and then click group to group these two boxes together.

Step 7: Now we are going to make the heart checklist part. First thing you will need to do is get a heart shape. You can either hand draw a heart shape in silhouette design using the little pencil which is over to the left or you can just search for a heart icon on google and use one of those images.
I hand drew my heart and just thickened the line a little bit to make it look a little better.
Once you have your heart image you are going to select the replicate button on the top right bar that looks like this:

 

 When you click on that button this list will appear.

 
You will click duplicate below 5 times so you heart image is created 5 times and you have a small checklist looking like this:

 

Step 8: Next we want to space out those hearts so they align with our full box. 

You will click on the scale button again:

You will type in these measurements for this: 1.696 h and 0.197 width. Then your hearts will be spaced out to the perfect length and it will look like this.

Next you will drag that over to your full box and group them together. You can align them by clicking on the align tool (the button right next to the scale tool) and clicking align center. This will make the final checklist box look really pretty. 

And that's it. 

Sorry this post took so long to write. As you can see I wanted to be as detailed as possible and it just takes a long time to blog when I have a toddler running around. 

Thanks for sticking with me. I will try and blog about ombre checklists in a week or so.

XO

Caitlin

 

August Lifestyle and Beauty Favorites

Hey all! I am back! I decided to step back into blogging full on for September and see how I do. I am thinking my schedule will be twice a week for now. Blogging has been such a fun way to document our lives. It's also my creative outlet and a way to connect to so many people. I know at this time of year my post on how to set up a college binder has been getting a lot of hits. I am going to be doing an updated version of that soon, as my tastes have changed. I have graduated with my degree and am not pursuing a master's degree but my husband is currently in school so I will use his syllabus to help with the post.
In the meantime I have been wanting to do a lifestyle and beauty favorites post for a while. Many of my favorite YouTube beauty gurus have posted their favorite posts today and it got me inspired to do mine. I have had a lot of favorite's so let's start with some fashion items.

 This top is one of my favorite finds from the summer! It's from Ross and I love it. It's a little flowy but was perfect for hot summer days. The big pattern just works for me.

 This C necklace I got in honor of my daughter Claire. I love to wear it and it is just special to me. I got it from My Name Necklace. They have a lot of options you can choose from but this is just so simple and Claire doesn't pull on it anymore, she touches and looks at it but doesn't pull on it so she doesn't break the chain which is good.
Now for beauty favorites.

 This body wash! You guys, it is amazing, and as you can see I almost used it all up in about 2 weeks. It's from Walmart, or any store that you can find soft soap brand and it smells so good. Makes my skin feel so soft and I use it as a shaving cream. I lather it all up on my loufa and then put it on my legs. Makes for a great shaving cream.

Urban Decay Naked Palette. This palette has been my go to for a while now. I love the colors for fall and they are so simple and great for every day. I usually use the three lightest shades on  a daily basis. If I want to switch it up then I will use the golden toned shades. I can create so many looks with this palette and it was worth every penny. Highly recommend.

 

Mac Melba blush. I am in love. This is my blush! I  have worn it every day for about a month now and it just brings the perfect wash of color to my skin. It's great for my fair skin tone but even better when I am tan.  Love it so much. 

Now onto some multi-media favorites

First off my planner. I couldn't do a favorites post without talking about my Erin Condren Life Planner.  I am loving it so much lately. Planning has been a therapeutic, creative outlet for me and not only that but it helps me combat my social anxiety so much. Check out the site if you haven't and you can use that link to get $10.00 off your first order. 
With my planner I have loved creating my own stickers. It saves me a little money, lets me be creative and I enjoy the entire design process. One of my favorite shops to get digital paper from is Bloomsical on etsy. Look at these designs!

The makeup one and the fall one I am dying over. Heart eyes for day. Most shops use digital scrap booking paper to create their designs and this shop is a popular one. Check her out! And stay tuned for my series on how to create planner stickers which will be continuing this month.
Last favorite of the month was an author I discovered through the overdrive app. This author is Elizabeth Camden and she writes historical romance novels. My favorite genre to read is romance and especially historical romance. Her books are very clean, free from profanity and sex scenes which I love. Highly recommend any of her books.

Thanks for reading about my favorites this past month. Can't wait to try new things and discover old ones for my September favorites post.
XO
Caitlin

Claire 12 month update/birthday party pictures

I had a blast planning Claire's 1st birthday. We went with a Minnie mouse theme, in the classic red, yellow, white and black colors. Claire loves Minnie mouse and Mickey mouse so it fit her so well. First thing I did was make this adorable chalkboard poster highlighting all her accomplishments from the past year.

I designed the chalkboard using photoshop and printed and mounted it myself. It turned out so cute.
Her dress is from her cousin Scarlett.

I also made a happy birthday sign using Minnie mouse ears that turned out so cute and tied everything together.

Zack and I matched her by wearing our Minnie mouse and Mickey mouse outfits for some fun family pictures.

Claire loved her cupcake and wanted to share with everyone to. It was the cutest thing.

Happy first birthday baby girl! I love you so much!

Thanks for reading
XO
Caitlin