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The one where I explain what happened to my winter capsule

I haven’t talked wardrobe capsules in a while. Not to fear, they have not been forgotten 🙂

So, what happened with the winter one?

Welp, I gave it up once I realized that winter wasn’t coming. El Niño crampin’ my capsule-style.

Apparently I live in denial about what the weather ACTUALLY does in htx so I wasn’t able to wear the majority of my warmer fall pieces until after Christmas when we started to get some “cold fronts” blow through.

Soooooo essentially fall capsule turned into winter capsule.

And as much as I love capsule wardrobing I SO need a break from these clothes.

I am counting down to spring and am excited about getting this spring capsule finalized. Here’s to hoping I don’t get idealistic about what Houston springtime actually feels like 😛

Here are a few faves that are coming with me:

What are you carrying over into spring?

-S

The one where I talk about cleaning shoes

I know. I know.

This is kind of a weird post.

But we wear a lot of Converse in this house and few things make me more crazy than dirty shoes.

And who has time to clean shoes? Not me.

So you see my dilemma.

I need something quick + easy that gets the job done.

I sound like a commercial. (But you can relax, this totally isn’t one)

Just a mama hack 🙂

Before

After

Amazing, right?

Here’s how I do it:

My magic shoe cleaning potion

1/4 oxyclean
1 squirt of dish soap (people swear by Blue Dawn- I just used the Clorox Green Works that we already had)
Enough water to make it pretty liquidy once it’s mixed together

This is obviously VERY scientific.

So I mix all of this together and use a hard bristle brush to dip in the solution and scrub the shoe. I only scrub the white/rubber part of the shoe since the canvas doesn’t usually get too dirty. I keep scrubbing until it is nice and clean and then carefully rinse it off.

If I know the shoes will be worn within the next few hours I’m extra careful to only wet the rubber and not the canvas, otherwise you have to let them sit and dry for a day or so.

Hope this helps!

-S

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The one where I recap 2015

This post is a few weeks late, but you know, better late than never…

2015 was full of amazing memories, big challenges, and great changes. I learned a lot about myself as a wife, mama, and friend; but most importantly I grew stronger in my faith this year. We have been very blessed and all the praise hands for God’s amazing grace and forgiveness on my stubborn mama self as I continue to make mistakes + learn + make more mistakes + more learning + repeat throughout this journey in mamahood.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so no better way to chronicle my year than to do a total photo dump of some of our most memorable 2015 moments. Hope you don’t mind 🙂

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I’m ready for 2016 and can’t wait to see what God has planned for our little family. It’s gonna be a good one, I can feel it 🙂

-S

The one where I talk about how we survive road trips

Road trips aren’t my thing.

Even the short ones.

But when your families live at least 4 hours away (in opposite directions of each other) sometimes you have to put on the big girl pants, grit your teeth, and get on the road.

When Little S was a teeny weeny human, it wasn’t too bad (although I likely would have disagreed with that statement at the time). We’d stop every few hours to nurse and if she was crying we would drive on the bumpy side of the road and that usually helped…no big deal.

Now that she’s a full on talking, strong-willed toddler, we aren’t always as lucky.

Unfortunately, there are times that no amount of apple juice or bumpy roads will help console her.

And to be perfectly honest, I can’t really blame her.

Seriously, if it were socially acceptable for a grown woman to kick + scream + cry over being stuck in a car for hours on end, I’d be right there with her.

So how do we survive when the toys + books have lost their appeal and she starts screaming “I wanna get out!” and there are still 3 hours left of driving?

Easy.

We set aside all of those things we swore we would never do back when we were the perfect parents of ZERO children.

We give in.

(I mean, usually we’re on the way to the grandparents house so I know she won’t hear “no” the entire time we’re there…what damage could a few extra hours of this really do?)

Kidding. Well, not really. We have a few road trip survival rules we live by and they require us to be a lot more flexible and relaxed about what we give in to.

1.) Have a plan for when the toys + books stop working their magic

We always start off so hopeful and things usually look promising for about 5 minutes, then the scream and trying to unbuckle the seats begins… so for us, plans B + C involve handing over the the iPad, iPhone, well, anything really.

“Sure. You can empty out all of the contents of my purse. Go for it kiddo.”

2.) Snacks.

So.many.snacks. (Yes, even the ones that are full of sugar and we’ll likely regret giving her later.)

Because gummies are magic in our world.

3.) Songs.

Make sure you have access to all of the favorites and even the ones that are potential favorites because you never know. Also be prepared for so many repeats of the same.dang.songs.

“Why of course we’ll play ‘Wheels on the Bus’ for the billionth time. We love this song.”

4.) More snacks.

Yes, lunch/dinner is probably totally ruined at this point…but remember, we are in survival mode here.

5.) Get creative.

Find anything that is remotely amusing and maximize it.

“Look at the windshield wipers! Whoa, let’s clean up the buggies with the washer fluid and wipers!”

It’s survival mode, friend. No judgement on doing what you have to do to make it through.

The great thing about road trips is that they [eventually] end. I will warn you though, don’t look at the clock to often…it tends to move much slower than you would like it to.

Hope you all had wonderful + safe + happy travels throughout the holidays 🙂

-S

The one where I talk about potty training

The week of Thanksgiving I decided to potty train.

I know, genius.

Traveling. Turkey. Stuffing. Mashed potatoes. Green bean casserole. All ties in perfectly with cleaning up accident after accident, right?

Let’s just agree to blame it on mother-of-one idealism, eh?

No, seriously. I totally thought I would be writing this amazing + slightly humorous series of posts on how “fun” our experience was and how “successful” we were and how it wasn’t easy but definitely”doable”.

Nope. Not gonna happen.

In fact, motherhood lesson #14,320,439,025,238 was the complete understanding of why Pull Ups and other companies make diapers in big enough for elementary age kiddos.

Not gonna, lie. It’s pretty appealing to just call it a day and let the kid figure it out on her own when she’s a teenager.

Seriously…and it would probably keep the boys away. *insert evil laugh here*

Long story short: potty training attempted and failed.

In true Sarina fashion I read all the books, blogs, and scoured the Internet to figure out when a good time to start would be. All of them said that toddlers are typically ready at 22 months and/or when they’re aware of their “movements.”

Check and check.

But nope. Still not ready for the “big girl potty” over here.

Here’s a rundown of how it went:

Little S would tell me that she had to go potty. We would run to the potty. She would scream and scream and scream and scream that she didn’t want to sit on it.

Negotiation.

Candy.

More negotiation.

More candy.

No potty.

She’d hold it for 4 hours and then proceed to have accidents for the next 3 hours every 30 minutes.

Because I’m stubborn and because the things I read said it would “click” eventually, we did this for about a week before the hubs and I were resigned to the fact that it wasn’t going to click. At least not right now.

And that’s okay.

So much of this motherhood business involves learning that its okay to not succeed the first time around.

It hasn’t been an easy lesson to learn, but I’ve gotten better at rolling with the failures and knowing that they don’t define me and being a mom sometimes involves just being okay with resolving to try again…later.

And if potty training doesn’t take the next time or two around we’ll just buy stock in Pull Ups and call it a day. Amiright?

-S

The one where I explain why Little S keeps telling people that mommy fell off the table

“Mommy fell table”

This is the toddler talk in my house and if you don’t know me it probably sounds a liiiittle scandalous.

No. In case you were wondering, I haven’t picked up any new hobbies.

I’m still happily standing (and dancing) on floors 🙂

This is the table she’s referring to. And this is what happened.

It’s all very complicated.

(It’s actually not)

I was walking backwards helping the tiny human with something and tripped over this table.

In the waiting area at our gate coming home from Montreal.

It wasn’t pretty.

And it hurt.

And there were a lot of people watching us because I was the only person with a toddler waiting for the plane.

Little S kept asking me “Mommy hurt?” after it happened which was very sweet, but instead of saying a simple “Yes” I said the line I would be hearing for the next month or so: “It’s okay, mommy just fell on the table.”

Totally did NOT expect this to be her opening line when we meet new people.

Oh toddler mamahood…all of the explaining…all of the time.

Moral of the story: it’s time for me to think about what I say and how the toddler translation might sound.

-S

The one where I show you the C non-smile, Nashville Edition

There is a well known fact in my social circle that C doesn’t smile in photos.

I don’t know if that’s he doesn’t like to or that he doesn’t realize that he isn’t…either way it makes for a whole bunch of pictures that make it look like he hates his life. Ironically, he is actually one of the most positive + friendly + happy people that I know, but something about him taking a picture makes him get a little Chandler Bing on me.

For your amusement I have decided to showcase the ones from our most recent family trip.

So here it is, the C non-smile, Nashville Edition:

I swear we like each other…it just doesn’t get documented in photos.

-S

The one where I talk about what’s in the travel backpack

Keeping a kiddo entertained.

To me, that is single-handedly the most difficult part about traveling with a toddler.

Well, at least MY toddler.

Although I am totally okay with iPadding it up on the plane, I usually try to save that as a last resort.

Why?

Truth be told, I’m just worried I’ll stick it in the pocket of the seat in front of me when she gets bored of it and then I’ll forget it on the plane.

Not a huge revelation, but there are enough things to manage so I just prefer playing with things on the plane that won’t be missed if they get forgotten.

So here is what was in our backpack this time around:

Stephen Joseph Backpack: So cute and functional. Only downside is that it doesn’t have a handy side pocket for her water bottle.

Tegu Blocks: These are amazing! They are magnetic so it limits the risk of a runaway block on the plane and it comes with a felt bag to keep it all contained + organized when not in use.

Fisher Price Let’s Go to the Zoo/ Vamos al Zoologico Lift the Flap Book: We’re practicing our bilingual skills and Little S is a huge fan of animals so this book is a win-win for mama and the tiny human.

Learn to Tie Laces Activity Board: My mom found this at the dollar store and even though we are nowhere near lace tying, homegirl loves stringing things through…this just helps us (i.e. me) avoid dealing with a bag of beads while we travel 🙂

Little Ones Think Sticker Skill Book: My mother-in-law found a few of these at her local JoAnn Fabric and they are amazing. Best part? When the stickers are all gone she ~~colors~~ scribbles on the pages and then we get to throw it away. Lighter load for the tots backpack? Always a good thing.

Plain Notebook and Stickers: I don’t travel without stickers. Lots and lots of stickers. My girl loves them and I let her practice all of the sticking + peeling + more sticking + more peeling that she wants. I like to put packing tape on several of the pages in the notebook to help the stickers keep their “stick” since there is a lot of sticking and peeling that happens.

Any easy go-to travel favorites y’all have? I’d love to know!

-S

The one where I talk about our weekend in Nashville

Flying solo to Nashville was much much easier than my flight to Montreal.

Most likely because there wasn’t a layover, the timing was better, and it was only about a 90 minute flight.

Everything I knew about Nashville prior to this trip was learned from the TV show. And yes, we totally stalked some of the filming locations during the tiny human’s car naps (more on that in another post), but here were some of my favorite things.

The Hermitage
This was Andrew Jackson’s home and the teacher in me loves all of these historical sites and the random info you get from the tour guides.

Folliage y’all. This Houstonian is all.about.the.leaf.change.

Squint central, I know… but we’d left the sunnies in the car because it was raining when we arrived. I should’ve known the sun would pop out right when we wanted to take a pic.

This is where Andrew Jackson (and his family) is buried. Creepy, but cool.

Ryman Auditorium
This was the original home of the Grand ‘Ol Opry (the Opry is actually there temporarily right now). Totally worth doing the tour here.

This is the happiest C looked in any of these selfie-style pics. I have a whole post dedicated to his non-smile coming up, don’t you worry.

Peg Leg Porker
Because food is important. This place won all of the mama votes when my picky eater devoured anything we put on her plate.

The Pharmacy
Good food + great atmosphere + kid friendly= lunchtime perfection. Little S even got a lesson in stick figures from Daddy.

Centennial Park/Parthenon
We had a super fun morning walking around Centennial Park, looking at the ducks, and of course swinging (because that is the toddler’s jam right now). Oh yeah, we also toured the Parthenon…well the American replica of it at least.

All of the traveling and all this kid wanted was a good park and all of the swinging.

We visited the weekend after the CMA’s so there were still red carpets and party tents up everywhere. So, why not roll that stroller down the red carpet?

Broadway Street
Not a whole lot of nightlife sites on this trip because, you know, tiny human and all…but we did walk down Broadway at night. There is music blaring from every single doorway you pass by. We did manage to visit the rooftop at Acme Feed & Seed (not actually a feed store) to get a good view of the Nashvegas strip from there.