The Mama Playbook

I personally feel that, in motherhood, some seasons are more difficult than others. It’s been one of those for me lately as it’s been a little crazier at our house than usual. My husband is preparing for the biggest exam yet of his medical career and is literally studying 14-16 hours a day. I deliver food to his office door, and I honestly don’t know how he does it. His brain is amazing. Anyway, we don’t see him much/hardly at all. I’ve been going through a bit of postpartum overwhelm, my children are incredibly high energy and if I’m being completely honest, I haven’t been the mother I want to be lately. At all. My children are truly my world,the much desired beloved joys of my heart, and nothing hurts me more than feeling that I am failing in being the mother I want to be for them.

Continue reading Maintaining Joy in Parenting When Your Cup is Empty

I have realized lately that having children has definitely changed me, one area being my ability to deal with confrontation when necessary. But, this post is really about an experience we had recently due to the fact my children are not all the same gender. So, the twins had their first dance class this week. We’ve done gymnastics mommy and me classes but this was their first “real” class experience. They’ve been over the moon excited, and I found it’s a bit more difficult to find dance gear for toddler boys, which is ridiculous, I mean, boys dance too. Hello, heard of Mikhail Baryshnikov?! Anyway, they have both literally been counting down the days until class started.

Continue reading When your inner Mama Bear comes out/don’t treat my kids differently due to your gender bias

One of my biggest parenting lessons as a previous control freak has been you simply cannot control everything all the time when you have children. That being said, I do like to have a semblance of order and peace every day, for me it helps me keep my sanity and thus help me be a better mama. I can’t always keep the bathroom spotless and I can’t always have all the laundry put away (ok, maybe ever on that one hahaha!) but I have found a few easy, doable daily things that help me feel better about everything. I call them my daily sanity savers! These may not be your five things, but if you don’t have them already, I hope they can at least help you maybe find five things that help YOU feel on top of it all, even when you have tiny humans using you as a jungle gym and your house resembles a disco with the world’s tiniest ravers alive. And please share below I would love to hear what yours are!

Continue reading Five Easy Ways I make Myself Feel like I Have it all together every day (even when I totally don’t)

First of all, I want to give credit to my wonderful sister, Hayley, for photographing Charlie’s birth. It was no easy task in our cramped, tight and very dark little room, but it means the world to me to have Charlie’s birth documented, both in photos and videos. Working in such a dark room is nearly impossible for photography, but the twins were born under fluorescent lights and I was SO grateful for the dim calm this time! She also photographed the twins birth, (as much of it as she was permitted to at the hospital!) and I am eternally grateful for her love and labors at both events. She even hung in there when it got super gnarly, bless her brave heart.

I will admit to feeling quite vulnerable in sharing all of this, but, being able to read other’s birth stories and see their photos and videos gave me such strength before both of my births, and I am sharing our story in the hope that I can do that for someone else.

Watch Charlie’s birth story video here, and scroll down to read it <3

Continue reading The Birth Story of Charlie Adam Lloyd

Allow me to preface this with the statement that I am not an architect, nor am I a DIY expert, just a mom on a mission, so please feel free to ask for clarification on construction for this bed! 🙂

Ever since the twins were born, we’ve been a cosleeping family, and loved it. Many things contributed to that decision, not in the least of all which was space. (When you have one bedroom you do what you gotta do!) When our queen bed got too small we purchased a twin bed off of Amazon and sidled it up next to the queen mattress to make one bigger bed. When we found out we were pregnant with Charlie, I started making plans to transition them into their own beds as part of our home renovation. Well, the renovation took longer than expected (don’t they all) and suddenly Charlie was here and the only progress I had made was to remove the extra twin mattress and in its place put some toddler mattresses on our bedroom floor, so essentially we were all in the same bed still, it was just a LOT smaller!

Continue reading Easiest DIY Toddler Bunk Bed (no sawing or additional tools required!)