Below are my favorites - I’ll try to update it as I discover more!

when we don’t have a housecleaner for whatever reason, we do a cleaning schedule. it’s just like what the incredible Clean Mama does and teaches, but I tweak it to make it work better for us and our household.

and by doing this, I don’t clean for more than 20 minutes a day. and, the perk of it being a schedule that repeats is that if I don’t feel like cleaning, I skip it that day with the knowledge that I’ll just get to it next time.

and another perk of a schedule is that everything feels manageable and everything feels like a bite-sized piece. it’s not stressful or overwhelming.

below is how I break everything up - do whatever works best for you and your space!

here’s a list of all the things we’ve loved having for the first year of KK’s life. again, take this allllll with a grain of salt, since what works really, really well for us may not work for you and that’s okay. as always, take what you love and leave the rest. you know your needs, your family’s needs, and your baby’s needs the best!

side note: see this list for my favorite postpartum things - made those first few months so much smoother and so, so sweet.

our baby favorites:

here’s a list of all the things we’ve loved having for the first six months of KK’s life. again, take this allllll with a grain of salt, since what works really, really well for us may not work for you and that’s okay. as always, take what you love and leave the rest. you know your needs, your family’s needs, and your baby’s needs the best!

side note: see this post for my full list of favorite postpartum and recovery must-haves.

introduction

First, however you are feeding your baby is amazing. You are amazing. This is just what we’re doing - you do whatever works best for you!

Here you’ll find a documentation of our eating journey with KK. Because I am such a picky eater and still weird about so many textures, I wanted to make sure my daughter has an exposure to a wide variety of foods and textures, so this has become some sort of a Passion Project for me. And, because I love love love making dinner, because I wanted to eat dinner as a family as long as organically possible, and because I wanted to make one meal for everyone, Baby Led Weaning was a path I wanted to try. (And really, I’ll be trying some of these foods alongside her, so this has been great for me, too.)

And if it all doesn’t work out, that’s okay! I’m enjoying this journey regardless.

here’s a full post on how we celebrate easter + how our Easter basket formula came to be.

but the gist is this: we use our Easter baskets as our way of purchasing some essentials for the upcoming Texas Summer. because I’ll need to buy things like swimsuits and sunscreen and pool hats anyway, so I may as well call it an Easter gift. plus, this is my annual reminder to make sure Brett and I both have things we feel good in, and also get us excited for summer. because who do you think is taking all these babies to the pool all summer, and to the beach for our annual trip? momma and daddy.

family photo cred: my darling Hannah Black Photography

i love photos. i love filling our home with happy memories. i love prioritizing these things in our home, in our budget, and in our schedule. and we finally figured out the simple way to organize and display our photos and memories that works for us.

as always, there are many, many ways to do this. this is just what works for us. take what you love, leave the rest, make it your own. you do whatever works best for you!

ranked up there with the most helpful things we have - alongside our whiteboard and our yearly tasks + expenses list - is our list of monthly routines.

let’s make one for you!

ready?

let’s recap this month:

• posted a photo of how I put the inside of my cabinet doors to work

• our second nugget came!

  • i knew before I was pregnant that I reallyyy wanted to invest in at least one nugget when my baby was young because I loved

first, let’s talk dinner themes.

I’ve been menu planning consistently since 2015. (here’s my dorky little menu plan blog of every single thing we’ve ate for dinner since 2015, if you’d like proof…or dinner ideas.)

and in that time I’ve learned I love dinner themes. kinda.

I’ve learned what works best for us is having a few dinner themes each week and a few non-themed days each week. to me this is the perfect amount of structure and automation, with still plenty of room for flexibility. because while I like themes on some days, I like having a few blank days of “make whatever you want.” and I like dinner themes that give me guidance when meal planning, but also give me lots of options within the theme so that I don’t feel like we’re eating the same darn thing.