taking control

Oh my gosh someone tell me how this cutie is over 10 months already?! HOW is that even possible. As Fall turns to Winter the end of the year approached which means Lyla has almost completed her 12 months on earth. My sweet baby girl, I feel like you were just born yesterday. Lots has changed since she entered the world! Lots has changed with our family, lots has changed for me a woman, and lots has changed in our marriage. Having a baby is a HUGE adjustment, postpartum is something that has been discussed a lot lately and I for one am happy for that. There is so much that is still not talked about, so we as women receive a big shock at just what will happen to our bodies. I wrote an instagram post the other on postpartum hair loss, and today I am talking about being a woman and dealing with postpartum and intimate times in the bedroom!

Fall Front Porch - Year three

Happy October, well I guess there is only one day left in the month so this post is a all time late BUT Fall is not over just because October is. We still have November, and if you are in the US thanksgiving has yet to happen so definitely keep those pumpkins out! Here in Canada we are approaching the end of my favorite season, the leaves have almost all left the trees & as I look ahead in the forecast I see those little snowflake emoji's which means..... winter. We are not there yet so I am going to share my front porch, year THREE! If you missed the past two years you can see those posts here & here. 

homemade baby puree

Baby Food. A word that literally has so many definitions AND so many opinions. I think any mama out there feels the same or has the a bit of the same anxiety when people ask 

"oh, your baby is eating solids what are you feeding her?"

Lyla had her two bottom teeth come in just before turning five months. At that time our Doctor had cleared her for solids which was so exciting! We tried a few different feeding "practices" but after some time we decided that best for Lyla and us as a family would be baby purees as well as little pieces of what we eat as well. Lyla is a reflux baby, if you follow on instagram or have read on the blog before you will know we struggled big time for the fist six month of her life trying to keep anything in her tummy. At her six month appointment our doctors prescribed Lyla ranitidine which she currently takes twice a day. She also takes baby probiotics every morning which she has done since she was just a couple weeks old. These two factors also had an impact on choosing purees for Lyla. She gets her reflux medicine and probiotics in her morning puree and her reflux medicine again in her dinner puree. 

girls playroom

This past summer we have been hard at work on a very special project for the house. As Lyla has become older she has needed her own space outside of our bedroom so we have moved her into Sofias bedroom and it has now become "the girls" room! I did an Instagram post with a few photos of the room here  (I will have a full post up soon) and you can see what Sofias room looked like prior in the post I publish here. With their room being shared and both girls getting older we have SO MUCH STUFF! Insert our newest project, the basement play room. A safe place for both girls to enjoy playing, being creative, and spending lots of time together laughing and chatting to each other. And let me tell you, Lyla can chat!

our breastfeeding journey

First off never in a million years did I think I would be writing a blog post about breasteeding. When thinking back to my first few years blogging things that were important to me then we handbags, Nordstrom's bp department and which shoes went with my outfit. Although those things are still very much important in my life recently nipple cream, pumping, and my never ending water bottle have taken over! 

family connection

Disclosure: I have partnered with YMC and TELUS and have received compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

Each year goes by so quickly but this year I can literally see how fast time is flying when I look at this sweet beautiful baby of mine! Do you remember her newborn photos in this post? Or how about our maternity photos we took last winter? I feel like I was just stressing about those outfits yesterday (haha!). Lots has changed since Lyla has entered the world, specially when it comes to keeping in touch with family and sending lots of pictures and videos between everyone. These photos were taken a couple days before Lyla turned 6 months, obviously I need to document! How cute is my tiny little babe?

sister sister

Here is a little throw back post of you featuring some of the cutest photos of Lyla and Sofia that never got published! Take a look....

Can someone please tell me how my baby is three months old already?!  Time is flying by way too quickly which was such a big fear of mine before Lyla was born.  Her new faces she makes, her little  coos, she's grabbing things with her hands and she thinks the dogs are fascinating. She also loves sitting up and observing what is happening around her at all times. The over your shoulder hold is officially no longer! Everyone would tell me that each new stage of a baby's life is the best stage, and even though I am sad time is going by quickly I do love watching her evolve!

Besides time, another fear I have is that I wouldn't be prepared for all these different stages Lyla is going to be entering. The "new born" stage was amazing. The snuggles, the naps, the smells but I knew that wouldn't last forever and in the back of my mind I was constantly thinking, How will I know what to do when she enters the next stage? How will I be prepared? Will I have the right items I need? Will she like the toys and gear I have for her? All these questions would race through my mind constantly. With a little confidence and some help I know we can make it through all stages!

roadtrip - Cannon Beach

part two: Cannon Beach, OR, USA March 19th-20th, 2019

I visited Cannon Beach about 6 years ago while passing thorough on a road trip and since then I have always wanted to go back. This little beach town in Oregon is incredible. Breathtaking to say the least. We left Vancouver on Tuesday March 19th, picked up Sofia at 10:00am and hit the road. Unfortunately we got caught at the border in the LONGEST line of our lives. Over 3 hours of waiting. Patiently or NOT patiently we waited. The girls and I took the dogs on a walk around the park at the border, we had lunch in the car, we played games and we slowly saw our time in Cannon Beach getting shorter and shorter. Once we got through the border we ended up hitting Seattle traffic and then we hit Tacoma traffic plus we were stopping for the dogs to pee and give Lyla a break from the car seat. 

We had plans of arriving in at our Hotel in Cannon Beach around 4:00pm so we could have a bonfire and dinner on the beach. It was 75 degrees and sunny that evening which is unheard of when talking about the Oregon Coast. Unfortunately we didn't arrive in until 8:30pm and everything was dark. We relaxed in the hotel and snacked on what we had in the car for dinner and decided if we head to bed early we can get up and hit the beach in the morning before leaving for the next destination. Here are some amazing photos (my favorite of the trip!) from our morning in Cannon Beach, OR. 

20 weeks postpartum update

I received a notification from my pregnancy app letting me know my baby is 20 weeks old... insert huge eyes and a big WHAT! first off, I stopped counting Lyla in weeks at around 8 or 9... she became two months. I was not going to be that mom who had a 92 week old baby! I had forgotten how many weeks she was but remember very vividly counting my pregnancy in weeks. each week was a huge deal to me. we read the pregnancy app religiously as a family to see how Lyla was developing in my tummy. I still remember to this day, my water broke at 38 and 4 and she was delivered at 38 and 6.  couldn't tell you at all what week or day Lyla is now but it doesn't matter she is almost 5 months haha! I wanted to write a little updated 20 weeks postpartum of how both I and Lyla are doing. You can read the 20 weeks bumpdate here. 

jacket // dress (non maternity but great for a bump, so comfy and NOT nursing friendly, I took this off after these photos because impossible to breastfeed in) // shoes 

Lyla: headband via Hobby Lobby // shorts // onsie hand-me-down from gap

what i wore (postpartum) wednesday

what I wore (postpartum) wednesday

 i love this super easy and casual outfit for spring. this pink and white stripped top is perfect for nursing mama's & i love the tie detail at the bottom. these jeans are old from target (no longer available) but i linked a similar favorite pair below. lastly i am so obsessed with jelly sandals, hello 90's kids (!), these walmart.ca jelly bow flip flops are everything! they are 14.97 but i also linked a few similar pairs for all my US friends! if you are interested in my handbag that is now worn with EVERY outfit, also known as the diaper bag on the chair behind me, i have linked that as well! happy wednesday

Road Trip - Vancouver

I had plans to write these travel post as we were out on the road but I underestimated the difficulty and honestly the exhaustion I would have when traveling with a new born, a 9 year old and two pups. SO instead of trying to blog while we traveled I made it a priory to document via photos and now that we are home I have plenty of time to write a little recap on all of our destinations! Going through and creating these posts is the best because it takes me back to those fun filled (and entertaining!) days we had! Enjoy the journey of what was Puckett RoadTrip 2019 

Part One: Vancouver, BC Canada March 18th, 2019

A Baby Shower in Celebration of our Lyla

Hello! 

A couple weeks ago we had a little shower in celebration of Lyla's entrance to the world. We had another shower back in Arizona before Lyla was born (I never pulled together a blog about it but you might remember this instagram post with some photos!) and now that Lyla has made her entrance we had a shower here at home. My great friend Jen, hostessed the most beautiful rose inspired day and it was truly incredible!

A big part of a shower seems to be the registry, which can definitely be overwhelming. At our shower in Arizona we received lots of beautiful outfits, blankets, and little things we could bring home in our suit cases.  When I started  to think about our registry here I knew I needed to put actual items that were a necessity not just cutesy clothes. Since Lyla has been born my eyes have been opened to what items we were lacking so I turned to Amazon to create our registry. It is super simple to set up and allows for friends and family to ship the items directly to our home if need be. Plus the market place has so many different retailers and options you can get almost anything you need!

one month recap and Lyla Rose's newborn photos

Lyla Rose is almost one month old (ahhh!) so I thought it was time I finally got her newborn photos up to share! We took these the first week home from the hospital, funny how those first couple of days are a blur yet the best days ever. The mix of adrenaline and exhaustion almost makes those first few days seem so far away and each day she gets older I want nothing more than to remember her just the way she was!

Lyla Rose's Birth Story

Lyla Rose Puckett born January 26th, 2019 at 12:26am. Weighing in at 7lbs 1 oz and 19 inches long of absolute perfectness!

*warning expect a long and probably TMI post on how we brought this sweet girl into the world. I am wiring this post for you but more for me because I never want to forget the best and hardest day of my life!

Lyla's original due date was February 3rd, 219 but she was born at 38 weeks and 6 days, a week and a day early.

DIY shared closet transformation

I have been working on this post for months and finally just completed the project this week. It seems like it has gone on forever, partially because it wasn't a full priority and partially because trying to keep a 9 year olds room clean enough to take photos while simultaneously trying to complete a project is no easy task. But here we have it, just in time for our newest baby girl to enter the world any day now! I am going to share how we transformed a standard closet into a shared closet easily and cheaply with just a few steps and of course help from our friends at Ikea. Anyone else obsessed with Ikea as I am? If only we have one in our city. 

Just over a year ago I posted Sofia's bedroom reveal in our new home, remember that? It was her happy place and still currently is. Her room has been perfect for her but with the baby arriving this year we needed to make some adjustments since we only live in 800 sq ft (read about why our house is small in this post).  When I was first pregnant I would worry how Sofia would take the news, how are we going to add a baby with only 2 bedrooms, will she be okay sharing? The day we told her she was going to be a big sister (read all about that in this post!) her first  statement was "baby can share a room with me!" and once we found out it was a girl, she asked if baby girl could sleep with her the first night home from the hospital! Since then my mind has been at ease and I knew she would be okay with sharing!  I will do a full room refresh this summer (baby will be sleeping with us for the first few months) so her room hasn't changed much but the closet has been transformed! 

what's in my hospital bag

Packing the hospital bag has been something I have been thinking about for a few weeks now. Once I hit 30 weeks I decided it was time to starting doing my research and seeing what was actually needed and what maybe I could do without. I did a poll on instastories, I read a bunch of blog posts, read my books, and talked with a doula. Then of course I looked at myself and decided what were MY must haves. All of these items are in the bag right now and the bag was just placed in my car today. There are a few essential items that I use on a daily basis that I will grab or have someone bring me if I am not home when I got into labor. Things like make-up bag, hairbrush, and daily water bottle... after all I still need to function before the magical day arrives!