Questions Lately

Hello from Europe! We are having such a great time and its hard to believe that we come home in a week! If you haven't already noticed, I'm posting tons on Instagram and Insta stories, so follow along there. :)

You mentioned in a recent blog post that you love fancy pajamas. What are some of your favorites? 

I love PJ Salvage brand, and Nordstrom often has their sets go on sale. These are my current favorite!

I also am currently loving these.  I know it looks like the tie around the neck wouldn't be comfy, but it hasn't bothered me a single time. :)

What is your day to day routine with Beau? How does he stay entertained all day? We are trying to avoid technology for entertainment with our one year old.

I'm so at a loss for how to answer this question, haha! First, Beau hasn't really been exposed to any technology. Not in some like "we're amazing and don't do technology" way.. he just kind of hasn't. A few times I've tried to put on a movie for us to watch together and he'll sit still for like one minute.. and a few times he's enjoyed watching sports with Ben, but he never watches anything on my phone. I may speak differently in the future, but right now I'm pretty committed to not letting Beau know that my phone plays videos. It's funny how instinctual it is for him to still want it though, he reaches for it and doesn't even know what it is. I'm sure it's just because I always have it but he always wants to chew on it.

Every day looks different for us. Whether we're running errands, meeting a friend, staying home all day in our jammies, it's always different. I try to really balance hands on time of me directly playing with Beau, and time of me sitting right by him and giving him some play options to entertain himself independently. I'm sure everything is about to turn upside down once he's confident walking.

Where are you traveling to this time? Are you taking the stroller and carseat? 
You probably know a few of these answers by now, but on this trip we'll be in Amsterdam, Belgium, England, a few cities in Spain, and Reykjavik, Iceland. We're so excited! We are planning on taking our stroller. We opted to bring our "big stroller" instead of our umbrella stroller simply because it has such great under stroller storage. We'll be able to keep anything and everything we need in the basket and never worry about it tipping over or anything. We also chose to bring our own carseat again this time. I'm sure renting could be great but the cost-benefit ratio wasn't good enough for us right now. I will say that I decided to bring Beau's infant carseat instead of his convertible, simply because it's less bulky, is super easy to install even if we don't bring the base, and he still fits in it for now, although he fills it up, haha!

How has your budgeting changed with Beau? 

Wow.. big question. Haha! Now that Beau's off formula, things are looking wonderful. :) I did a ton of research before Beau was born on how to get the diapers and wipes I wanted at the cheapest prices, so right now I literally have 50 packages of wipes in a closet. My take on certain types of budgeting is that you can't always control every category. For example, we don't budget a line item for gas, because we aren't going to be like "okay well no more driving this month!" so I know how much money we spend on gas, and make all the other puzzle pieces fit with that. Same with baby things. We aren't going to be like well okay, I want to limit the amount of diapers we buy this month so I just will stop buying them. I know how much we average on diapers, wipes, and clothes.. and then we just added a bit to our grocery budget for specific snacks for Beau. Most of the time I cook things that we can all eat, and a lot of what we eat, we all eat, we just need a tiny bit more. Hope this helps! I'll also note that in budgeting for clothing, I do so much of his stuff preorder or a season in advance that this really helps to not sneak up on me. For example, I just ordered quite a few things from The Beaufort Bonnet Company, my favorite great quality place to get things for Beau, because their Spring stuff is on sale. I ordered a few treasures for next summer, specifically styles that I don't think will change too much, because I know I'd want to order them full price next summer.

If you're wondering, I got Beau another pair of night nights (they're a splurge but the quality is phenomenal.. he literally wears these over and over and I just keep washing them!) a jon jon, and some shorts. A note: I always order $125 at a time to get free shipping.. bc its not worth paying $11 to ship when that $11 is a monogram, or a substantial percentage of another item. How did budgeting turn into me talking about expensive baby clothes? Oops. I always vote quality over quantity. I am OBSESSED with this bubble for fall. I'll be milking every moment of Beau's small season of bubble wearing that he has left!

Ps. If you're wanting to shop ahead, this, this, this, and this were my favorites for Beau this year.

Will you do a hair tutorial? 
This continues to be my #1 most asked question... and I'll try to get that planned for sometime in the fall!

How did you start blogging and learn to make your site? 
I started blogging really casually when I was in college and discovered how much I loved reading blogs. No one read it for a really long time. When Ben and I got married, four and a half years ago, I started using it more consistently, and the rest is history. I probably should have grown a ton more for the time I've been doing this, but whatever. :) I love this cozy space and all of the people who read. Every comment means so much to me, I LOVE getting them. I learned to do my site literally from trial and error and from knowing how to do html from Xanga back in the day. I also took a coding class in the 8th grade. So clearly that information is outdated, but from doing Xanga and Myspace and just like learning and searching, I learned how to do my site. One day if I hit it the big time I'll hire someone fancy to do the site, but that time is not now. :)

We're working on planning a trip to Europe next year.. what do you prioritize when you travel? Food? Attractions/experience? Hotels, etc? 
I got a lot of questions about this too! I will say that it's changed since we had Beau. Now, we are a little more strategic with our hotels. Paying a little extra for a central location is key when planning to return to your room for naptime. :) When it was just us, it didn't matter near as much. We also ate a lot nicer meals, and I know this trip we won't do quite as much of that. We aren't super crazy about paying to see the insides of old buildings, and have rarely gone to the top of buildings. We do some museums, but not tons of them.. we love just soaking up the culture of the city. This allows us to pay for things that are really awesome experiences.. like when we hired a private driver to take us down the Amalfi Coast at our own pace for a day, or like whale watching for this trip.

Yay! I'll save the rest of the questions for another day. If you have any more, leave them in the comments or email me or DM on insta, whatever! :)