Food

My kids love giving deliciously disgusting names to our relatively healthy summer smoothies! Half the fun is making it. My kiddos love helping. tweetmeme_url = 'http://mymommymanual.com/how-to-make-frog-spit/';  Read More →

This is one of my favorite desserts. I have been enjoying this at home with my fiance since the first time we had pizookie at Oregano’s, the inspiration for this dessert. My go-to cookie dough for this has sunflower or peanut butter and chocolate chips…yummy! This is what I call the best way to end a Friday night snuggling on the couch in front of the TV — the “sunny side” to the weekend! “Sunny Side Up” Sunflower Butter Cookies with Ice Cream Chocolate Chip... 

Health & Development

A picture says a thousand words. (I wish I had a shot of how “productive” this massage was for little Evan…but you probably don’t want to see that picture!) I am fond of saying “every baby is a gassy baby”… but if you are dealing with colic, I want you to know there IS something you can do to help. Studies show Infant Massage leads to a 50% decrease crying with just 10-15 minutes a day. And if your baby has colic, it helps by comforting and soothing them,... 

The decisions seem endless, don’t they? First, you have to decide on breast or bottle feeding and now you have to pick what kind of bottles?! When my babies were… fresh, Avent bottles were the brand of choice. Or, for colicky or gassy babies, Dr. Brown’s. Now, glass bottles are making a comeback! New research on polycarbonate baby bottles has found that bisphenol A migrates into the milk and parents are being advised to switch to glass. Recurring stories in the media, including... 

YES! Finally a parenting how to that is simple. This one doesn’t even require bullet points. Let’s sum it up into three easy to follow words: clean and dry. Keep the area clean and dry. That really is it. Want three other simple and easy to follow words on this? Less is more. When I was a new mom we were told at great length how to swab the area 6x a day with alcohol swabs to keep it clean and dry it out. But this is no longer the sage advice from doctors and nursing. What they have found is... 

There is a lot of information out there about latch ons, let downs, breast pumps, soreness, positioning and more…but how many articles on nursing prepare us as mothers to nurse our babies from more than a body perspective? What about readying our minds and our souls? I was excited to nurse my baby…for the nutrition I knew it would offer…for the bonding and the closeness. I was hopeful nursing would work out without all the horror stories I had heard and read about including thrush, pain, chapped...