Clearly, all that went out the window, though!  There isn’t much we can do about building a baby nest egg right now, but we have been able to focus on what we need to do to extend our tight budget.

First off, after months of tracking all of our household expenses, I figured out that on a normal month we have just about 1000 dollars left for food, gas, and all incidentals.  For two people, that is certainly enough.  But adding in additional cost of insurance, daycare, and baby care items, it starts to not look so good.

Continue Reading: The Baby Budget: Part I – The Big Stuff

This little handbag was so much fun to make.  And, my little girl loved to store her treasures in it!

Continue Reading: Duct Tape Handbag

Maddox @ 5 months

Continue Reading: 5 Month Update

I had read a little bit about acupuncture and its applications for treating infertility, and a friend at work swore that it was the key to her successful pregnancy, so after some serious research (yup, that’s the librarian gene coming through) I decided to give it a try.

Acupuncture is often classified under the category of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). It involves inserting very thin metallic needles through the top layers of skin in specific points on the body.

An acupuncture needle, about 2.5″ long

Continue Reading: Acupuncture: My Experience

What makes it harder is that before our move, he had been sleeping through the night for about a week – something that had never happened for more than a night or two in his whole life! Was that the beginning of the new normal? I may never know.

We’ve kept as much the same from his old nursery and nap/bedtime routine as possible, but the kiddo has also been battling a cold. Combined with new surroundings, it has made for a challenging week. I’ve been coping, but I’ve had to bust out my two last-resort, baby-must-sleep methods more often: the car nap and desperation co-sleeping.

What my backseat has looked like lately; checking out the new digs.

Continue Reading: New house, no sleep

(Love the bowl cut.  Thanks, Mom.)

I get gooey when I see a family pushing a stroller and enjoying an evening walk. I cry at commercials featuring moms and babies. I can’t wait to do art projects with my kids, to teach them to skip and cook, and to be the one they run to when they scrape a knee.

Though all the signs point to me being ready to enter Parentsville, I have a blogger secret: lately, I’ve been panicking about TTC. I have really tried to avoid acknowledging this, even to myself. After all, I’m blogging about getting ready to TTC. I should be the shining example of preparedness, right? Wrong-o!

Continue Reading: Wherein Panic Ensues

There are any number of great reasons to make baby food: it’s inexpensive, you have complete control over what your baby is eating, and you can offer a wider variety of foods than what’s available in jars. Cooking  food for your little one isn’t complex, but it can be time-consuming if you feel like you have to do it in big batches.

If you feel like you don’t have enough time to devote to making big batches of pureed fruits and veggies, here are five foods you can make for your baby using only a knife and fork.

Continue Reading: Five Food Purees You Can Make Using Only a Knife and Fork

The story starts four or five years, back when Bee was running a wedding site. As people got married and started families, they started emailing Bee and asking if she was going to start a “Babybee” site. Of course that was the plan, but first we had to make a baby. Talk about a lot of pressure to TTC!

We knew we couldn’t start a baby site until we actually had a baby, or were well along in a pregnancy. Alas, we suffered two miscarriages and a baby seemed impossibly far away. Besides, who wants to blog about babies every day when you’re recovering from a miscarriage? Despite all this, we would regularly get impatient emails and posts from users demanding a Babybee site… it was a difficult time.

Continue Reading: How we came up with the name “Hellobee”

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Describe a typical day in your life.

There is no typical in my business. When I’m on service, I can be in the hospital from 7 am to 5 pm (or later), and when I’m off service I can saunter in at 9 or 10 and come home at 4.  Some of those off service days I can even work from home.  On the other hand, I also travel for work quite frequently and can be away from home 3-4 days every 1.5 months or so.

Let’s walk through an on-service day first.  I wake up at 5:30-5:50 and hope that the kidlets stay asleep.  Shower and personal care done by 6:10.  Go downstairs, unload the dishwasher, make breakfast and lunch, pack for the day. Kids usually wake up at some point in the process, so I’ll change diapers and get Little Jacks fed while trying to give Mr. Jacks a few precious extra minutes of sleep (he deserves it!).  When I’m lucky, I get to check email before I leave.  I double check that I’ve got pager, phone, badge, and lunch and then race off to work.

I got myself ready… how’s my hair?

Continue Reading: WOHM/SAHD: Mrs. Jacks

The front is a cute momma and baby bird print that I stumbled on at fabric.com and couldn’t resist. The back is hand cut chenille made from three layers of cotton flannel – one navy, one white and one with a blue, teal and yellow pattern. The entire blanket is bound with a thicker binding that I made from double brushed flannel I had leftover from making a gazillion burp cloths this summer.

Continue Reading: Tutorial: Hand Cut Chenille Blanket for Baby Stroller