HaleMom.Com

My first blog award!  How fun.  I’ve seen them on other people’s blogs, but I never had any idea that I would ever get one.   I just started this thing this year, and I’m glad at least someone else thinks that it’s worth reading and I feel so honored to be getting an award because of it. *tears*

Anyway, so in receiving this award, I have to follow the rules and keep it going.  So here it goes.

I received the award from the lovely mom at organicmotherhoodwithcoolwhip and so now my duty is to pass it on.  Here are the rules for all the lovely ladies that are now receiving this award:

- Put the Lemonade logo on your blog or within your post.
- Nominate at least 10 blogs with great attitude or gratitude.
- Link to the nominees within your post.
- Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
- Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

Ok, now in no special order, here are my lemonade stand winners:

SavvyMoxie

MommaDJane

MommysJoy

Beauty4Moms

BabyPotential

NotGoingPostal

Rachel-Lim

ThePracticaMomGuide

MisadventuresofMomof3

MarfMom

I have to admit it was very hard choosing who I would bestow this lovely award upon.  I’m still forming relationships with many women, but these are some of the blogs that I try to visit often.  Thanks so much, Naomi for thinking of me when sending out the Lemonade stand award.

Thanks so much, and I hope everyone has a Happy New Year, stay safe tonight, designate a driver, or call one of your local sober ride programs.  You may just want to google your city and “sober ride” to find a number for a local program.

Soon I’ll be rolling out my resolutions, so stay tuned if you care to!

To your health and happiness in 2010,

~Hale Mom

A great year indeed. I will ALWAYS remember 2009 and it sure has been fine. Mostly because of the birth of my daughter, my first child of course, as most of the year has been spent dedicated to that little munchkin. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else in this big, big world.

Now that she’s going on 8 months, we have gone through so many changes and it all almost seems like a blur. If it weren’t for her, I probably wouldn’t have started this blog, and I probably wouldn’t be inspired to be a better person and be so darn happy *most* of the time.

I am probably too wordy at times, but to describe what it is to be a mother to my darling little angel, I barely have any words. I only have emotions that range from highest of highs and lowest of lows. Yes, being a mom can be trying and can wear on one’s patience, but I’m glad I’ve preserved through the thick and thin of breastfeeding and the challenges that come with being a new parent, and still going strong.

Looking back on the days when she was only a little slug and wanted to eat round the clock, I wonder how I ever survived the nights where I hardly got any sleep. Now that I think about it, it’s only been until the most recent months that I’ve actually been able to get some decent sleep.

We’ve gone through so many clothes, it’s ridiculous–she’s already wearing 18 months clothing, because she’s just growing so fast, and I can barely fit her into any 12 month clothing. We’ve also had to deal with eczema and have come a long way in respect to that.

Most of her milestones have been accomplished in the last two months, but she always seems to be doing something new. At three months, she randomly decided she was going to roll over. At 4 months, she decided she was going to sit up on her own. At around 6 months, she started “commando crawling,” where she would maneuver herself around army style. Right before Thanksgiving, she started pulling herself up onto things into a standing position, and just two weeks ago, she started fully crawling, and can balance herself standing up for about a good twenty seconds without any support.

In the midst of all of it, I feel that the bond I’ve developed with my baby girl will be strong for many years to come, and 2009 has been good to us. This was the year of the baby and we look forward to many to come as continues to grow and make us so proud.

What are your fondest moments from 2009? Please feel free to share your stories.

I’m working on coming up with some “resolutions” for 2009, but I’ll get back with more on that tomorrow. I hope everyone has a happy new year, and be safe!

To your health and happiness in 2010,
~Hale Mom

I had a pretty great Christmas, and one of the highlights was getting a Wii. Getting the Wii was kind of a large purchase for us, especially with finances being a bit tight. I’m glad that we took the plunge because the Mother-in-law got the Wii Fit Plus for us.

I thought that the Wii Fit Plus was going to be a lot different than it is. Actually, now that I think about it, I probably should have waited to do my body test while in my own privacy, because now all of my husband’s family now knows exactly how much I weigh and what my BMI is.

Oh well.

Body Test
Once you get passed the BMI and weight part, you get a Center of Balance test, and it tells you whether you put too much weight on any one side of your body. It also makes you establish exactly where your center of balance is so that you will be aware of where it is. It also makes you do some kind of balancing test where you lean to make the levels on the screen match up for three seconds in the blue area. It told me that that test wasn’t my forte, and asked me if I find myself tripping when I walk a lot. HAH! The audacity!

Wii Age
After you go through all of the tests, drum roll…..it gives you your Wii Age. Yikes. It took all of the factors above, including my height, and gave me an age, and basically said I have some work to do, and it told me I am way older than I really am. Yikes!

Work Out
So that being said, I start working out. Ok. It can be a bit confusing at first, especially when there are other people in the room telling you what to do. But I digress…

It’s pretty intense, and tracks how many calories that are burned, and the time that is spent on each workout, and rates how hard you actually worked out. I can’t say enough good things about it, and it’s great to do in the privacy of your own home without shoes, and without having to pay high gym memberships, and without being embarrassed, if you don’t really work out that much.

What I found funny was that the game will actually kind of taunt you if you don’t work out every day. We had registered the date wrong, and were a day behind, so we fixed the date, and I hadn’t worked out for the date that we skipped yet, so it told me that I wasn’t very dedicated or something like that.

That being said, it’s pretty good at keeping you motivated, and I can see us working out on it everyday. My husband has totally gotten into it, and is dedicated to working out on it everyday.

What I thought was really cute is that when we tried to register my daughter’s profile, it actually registered that she was a baby and made her Mii into a little baby with a bib. You’re also able to track pet stats, but can’t do body tests for either. I thought it was such a cool addition to the game that it’s going to be a great way to track how much my daughter is growing, and how my dog is doing.

Anyway, we’ve only had the Wii and the Wii Fit Plus for a few days, so I can’t give an extensive review about it, but it’s pretty nifty. Not only does it have aerobics, it has strength training, yoga, it also has a bonus Training Plus that is only included in the Wii Fit Plus.

Pretty cool console, and pretty cool work out game. So far I give it a thumbs up. I can’t give it any stars until I start losing some of this darn baby weight. I’ll keep you in the loop!

~Hale Mom

*Disclosure: This is NOT a paid review, nor did I get a free console, game or anything else Wii related to post about the Wii and the Wii Fit Plus. The opinion above is my own and is in no way influenced by any gift or any money, because I didn’t get any…it would have been nice though.

No, this is not a paid or freebie review, but I just wanted to let everyone know how the run of the new baby food grinder went. Thank you Santa for bringing me this because it made dinner time so easy!

First, taking it out of the package was NO easy feat. I actually cut myself on it, so be careful of doing the same. I guess I could have just used some scissors to snip away at it, but I wanted to open it my way–that’s what I get for being hard headed.

Anyway, next I read the instructions, and it doesn’t tell me right away that I need to wash the thing. I expected that I should, so I had to skip down to that part, and see if there are any special instructions. It’s dishwasher safe, and should be taken apart. The small pieces need to be cleaned separately by hand to avoid getting lost, and it can be washed by hand with warm soapy water.

Moving on, I was kind of confused on how it worked. I obviously didn’t read all the instructions thoroughly because i ended up spilling the *hot* cooked food on myself because I was trying to figure out how it worked. Again, this is chalked up to my hard headedness of wanting to do something without reading out how it’s supposed to work.

Fidgeting with it for a bit, I finally figured out that it works in a sort of pump, and turn action. The food goes in the inner chamber, and once the top is secure and the grinding plate is in line, the food outer mechanism must be pushed down and the swivel arm must be turned. In a couple of turns the food and the tool pushed down, everything was all mashed, and ready to be served. It literally took seconds, I was thinking the process would take much longer.

After getting over the fact that I couldn’t learn how to do it intuitively, and having to go back to the instructions, it was pretty easy to do once i got the hang of it, and realized how it actually worked.

Now, I haven’t taken it out on any traveling trips, but I feel that if ever at a restaurant and I want to give baby girl a serving of my food, then it would come in handy so I wouldn’t have to mash everything up. It is kind of big, but I would probably only bring it along if I know we’re going out somewhere and I want to give baby something fresh.

Eventhough I still have yet to see if it will pass the “on the go” test that it claims on the package, it overall seems to be a pretty good little device for something that is solely powered by hand motion. NO batteries, No electricity.

Good job munchkin, I can see this thing coming in handy in the future, and I think I saw it at Whole Foods for around 8 bucks. Not bad!

I’d have to give it 4 1/2 stars. This is ONLY based off of one use, and I will update further as I have any other pertinent information.

What tools did you find that came in handy when feeding your baby solids? Food processor? Blender? Fork? Which method was the biggest headache for you?

I’m all about easy application and easy clean up, and I think this passed both tests.

Happy and healthy eating!
~Hale Mom

Yep, when baby’s get sick, tired, start teething, and have gone down a path of lack of sleep, and who knows what else, they become fussy.  It seems interesting that a baby that had a routine of going to bed at 9pm, would suddenly start going to bed later and later every night after having cable television installed.

Now I remember why I’m not a huge fan of cable, and it’s only getting worse as my baby’s sleep patterns have been disturbed.  Right now we’re dealing with a baby that caught a cold, thankfully it wasn’t the flu because it only last about a day.

I’m such a crazy mother–I was so worried about my daughter that I probably over reacted, and I feel badly about it, but can you blame a new mother when her child first becomes ill?  The benefits of breastfeeding have shown through clearly though.  Some of the benefits that I’ve found are that it saves me on money, time, and has provided me with a sense of relief that my daughter has a protective barrier from the cooties that lurk behind every corner.

Even though baby did get a bit sick and felt under the weather, she was such a trooper and I’m so proud of her.  She was a little fussy, yes.  She ran a slight fever, but barely anything to even warrant a call to the nurse line, and she was still a bucket full of sunshine even with a runny nose.

Fussy babies can be frustrating sometimes though, because it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly is causing the behavior.  Are you hungry?  Do you have a poopy diaper? Are you wet?  Are you comfortable?  Are you upset?  Do you need love?  Do your gums hurt?  WHAT IS THE MATTER???????

Yep, these are all the things I ask myself when I have a fussy baby on my hands.  I’m sure most mothers have gone through this too.  It’s just one of those days–a fussy day.

~Hale Mom