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The Worst Things About Having Two Young Kids…

...is that they will wake each other up in the middle of the night. Claire had been sleeping 10-12 hours straight through the night since she was about 9 months old. And as you can imagine, all that changed when a screaming newborn came into the picture. And while this issue wasn't quite as bad during the second month of Aerin's life, when she regularly slept 7-8 hours straight through the night, it has recently become more serious as Aerin seems to have hit her 4-month sleep regression a few weeks early — waking up practically every hour during the night for the past week. Aerin has been sleeping in our room — in her bassinet, the swing, or on our bed — since...

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Toddlers and Tiaras: Claire Edition

We do our best not to push our girls into stereotypical gender roles or characteristics. And while we would secretly love it if they turn into tomboys, we never force them to play (or not play) with certain toys and encourage them to allow their own preferences to develop. As it turns out, our 16-month-old Claire is becoming the exact opposite of a tomboy. She is, in fact, turning into a frilly girl. Our suspicions started about a month ago, when we began to let her "choose" her own clothes. (We give her an option of weather- and activity-appropriate clothes to choose from.) And wouldn't you know it — she would ALWAYS pick something pink. And just in case it was a fluke — "Why...

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Cool Tool Tuesdays: La Mer The Powder and The Powder Brush

Welcome to today’s installment of Cool Tool Tuesdays, where I feature a favorite item from my life and spotlight it so that others who are not familiar with the product may also benefit from it. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, hardware, material, or website that I have personally tried and love. Do you have any questions about today’s cool tool? Would you like an item featured in the future? Please leave a comment to this post, or send me a message via my contact form. Enjoy! As I looked around my room to find inspiration for today's Cool Tool Tuesdays, my eyes rested on a pair of products I have never written about before — and I couldn't believe I haven't,...

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New Directions, and A Call for Help

A few years ago, J casually said to me, "You know, you should really make your blog more mobile device friendly." "But that might ruin the design! And you know how hard I worked on it. Besides, less than 1% of my visitors are using a mobile device when they browse on over." Did I mention that J is a software engineer and tester? That he not only once worked for the big G, he is always up-to-date (and most of the times, ahead of the curve) on the latest web trends and companies — e.g., signed up for Yelp and Twitter long before anyone else I knew even heard of them, correctly predicting that they would "blow up" — and is...

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Reverent Sundays: Food for Thought

Welcome to today’s installment of Reverent Sundays, where I write about an aspect of my faith. This can deal with recent books I have read on Christianity, my thoughts on religion and current issues, as well as particular messages I find touching and/or powerful. I am aware that most of my readers are not religious, and that is fine — you are more than welcome to not read these posts if they make you uncomfortable, enrage you, or bore you to tears. I am open to debates and discussions in the comments section as long as everyone remains respectful. Enjoy! This weekend is a crazy one for our household (and I'm not only talking about the Superbowl). For this reason, today's Reverent...

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