maternity belt

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I’m officially 31 weeks pregnant now and had a great check up with my midwife this week. She said baby is head down (yay!) and showed me she could feel baby’s head using her hands on my belly. She said the baby’s back is up by my belly button, I was wondering what prominent body part that was I could feel.

I let her know I’m wearing full leg compression sleeves to support especially my right leg and I’m feeling pressure and seeing veins bulge in my groin area. She said a maternity belt would help with that and support the weight of my belly. I went ahead and ordered one on Amazon and it is definitely helping me feel more  comfortable!

This pregnancy is definitely more challenging with varicose veins bulging but otherwise I feel pretty good, just tired. I ended up with sciatica towards the end of my first pregnancy so I’m hoping that doesn’t appear again because it was so painful and hard to even walk around so that would be inconvenient and make taking care of my 3-year old more challenging.

Book review on becoming a big sister!

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We received this adorable book as a gift from my hubby’s Aunt. It arrived at the perfect time! I was entering my 7 month of pregnancy 🤰 and my almost 3 year old who’s now officially 3(!!) was still patting my belly saying, “baby puppy”. Which is totally adorable but I didn’t want her to freak out when she meets her sibling and it’s not a puppy 🐶.

This book, “Hello in There”, illustrates very clearly a baby in mommy’s belly and baby gets big on each page while big sister is on the outside waiting for baby to be born and thinking about all the fun they’ll have when they can finally play together.

My daughter really seems to understand there’s a baby in my belly 😊 and she seems pretty excited about it and says baby wahhh. She thinks all babies do is cry 😂

Page with baby in mommy’s belly and baby gets bigger on each subsequent page.

Big sister waiting for baby and subsequent pages show big sister doing activities like playing dress up and saying she can’t wait to play with baby.

This is a great book for a big sister to be. I haven’t checked to see if there’s a big brother version of the book. I highly recommend this book 📖 it explains very clearly what’s going on, my daughter really grasped what’s going on!

Asking for help!

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This week flew by and on Friday I learned a very important lesson which is to ask for help!

I brought Honor to the mall for Santa 🎅 pictures Friday morning. She had a great time and her pictures turned out great. Of course, afterwards we explored the mall for about an hour. Lots to look at and we walked into many stores to admire their Christmas 🎄 decorations!

It was time to go home and Honor was splashing water 💦 in a fountain. I said ok let’s go and picked her up and turned to leave then crash boom 💥 walked right into a table and in a nanosecond my face hit the floor as I’m still holding Honor for dear life! 

She was perfectly fine thank God! I was bleeding since I hit my face on the ground. It happened so fast 😭 

Several people ran over to help us out and immediately got help to check my vitals from the Boca fire rescue who happened to be in the mall and the mall medic. Honor was ok and a nice lady and her daughter talked to Honor. My left shin, right wrist and face hurt. I didn’t land on my belly thank God for that! 

We got help to get to the car and drove home. I contacted my dentist and midwife. My dentist said I could visit Monday if I was still in pain. My midwife said to go to labor and delivery at the hospital to ensure the placenta wasn’t disturbed by the fall. My husband  met me at the hospital 🏥 and I got monitored for 2 hours to check baby’s heartbeat 💗 and check for contractions. No contractions thankfully!! Baby’s heartbeat 💗 was solid and she kicked several times while we were there.

It was really scary and I want to thank everyone who helped us even though I don’t know your names. You are so appreciated!!❤️❤️

Lessons I learned:

Ask for help. I could have asked for assistance in leaving the mall with Honor. It’s too much right now to take her to a place like the mall. Target or grocery shopping I can handle with her in a shopping cart. Or next time go with Heman or ask a friend.

I need to stop picking up Honor. My balance isn’t getting any better as I get more pregnant 🤰 it’s getting uncomfortable too.

My hope in sharing my experience is that you’ll stop and ask for help. I’m pretty stubborn myself but now I realize just how much I need to ask for

Honor’s birthday cake!

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Our daughter, Honor, turned 3 on December 30th! She’s changed so much in her lifetime and notably in the past 6 months she gone from a toddler to a little girl. It’s been amazing to see her grow and change.

This year we made her birthday cake together! This is my go-to birthday cake recipe, it makes a 9” round cake. You can also make delicious cupcakes!

Honor’s birthday cake 🎂

Dry Ingredients:

1 ½ cups Garbanzo Gluten free flour

½ tsp sea salt

1 tsp baking powder

¼ cup cacao powder

 

Wet Ingredients:

¾ cup sugar (organic turbinado or demerara)

2 T. ground flax + 3 T. water (stir together and set aside)

1 tsp vanilla

4 T. unsweet applesauce

¼ cup coconut oil

1 cup water

1 T. apple cider vinegar

 

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. Combine dry ingredients.
  3. Mix together wet ingredients and pour into dry ingredients bowl and stir to combine.
  4. Pour into round 9” baking pan greased with coconut oil spray.
  5. Bake 30 minutes.

Homemade frosting:

1 cup full fat coconut milk

¼ cup maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla

Whisk together frosting ingredients, frost cooled cake then place cake in fridge to set frosting.

Baking with Honor!

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Baking with my Honor! She asked for cookies 🍪 so I thought we could bake together! I pulled a chair up to the counter and she climbed up then I handed her a wooden spoon to stir.

I added the ingredients and she would stir and taste which was funny because at first she tasted plain flour! I explained the batter will taste better with all the ingredients 😊

It was actually a lot of fun to bake with her and she’s already asking to make more batter! She enjoyed eating better straight from the bowl 😂.

Gluten free chocolate chip cookies 🍪

Ingredients:

1+½ cups Vitacost gluten free flour

½ tsp pink salt

1 tsp baking powder

¼ cup coconut oil

½ cup + 2 T. maple syrup

2 T. Egg replacer plus 1/4 cup water 

1 tsp vanilla

½ cup mini chocolate chips

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. Line baking pan with silicon pad or grease with coconut oil.
  3. Mix together dry ingredients and set aside.
  4. Mix together remaining ingredients except for chocolate chips.
  5. Combine dry and wet ingredients.
  6. Stir in chocolate chips.
  7. Scoop 3 T. batter for each cookie and place on baking sheet.
  8. Bake for 15-18 minutes until done.
  9. Move to a wire rack to cool.
  10. Enjoy!
  11. Store cookies in fridge or wrap and freeze.

Yield: 12 cookies 

Original recipe created for Vitacost.com

https://www.vitacost.com/blog/cooking-recipe/desserts-2/gluten-free-blueberry-chocolate-chip-cookies.html