International Babywearing Week is October 5-11, 2014 and has been held since 2008.  It is the project of Babywearing International (BWI)- an international non-profit educational organization that aims to promote safe babywearing and normalize keeping babies close to their caregivers. BWI was founded in 2008 by four different babywearing groups that were based all over the country (Chicago, Central New York, Birmingham, and the Bay Area). The goal of International Babywearing Week is to build community and to increase exposure of babywearing in the media to help make it more mainstream. It is so important to educate parents-to-be about the incredible benefits of babywearing and these large events are a great way to gain exposure! The IBW hashtag (for twitter, facebook, and instagram) is #intlbabywearingweek. So whether you are attending an official local babywearing event, or are just wearing your baby doing your normal activities during this week, be sure to use the hashtag!

BWI also organizes an annual babywearing conference since 2010. It brings together babywearing educators, retailers, manufacturers, and enthusiasts for lectures, workshops and community growth. I have not been to one yet, but hope to attend one in the next year or so!

Check out the guest blog post I wrote for Hip & Healthy Kids! It has some fascinating evolutionary babywearing info. I was very excited and honored to be asked to write for such a great website!
Read it here: BORN TO BE WORN

Visit www.HipandHealthyKids.com for more great health tips. Be sure to like their Facebook page too!

I love muffins. And so does my 1 year old daughter. Well, she will happily eat anything bread-like, so muffins are a great way of giving her some healthy nutrients while keeping her happy. I have been playing around with lots of different muffin recipes lately and am excited to share my results.
I rarely go to the grocery store specifically for ingredients for something I want to make, so I usually just tweak and make do with what I do have on hand.
This was my inspiration recipe that I tweaked tonight.

3.  Combine flour, salt, sugar, spices, baking powder and baking soda in a separate bowl.

4. Add mashed banana, egg and oil to the rolled oat mixture and mix well.
5. Now add dry mixture to wet mixture and mix together well. Add in nuts / chocolate chips.
6. Fill greased or lined muffin cups 2/3 of the way. Bake for approximately 16-20 minutes.

I was ready for a doubled recipe of 24 muffins, but had extra batter, so this really yielded 30 muffins.

They turned out great! These freeze well and make an easy and quick on-the-go breakfast- just microwave for 30 seconds or less. 

I decided to eat the healthy-ish chocolate chip muffin tonight after I put my baby to bed and hubby was working late. I decided to add to the "healthy" factor by making some homemade (EASY) hot chocolate! Inspired by this, but here was my twist:
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons cocoa
1 dash salt
1 cup coconut milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Marshmallow
IT WAS DELISH!

Stay tuned for more healthy muffin twists...tasty spinach muffins coming soon!

I can still so vividly remember the very first day I wore my daughter in a wrap in public. She was 2 months old. I had been using wraps and slings around the house, but the first time I wore her in public was just different. There was something so liberating about it. And something kind of intimidating too, because I did not see one other mom doing it. I was a new mom so everything about that baby-filled world was so new to me. I saw lots of strollers and moms shopping and pushing the stroller back and forth to keep their baby happy or asleep. But they were not looking at or connecting with their babies. So, I got over that intimidation fast. My heart fills with joy that I discovered babywearing when I did. It has allowed me nearly one year (ack! my sweet tiny baby is almost one!) of extra snuggles, peace, and comfort with my daughter.

Babies instinctively want to be held. Infants who are worn in a carrier, wrap, or sling feel safer and therefore cry less because they are at peace. They spent 9 months inside your womb. The world can be loud and scary and overwhelming. A wrap can take them back to that happy, cozy place and make them feel safest.

The hands-free aspect is probably the most obvious benefit of babywearing. How often as new moms do we need to do something that absolutely does require TWO hands? (even though we learn quickly how to do A LOT with just one hand!) By wearing your baby, you have a little more freedom without the stress of having to put down a baby who might be fussy, teething, gassy, reflux-y, and the list goes on.

Speaking of reflux, babywearing is amazing for that- keeping baby upright longer will help them digest and keep that milk from coming back up and causing pain and crying. If you are breastfeeding, babywearing can allow you to nurse on the go, while doing chores, or while looking after other children. You don’t have to feel glued to the couch and your baby still gets what they need. Win!

I truly believe that babywearing contributes amazingly to social and cognitive development. My daughter is so interested in the world around her, and that is because she has gotten to experience the world by being on our level. She sees what we see and hears what we hear.  We have been able to go to the beach, hilly zoos, aquarium stadiums and other places where a stroller would have been a pain in the neck or impossible. 

My husband loves wearing our daughter when we do family activities. Sometimes it is hard for dads to feel a part of the excitement and bonding, especially right in the beginning. Giving a dad time to wear baby can allow them to bond in a very special way.

Some of you may have heard of “flat-head syndrome” (plagiocephaly) which can be caused from extended time in a car seat and sleeping on their backs (which is recommended anyway to reduce the risk of SIDS). So, instead of spending even more time with their head resting in a bassinet or stroller or laying on a blanket, when you babywear, you give their head time away from those flat surfaces. Additionally, it allows their neck muscles to strengthen and works out similar core muscles that “tummy time” works on.

And babywearing is simply FUN! Keeping your baby close and cuddly and kissable and wearing them in different fashionable wraps is fun! And who doesn’t like that!?

Welcome to my very first blog post!
This year is my daughter's first Christmas. She is 11 months old. I wanted to make something special to give to friends and family. My original plan was to do painted hand prints on glass bulb ornaments. I bought pretty blue glass bulbs and kid-safe finger paint. That plan quickly went out the window when I realized how messy, time-consuming, and how many I actually needed to make for gifts!

Plan B- what do I already have in my house? I had air dry clay which my husband had given as a gift when my daughter was first born so we could capture hand and foot prints occasionally- which I have done. It's not messy....perfect!

How can I engrave it? I tried using a needle to dig into it and write her initials, but that proved to look messy and ugly. My mom happened to have some scrapbooking stamps that never see any use. Tried them out and they worked perfectly!

Next I balled up the clay in small-ish balls and used a rolling pin and wax paper to roll out. While was daughter was suitably distracted by Sesame Street, I pressed her thumb into one after another assembly-line-style and finished in minutes. Then I added her stamped name and the year. 
*Tip- When making a lot, do all the M's first, then the A's, then the Z's (well obviously not those letters unless your child's name is Mazie) and so on. Picking up all the little stamps and spelling out for every individual one takes a lot longer. 

Use a needle to dig a small hole into the top. I pressed straight down then swirled so that it didn't dig up the clay too much around the rim of the opening.

If you feel like not everyone in your child's life will want her thumbprint on an ornament, then you can also make the gingerbread men! Roll and cut with a cookie cutter. Skip thumb step, add other child's name and year and dig hole in head, voo-doo-doll-style.

Let clay air dry as long as container says or (if you are impatient like I was) wait one day less. Then take outside and paint with silver spray paint. This was the only thing I actually needed to get from the store. Score!
I placed the ornaments in old shoe boxes to keep the paint from going everywhere on my front porch. Smart, eh? Except when one shoe box has some weird hole in the bottom for some reason- then you get silver spray paint on the old slate porch of your 100+ year old house and you wipe it up super fast before your husband even notices!

I did a few coats of silver paint. I let these dry for the appropriate amount of time, because otherwise the paint was putting a dusting of silver on my hands. 

For the smaller ornaments I used a silver cord. Loop through instead of just tying through the hole so they face forward and not sideways when hanging on the tree. (find the center of the cord and push that loop through the hole. I used a needle to help smoosh it through. Then once the loop is sticking out the back you put both ends of the string through that loop. This is very simple to do, but hard to explain in writing.) 

For the gingerbread men I used a larger ribbon. Same looping technique so that they face forward. 

I had a bunch of these mini stockings (over-stock inventory from my husband's store) so they made perfect gift bags to hold the ornaments plus give them a little padding to keep them safe.

I am so pleased with how they came out. They look like hammered metal and they sparkle and glisten on the tree. Here's hoping everyone who gets them likes them as much as I do!