Introducing Secrets of Tea + #LoveForMom Giveaway Hop, Ends 4/20



Welcome to the "For the Love of Mom" Giveaway Hop hosted by Mama's Baby Cupcakes & Mommy's Favorite Things. The theme of this event is great gifts for mother's, and each blog participating has a prize valued at $25+. This hop is April 6-20 and your winnings arrive just in time for Mother's Day! 
 
 
 
Secrets of Tea is a small, family owned craft tea blender. Their teas are based on family recipes passed down from one generation to the next. Their teas combine ancient knowledge with modern botanical research to create the perfect, purposeful blends. Each is carefully formulated with the finest ingredients to create delicious brews infused with nature’s healing gifts. Parenting – and especially motherhood – is a beautiful blessing. But it requires giving of yourself disproportionately. These organic herbal tea blends are infused with nature’s healing gifts. Wholesome, natural remedies to help alleviate issues during pregnancy and the entire maternity cycle. Secrets of Tea has kindly offered a wonderful prize pack for moms or moms-to-be!
This prize pack includes:

Car Seat Safety

Car Seat Safety from a mom who makes mistakes


As a mommy, you live and learn. Fortunately this lesson, I read and didn't have to live through because it could have been horrific if circumstances were different. And being Child Passenger Safety Week, I wanted to review what a lot of parents (including me) don't know.
I am a mom who has made mistakes. I do not judge or criticize other parents decision. I try to inform the best I can. And that what this is about. I am not an expert nor do I claim to be, but I do have experience. In the image above my daughter is riding in a Toyota Corolla. I now have a van. The reason I longer have that car anymore is because I got in a terrible car accident. My daughter and friend's daughter were in the car with me. If it wasn't for the car seat safety messages I had taken, something horrible could have happened. Thank fully everyone was safe. Now, let's keep those babies safe.

Car Seat Safety

This picture is of my five day old daughter. She was born in the winter so in my new mommy head, I thought "I don't want her to be cold so I will put this cute (but very unpractical) snow suit on her". We live in Georgia. I had a car seat blanket cover. I don't know if you have ever seen one of these things but here is what they look like:

Graco Car Seat Blanket

Why couldn't I have used that? 

Instead I endangered my baby's life. A few days after I did this, I read an article about taking your infant on their first outing and car seat safety. And it talked about how you shouldn't have a coat or blanket in between your child and the restraints because if you were to get in a car accident, your child could get seriously injured.

I felt terrible immediately and never did anything like this again.

Another thing that I did and looking back on it am still upset with myself, I might have used an expired car seat. I say might have because I couldn't find an expiration date. Just because a car seat doesn't have an expiration date, doesn't mean it's not expired. Since older car seats aren't required to have the expiration date on them, you don't know if they are expired or not.

Car Seat Safety
This is the carseat my mother-in-law bought from God's know where. I feel it is unsafe because it doesn't have an exp date and the straps do this.

A car seat expiration means, safety requirements might have changed, restraints wear out over time just from everyday use, aging plastic, a car seat ideally less than five years old and DEFINITELY less than ten. (Contact the manufacturer or look for the serial number online to find an expiration date.)

 If you MUST use a secondhand seat, make sure it has the original instructions (or contact the manufacturer for a replacement copy), has all its parts (check the manual), has never been involved in a serious accident, and hasn't been recalled. (Check your seat's recall status here.)

Another thing that I am mad at myself for is forward facing my baby before I should have. I got the okay from the pediatrician and I had outside pressures. Why did I let those pressures overwhelm me? She wasn't ready. The American Academy of Pediatrics says keep your child rear-facing until age two. Or AT LEAST pay attention to the car seat's weight and height requirements (must meet both).

Car Seat Safety
Moved forward facing TOO early. See where her shoulders are?

I hope you find this article helpful. Don't make the same mistakes I did. And please, please, please keep those babies safe.

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Enjoy Your Pregnancy

Funny, scrolling Pinterest, I see all these pregnancy announcement pictures, baby bump through the months, or sex reveal pictures. And other creative ways to announce different things of your pregnancy. I kind of feel like the joy of my pregnancy was robbed from me. Some things were unavoidable and out of anyone's control, some things could have been handled differently. My grandmother passed away, I got into a car accident, my father passed away, my identity was stolen, and my step-mother brought on all this stress over the life insurance money. I didn't have time to think of cute ways to remember my pregnancy, stress was all I had time to think about. I did create this blog. And I am so glad I did. It is the only thing I have to remember that special time. You are only pregnant with your first child once. You are only pregnant for your first time once. I feel like I was robbed.


So my advice? Enjoy it. I know first hand that life completely gets in the way. And it sucks. But try your best to take those pictures, write down those memories, even if they are embarrassing.

 Don't take it for granted. Not everyone is as lucky as you. I feel so blessed that I was able to conceive so quickly. I feel truly blessed that we were able to conceive at all. Although women in my family tend to be very fertile, I had my doubts.

I feel like I am rambling and being very serious for 12 a.m. And maybe that is just the mood I am in today and based on the weird day I had.

Feel free to share your ways that you enjoyed your pregnancy. I promise not to get too jealous. ;)


25 weeks & guess what? MORE STRESS!


As of yesterday , I am 25 weeks along. I know I didn't do an update last week but life has been a little over whelming as of late. On top of everything else that has been going on this year (my grandmother passing away, car wreck, my father passing away, and all the drama with his life insurance), I am now the victim of identity theft. A lady opened a Pet Company, Ashley Stewart, Old Navy, and Target account. I balled on the phone with my mom and made her cry. So now I'm having to deal with that. I froze my credit so hopefully this won't happen again but now I have to fill out paper work and tell these places that I didn't create these accounts. And so far Target has been the nicest about it and Pet Company has been the worst (of course they are owed the most). 

Update 2/15/23: “I had to file a police report before anyone would believe me.”

But anyways, I wanted to end this post on a lighter side. My 6 month appointment on Tuesday went great. My blood pressure was very good and they gave me a glucose tollerance test and we'll find out the results very soon. Lizzie's heart rate was 140 which is great. So this year may be going terrible but it is going to end with the best little blessing God could have ever given. The greatest present of all.

Here's some info on how baby Lizzie is roughly doing:

She is now about the size of an eggplant!!


And weighs about as much of a rutabaga!


That's about it! Hopefully life can get a little less stressful but alteast the baby is doing great. O and we have Lizzie's Nursery cleaned out!! We need to move the furniture (which I can't do) but atleast everything is organized. O and my husband fixed my dish washer!! :] I'm so grateful for my amazing man. I have no idea what I would do without him.

Stress & the Pregnant Woman

So far during this pregnancy, I got into a wreck, my grandmother passed away, my father passed away from terminal colon cancer, and now I'm having to deal with drama about my father's life insurance.

I honestly do not care either way if we get any money or not. But I do want to make sure everything is done properly. The insurance company told me to fill out the paper work they sent. So that's what I'm doing. I don't understand why that is a big deal but it looks like it's becoming one.

They say you are suppose to keep your stress levels down when you are pregnant, as much as possible. But it's hard when others are forcing senseless drama over something so ridiculous on you.

I want to keep my step-mother in my life and I hope this all works out that way.

22 weeks along and drama to spare...



The baby will stay around this size until week 24.

How far along? 22 weeks

Total weight gain: still about 10 pounds. I've been trying to walk more than is recommended. They say you should get about 2 and a half hours of excersize a week.

Sleep: I can finally sleep in my bed again but only on my back which will have to change to sleeping back on the couch on my side during my last trimester as to not put stress on the baby. FUN!

Best moment this week: Greg feeling our little girl move.

Movement: She has gotten into a little moving/sleep schedule. When she is awake, she moves so much. I ♥ it! But she isn't waking me up yet, which is good. :]

Milestones: Having to deal with outside drama has been completely ridiculous and unnecessary.

Favorite Moments: Greg has been making my life so much better. I don't know what I would do without him. He is my everything. I love him so much.

Drama, Drama, Drama

I can't really go into any details here but there were discrepancies with my father's life insurance and trying to figure it out has been obnoxious and stressing. Honestly, the whole thing is ridiculous. If I could take all the money and give it away to have him back, then I would.

Updated 2/15/23:
“When I initially wrote this post, I was worried that I would step on people’s toes. But since people thought I was the bad guy because my step-mom ran her mouth around, then here is the truth.

She filed a paper that apparently my dad signed, but it was illegal because she was his power of attorney. On my dad’s death bed, she was going through his jewelry box calculating how much money (out loud) she could get for different pink diamonds he had. Anyways, There were separate life insurance policies; one for her and one for my brother and I. She wanted them both. When she got the paper work in the mail that my brother and I were suppose to fill out, she freaked. Then she consulted an attorney and told me not to fill it out. Can you say shady? Then she said she would give us $1000, but in bonds. When I said we could use it now, she said “oh I would only have to pay like $30 and she would get it when she was 18”. But she told my family I was money hungry. She also told me I needed my grandmother’s China cabinet (when she was moving to an assisted living facility) so I asked my grandmother, then my step-mom told everyone I was just money hungry and wanting things. Told them I was never around before my dad passed when I would come there everyday on my way home from work. She said to me I should have quit my job to take care of my dad, but yet she had no job and was his 15 year younger wife. 

 I had the paperwork because she gave it to me before she freaked out not knowing what to do and so I decided to call them, they told me to fill out the paperwork and to not listen to anything she said. 

Unfortunately I consulted a lawyer friend (who wasn’t practicing in our state) that made us more scared by saying my step-mother could drag this out for years costing us a bunch of money that we didn’t have if we were to fight. We were young (24 and 26) with a baby on the way. So we went to mediation with her. We said we would split it into thirds. She got pissed and said my husband was running everything, this was on purpose so she wouldn’t run all over my brother and I. I shouldn’t have done the mediation because I was suppose to be in bed rest because of my blood pressure. She said that she always treated me like her own daughter, which was never true. She was always cruel to me and jealous of me. She would purposely go out of her way to be mean to me.

When we received our portion of the life insurance money, we went to her apartment and saw she was driving a red Mustang. She had bought a new car. This is how we knew she was lying and found out about the other policy, plus my mom had told me later. 

This is why I believe in helping your children even when they are adults. Make a safe place so they feel like they can come to you for advice.

My step-mom is now remarried, but only in the Lord’s eyes as she straight up told me to my face so she can keep receiving my dad’s social security and veterans benefits.”

On a happier note, Greg got his promotion!!! :D



And I felt the baby move again today and she was moving ALOT!

That's really all. I'll go into more detail about stuff when I can. Now, off to find something to eat! :]

BTW I don't know what I would do without my husband, He is my rock.

Buy us PINK!

Today (well technically yesterday now) was our doctor's appointment with the 20 week ultrasound and we found out that we are having a little girl and she is developing PERFECTLY!



She is 12 oz, we could see her strong heartbeat, she was moving ALOT (which I actually felt today), and we could see her spine. She was moving her mouth alot (like mommy) and didn't want to smile for the camera (like daddy). She is also right on target with her due date. I thought at first that Hubby was disappointed she was a girl but he said it was just that he was more scared now and she isn't leaving the house until she is thirty. :] Here are some pictures (I'll post more once my phone isn't being crappy):



The crazy thing is, I had a dream over the weekend that my dad was changing the baby's diaper but we had a ribbon-like cord connecting me & the baby and he said, "Look at your little girl." and he showed me and I said, "No I am not suppose to find out yet!" And so he covered her up. Isn't that crazy?!



I called my step-mom and then I thought "O I need to call my dad" and then cried when I realized. Today was also stressful for other reasons. I guess because I feel that my dad cared about this baby more than is being considered. But I'll have to get over that. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to do certain things and could make my life as stress free as possible. Well, anyways. We are having a girl! My dad wanted me to have a boy, I hope he isn't disappointed. But I'm just happy that she's healthy. :]