Hairstyles for Girls

Here are some ideas for little girl hairstyles. Luckily she still lets me try out different styles which is so fun! I hope you try some of them out!

Gender Reveal Party

We are currently expecting our second child and we are beyond excited!! Gender reveal parties are a new trend and I love the idea! It's so much more special to find out the gender of the baby with your close family and friends instead of by yourself laying on the sonographer's table. I decided to hop on the band wagon and have a little gender reveal party of our own. 

The first thing was how to actually reveal the gender. I have seen so many wonderful pictures on Pinterest of people having blue or pink confetti fall on them from a box, balloon, or a piñata. I first tried to do the whole balloon thing, but couldn't find a store that would stuff the balloon and fill it with helium. Who knew that would be such a hard thing to find! That's when I discovered pull-string piñatas! I loved the concept of not having to beat up and destroy the piñata just to get into it, but instead, be able to simply pull a string. These are also great for little kid birthday parties who might not be able to break open a piñata. ;-) I had looked on Etsy for pull-string piñatas and they are around $30-35! So I decided to make one of my own using the good ol' fashioned paper mache method. Here is a great link for instructions. I wasn't good about getting pictures of the process of making the piñata, but I did take one when it was almost done. 

Here are more pics from our gender reveal party. :-)

Fitness Apps

I love finding new great apps to keep me on track with my fitness goals. Here are a few of the ones I love!

I love the app Weilos! It's basically an app for fitness motivation. People post pictures, quotes, before and after shots, tips, etc for all things related to health and fitness. There are days where I browse through Weilos more than Facebook, which is great! If I'm ever feeling like I don't want to go to the gym, I read through a few posts and I am instantly ready to go!

Lose It is an app to track your daily calories, your exercise, your weight loss, etc. It is very similar to My Fitness Pal, but I find it easier to navigate. It has restaurant and grocery store foods in its library so you can track calories while eating out as well. There is a barcode-scan option to make it easier to track foods that have a barcode. It also has a pie graph that shows your daily percentages of proteins, carbs and fats. I love this option because I am trying to track my macronutrients better. 

Interval Timer is another great app for interval training. You can use the interval training method for any type of exercise, but I use it for jogging or sprinting. The concept behind interval training is to do something hard core for a short period of time where your heart rate is high, and then switch to a lower pace to let your heart rate come back down. You would repeat this pattern for several sets. With this app you can set how long you want your intense interval to be, how long the low-intense activity will be, and how many sets you want to do. You can also set the time for a warm-up and cool down. 

What are some of your favorite fitness apps?

Raising a Princess

Another great book you HAVE to check out is Raising a Princess, Eight Essential Virtues to Teach Your Daughter by John Croyle. This is such a great book for anyone who has a daughter! The author goes through the letters in the word princess and talks about 8 topics that are crucial to consider while your daughter is growing up.

P- Praiseworthiness
R- Righteousness
I- Initiative
N- Nurture
C- Character
E- Empowerment
S- Servant-Heartedness
S- Stability

Throughout the whole book the author references the woman in Proverbs 31 and offers wisdom on how to raise your daughter to be like that woman from the Bible.

Croyle is the founder of Big Oak Ranch which is a Christian-based facility for abused and neglected children. For over 25 years, Croyle and his wife have provided a safe haven for these children to live until they turn 18. Through his experiences at Big Oak, he has raised over 1,800 children and has written this book to share his wisdom.

I highly, highly recommend this book! I underlined as I read through it so I could reference my highlights in the future. Let me know what you think!

Our Day in Denver

Today, both Jesse and I were off and we decided to spend the day in Denver. We started our day at the Children's Museum which was a lot of fun. I remember going to the Children's Museum when I was a child, although it did seem much larger when I was a kid. Either way, it was fun to do something out of the ordinary.

There are several stations that the children can play/experiment with, and they do switch up the stations every few months or so. The museum is undergoing LOTS of construction and will double in size by the end of 2015.

                              Building binoculars!

There was a whole bubble area which was really cool. What kid doesn't love bubbles? You could make bubbles of all sizes and out of different liquids.

Toddler Hairdos

While growing up, I always loved to experiment with hair; either practicing on my mom's hair, my friend's hair, or whoever else would let me. I have sort of curly/wavy hair and had to learn how to style my hair as I cannot just leave it down and call it good. I always said that I would love to have a daughter so I could play with her hair. Well I have a beautiful 3 year old daughter with thick, curly mixed hair. I most definitely have to have a daily routine to care for her hair as it will be a disaster if I don't. I will do another post on taking care of mixed hair. I have discovered many cute ways to style her hair up and out of her face. Here are some of the pics. (Her hair is sort of hard to photograph because it is so dark).

Nurture Shock

Nurture Shock was a book I had to read in college in one of my psychology classes. I found the content really interesting and relevant. I have decided to re-read it now as there is some great information. I highly recommend this book if you are a parent as it provides new thinking about children. Each chapter addresses a different topic, all which are crucial to parenting. The chapters are:

1. The Inverse Power of Praise
2. The Lost Hour (sleep)
3. Why White Parents Don't Talk about Race
4. Why Kids Lie
5. The Search for Intelligent Life in Kindergarten
6. The Sibling Effect
7. The Science of Teen Rebellion
8. Can Self-Control Be Taught?
9. Plays Well With Others
10. Why Hannah Talks and Alyssa Doesn't

So as you can see from the chapter titles, all the topics are important while raising a child. I think it's an easy read well worth your time. Let me know what you think!