Meet the Sponsors- Deanna

 My first sponsor is the wonderful Deanna from Delirious Rhapsody blog. I read her blog almost daily. She is smart, witty and hilarious! Her family is adorable and is always good for a laugh. She is really awesome. Her blog is definitely one of my favorites and I am sure it will become one of your favorites too!

Without further blabbing, here she is!

I'm Deanna! I'm a stay at home mama of two crazy little boys. I collect gnomes and have an unnatural obsession with Colin Meloy. Hopefully my blog will make you laugh. It might make you cry, and every once in a while it may make you want to punch me in the face. Suck it up, because this is my blog, and meanies will not be tolerated. No, seriously, I am actually the most passive person you might never meet. On my blog you will find my weekly features: Topical Tuesday, What I Wore Wednesday, Gage Says and My Stories. Mixed in you will see some crafts and recipes, as well as your typical mommy rant. I'm sarcastic, yet loveable. And I hope you'll stick around for a bit! I'm a vagabond at heart, and a daydreamer throughout my soul. Come join me on my little journey to maintain what's left of my sanity!

  

DELIRIOUS RHAPSODY BLOG

My Brest Friend vs Boppy Pillow

I own a Boppy pillow from my pregnancy with chloe. But to be honest, i ended up using it more for a seat cushion during my recovery more than anything else. I mean, i did have to have a ridiculous amount of stitches so the Boppy really did help, just not in the way it was intended to. 

image via Amazon

I have heard a lot about the My Brest Friend pillow and the nurse who taught my childbirth class swore by it. So i am wondering if its worth it? I want to make sure I will have use for it before i decide to shell out the money for it.  (which I found on sale for $30 on Amazon here.)

image via Amazon

 Have any of you had any experience with it? I do like that it is more hands free for nursing. I would love to hear what your opinions are on it...

Yes i am THAT pregnant lady

I have been so hungry lately.... Today out of nowhere i went to vons and picked up 2 bags of chips a hoy cookies. Immediately after i gave the cashier my money (before even leaving the check stand) i rip open a bag and scarf a cookie down while the cashier gives me my receipt. I don't know what was going through my mind, i just needed that cookie and i needed it NOW! I didn't even think twice about what i was doing until i got in the car and realized i had already eaten 4 cookies from the time i was with the cashier to my car that was parked fairly close to the entrance. I laughed out loud at myself for that. I definitely attribute this to my pregnancy. And you know what, i'd probably do it again...

Music Monday - Milo Greene

I really want to start talking about more music here on my blog, so I am going to do a feature called Music Mondays. I will post a music video from some bands I like. Please leave comments if you know other bands that sound similar so that we can check them out!

My sister in law got me hooked on the civil wars. She also happen to get this sample cd from Milo Greene 

 that I really like. They remind me of The Head and the Heart.  You should definitely check them out! 

Website - Music

Beautiful 80 degree weather...

....Means park time!

Games "with friends"

Can i just say i am totally addicted to the Zynga games where you play with other people? Words with friends, Hanging with friends and my very fave Scramble with friends. I love playing word games and I also love the fact that you can play when its convenient for you. So helpful when you have a needy toddler on your hands who you can't show your phone to or else they throw a fit that you won't let her play with it.

If you play any of these, make sure to play a game with me! Username: The Schmitzels.

pregnancy update

I feel so bad that I haven't taken a single picture of my little baby belly with Emery. When I was pregnant with Chloe I took pictures of my growing bump every week. So I am trying to make a promise from now one to take a picture at least 1x a week.

Here I am at 21 weeks as of Monday.

That is my living room wall, btw. I heart it.

I love my little growing baby bump. I definitely look pregnant now and not just overweight. I especially love baby bumps in stripes, I feel it just emphasizes the adorable growing belly. 

I am already starting to get that itchy belly thing and have started drowning my belly in lotion. I have also received the BIO OIL that is supposed to help reduce already existing scars (I still have stretch marks from Chloe) and help stop any new scars. I have seen pictures of people who use it and it is very impressive. I hope it works. My stretch marks from the first pregnancy were atrocious. They were bright red all over my thighs, hips and lower abdomen. It looked like I got in a fight with a bear! (But at least I won, since I am still alive.)  I hear it also helps with any scars, so I will try it on some other scars too and see how it goes.

I have been having bad acid reflex lately. yuck. so now I have to carry around a small bottle of tums with me. At least they have a tropical flavor to them. And I still have been getting car sick (not really sick, just tummy ache and head ache) and it seems best if I drive most of the time to prevent it. I am starting to get really tired again all of a sudden too. The last 3 nights I have fallen asleep early on the couch, even before Chloe goes to bed! Luckily James stays up late with her, she is such a night owl... she likes to wait until 11pm to go to sleep. I don't know how she does it. must be those 2 hour naps she takes at the sitters.

And the best part of the pregnancy so far: getting to feel little Emery kick. yes KICK! Even James has felt her. I couldn't believe he was able to feel her this early in the pregnancy, but sure enough! I felt her fluttering for the past 3 weeks now, then the night we found out Emery was a SHE, she surprised me with a swift kick to the belly button. (while we were editing the video to send out, I might add. It was such a cute surprise, this girl has good timing.) And then more and more kicks came along and now I feel her kick all the time. I absolutely love it! I like this stage where the kicks don't hurt yet and it is just a amazing feeling. I love how active she is at night, right when I lay down, I just lay there and concentrate on her and feel her moving and pray over her. I am definitely starting to feel more and more connected to this little one and can't wait to meet her. 


I had an ultrasound about 2 weeks ago, everything looked great, the baby is healthy, the only thing is that they said my placenta was too close to my cervix, they actually thought it might have been placenta prevea, but with a more in depth ultrasound, they said it wasn't exactly placenta prevea ,but it was close and they are wanting me to come back in a few weeks to check on the moving of the placenta.They said there isn't anything I can do about it, and that as long as it moves up, I should be fine. So please, be praying for that!

Here are some pictures from the ultrasound! Sorry they are a little blurry. There is a picture of Emery giving us a thumbs up!

Pay It Forward on Delirious Rhapsody

Deanna over at Delirious Rhapsody has a "pay it forward" feature on her blog. She does random acts of kindness and encourages all her readers to do so as well. Then she asks that you blog about it and link it up. Then that spreads the word and gets others to do it and so on and so on. Essentially, she is using her blog to make the world a better place! So I wanted to give a shout out to this awesome lady and her efforts. Please go check it out on her blog here. and read her latest post about it here. Then go Pay It Forward to someone and spread the word! The nest posting will be Feb 17th, so that should give you plenty of time to do something nice for a stranger then post about it. I can't wait to hear all the good that you ladies will be doing!

Thanks Deanna for being the awesome lady that you are and inspiring all of us to do good to others!

Baby Resale Shops are Awesome!

I have been in such a nesting mode lately. I want to go through Chloe's room and get everything organized for another little one to share her space (and her closet)

Now that we know we are having 2 little girls, I was able to go through all of Chloe's old clothes (we kept everything, just in case) and decided what we would keep some and we would either donate the rest or sell to a baby resale shop. Since Chloe and Emery will be in completely different seasons than each other for the clothes sizing, we ended up selling a lot of her clothes. (So most of the 6 months were all summer clothes and Emery will be in a cold winter in Oregon around 6 months, so most of those clothes didn't work). The resale shop is only taking clothes for the colder weather right now and we will have to take back the rest during march for the summer clothes. We ended up selling $160 of clothes to the shop. That means we get to have $80 in store credit! I was able to get a brand new Graco baby swing for little Emery, a toy organizer to get all those toys put in there place, some safety locks for the doors, toilet and fridge, plus some clothes that were appropriate for the weather the new baby will be in for only $1, using our $80 credit! I was so surprised. And they said they definitely want to buy our summer clothes when it comes time, so we will be able to do that again here really soon. And, they have maternity clothes too. Which is great since I think most maternity clothes are overpriced, especially for the short time you will be using them. (a post on maternity clothes soon to come!) My mom got a Safety First baby gate there for only $17, the same baby gate that I just saw advertised at Babies R Us for $49! Score! And she just bought a forward facing car seat for Chloe, since she was growing out of her backwards facing one. (my mom takes Chloe on weds and needs a car seat of her own).

Let me tell you, if you have a baby resale shop near you, please, use it to your advantage. We always go there first when looking for items. Many items are new or almost new and all at such a great cost.You can find some great resale shops by checking them out on Yelp, we actually just found another right by our house. I can't wait to check out!

Color Happy

Just a Sneak peek into our brand new YELLOW living room bookshelves. We are re-doing our living room and the Girl's room with fun colors and more inviting space. Heading to Ikea tonight for more items and ideas! I can't believe James actually talked me into getting the yellow cabinets and I usually LOVE white furniture, but it makes the space seem so HAPPY! A post with the new decorated rooms soon... and hopefully a inspiration board of some sort!

(I am thinking a yellow, teal and red combo?)