Introducing...

Quick post for now- I have my hands full! Birth story and more details to follow :)

Halle MaryAnn Clark
August 20th, 2014, 12:39am
7 lbs 5 oz, 19.5 inches

First world problems

First world problems! Nursery edition.  We didn't have a nursery for Dawson. This is new territory.  We were living in a little itty bitty 1 bedroom condo style apartment in a high rise building when he was born. To say things were cramped would be a huge understatement, but we made it work until he was 6 months old.  

We bought our house in November of 2012 and thought we had a great set up for having kids.  I still think we do, but we have a couple of obstacles in trying to figure out the nursery.  We have one bedroom (currently Dawson's room) on one end of the house, the stairwell & his bathroom, then another bedroom in our hallway and then our master suite. We have a tiny bedroom downstairs that is our guest bedroom/office.  It flows nicely, but trying to figure out what placement for the kids and us noise crying wise is a bit challenging.  I'm very excited to get to have a nursery this time, but I anticipate the baby will be in our room a lot at first.

 Dawson's current bedroom shares a wall with our laundry room and is directly over the guest room.  It's also the furthest from the most noise in the house, and our bedroom.  We put him in there when we moved because we figured he would be disturbed less (little man was not an awesome sleeper.)  The other bedroom upstairs shares a wall with the hallway, and our bathroom.  Here's where it gets tricky.  Now, I love our house, and the builder did an excellent job.. BUT I could happily shoot him for not insulating the wall between our shower and the other bedroom upstairs.  It sounds like Niagara Falls when you are standing in that room and someone is taking a shower.  It's the ONLY wall in the house they seemed to neglect, as our house is an Earth Advantage Energy Saver certified home.  Dawson used to wake as a baby if you even cracked a knuckle.  To say it was annoying and obnoxious is an understatement.  How the heck am I going to get a baby to sleep in this room and still be able to shower?! Gah.  We made the decision to move Dawson to that room.  It's bigger, and he sleeps like the dead once he is out.  I'm hoping this doesn't backfire and that he's excited for a new room.  The transition might be rough.   We will see I guess, because it looks like next weekend we will be disassembling his room and moving it! 

Let the taping and painting begin! 

We decided to paint a wall (just like in his current room) and he got some new furniture from IKEA.  He even got to help Grandma K and me pick out a paint color. He's obsessed with planets, so we are painting the wall blue and putting planets up on it.  I'm going to look for some curtains to match, because his don't seem to block enough light for him to sleep.  We are going to move some of his toys upstairs and see how that works out.  It would be nice if he could play in his own room when I'm having a rough morning, or need to shower.  Then all that's left is to paint the wall in the nursery, Dawson's current room, and put the crib together.  Luckily we have used a closet system for Dawson's clothes and we just bought some more to put in his new closet.  A lot of his stuff is getting left behind for the baby and I am hoping he doesn't feel resentful.  Again, first world problems.  So many kids don't even have their own room, but how do you explain that to a three year old? 

Has anyone else moved their child for a second, third, fourth child to come?  Please tell me I'm not crazy! 

Kids Academy Learning App Review

Disclosure:  I was compensated for this blog post by Kids Academy Company.  Kids Academy Company gave me this application to review it and write this blog post. Views expressed in this post are still, as always, 100% genuine.

Here's a link to my Amazon review, and I'll elaborate more! 

I downloaded Preschool and Kindergarten learning kids games for girls & boys ∙ Prep reading, interactive ABC, alphabet tracing, phonics song with educational app based on Montessori match letter quiz & logical math puzzle games for toddler HD by Kids Academy today.  I'm a little ashamed to say Dawson has been busy with it for almost 2 hours.  I'm having a pretty rough day, and it's better than cartoons by FAR so I'm just not going to let it bother me I guess.  I see some of you judging me and that's okay :) 

First, it downloaded quickly which was nice.  Setting up his picture, name, and setting the sounds (Yes you can turn off the music but leave on the voices! SCORE!) was super easy too.  Unfortunately little smarty pants figured out the parental control button pretty much right away.  No biggy, he wasn't interested once I showed him the rest of the app.  

I would say most of this app is tracing letters, numbers, and shapes.  If your kid isn't into tracing or isn't old enough for that kind of skill, I wouldn't bother.  The app says its for ages 0-5 but I can't imagine even 6 months ago Dawson would have had any fun with it. However, he had a blast with it today.  The rewards were spot on, and motivating him with fireflies worked beautifully.  He's been doing the same numbers over and over and seems to be happy with that.  Dawson knows most of his letters and numbers, so for him the letter identification part of the app is not terribly educational for him.  I can honestly say he hasn't paid much attention to lowercase letters until looking at this though and now he's very excited that the big K has a baby.  Adorable :) He's also learning the sounds letters make through this and I think that will be beneficial.  Dawson seems to learn much better from a device or a TV show than he does from us, his parents, because you know.. we are the dumbest people alive (if you ask him.) 

$9.99 seems like a lot for an app, but we don't have cable television so splurging once in a while for entertainment that's a little more on the educational side and hands on works for us.  Maybe not for everyone though!  We are glad to have added it to our little app collection! 

Crazy 8 Minecraft tees on sale!

FTC Disclosure Statement: This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. 


Minecraft is the hottest kids game out there, and now, the much anticipated tees are available at Crazy 8 for just $14.88! These tees are sure to be a favorite and on the top of our kid's summer wardrobe list. Don't let this amazing deal creepby! 

Minecraft themed tees at Crazy 8 only $14.88!

Free kids book!

A friend sent this to me :) Looks like shipping is free and there's no required credit card! I ordered one for Dawson and baby girl to share.

CLICK HERE!

Hopefully this works!