As Christmas and Black Friday approaches I thought I'd share with you a big ole list of educational toys. Leo is a toy kid, I swear he should be a toy tester. This kid will sit and play with a toy for hours. Get him a new hot wheels car at the grocery store and he will get home put together a hot wheels track, create a demolition derby, or take his car through a shaving cream "car wash" and wash it in the sink. Despite that he will play with pretty much any toy I have noticed toys that are more educational than others. What I love about educational toys is it requires me to stop doing "normal life stuff" and sit down and teach and play with the kids. It is proven many times over kids learn best through play so here are my favorite educational toys. 

So I've been on a quest to find more things to entertain both kids and I don't have the energy to set up two different activities. So here are 5 activities that I can do that both kids enjoy.  They are super simple and pretty much are mess free which is a even bigger WIN! 

We just got home from a week long vacation. Let's just say it wasn't easy with a baby. Monroe developed a diaper rash that turned into basically bed sores. We were an hour away from a grocery so I made due with the little stuff I brought and we amazon primed some items to the resort. It was quite challenging keep her dry on a lake/beach vacation. But the worst part was her crying all hours of the night. I think Jay and I contemplated driving home about 40 times, but we knew how much fun Leo was having so we felt bad. I was reminded that traveling with babies isn't ideal. They just do better in their environment at home. We survived and we have tried to catch up on sleep a little  since we have been home. But I'm highlighting some of my go to travel items as well as my little travel boxes I made that quite a few of you messaged me about. 

So I promise this will be probably the end of my baby posts. I have one more I want to do about toys but that is it. I think we have exhausted the baby topic and I in fact am happily nearing the end of the "baby phase".   But I wanted to share with you a few things that were kinda of a waste of money as far as baby products go.  I'd hate for you to spend your money on them if you don't have to. 

Cooking everyone a healthy breakfast is so important at our house. Leo's order for  breakfast most mornings is "eggs, turkey bacon, waffles, and fruit". I feel like a personal chef, between the 3 of us then Monroe started eating breakfast.... add in another meal. So I decided to test out some muffins for her that she could snack on and fed herself for breakfast along with some fruit. I didn't want them to have any sugar and tried to keep them as healthy as possible Here is what I came up with. She ate 4 of them yesterday for breakfast. They are the perfect snack size I even snuck one yesterday with my morning protein shake. They aren't sweet so if your kids are used to super sweet muffins they probably won't love these.  

Jay and I are pretty sure we are done having kids for a million reasons, the first being our family does really feel complete with our little boy and baby girl. These two kids fill me up with so much love and I really don't have that grand desire for another. I could probably be persuaded to have another one if Jay REALLY REALLY WANTS ONE, but he says he's 250% done so that solves that.  We always had the idea that we would probably only have 2 kids and when we found out we were having a girl it was the nail in the coffin. A boy and a girl, two healthy babies, and 2 very terrible deliveries for this mama. With that being said.... I love that our family is complete and that Monroe is growing out of her baby stage but I'm also a little bit sad. Actually all the milestones with Monroe make me sad. With Leo I looked forward to every one, I looked forward to him gaining his independence and mastering new skills. But with Monroe I just want to freeze time. 

So I posted on instagram a month of two ago but about my fire ladder and a few other of my fire safety items. I was surprised to see how many comments I got so I thought I'd put together some of our fire safety tips. Leo is now at the age where we understands dangerous situations so we have started talking about these important topics. I have quite a few little things to touch upon so I thought I'd do a 2 part blog post on our safety plans and tips we practice in our house and some things that I need to address as he gets older. With that let's talk about fire safety. 

I had been so pumped for Leo's Bug Birthday. I had literally been planning this birthday for months. As we watched the weather for the weekend of his birthday we saw a legit blizzard was coming 4-6 inches of snow and 30 mph winds. We decided to move the party to Sunday, still the weather didn't improve much, but we did have 7 little friends make it to celebrate with Leo. We had 17 kids that had RSVPed yes so needless to say ALOT of them were unable to attend. It is funny because my birthday is a week before and my Mom told me my 3rd birthday was also snowed out and only 1 friend was able to come to my party. I guess 3rd birthdays just don't go in our favor.

 Since I put in a lot of work I figured I'd share the birthday as a blog post. I think the key in doing at home birthdays for young kids (in the winter) is to have a lot of different activities for them to do. Despite the low attendance we had a blast and the next day Leo's cousins were able to finally get out of their driveway and they came over and we did all the activities again. So basically we got to have 2 parties so I think it was worth it! 

So this blog post is all about what I learned last week about being a Mom. Being a Mom is hard. I'm a stay at home mom and I can't tell you how much I still rely on HELP! For some reason there is a lot of guilt for me when it comes to asking for help especially from Jay.  This past week was more challenging than normal. Jay was on a 7 day in a row stretch at work, Leo was coming off being sick for a week, Monroe was starting to get sick, I was still not feeling better (I've been sick for a month), it was my birthday week, and we have a billion things on our calendar,  And I just needed help.  

Toddler meals are tough and the older Leo has gotten the more picky he has become. I'm showing off some of our favorite meals that doesn't require me to make 2 different things for dinner. What I've learned is that my toddler personally does better with deconstructed meals. So taking the same meal like spaghetti but separating the meatballs and noodles. I'll quickly go over a week of meals in our house for Leo and what he was having and what we were having. Lunches for us tend to be more peanut butter and jelly, hot dogs, pizza, and other freezer foods.  But for dinners I try and not let him have processed food and get him used to eating what we eat.