Friday Favorites {02.16.24}

Posted on by Lauren Lane

I started to write this post early in the week. Since that point in time, you may have seen that there was a mass shooting in Kansas City at the Super Bowl parade celebration. Harrison & I were at the parade with my sister, her husband, and my niece. Many of our friends were at the parade and rally with our kids. Everyone that I know personally is ok. But 20+ people were injured in that shooting, eleven of them children, and at least one person lost their life.

We had the most fun celebrating our Chiefs, and another Super Bowl victory. It breaks my heart for what transpired after the rally – for the families hurt, the trauma that no doubt many of us will now deal with resulting from yet another senseless act of violence.

What had started as such a fun day that I will cherish forever turned into a somber reminder of what a broken country we live in. Whatever the events leading up to people pulling guns and firing into crowds, I quite frankly don’t care. I don’t particularly care if we blame mental health. Or the guns. Or any other number of things. Our country is so broken. And it makes me want to scream and cry all at the same time. It destroys me to have a child who was already waking up from nightmares about guns, and now to have this on top of it. That I can’t tell him that it’s going to get better. That this won’t be the type of world that he will live in forever.

And instead to have to reassure him he’s safe in our home…and in my mind to have to wonder how safe is he really when he leaves this home.

As I sit here with tears streaming down my face having to grapple with this issue yet again, and this time so close to home, I wish I could tie this up in a pretty bow. But I’m just completely broken up.

While I was already feeling overwhelmed before the events in KC just with too many balls in the air right now, I’ve now reached a point where I know I need a break. I need to step away for a week or so and try to re-center myself. To allow myself time to process, check a few things off my to-do list, and just right this ship.

So, I’m going to share some favorites from the happier times lately, because there are reasons to celebrate and smile, always. But I’m going to give myself a pause after today until I can process some things for myself.

I’m sorry for such a sad note, but I’m not one to pretend like everything is fine when it’s not. Take care of yourselves, friends, and hug your babies.

We are celebrating my favorite, number one guy this weekend! His birthday is on Monday, but our little family is celebrating him this weekend.

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Let’s Look At…Little Things We Do Every Day

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Hello! And welcome to another edition of “Let’s Look!” A little peek into some very small part of our lives for your enjoyment. 🙂

Last month, we shared a peek into how we clean our closets.

The little things that I never miss a day of…

-1- Drink coffee. Usually I’m a two to three cups of black coffee a day kind of girl. But I’ll switch it up sometimes for a latte with honey.

-2- Feed the dog. Nathan wanted the dog, but somehow I got the responsibility of feeding her every day. It’s probably why I’m her favorite human of the family.

-3- Feed the baby. Gosh, is this going to be a whole list of how I feed everyone? Every day? For forever? Maybe.

-4- Check my email. Scroll Instagram. Every single day. The amount of time I spend on my device…

-5- Tell my kids how much I love them and how handsome they are, and say something like “How did I get so lucky to be your mama?”

Processed with VSCO with u4 preset

-6- Ask my children to put on their shoes/coat/get their backpack/pick up their junk laying out all over the house…multiple times. At least. Ad nauseum.

-7- Drink water.

-8- It’s not every single day…but almost every day, I talk to my mom. She asks me how the kids are doing that day and whether they woke up dinking on each other or in good moods. That sort of thing. 🙂

-9- Eat some type of peanut butter protein bar – the breakfast of mothers and fathers of little children who have no time to feed themselves while serving tiny little humans meals and snacks all day. Current favorite is the Perfect Bars.

-10- Wash my face, brush my teeth…basic self care things. Did we mean to get this detailed with the little things we do each day?

-11- Think about flowers, landscapes, or gardening. It’s what occupies my mind a lot of the time.

My Breastfeeding Journey

Posted on by Lauren Lane

How to feed your baby always feels like a bit of a touchy subject. Somehow, in my generation, there has been engrained a sense of failure if we can’t breastfeed our babies. Or even more so, shame if we don’t WANT to breastfeed our babies. Over the course of the past five years of having little babies that I’ve been entrusted to nourish and grow, I have seen great strides made in trying to walk back this shame and sense of failure. It’s a bit like undoing the complete mental jungle gym we got wrapped up in as teenagers of having a certain body type, clothes, etc, to fit in. But I can see that progress is being made little by little.

As I approached motherhood with Harrison, I definitely fell into the category of unsure about breastfeeding, but concluded that I should try it since it was deemed to be “best” for the baby.

That journey with him was depleting to my very core. On top of dealing with undiagnosed and untreated postpartum depression, I struggled mightily to figure out breastfeeding. I had taken the classes, and I thought I was prepared, but I truly wasn’t. We struggled with latching correctly, the lactation consultant at the hospital gave us a nipple shield. It got very quickly to the point where he refused to nurse on one side without the shield, and I truly hated it. While he struggled to get enough food at the hospital and his early days at home, I was pumping after each breastfeeding session and then feeding him through a small syringe to try to get more calories into him. It was depleting, exhausting, and awful for my mental health.

Perhaps more shocking, I thought that this was just what motherhood was truly.

It wasn’t until he was a couple of weeks old that our pediatrician gave us the name of a lactation consultant that would come to our house to help work with me on training him off of the shield and attempting to fix his latch issues. I wish I had had this resource lined up for as soon as I came home from the hospital. It changed everything for my breastfeeding journey with Harrison and all of the babies after him.

I worked hard to train Harrison to nurse without the nipple shield. Again, it was sooo hard to get him to drop it after he had gotten used to it. I vowed to never use one again with any future pregnancy because this retraining was so depleting for me. But eventually, we got there.

We cruised along until four months, and his weight percentile dropped. I was asked to start supplementing him with formula, and I felt like a failure. By six months, when I returned to work, my supply dropped to almost nothing with all of the pumping, and by seven months I had given up on my breastfeeding journey with Harrison. I remember being very upset about it, because it wasn’t my choice. I felt like my body had just failed me – it just quit producing. And so that breastfeeding journey ended.

Jonathan’s journey was different. I was more confident. I knew how a good latch should feel, what the placement should look like, and it showed. He was an amazing nurser from the beginning. We sailed through his first year, and while my supply dropped again when I went back to work, I had enough of a stash and a proficient enough feeder that we were able to keep him on breast milk with a little bit of supplementing with formula for weight gain for his entire first year. I felt lucky and accomplished to have made it so long with him.

Aidan was a mix in between Harrison and Jonathan. He wasn’t an automatic great nurser. But again, I had two breastfed babies under my belt, and I felt confident. I’ve found myself considering my own needs and mental health more this time around. My attitude with breastfeeding this time around has been more of a “if it works, that’s great. If it doesn’t, he’ll be fine.” And for the most part, that has served us well. There’s been more chaos in this newborn haze. The world wasn’t stopped because of COVID this time around – there were still kids activities, two screaming and wrestling brothers that never seem to miss a chance to be the absolute most chaotic while I’m trying to nurse.

Since going back to work, though, I’ve gotten well acquainted with my pump yet again. I hated pumping. Everything about it. Over three pregnancies, though, I’ve upgraded my pump each time. It started with a “has to be plugged into the wall” pump. Absolutely hated the thing. I upgraded to Spectra S2 with Jonathan. It came with a rechargable battery, so I didn’t have to be connected to a wall plus. It felt like an absolute dream compared to the first pump, but I was still rather restrcted from doing anything but sitting or standing in one place while pumping because of the big motor.

And this time around, after hemming and hawing over the price tag, I splurged for a wearable pump and got a gently used Elvie. (I just couldn’t bring myself to pay full price!) But truly, I think it would have been worth full price. It’s completely changed how I felt about pumping. Easy, comfortable, and I can walk around and do chores while I pump. And no dang pumping bra needed.

I guess this is a bit of a chronicle through my journey of this phase of motherhood. And it’s swiftly coming to an end, as we’ll stop nursing over the next couple of months.

If I were talking to a girlfriend about to become a new mom, I guess this is what I would say about breastfeeding:

  • I wish someone had normalized earlier supplementing for babies. This idea that I could potentially choose to feed my baby in two different ways has changed my outlook on our journey together. That I could potentially choose to not be the 100% provider of his food is freeing. And maybe potentially the best of both worlds.
  • Find a lactation consultant that will come to your house after you come home from the hospital BEFORE the baby is born. And just anticipate paying for at least one visit. Especially if you’re committed to trying breastfeeding.
  • That wearable pump is amazing. If you have the means, upgrade to the wearable pump.
  • And most basically, you’re not a failure if you don’t want to breastfeed. And you’re not a failure if breastfeeding just doesn’t work. That baby is going to thrive – boob milk or not. You’re going to be a great mom, and it has nothing to do with how your baby is fed.

A Garden fit for a Shed

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Can you tell I had trouble naming this post? Like many creatives, I can see a garden space and my mind immediately starts going to adding dimension, color, texture, and hardscapes. I can see it: the end product, in my mind.

I’m truly the most untalented sketcher to ever exist. I’ve sketched out so many garden landscapes for our home, and tried to show Nathan to get his thoughts, but I’m not sure it really makes much sense. There’s a lot of circles and if there’s feathery texture some lines poking out to give it a fountain look. But truly, my blobs usually don’t translate to people understanding the vision.

Starting this landscaping business, I’ve started to teach myself a landscape tool that can better help people visualize their landscape. And that started with me designing our new garden by the shed.

Here’s what the space looks like now…

And here’s a mock up of my design absent all hand-drawn blobs.

I’m going to focus more heavily in this area on perrenials. Some plants I’m considering include: hardy hibiscus, cone flowers, coreopsis, and yarrow. May throw some annual zinnias in there for some color, and incorporated a planter in front of the shed as well as a window box under the shed window for some annuals color.

We’re planning on installing two raised beds for some actual food growing! Tomatoes for sure. Peppers and maybe some lettuce? Hoping I can find a good spot for some strawberries as well. In the future, I’m hoping to add an arbor that connects the two raised beds – but that’s a future dream.

So tell me, what type of fruits and veggies are you most successful in growing??

Landscape by Lauren: A Little Dream.

Posted on by Lauren Lane

I’ve had a little dream for a long time. If you’ve been here any amount of time, you don’t have to spend much time on my blog to realize that I love gardening. Flowers and creating beautiful landscapes has been my happy place for a long time.

Nathan and I have transformed our little backyard from this…

to this…

And I can’t tell you the joy that walking outside each morning to this outside home has brought me over the years. I’ve decided to take my love and all the things I’ve learned over the past ten years to help other families with their landscaping.

And Landscape by Lauren was born. I am so excited to help friends all over the US plan their gardens and landscape and create their outside home. Right now, garden and landscape planning and consultation can all be done virtually. We’ll work to pick the right plants for your home, location, and amount of maintenance required to create a garden of your dreams.

If you’re local to Kansas City, there will also be an optional add-on service to your landscape planning of in-person plant selection with you at a local garden nursery! And if you’re not ready to do a full-blown garden, I’m also going to offer custom container plantings at your home or business for those in Kansas City.

Now is the perfect time to start dreaming and planning for the spring. It’s just around the corner. I can’t wait to hear what you have in mind for your next garden project!

What’s Up Wednesday {01.31.24}

Posted on by Lauren Lane

First What’s Up Wednesday of the new year! You all know that this is my favorite post of the month. I love to go back and read these as a little scrapbook in time of our lives. A little bit of reading, wearing, family, and work all in one post!

As always, I’m linking up with Shay and Sheaffer to share with you what’s going on in our life!

1: WHAT WE’RE EATING THIS WEEK: I have a confession to make. I was very anti-Cozi family calendar. It got to a point, though, where it was really difficult to track who was responsible for which kid/activity/driving/babysitting/all the things that goes along with keeping track of a family in our work Outlook calendars. So, I gave Cozi another shot. We’ve been using it for four months now, and I love it. Including using it to track our meal plan each week.

This week, we’re doing Sheet Pan sausage and veggies, Chicken Taquitos, and Creamy Broccoli Cheddar Chicken.

2: WHAT I’M REMINISCING ABOUT:

Aidan turned ten months old this past weekend, and man. All of sudden, that first birthday seems REALLY close. And it feels like yesterday that he was this small.

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A Typical Day in January 2024

Posted on by Lauren Lane

A true typical day in January 2024 should show one kid home sick, one kid home because it is yet another snow day or school holiday, and me trying to frantically fit in all of work and home things in between juggling kids at home. Somehow, this random day that I picked to document was our FIRST DAY in a week (and practically all of January) with all children at their respective “schools.”

I woke up early to get my workout at Bar Method in before the kids got up…

As soon as I get home, I get out milk for the big boys and go feed Aidan. Jonathan is always my first kid up.

Then after wrestling a nine month old to get a new diaper on and get changed, it’s time to herd cats getting big J and Harrison dressed and ready.

Happy helper!

Then it’s downstairs for breakfast for the boys!

After breakfast, I do little kid drop off at daycare, and then call my mom on the way home.

At home, I grabbed a cup of coffee, flipped on my work computer, and grabbed the boys’ laundry. It was boys laundry day.

I sorted dirty clothes while doing a work call. Then got some work done on my computer while the first load started.

This morning I had a long overdue haircut…

Finally feeling more put together 🙂

Back at work – fold a load of clothes while on another call and pumping…

Then very non exciting work happened…but I listened to part of this book while I worked on mindless tasks

Grabbed a protein bar as interim sustenance…

More work…then a pump break and bottle prep…

Followed by elementary school snack prep for the next day and dinner prep…This little tool has saved me so much time chopping vegetables. Highly recommend.

Another little snack to tide me over until dinner…

Around 5, I took a quick shower, put the kids’ clean clothes away, and was ready to go do pick-ups. I had a couple of new clothes to try on…

I usually pick up Harrison from school in the evenings.

Once we got home…

It was time to start dinner. Harrison wanted to help make dinner this evening.

Chaos…I mean the little boys arrive home around 5:30 or so, and then we sat down to eat as a family.

A family favorite, the ever popular TACOS.

After dinner, I clean up the leftovers and load the dishwasher while the boys play. Then I’m in charge of baby Aidan’s bedtime.

Bath & snuggled up in his towel!

One last bottle, and he’s ready for bed!

Then it was Jonathan’s turn to go down for bed, and finally Harrison…

He chose the Chiefs book to read this night because his dad had refused to read it the night before…

After the boys are down, I usually make myself a treat or a cup of tea. This night I picked hot chocolate…

And I watch a little TV or read before it’s time for bed!

I read this day back, and it sounds exhausting. Because it is so tiring. It is a constant pace of doing to make it to the next marker in the day. To breakfast, to kids out the door, to bath. I find myself wiped by the end of most days. The thing I long for most these days is more time to do things for me. Things I’m passionate about.

But reading this back also made me remember how much I love this life. This life with these little humans that’s so loud, demanding and chaotic. It is magical. And in the scheme of things, so fast.

Just the other day Harrison showered himself and got himself ready for bed. And we did nooothing. And that was both thrilling and sad. Another end and a clear sign of my babies growing up. It’s hard to remember in the slog of the typical days that they’re growing up. And someday, we’ll bathe our babies for the last time. But that engine of time churns on. Ready or not. And I have a feeling when I’m old and gray and my babies have long since left the nest, I’ll be glad to go back and read this post of what life looked like when they still needed me for everything.

Thanks for sticking with me.

Thirty Nine

Posted on by Lauren Lane

You know what I don’t love?…my birthday. It’s a very weird feeling of wanting the people closest to me to wish me a happy birthday and wanting literally nobody else to acknowledge it because I HATE being the center of attention.

I almost didn’t even post anything about my birthday today. But that also seems disingenuous somehow. A birthday is worthy of acknowledging. I mean, if anything, I think we should celebrate our moms on our birthdays. These are the types of things I think about when this day rolls around.

BUT, I did think it would be fun to look at NINE not very well known things about me.

-1- I grew up as a theater kid. I think my very first theatrical performance was when I was in third grade. I was supposed to perform in Miracle on 34th Street, and I was so excited but I came down with the chicken pox and couldn’t do ANY of the shows. So that made my next gig my technical first performance on stage as a tap dancing kangaroo in Peter Pan.

-2- I went to graduate school at NC State. The one year of my grad program, Russell Wilson was the quarterback of the football team. He eventually went on to move schools to Wisconsin. And you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this…but after he became a Super Bowl winning quarterback with the Seattle Seahawks, he became the quarterback of the Denver Broncos, which is my husband’s favorite NFL team.

-3- I could happily talk Bravo with you any day of the week. Summer House, Winter House, Vanderpump Rules, nearly any Real Housewives franchise…Bravo is my ESCAPE.

-4- I hate crafting. I hate crafting with my children as much if not more. To me, the amount of joy it brings doesn’t balance out the absolute disaster it is to prep for it or clean up after it. The pros do not outweigh the cons.

-5- I don’t bake much. For one, I don’t think I’m very good at it. But secondly, because if baked goods are around the house, I have zero self-control. I will eat all of them. Quickly.

-6- I was born on Super Bowl Sunday back when the Super Bowl occurred in January.

-7- I love gardening. Love love love gardening. Outside flowers are my jam. You’d think this would translate into being a great indoor plant mom, but it doesn’t. It’s not my thing. I have a few houseplants, and I have no desire to have more. I forget to water them a lot. So maybe it’s a good thing that I have all of my gardens on a drip system that does the watering for me. 🙂

-8- I’ve never learned how to use a lawn mower. Never pushed a lawn mower. Never used one. I don’t want to learn. Nathan has asked me many times what happens to him if he dies, and I’ve told him we’ll be hiring a lawn crew. Or Jonathan I’m pretty sure would be willing to be our mower boy.

-9- I’ve never seen the Star Wars movies.

Last year of my thirties. Let’s do this.

Let’s Look…At How We Clean Our Closets

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Once a month, two of my favorite blogs host a link up where we look into some little aspect of our lives. January’s prompt is to look at how we clean our closets. Which, the prospect of writing this post may force me to go clean my closet. 🙂

Needless to say, there’s a breaking point where I let things get a little messy in my closet. It builds, and builds, and builds. And then out of nowhere one day, I’ll decide it’s time to purge, organize, and re-set. (That honestly seems to be the case with almost every area of my house.)

When the breaking point is reached, though, watch out. The trash bags are coming out, lists are being made, and we are going through it.

It starts by going through all of the hanging clothes and making a giveaway pile of anything I don’t love or hasn’t been worn in a couple of years.

I have a bit of the mindset of Marie Kondo: “does this garment bring me joy?” If it doesn’t or I don’t love it, it goes to the giveaway pile.

Theeennn things get interesting, the drawers get organized and de-cluttered. That includes the medicine drawer….which is usually rife with outdated medicine given how often I clean it out.

And since we’re on the topic, and this prompt is forcing me….I have loads of pregnancy and early post-partum things that need to be cleared out. Some giveaway, mostly trash. A lot of “Buy Nothing” items to post on our local “Buy Nothing” neighborhood Facebook group. If you’re not a part of one of these groups, I highly recommend! Such an easy way to give away things you don’t need anymore to a neighbor who does need it! I recently just picked up a trash can for our basement from a neighbor that wasn’t in perfect shape but will definitely suffice until cabinets are built out down there!

Eventually it looks mostly back to normal, and I can let it go for another year…or two. 🙂

Our Finished Basement

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Our basement project is officially finished! And while we are still tweaking, adding, and will be getting used to living in our basement, I wanted to share some pictures of the final finished project!

We were so happy with how it turned out. Both Nathan and I have said that it’s exceeded our expectations, and it feels like a warm cozy place that we can really live in and enjoy as a family. Mission accomplished!

You may remember my mood board for the basement…

Here’s a look at what it looked like before with our basement renovation ‘lite’

The sports room….which is still the sports room and the only space we didn’t do anything to in this renovation.

And here’s a look at the new basement now…

Looking from the stairs down the hallway to the new “bedroom”/playroom…

Looooove finally having a bathroom down here. Especially for the kids.

The new playroom/bedroom…

Aidan here modeling its playroom features. 🙂

And the entertainment room area…

Literally every last person who worked on this project thought Nathan was crazy to leave this “window” area open to the sports room. But it may be the best feature of all. The boys can play in the sports room, and the adults can hang out in the entertainment room and we can actually see through to what’s happening in there without balls flying out of the sports room.

It’s truly genius for this stage in our lives.

Here’s a look from the sports room into the entertainment room…

We absolutely love, love, love this basement now. It makes such a huge difference to have a place to play that is comfortable for the kids AND the adults.

I’m going to work on a separate post with sources of everything, cost, and all of those fun details! For now, it’s just pictures!

I’m also doing one of my very favorite things today…

Praying over our Christmas cards. One big cup of coffee and a stack of cards to pray over.