Join me and Enceladus for our morning tea time walk!  Mom finally gets to enjoy tea again! This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Straight Up™ Tea and Albertsons Companies. The opinions and text are all mine.

I love tea time. It doesn’t matter if it’s morning, afternoon or night… if you say, “Let’s do tea!” my response will always be “yes!” With the arrival of Enceladus, my daily routine has significantly changed, mostly because I have no routine any more… it’s whatever baby says, I do!  One thing we both agree on is that we start the day off better if we go for a morning walk after her first feeding.  After she’s done gulping her breakfast, I’ll throw on the carrier and we’ll head out for a 2-3 mile walk around the neighborhood.   During this time she usually naps and I get to see the outside world and enjoy some daily sunshine.

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Looking for the perfect NYC stroller?   Get the UPPAbaby Vista! You won’t regret it!  Read this post for a full review of why it’s the perfect city dweller stroller to grow with! This post is in partnership with buybuy BABY.

When we found out we were going to have a baby I began obsessively researching every type of baby gear that we needed.  One of the biggest decisions was what stroller we should get.  I knew luxury was going to come at a cost, but I also knew that I was going to be spending a lot of time with Enceladus in the stroller so I was ready to splurge on the perfect stroller.   After reading countless reviews and going back and forth on 2 specific strollers we purchased the UPPAbaby Vista and couldn’t be happier!

My wishlist for a stroller was:
It had to be a sidewalk warrior.  I wanted sidewalk cracks, bumpy roads and slower walkers (kidding..sorta) to fear me.
I wanted a smooth ride.  Due to the increase construction in our neighborhood I didn’t want Enceladus to wake up immediately after leaving the house.
I wanted lots of storage.   The more room to keep numerous bags and be able to grocery shop, the better.
I wanted ONE stroller, from newborn to a few years old.  
I wanted ONE stroller to grow with incase one baby becomes two babies one day (calm down!).
I wanted it to look really cool.  

Now let’s check each of those off…

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Enceladus isn’t a great sleeper during the day, she only takes 45 minute naps (at night is another story – more about that in a future post!).   The only way I can get any work done during the day is by wearing her or putting her down.  But I can’t put her down anywhere, she’s extremely picky about her sleeping arrangements and will let you know it!  Her favorite? The DockATot!  Does your baby love napping with DockATot too?

Doesn’t she look comfortable?

Since we were expecting Enceladus I had my eyes on the DockATot! So many parents gave rave reviews that this solved all their sleep issues so I had to get one!   What I was most excited about was that this could be traveled with.  Unlike so many other loungers,  this was light, didn’t need to be plugged in and can be carried with one arm (really important!).

 Enceladus took her first trip Upstate to the garden last weekend and I was so worried about what to bring for her to sleep in.  The DockATot lets me not go overboard with a bunch of different beds and chairs, all I need is one thing that I can throw in a bag and go!    We will be making a trip later this month to Maine and I’m thrilled to know that this is the only bed that I’ll have to bring for her!

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Time to go on our first family walk with Enceladus while wearing our lillebaby tokidoki Complete All Seasons carrier!  This post is in partnership with buybuy BABY.

This past weekend we decided to head out for our first family walk.  I’ve taken Enceladus on multiple walks by myself (I hope you’re watching my adventures on Instagram Stories by the way!) to the studio, grocery store and other random places when I feel like we need to get out!   She loves strolling around in her UPPAbaby Vista, and surprisingly handles bumps in the sidewalk like a pro without even opening her eyes!

I want to make it a mission to do one weekly thing as a family, so we headed out to show her how lucky she was to live in Brooklyn!  It just happened that it was also National Ice Cream Day, so we had to stop for ice cream too…..!  

Now only if she could remember her first walk with us, but she was passed out and snoring the entire time!

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Hi everybody!  My oh my, do I have someone who wants to meet you all.  She’s my new BFF.    Won’t you all say hello to Enceladus?
Full Name: Enceladus Seven Reed Rader,  Born: 11:53PM on July 2,  Weight: 7 pounds, 4 oz,  Personality: Feisty and Silly

Everyone asks about her name, Enceladus, so I’ll save you the trouble of googling! 🙂  She’s named after a moon on Saturn.  You pronounce it En-Sell-Ah-Dus. 
Her middle name is Seven because she’s our 7th baby (we’ve had 6 cats prior).  We really wanted to include our Meowza family in her name somehow since they’re so special to us.
She has 2 last names, Reed Rader, because it’s always made sense to us that Baby should have both names.

At 5 days old she was already helping her Mom bake her first batch of cookies, one handed.  She lost a sock along the way, but don’t worry, it didn’t land in the cookie batter. She’s a natural.

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Newton Crib Mattress Review- the Wovenaire is the best mattress for your baby that is 100% breathable! Perfect for First Time Moms who are worried about everything (that’s me!).

For my next review in the baby series, I’m diving into mattresses.  Consider this another category that I put endless amounts of time into reading reviews and cross comparing products.  This, like so many other baby products, resulted in Matthew physically removing my computer from my lap late night one day saying “That’s enough reviews for you today”.   I’m obsessed.

Newton Crib Mattress Review

Baby mattresses range widely in quality and price.  They’re firm, they’re soft, they’re made out of this, they’re made out of that, they are waterproof, they soak up water, they’re $29, they’re $400, etc.    I ended up getting the Newton Crib Mattress for our baby because it checked everything off that was a must have for me, most importantly: safety.  

The Newton Wovenaire Crib Mattress is 100% breathable and uses the highest quality food-grade polymer extruded into a crystal clear pool of water.   From there it creates a resilient three-dimensional shape that is 90% air by volume.  What does this mean in regular words?  It means it’s safe, cleaner and healthier for your baby.  If you are worried about the baby rolling over in the middle of the night, this mattress is completely breathable.  Tests have shown that babies can breathe right through the mattress which reduces risk of suffocation.   Being a first time parent, this is something that worries me and I know will keep me up at night so having this reassurance definitely makes me feel better.

Safest Crib for Bbay

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Pregnancy Shopping List for First Time New Moms.   List includes vitamins, lotions,  pillows, clothes and more to stay healthy and comfortable for 40 weeks!  This post is in partnership with
buybuy BABY.

The title should read “What a Pregnant Woman Needs… Besides Donuts and Hugs” but it was a little too long.  This post is all about what every pregnant woman needs, or at the very least it’s about what this pregnant woman needs.  Yes, I need donuts. Yes, I need hugs.  Yes, I need my husband to tie my shoes.  Yes, I need the pizza delivery to come in less than 30 minutes because if not I will bawl my eyes out and proclaim I can’t live (true story – happened a few weeks ago).  I’m hungry.  I’m emotional.  I’m uncomfortable.  I’m hard to live with.    But I’m pregnant and carrying a little human inside of me – therefor I’m awesome.

Celebrating 30 weeks with a Slurpee!

Now that I’m in my 3rd trimester (What up 32 weeks!) these are the products I’ve been using.   Everything here I’ve thoroughly researched before buying and come with glowing reviews! Here’s my pregnancy shopping list!

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Time to reveal the baby’s crib in our NYC apartment!  Space, planets, clouds and robots were our inspiration!  This post is in partnership with buybuy BABY.

Oooo – things are getting serious here! We’re doing a crib/nursery reveal!  If baby is reading this,  please stay in my belly for another 10 weeks.  But then again, if baby is reading this, we really need to talk because how do you have a laptop in there?

The last few months we’ve put hard work in making a baby nursery, building it from the ground up in our loft.  Thankfully Matthew is a Mr. Super Handyman although I think we both had internal moments of “I can’t take this mess anymore!” while construction was happening.  But the day is here… the nursery is done and ready to go!  Today I’m going to show you my most favorite part of the room – this is where the baby is going to have sweet dreams and eventually escape so she play with her feline brothers and sisters – the crib!

We’re in love with it! 

We wanted her room to be simple but with touches of things that will inspire her.   We wanted touches of things that her Mom and Dad are really into and can’t wait to share with her.  I’m already picturing her in her crib pointing at the framed picture saying “Saturn!”.  Gosh, that would be a proud Mama moment there.    We went with grey paint on the walls, mostly white furniture and some pops of color.  Throw in our love of space and dinosaurs and you have her nursery!

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Talking about the first 20 weeks of pregnancy for a first time mom.  Symptoms, Mood, Weight, Ultrasound Pics, Doctor Visits and more discussed! 

20 Weeks Pregnant

I wasn’t sure if I was going to make these types of posts.  And then I got to thinking more about it and felt it would be fun to look back on one day.  Instead of documenting every 1 or 2 weeks, I’m doing Weeks 1-20… and then probably 20-30 and then 30-40, or something like that.  I guess time will tell as I’m facing new experiences.

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