June 22, 2022

Maternity Leave

June 22, 2022/ KH

Howdy!

I’ve essentially been on an unofficial break since announcing my pregnancy, but now it’s official! I’m taking a break to welcome our second little one into the world, to navigate mamahood as a mother of two, and to soak in all that is our sweet babe!

Stay tuned!

xo,

January 19, 2022

Baby 2 Coming Soon

January 19, 2022/ KH

Did you hear the news? Our little family is growing again! Between navigating Baby J's transition into toddlerhood, training our new pup, and that first trimester fatigue, life's been busy! We are super excited about our newest little addition and can't wait for the upcoming anatomy scan!

I'm definitely not promising that another lull won't happen again, because it definitely will, but I'm still here thinking about what to share next!

December 25, 2021

Merry Christmas

December 25, 2021/ KH

November 29, 2021

Holiday Soundtrack

November 29, 2021/ KH

Hobby Lobby has Christmas things 50% off and the radio starts playing Christmas jams well before Thanksgiving, but Mr. Heid has a rule that we can’t purchase Christmas things, decorate for the holiday, or listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving is over. Don’t tell him, but I sometimes sneak a few songs in.

The moment Thanksgiving is over, I fill our house, my car, and my office with Christmas music every day! I do worry, though, that I’ll overplay some of the music and get really tired of it by the time Christmas Day actually rolls around. To avoid this, I’ve created a few different lists that I rotate through.

Deck the Halls — This list has ev.ery.thing festive to ring in the holiday season.

Deck the Halls | Chill Christmas — A low-key holiday playlist perfect for an intimate gathering — no highs and lows, all steady.

Deck the Halls | Classics — Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Burl Ives, Bing Crosby… you get the idea.

Deck the Halls | Instrumental — All instrumentals! Best paired with wassail, a cozy fire, and holiday wrapping.

Deck the Halls | Keira’s Favorites — All of my favorites so that I don’t miss out on hearing those during the season (because there are so. many. Christmas. songs out there!)

Deck the Halls | Punk — For when you really just wanna skank through the holidays! This is work-in-progress, so if you have any songs for this playlist, send them my way!

Whatever you need a Christmas playlist for, I hope one of these works or inspires you to build your own!

Cheers,

October 21, 2021

Makers Guide | Halloween 2021

October 21, 2021/ KH

BOO! I’ve rounded up my favorite wares from makers for this spoooky makers guide!

My favorite is the Wormy Skull by Jessica McLeod! I stumbled across one of her skulls on Instagram, and then popped over to her shop to find more cuteness — Harold the Pumpkin and Stanley the Ghost are so freakin’ adorable! Sadly, all of her work for the season is sold out, but I’m keeping my eye on Jessica’s shop next year!

I ordered the It’s Just a Bunch of Hocus Pocus tee and matching bodysuit for Baby J from Aspen + Company. Hocus Pocus is my all-time favorite Halloween movie — I’ve already played it twice in the background this month, but I’m looking forward to when Baby J and I can put these on and watch it together!

I’m really digging the vintage vibes of the Halloween Fangs print. I’d honestly leave it up all year round. Bonus — it’s currently 40% off!

Everything linked below!

Cheers,

October 11, 2021

Puppy Troubles

October 11, 2021/ KH

Here we are, a couple with a ten-month-old. Mr. Heid cooks meals, while I play with Baby J. We all eat dinner together (shout out to Solid Starts for making baby-led weaning so easy), we give the kid a bath, and wind down with storytime. Baby J has fully transitioned from breastfeeding and dropped her last bottle feed. We switch off nights putting her to bed. She goes down easy, and we have time for just the two of us. Baby J sleeps through the night. Life is the easiest it's been since giving birth. We have a groove.

And then we adopted a puppy. Guys. Why?!

We adopted Koopa when he was 7-weeks-old. We had adopted our last dog, Keiko, when she was just 8-weeks-old and trained her up to be quite an awesome dog. We had pushed on and tugged her and taught her to cease play if we got near her face in anticipation of a future life with babies and kids around, but sadly she died of a brain tumor shortly after Baby J’s birth.

Since we had a baby already, we thought it’d be smart to adopt a puppy that we could train from the very beginning so that they would learn to have that same gentleness that Keiko did. Whew. Apparently, I’d forgotten what training a puppy was like. Now that he’s received a little more training and is a few weeks older, it seems like a good time to document and share the experience so far.

IN THE BEGINNING

Lack of potty training, nipping, and super excited jumping from Koopa meant Baby J lost some freedom to move about and explore her home. These two couldn't be on the floor together. Not great for a babe learning to stand and walk on her own. She reverted to needing a bottle to sleep, and she started waking in the middle of the night again. Some of this could be attributed to a growth spurt, but some of it could also be attributed to the little furball of chaos we brought into her world.

Koopa is every bit a puppy and needs a lot of training. He gets so wound up that he's very hard to bring back down, and he expels his energy the only way he knows how — biting and barking. We don't have time to make dinner and we're exhausted by the time the baby and puppy fall asleep. When Baby J was on his level, we hovered and wouldn't let them interact too long in case he got puppy playful. Our skin is tougher and those puppy teeth and nails feel sharp on us — I can't imagine what it would be like if Baby J got caught up in puppy play.

I may have had a few breakdowns — can we do it? What if he's not trainable? What if he's not a good fit for our family? What if Baby J becomes fearful of dogs because of this experience? What if I become too stressed to train him properly? I honestly had days where I wished we could go back in time and not adopt a puppy at all. Either I had forgotten what it was like to train a puppy, this puppy is harder to train, or I’m simply more stressed about the training because we can’t risk our kid getting hurt in this ordeal. Or maybe all of the above.

Life looks cute on Instagram (because I haven’t posted the bites and scratches that cover Mr. Heid's arms), but I'm here to tell you that trying to balance a puppy and a baby was not our best move.

CURRENTLY

Two weeks after Koopa’s Gotcha Day, we met with a positive reinforcement trainer, and things are looking up! He’s learning a bit of bite inhibition, but he needs more practice. He’s learned his name and comes when he’s called unless there’s something better where he is. We’ve learned how to encourage positive behavior and redirect negative behaviors (though, we’re no pros).

He’s gotten comfortable with our home and more trusting of us. He is on a regular potty schedule, so he has less accidents in the house. Sometimes he gives great cues, so we’re trying to pick up on those better.

UP NEXT

Our next steps are putting up a temporary divider wall between Koopa’s space and Baby J’s space. We didn’t do that previously, because we were concerned that they needed to learn how to interact versus how to avoid each other. However, our trainer reassured us that just seeing and hearing each other through the gate would provide plenty of interaction (in a safer and less stressful manner) and will show each of them what behaviors to expect from each other (like barking from Koopa and toy banging from Baby J) until we were ready to do specific training sessions on their interactions.

We’ll be working even more on his recall so that he’ll stop and come back when his name is called despite what distractions there may be. We’re going to take him to more puppy classes and dog facilities so that he can better learn bite inhibition. And, we just learned techniques to teach Koopa how to “go to place.”

People keep saying, “You’re brave!” when they find out we have a puppy and a baby. What they call “brave,” we’re calling “a lapse in judgment.” Would I do it this way again? Probably not. Do I still sometimes wish that we could go back and not adopt? Absolutely. Do I still halfway joke that I’m taking his puppy butt back to the kennel? Most definitely.

But we’re surviving, and I truly think that Koopa will be well trained and mannered in the end. He and Baby J will probably grow up to be the best of friends.

If you have any positive reinforcement dog training tips for us, I’d love to hear them!

Cheers,

August 18, 2021

Nursery Tour

August 18, 2021/ KH

Hi! I’m finally sharing Baby Heid’s nursery with you! These photos were taken nine months ago, so things have definitely changed.

When we started planning our nursery, people kept asking me what theme we were going with. While I love a themed party, I honestly just couldn’t think of a theme that I wanted to stick with for baby girl’s nursery. I knew I wanted it to be bright, fun, and to have a mid-century modern feel. I found a color palette that I loved (below) and started a mood board. During that process, I came across Within the Grove’s nursery wall and decided that an accent wall was the way to go. Shortly after that, we bought a dresser on Facebook Marketplace, which solidified our mid-century modern plan.

Mr. Heid and I plugged the dimensions of the nursery space and the dresser into floorplanner. From there, I searched for a crib and a bookshelf that we’d like and added those in. We added in the dimensions of a rug, glider, pouf, hamper, house plant, and side table and started rearranging things to come up with a functional and beautiful layout. Then, I dropped the floor plan into InDesign to play around with color choices and artwork. We finally agreed on what color each item should be and where they should go, and we set out to make it all happen.

We started with the wall, researching different ways to construct it and testing a few paint colors before getting started.

For the color, we landed on the Behr Ultra interior eggshell enamel in Roulette. For construction, we decided on the following process:

Design the wall in InDesign, using the dimensions of the slats for accuracy
Use rollers and brushes to paint the entire accent wall
Use a paint sprayer to paint the slats
Use a nail gun to affix the longest slats first (we decided to only use 45- and 90-degree angles to make this as easy as possible)
Use a nail gun to affix the remaining slats (we strayed from our original design a bit)
Fill in the gaps and nail holes with wood putty and allow it to set
Use paintbrushes to paint the filled gaps and holes (shoutout to my girl Jeannie for helping Mr. Heid when my very pregnant body wouldn’t let me!)

Once the wall was complete, we collected all of the other furniture and items and put everything into place.

I don’t have a before picture, but the nursery had a pretty open closet with just two long shelves at the top and a long rod to hang clothing. We wanted to have a bit more shelving and drawers to organize all of her tiny things. We found the MALM 6-Drawer Chest and SYVDE Open Wardrobe both from IKEA. Since our closet doors are bi-folds, we had to make sure the chest of drawers was centered in the closet or else they wouldn’t open all of the way. So my dad and Mr. Heid assembled only the shelving side of the wardrobe and attached it to one side of the chest of drawers. On the other side, we installed two mini hanging rods for her clothes.

Nine months later, and a few things have definitely changed. We’ve added some decor on top of baby girl’s bookshelf, switched out some of her books, added some decor to her corner table, switched out the speaker and supplies on her dresser, and added more items to her closet shelf. Overall, the aesthetic is the same - we’ve just filled it in a bit more. We still need to install her name on the wall — if you’re planning a nursery and think, “We’ll get to that later…” just keep in mind that life is about to be crazy busy, so it might be nine more months before you actually get to that thing…

Linking all items below and sharing comments on ones that can’t be linked —

ART