ALY ALLEN | THE BLOG

so i made a little vlog. it's mostly about Baby Wise , you know, the book? i think i mention at least twice in the video, i'm not trying to start a debate about parenting or infant management, demand-feeding vs. scheduling... i don't intend to argue over which is better. all it is, is me explaining really quick, the basic idea that the book presents about a flexible routine style of infant sleep training and feeding that they call "parent-directed feeding"... it's pretty simple and straight-forward and since i'm right in the thick of it, i figured i'd let you in on the secret. again, a lot of you probably did things differently and others of you probably did BabyWise like me. some of you gals are expecting your first baby soon, and this method might work for you, it might not. anyway, if you have any questions, please ask! i'm not an expert but i've read and implemented it, and have some experience. so here we go: ...

i am in love with this photo. i love that Reese is not only showing interest in her baby sis, but that she's starting to get protective of her. anytime she cries, she rushes to get a pacifier to stick in her mouth ;) and she always wants to make sure "is Tessa coming with us?" when we go somewhere. new flowers reminded me of this post i wrote last february  about spring and the promise that it brings how do you make your broccoli? well, once you try this, you'll never go back: spread 'em out on a baking sheet & set oven to 400 drizzle olive oil and salt & pepper and then bake for 10 min they are to die for , crazy simple to make, and have so much flavor.  i could eat them every single day and it's pretty much my go-to side dish for every meal ** i use fresh broccoli, not frozen. i just buy the bag of already-cut broccoli from trader joes ** these were my girls at 6pm. of course once i tried to transfer Re...

it's friday again! here's our week in review: for her reward, for her good behavior in target, she simply wanted to  "go look at the trains, but we won't buy anything" :) works for me! my husband's football team had a little baby shower for him :) and he brought the cupcakes home.  i ate one and threw out the rest.  i can't afford it now that i'm trying to lose about 30 pounds! but it was yummy while it lasted. trying out the no-heat curls that shauna and leslie rock all the time. shauna did a tutorial here , if you're interested. the headband i used was bugging me so i took it out early but you can see it still turned out pretty cute! how cute are these little cans? i actually gave up soda a while ago, but fell off the wagon. so i figure if i buy the little cans, at least i don't drink as much? not a good solution for actually quitting, but it works for now. last night we had dinner at this ...

just wanted to pop in and let you know that the shop is back open! i won't have any hoops listed for a few more months, at least but for now you can snag some prints or hair accessories [everything is ready-to-ship!] here's a glimpse of what you'll find: use code FEB10 for 10% off click here to shop and just in case you were wondering how i'm doing after baby #2, i'm surviving! i should clarify, because  surviving makes it sound like i'm barely getting by...  which is not true. it's actually been surprisingly easier than i thought. little tessa is sleeping for 3 hour stretches at night, which is wonderful. and the whole  adjusting-to-two-kids thing hasn't been too bad, so far.  just managing them, getting them ready, etc, is the hard part. but so far i don't have any odd behavior issues or jealousy to deal with, which is so nice. reese has always been easy and compliant, and she's pretty much stic...

might as well start off with this beautiful girl.  she's awake so much during the day. i love her sweet eyes she's even smiling and interacting with us already :) sisters our second night home, my inlaws took Reese for the night they brought her home Sunday morning with a box of donuts?! i had already eaten breakfast, so i had me a little dessert with my coffee and Jesus Calling yesterday we went to the model train museum in balboa park. if you're local, have you ever been there? it's actually really cool. you've probably gathered that trains are Reese's favorite thing in the entire world? with these photos, i was experimenting with the blur effect in instagram. i love it. it was our first big outing since tessa was born, and of course i forgot the stroller.  it's amazing how many things you have to remember when you go out with a tiny baby my mom carried her around all day in this thing [i can't technically lif...

do you all know about The Extraordinary Ordinary ? well, i just started reading this week. and oh my goodness, this post is just so true. and so freeing. it's called "free pass" . you have to read the entire post, but i wanted to quote something that she also quoted: "the reason we struggle with insecurity  is because we compare our behind-the-scenes  with everyone else's highlight reel" don't we totally do that? especially in blog world, Facebook/social media land? people are putting out the very best they have onto the internet. just a fraction of their lives. and then we convince ourselves that's their constant reality... and when our constant reality [our "behind-the-scenes"] is nowhere close to that, we feel discouraged. but their constant reality isn't that either. if we could just get that into our heads, i think we'd experience a lot more joy and contentment with the messiness in our lives, and a lot less ...

whelp, i had a baby on wednesday!  it was so strange how that was all planned out.  very surreal to just walk into an operating room and have them pull out a baby ten minutes later.  and everything went according to plan, praise God! we're all happy and healthy and getting used to a family of four [which included buying a new (to us) car because we couldn't fit two carseats in my car AND have daddy drive. he's too tall and the seat wouldn't scoot back enough. we would've had to take 2 cars every time we went somewhere] i'll write about everything in detail soon, when i have some free time [haha!]  but for now i figured i could at least give you my instagram photos from last week? make sure you scroll all the way down for a sweet little surprise :) this girl and her trains shameless bragging: she does these puzzles 100% by herself. it's amazing. the trains have taken over our house! a spontaneous trip to cold stone. one...