Every night I tend to follow the same routine. After we put Kai down for the night, it's important to me to take some time for myself and Caleb since so much of the day is about Kai. These couple of hours that I spend every night mean so much to me for my own sanity! Today, I want to share my routine with all of you as I feel like I finally have a good mix of productivity and self-care down. It only took 7 months to figure out...ha!

9:00PM: We lay Kai down in his crib for the night after reading to him and saying our prayers. This is where my night time routine begins. After I put him to bed, I head in to our room and turn on his monitors. From there, I go in to our bathroom and prep my teeth whitening trays. I started using the Smile Brilliant teeth whitening kit a couple of weeks ago and it's done wonders already for my teeth! In just two weeks time, I have seen a noticeable difference on how white and clean my teeth look. I am a big coffee drinker and love me some red wine so my teeth definitely have gotten some stains on them over time. I feel so much more confident these days to show off my teeth in selfies with Kai Bear.

Product Details:
Smile Brilliant Whitening Kit + Desensitizing Gel c/o

Product Details:
​Baskets: Ikea | Finding Nemo Jumper: Target | Bookshelves: Ikea

9:05 PM: After I have my whitening trays in, I head downstairs to tidy up the house, fold some laundry, and do the dishes. I usually spend around 30 minutes doing these little tasks to keep up with keeping our house somewhat clean and functioning!

Product Details:
Owlet: Amazon | Motorola Video Monitor: Amazon | Bed Frame: World Market (old, similar) | Euro Pillow Shames: Pottery Barn | Night Stand: 2 Fancie Gals

9:30 PM: I start to settle down for the night after my quick clean up of the house, check my social media accounts one last time for the night, and do a devotion in my Bible app. This also gives me a few extra minutes to let my Smile Brilliant trays keep doing their magic before it's time to take them out. I try to leave them in for about 45 minutes.

Product Details:
Ocean Cleansing Mudd: OSEA Malibu | Dyrbar Sake Bomb Shampoo: Sephora | Drybar Sake Bomb Conditioner: Sephora | Aveeno Body Wash: Target | Rosewater Facial Toner: LOLA JANE | Blemish Balm: OSEA Malibu | Grease Lightning Acne Treatment: LUSH | Korres Rose Eye Cream: Sephora | Honest Belly Balm: Amazon | Sleepy lotion: LUSH | Burts Bees lip balm: Amazon

9:45 PM: Next, I take my whitening trays out and put in my desensitizing gel in the trays. I have really sensitive teeth, and I've had problems with whitening kits in the past really hurting my teeth. This gel from Smile Brilliant though has really helped the sensitivity level that comes with whitening your teeth. I've had minimal sensitivity with eating and drinking hot or cold things since starting the process. I leave the desensitizing gel on while I hop in the shower and do my skin care routine, so about 15 minutes.. I love showering at night because it's so relaxing and one less thing I have to do in the morning. After my shower, I do my skin care routine and moisturize. After all that I take my desensitizing gel out and that's it! It is kind of a long process but at the same time it's barely noticeable how long it takes because I'm still able to go about my routine without it hindering it. I'm still using my kit now too after these two weeks but instead of every night, I do it every other night. I then get my PJs on and relax a little bit with Caleb before I have to pump again.

10:00 PM: Caleb and I will either snuggle up with some Netflix and ice cream or we'll just take some personal time and he'll do whatever while I work on my blog. Either way it's such a nice way to wind down for the night and get my mind at ease before going to bed.

Product Details:
Spectra Breast Pump: Amazon | Dr. Seuss Pillow: Porter Lane Home (old) | Duvet Cover: Pottery Barn (old, similar) | Ralph Lauren sheets: TJ Maxx (in store only) | Lamps: Target (old, similar) | Painted Letters: Anthropologie (old) | Sonic Electric Toothbrushes: Amazon | Toms toothpaste: Target | Canisters: Target (old, similar) | Hand Towel: World Market | Vitamin D3: Target | Evening Primrose Oil: Whole Foods | One a Day Prenatal vitamins: Amazon

11:00 PM: I do one final 15 minute pump session for stimulation and supply purposes and then I brush my teeth and take my vitamins. After that it's lights out by 11:30 so I can get plenty of sleep to take on the next day!

And now for the exciting part! I've partnered with Smile Brilliant to help you also #SmileFearlessly and have a discount code, tinydapperfox15, for 15% storewide for all of you to use to get your own whitening kit! We are also hosting a giveaway together for 1 free teeth whitening kit! All you have to do is fill out the giveaway form here, follow me (@dmcab) + Smile Brilliant (@smillebrilliant) on Instagram, and tag a friend in the comments on my night routine post. Giveaway will run until 10/5 and the winner will be contacted by Smile Brilliant! This giveaway is in no way affiliated with Instagram and is sponsored by Smile Brilliant. Giveaway is open to all US, UK, Australia, and Canadian residents.

Our third wedding anniversary is tomorrow. I can't believe this magical day was three years ago. They have been the absolute best three years of my life. I loved our wedding with all my heart and I've been wanting to share it with all of you for awhile. I decided to save it for our anniversary week and also launch a new series surrounding weddings! I love weddings so much. Always have, always will. I had the most wonderful time planning our wedding and love helping others plan theirs. I always joke that my dream job is to be a wedding planner, so I figured why not add a little bit of that magic here!? So to start out with...here is our special day.

Hey friends! Sorry I've been MIA this last week...it's been a busy one. I also won't be hosting a Tiny Talk this week, sorry! I just didn't get around to putting a great post and chat together this weekend and I didn't want to half ass it, so let's look forward to a great one next week. I've decided to move these talks to Monday nights at 7 PM CST, too. Weekends are really unpredictable for us and when we aren't busy adventuring or doing house projects, I honestly just want to relax. In my first Tiny Talk I talked a little bit about how I enjoy shutting down electronics on Sundays and hopping on to Instagram Live and doing a blog post kind of defeats that purpose! So...Monday nights it is!

Anyways...Kai Bear is 8 months old today! I can't believe I have an 8 month old. He's just growing up so fast! Here's our monthly round up of all fun Little Kai Bear things...

Weight: 18.4 lbs
Height: 27 in

You are an amazing eater, Kai! We haven't found a food you don't like yet! Are you ready to hear all the fruits and veggies you've had so far!? Ok here we go...sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, pumpkin, butternut squash, and zucchini for veggies. For fruits, banana, peaches, pears, apples, figs, and avocados! Your favorites right now are peas and figs. I absolutely love this about you. You like the unusual and it makes me so happy that you're not proving to be a picky eater. We're still going strong with nursing, too. It warms my heart that we can still share that special time and continue to bond in this way.

We had some more fun adventures this month, too! We had our final brunch at Bistrot Zinc, which was so bittersweet. We will truly miss that place and always cherish our memories there...it was your first brunch spot after all! I took an extra long weekend over Labor Day weekend and you and I had a zoo day! We explored all around the Brookfield Zoo together. Your favorite animal this time was the snow leopard. We also had a little watch party to cheer on our Iowa State Cyclones when they played Iowa! Unfortunately, we didn't win this year, but it was still a great game. How cool is it that it was the first ISU game you got to watch!? Then just a few days ago we took you to your second Cubs game. However, this time it wasn't at Wrigley Field...it was at Guaranteed Rate Field, which is where the White Sox play! It was so cool to experience a game with you at another stadium. Dad and I have a travel bucket list that includes going to see the Cubs play at every baseball stadium in the MLB with you...so now we can check Guaranteed Rate off our list! We also went apple picking a couple of days ago up at Apple Holler and picked your first apples right off the tree. You tried them for the first time yesterday and loved them so much.

You're a pro at crawling now, bud. You've got speed and you use your legs like a champ. You've started pulling yourself up on to your knees, too. A couple times you've even used my hands to help you stand up! You love to wave and "tell stories." You laugh all the time and love chasing Wrigley. My favorite thing you do right now is when we put your Mickey down on the floor and tell you to go get him, you speed crawl and squeal towards him. Then when you get to him you give him a giant hug and suck on his nose. It's the cutest thing! You also get so happy when I come home from work and start crawling towards me to say hi! It's the best welcome home I could possibly imagine.

You got your first hair cut a couple weekends ago, too! You were getting a little shaggy on the sides so our hair stylist, Brittany, trimmed you up a bit. Those teeth still aren't in yet, but that's ok because I love your gummy smile so much. You're still sleeping like a champ, too.. You've become quite the napper! You decided you wanted a longer afternoon nap but you've mostly gotten rid of your pre-dinner catnap. You're still sleeping a solid 10 hours at night, too.

It still feels like you were just born yesterday but at the same time I can't imagine life without you. You are truly the light of my life and my littlest love. So excited for what this next month holds, Kai. I love you to the moon and back, baby boy!

Hey friends! I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend! This is the first weekend in a long time that we have nothing to do! It's been so nice to just relax, clean the house, and get out in the garden. We also officially booked our next Disney trip! We're heading back to Walt Disney World in late Feb 2019! I can't even begin to tell you how excited we are!!

I wanted to address something real quick today though before I get in to today's Tiny Talk discussion. It was brought to our attention yesterday that the dog food that we give Wrigley and always recommend to others is currently going through a lawsuit for potentially producing their dog food with harmful materials. We have decided to stop feeding Wrigley Taste of the Wild dog food and I wanted to let you all know that I will be removing my review of this food from Tiny Dapper Fox. This food is currently not under recall, but we have made the personal decision to stop giving him this food. We will keep you all updated on new dog food recommendations in the future! If you have an all natural minimal ingredient dog food that you love, please share it with me at tinydapperfox@gmail.com!

Ok so anyways, on to the good stuff now! Going with the flow...this was my New Years resolution actually! This is still a work in progress for me, but it is something I've actively been working on all year. I don't have specific tips per say on going with the flow, but I would say I have some prime examples where I've succeeded with this mantra and where I really should have lived more by it.

I think my best example of me truly going with the flow was my birth plan for Kai. My whole plan was to deliver Kai safely. That was the whole thing. I didn't care how it was done, whether I was able to do it vaginally or through c-section, as long as we were both safe, that's all I wanted. If you remember his birth story, I did want a c-section to be the very last resort, but I had accepted that if I couldn't get him out by a certain time, I was willing to accept having a c-section. I think if I had gone in to labor 100% against having a c-section I would have made it that much more mentally hard on myself to deliver Kai and it probably would have truly just all fallen apart. I would have been way more exhausted than I already was that my delivery was not working out as planned and I probably would have had to have a c-section, and since that wasn't the "plan" I would have been really disappointed in the outcome. Going with the flow of the day though truly helped me in the end to have what I felt was the perfect birth day for Kai.

On the other hand though, one area that I needed to really work on letting go of things and just going with the flow of it was with breastfeeding. I am actually very surprised at myself that I am still going strong today because for awhile there I was so incredibly stressed about not producing enough it was literally unhealthy. From the start, I wish I had just gone with the flow when it came to nursing. Any amount of breast milk is good for our babies, right!? Who cares if he has some formula every day! As long as he wants to nurse and I want to produce, that should be enough. This was not my mentality for a long time though...especially when I went back to work. My level of stress and anxiety at the beginning of summer was out of control and I wasn't going with the flow at all. It was effecting everything, especially my breast milk production. Well stressing about it only makes it worse. I have finally come to the point though where as long as I have enough milk to offer him while I actual feed him from the breast, I don't care about pumping. I pump so I don't get clogs and for stimulation for when I do nurse Kai. I no longer pump for a stock or to exclusively breastfeed. This mentality has literally done wonders for myself! I fully plan on using this go with the flow of breastfeeding mentality from now on and especially with future babies.

So as you can see, I've had to work really hard at getting good at this whole go with the flow thing. I still love structure and schedules, I truly thrive on that, but I also have gotten pretty decent at letting go when plans and schedules don't go accordingly. Going with the flow literally makes me feel alive. I feel so free when I think about it. Who cares if I didn't do the laundry today. We ate out tonight instead of cooking what we had on the menu, OH WELL! I forgot to water the plants, oops! It's all ok because we have tomorrow to hopefully catch up, and we if don't that's fine, too...it'll all get done eventually! I think using this mentality has actually made me more productive, though. When I let go of certain things, I am able to solely focus on things that truly matter, and I am so grateful for that.

Are you a go with the flow person or do you thrive on complete structure? Leave me a comment below and tell me about you! I hope you can join in on my Instagram Live today, as well, which will be happening at it's usual time of 2 PM CST on my Instagram (@dmcab)! Also, head on over to the Tiny Tribe Facebook group and join in on the discussion there! See you all this afternoon!

Hey there friends! I hope you're all having a great start to your week. I hope you all enjoyed last weeks Tiny Talk on Being Present. I really enjoyed chatting with all of you through our FB group and Instagram Live last week! Apologies on being a few days late with this one...time just got away from me this weekend! I'm back again this week though with another edition of Tiny Talks and this time we're going to be talking about the problems with social media. While social media can be really great, it comes with it's downfalls. I obviously love social media so much and can't picture my life without it, but is that a problem? It might be...

Social media is so addictive. Literally. We get addicted to constantly checking it. We crave that little red number to pop up on Instagram. Did you know that when you log on to Instagram or Facebook and you get those notification numbers that dopamine is actually released in your brain from them? It's true...and that is why it's so addictive. We crave that hormone release and social media is an easy way to get it. But like everything else it slowly loses its effect and you need it more and more often, which is so bad for us. We really need to do our best to control our usage for many reasons but our own health is literally one of them.

We all compare ourselves to each other...we can't help it, it's human nature. Social media makes this 1000x easier to do and that is so unhealthy. I know I look all over Instagram and find so much inspiration but at the same time you can't help but wonder how these peoples lives can be so perfect? And then you wonder why your life can't be like that? Well I'm here to tell you that you're awesome and to stop doing this. No one's life is perfect and trust me, you're missing so much of the picture in those little squares that you see on Instagram. So next time you're feeling low while scrolling, stop, kill the app, and then think of one reason why you're life is so amazing.

Spring boarded off the comparison point, social media is so fake. We all put up what we want others to see...not the whole picture. I confess that I pick and choose what I want you all to see even. I try my hardest to be real and raw as much as possible but sometimes I have to be transparent for one reason or another. For me personally, I'm not trying to hide anything but for my family's privacy sometimes I can't tell the whole story. It's that way with everyone else out on social media, too. So while it may be depressing that our lives aren't as perfect as these big time bloggers or influencers that are out there, just remember that it's not REAL. You can't even be 100% on the internet, especially through a little picture/caption or a status post on Facebook.

Yes of course I have to address the stupid Instagram algorithm. It sucks, it really really does. If you don't like 1 of my photos then you will start seeing less and less of them. This is really hard when you're trying to gain your following or your livelihood depends on it (thank goodness this is not the case for me). I know likes and follows don't matter but if you are trying to make money off of social media it got a whole lot harder thanks to this addition to Instagram.

Social media comes with a lot of pressure. This kind of goes hand in hand with the algorithm bit. There's so much pressure to have the perfect photo, the perfect theme, the perfect Instagram page. If people go to your Instagram and they don't think your grid looks pretty they do a hard pass on you. This makes me so sad. There are so many people out there who do put up amazing content that is so inspiring or informative but may not have those photography skills or editing skills to make their Instagram look perfect. I know for me personally, if I don't have a really great photo to post, I just don't post. I constantly feel pressure to post perfect photos and follow my Instagram strategy (if you want to know what this is I can do a post on it in the future). This is all so silly though and I know that. It frustrates me that I feel this way because it is my space, my photos, my way of looking back on life and how amazing it is. But because of the pressure I don't post those non-perfect photos anymore. Thankfully though I have this space to post all those amazing candids of my family and I can look back on all the amazing memories here!

Gotta love a good troll. They're everywhere these days, just lurking in the corner, waiting to come out and ruin your day. Seriously though, what is it with these people? Why does putting someone else down make them feel better? I know for me, if I were to make someone else's day worse it would make my day worse! Unfortunately though they are out there and we just have to deal with them. It's hard to shake them off when the comments roll in but we have to. Always try to be the bigger person and kill them with kindness....they obviously need some kindness in their life if they feel the need to bring others down through a screen!

How do you all feel about social media? Do you love it? Do you hate it? What is one thing you think we can do to improve the culture around social media these days? Tune in to my Instagram Live today at 1 PM CST to discuss all of this with me! I have the day off of work today and while I know many of you don't don't worry...the talk will be available on my Instagram for 24 hours! You can also join in on the conversation in the Tiny Tribe group on Facebook. Talk to you all later!