Let's talk about self love, beautiful friends. There is so much that falls under these two small words and it is so important. I've truly fallen in to the movement of self love. Since becoming a mother, I've never loved myself more. I'm so grateful for my body, my motivation in life, and just who I am as a person in general. Because of how I finally feel about myself, it has led me to take much better care of myself lately. I know I've said it many times before but we are remarkable. Think of all the things we do now and imagine how much more we could do if we treated ourselves with genuine love.

Self love is deeper than a feeling though and it's more than the awesome phrase "treat yo self." I truly believe it's the actions we take to care for ourselves so we can continue those feelings of love for ourselves. While yes we deserve to treat ourselves often and I always believe in having something to look forward to, it's more important to do things on a daily basis to show yourself love. The best part about that though is that it's different for everyone. For me, it's waking up early, meditating, and reading a book while sipping my coffee. It's getting my work outs in during the week as a way to keep my body strong and get a mental break from work and Kai. (Trust me, Kai's wonderful, but I'm a better mother if I get a break from him a few nights a week.) It's doing my skin care routine every night. It's getting 8 hours of sleep at night. There is so much I try to do for myself on a daily basis to show myself love and I'm not going to lie, not every day is perfect. Far from perfect to be honest. I tend to get mixed up in that "treat yo self" trap of binging on candy and Game of Thrones instead of going to the gym and having a salad with dinner. While the first option is fun, it's actually not showing myself the true love it deserves.

• Miracle Mornings (wake up early, meditate, affirmations, visualizations, exercise, read, scribe)
• Skin care
• Exercise
• Meditate
• Baths
• Massages, mani/pedis, etc
• Hygge (candles, cozy living, togetherness, simplicity)
• Sleep
• Water
• Nutrients (eat your veggies, take your vitamins)
• Get ready every day
• Learn (read, write, take classes)
• Vacations + adventures
• Rewards

These are just some of the ways I try to instill in my life for showing myself love. Like I said, it's so different for everyone but if you're looking for a place to start, pick out a few of these points and try to incorporate them in to your daily life. You deserve it! You are so beautiful, strong, and wonderful. Love yourself first and foremost and you'll be able to love the world better!

What are some ways you practice self love? I'd love to hear from you guys so we can keep adding to this list for everyone to try! Leave me a comment on this post or on the Tiny Tribe post about self love! Have a. beautiful Wednesday, friends!

We worked so hard Kai's first year of life to keep him on a solid schedule and in our opinion, it really shows. We get so many compliments about how happy and healthy he is all the time. Everyone is so impressed at how much he sleeps and how well he eats. We have Babywise to thank for this! Not only did having Kai on a schedule from day one help him grow and thrive, it helped us keep our sanity as parents! We are first time parents and had no idea what we were doing. So having a plan and theory to rely on was huge for us. Our little crew thrives on a schedule and we have no plans on stopping having a routine any time soon. Here is Kai's current schedule at the amazing marker of 12 months old.

7:00 AM - Wake up, nurse
7:30 AM - Get ready for the day (diaper change, brush teeth, moisturize)
7:45 AM - 2 oz bottle of cow's milk
8:00 AM - Breakfast (oatmeal + fruit or scrambled eggs)
8:30 AM - Independent playtime
9:30 AM - Nap
11:30 AM - 6 oz bottle of cow's milk, diaper change
12:00 PM - Lunch (veggies + fruit or veggies + puffs w/ nut butter)
12:30 PM - Playtime
1:30 PM - Nap
3:30 PM - 6 oz bottle of cow's milk, diaper change
3:45 PM - Go for a walk or play outside
4:00 PM - Snack (puffs, banana chips, oranges)
4:30 PM - Babywear in ring sling for daily chores
5:00 PM - Independent playtime
5:30 PM - 6 oz bottle of cow's milk, diaper change
6:00 PM - Dinner (whatever family is having or veggies + rice cereal + fruit)
6:30 PM - Playtime
7:30 PM - Get ready for bed (bath, PJs)
7:45 PM - Read
8:00 PM - Down for the night

That's Kai's schedule every single day for the most part. We follow it on the weekends and our nanny follows it during the week while we're working. We are definitely more lenient these days and have no problem feeding him early or putting him down late for a nap if we have things going on, but we generally try our best to stay around these times. The playtime and what not is what he does on a typical day when he is at home and we're not out and about with him. We're big on having him play independently throughout the day so that he uses his imagination. We've been doing this with him for awhile now and he does so well with it. He just plays with his toys, stuffed animals, and books during this time. We rarely have the TV on for him but will sometimes throw on Sesame Street or Mickey for him on the weekends.

He takes two 2 hour naps during the day in his crib and sleeps for 11 hours at night in his crib. He will get cranky if these naps are cut short so sometimes we need to do a little catnap for him from 4:30 to 5:30 to help him out. He's started back up with a witching hour again from 5 to 5:30 but this is actually normal for most kids! I've found that if he's extra cranky, having him in a ring sling helps a lot. Speaking of babywearing, I still put him in a sling every day (#sling365 << follow along on my Instagram!) and we do our "daily chores" together. I think this is honestly Kai's favorite part of the day. I explain to him everything we're doing like getting the mail, switching the laundry, watering the plants, emptying the dishwasher and he loves it. I'm trying to teach him from the earliest age that it's important to do our daily tasks to keep our home happy and functioning. I'm hoping all of this will just be second nature to him and he'll be my happy little helper for years to come!

Kai has fully transitioned to cow's milk from formula. We are still nursing in the morning...I was weaning and decided not to give up the morning nursing session (a full blog post on this later) but I am no longer pumping, so Kai doesn't get bottled breast milk either. He has about 20 oz of cow's milk a day and then whatever he gets from me in the morning. He eats 3 meals a day and has a snack or what the French call a le goûter in the afternoon. We also try to get outside every day for some fresh air even if it's just for 5 minutes. It's brutally cold here in the winter so as long as it's at least 20 degrees or above, I bundle him up and we go out in our backyard for a few minutes just to breath in the fresh air. If it's in the 30s then we will take Wrigley for a short walk.

I think that about sums it up! If you have any questions for me about Kai's schedule or what we did to get here please leave me a comment below! If you want to see my previous posts on Kai's schedules all throughout his first year and how we accomplished all the merges to get to where we are now you can visit our 12 weeks schedule, 17 weeks schedule, and 29 weeks schedule posts.

Is your baby on a schedule or do you prefer to just go day by day? Let me know in the comments below!

Happy Monday beautiful friends! I hope you all had a fun weekend and stayed nice and warm. It's gotten pretty cold here again and we've been getting hit with more snow but luckily Kai and I had a fun little mama/baby date with some new friends of ours at the Garfield Park Conservatory on Saturday. I swear that place is my absolute favorite place to go in Chicago in the winter. It's so warm and refreshing in there! We walked around with some fellow babywearing loving mamas and babies. It was so much fun to get to know some other moms who live in Chicago and sport our Wildbirds! Yesterday we just stayed home and snuggled up with some Game of Thrones while it snowed some more. We're rewatching the whole series to prep for the upcoming new season that airs in April!

I feel like I always start off the year strong when it comes to reading. Anyone else feel this way? I was able to make it through 2 books last month and I wanted to share them with you today! They are both non-fictions "self help" books and were a great way to motivate me for the year ahead.

This was definitely your typical self motivating how to kick butt book with a bit of an attitude twist. The author, Jen Sincero, is very blunt and just tells it like it is, which I really like. When it comes to self help books I'm not in to the fluffy extra crap that authors tend to add as fillers. Sincero gives great tips on how to excel in your professional and personal life, but to be honest it's nothing ground breaking. She hits on having a strong morning routine, meditation, exercise, getting enough sleep, just all your standard stuff that we always here about. She definitely presents it in an entertaining way but I don't feel that I personally learned anything new from this read. However, it did refresh my mind in terms of the things I should be doing to keep kicking ass at life, which was nice! I'll give it a 3 out of 5.
You can buy You are a Badass on Amazon.

Body Love is a guided nutrition and physical fitness self help book. Kelly will tell you over and over again her program is not a diet, it's a lifestyle. Which I appreciate that approach, but if you were to sum it up...it's a diet, sorry Kelly! Her program is called the Fab Four, which is 4 main kinds of foods that you should always incorporate in to breakfast, lunch and dinner. They are leafy greens, fiber, protein, and fats. Kelly states that if you always have these 4 types of foods in your meals then you will avoid blood sugar spikes and drops, which will help you avoid cravings and keep you fuller longer. She is big on smoothies to incorporate the Fab Four and has lots of great recipes within the book. She touches upon exercise and other good habits you should be doing to help you feel like your best self. She also has an awesome sample schedule of meals and workouts and how that all fits in to her normal lifestyle in the book.

I liked this book, but it's not my favorite. I was hoping for something different from it, to be honest. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting from it, but it felt very preachy. She tells you over and over again how her program isn't a diet for like 5 chapters. By the time I got to the recipes it was kind of like "enough already!" It was very interesting to read but it still felt restrictive and a bit hard to follow, which she claims its not. Maybe it's just because we live in the Midwest, but a lot of her suggestions just aren't as easy as she was making them out to be. She kind of sounded like a naive LA girl, ha! Regardless though, I've tried to be more conscious of my meals to see if I feel better by incorporating the Fab Four as much as I can. I'm not 100% buying in to it, but I'm trying my best! I'll keep you all posted on how I'm feeling in any of my wellness posts! I'll give this one a 3 out of 5, as well.
You can buy Body Love on Amazon.

UP NEXT: Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
What are you currently reading? Share with me in the comments below!
Also, for all you parents out there, a friend of mine started a fun baby book club on Instagram! She's putting up bi-weekly baby book recommendations and you can follow along on the fun at @solsbooks!

All photos shot and edited by Hallie Duesenberg

This time of year is so special for our family. Last week we celebrated Kai's birthday and that will forever be one of my favorite days every year. Today though has been my favorite day for some time now. Seven years ago today we adopted Wrigley from the Nevada Animal Shelter in Iowa. It was the day we became a family, me, Caleb, and Wrigley. I will never forget that day. We were having a warm spell in Ames and Caleb and I decided to go out for a run on Jan 31st. We were just getting started when we saw someone who lived in our apartment complex with the cutest puppy! We had never seen a dog like her before and stopped to ask what kind of dog she was. The girl told us (Pomeranian mix) and mentioned how she has just adopted her a hour before. I casually asked her where from and how much the adoption fees were because C and I had been thinking about getting a dog for some time but didn't have the funds to pay a $300+ adoption fee like most shelters needed. She told us she paid $35. We were in shock. She told us they had the whole litter of puppies at the shelter as well as the mother. After our run we decided to contact the shelter and ask to see the puppies. They told us there was only 1 left plus the mother but that many people were already interested in the mother. We told them we would like to see the puppy they had left the following day. We impatiently waited all morning to go to that shelter and see this puppy. The second they brought him out and handed him to me he clung to me and I knew I was going to be his mama. C told them right away to get the papers ready, we were going to take him. I write this with tears in my eyes because he is the best thing that has ever happened to us. He has been here for all of it. The very best moments and the very worst. Graduating college, my grandparents passing away, moving to Chicago, getting engaged, getting married, buying our house, road tripping around the country, my pregnancy, welcoming Kai in to our family, my dad passing away, and so much more. All of it. He's been here to celebrate with us and be sad with us. He has seen me laugh harder than ever and has sat with me when I've cried harder than ever. He protects me and loves me more than I thought possible. And we love him beyond belief. 

He is so loving to others, too. The way he has welcomed Kai in to our family is incredible. Everyone kept telling us how he's going to be so jealous and how he better get use to not getting as much attention and it always baffled me. How could the best dog in the world get jealous of his brother? Why would we give him less attention? If anything he gets more attention now. He has another human in his life that loves him more than anything. The bond that has grown between Kai and Wrigley is extraordinary and I love watching them play and snuggle all day every day. Wrigley would go to the end of the Earth the protect Kai and for that I've never loved him more.

This blog was named for him. I call him Tiny. He is the most dapper pup ever. He is my little fox. He inspires me every day to be my best self and I thrive on his love. I hope this space continues to honor him by showing the best side of our little family and inspires others just as he inspires me. We love you so much, Tiny. Thank you for an incredible 7 years.