Happy almost Thanksgiving, everyone! What is everyone doing for the holiday tomorrow? We're hosting at our house again and going all out as usual! I'm in major prep mode today with cleaning our house like a mad woman and Caleb is prepping all the food to make tomorrow run nice and smooth. If you need any Thanksgiving hosting help, check out my post on Thanksgiving from last year!

Today I want to share with you my baby registry must haves. As a mom to an almost 10 month old, I feel like I finally know and understand what all is needed for a baby throughout their first year of life. However, I do remember last year when we were doing our baby registry how overwhelmed we were. So I'm going to finally share with you the best things to register for along with the exact item + number of items I recommend! Alright...here we go...

Add toys, cute clothes, books, and gift cards as fillers. To be honest, people are going to buy what they think is cute in terms of those things, so don't stress too much about being short handed on those things. Plus I think it's way more fun to go shopping for that stuff yourself anyways! Half the fun of having a baby is dressing them and getting all excited about buying them toys and books!

Did I miss anything important on this list, fellow mamas!? Leave me a comment below and let me know!

Outfit Details:
Sweater - JCrew Factory (old, similar) | Jeans - Gap | Hat - Target (old, similar) | Puffer Vest - JCrew Factory | Hunter Boots - Nordstrom (old, similar) | Ring Sling - Wildbird | Sunglasses - Amazon

Kai's Outfit Details:
​Sweater - Gap | Jeans - Carters | Moccasins - Freshly Picked

Last year while I was pregnant we went apple picking for the first time and absolutely fell in love with the activity. We promised ourselves we would go back this year with Kai and make it an annual fall tradition. A couple of months ago we made good on that promise and took Kai out in to the apple orchard at Apple Holler and had the most wonderful afternoon walking around and picking all the different kinds of apples. The apples we picked off the tree were Kai's first apples he ever had, too! We did the same thing back in July with peaches. We've always been big on the freshest ingredients for our food and it doesn't get much fresher than right off the tree!

Sweater weather is honestly my favorite time of the year. I love the feeling of being cozy and warm but while the air is crisp. Don't get me wrong, I love summer, but I love fall even more. I've always been in love with white/cream colored sweaters...I have way too many but I personally think they go so perfectly with everything. I like the way this white sweater breaks up the navy between my vest and my jeans. I also love my Hunter boots so much! They are perfect for this time of year when we get random snow falls and the ground gets messy. They are also surprisingly warm, and I can't recommend them enough.

Half of Kai's wardrobe is from Gap, ha! I just love their baby boy cloths for their simplicity. They tend to always be having a sale, too, so it makes buying nice cloths for Kai way more affordable. Their Black Friday sale at the end of this week is going to be excellent! They are doing 50% off plus another 10% off your whole purchase and the sale is also available online. I know I'll be snagging a lot more cute sweaters for Kai for some Christmas presents. Speaking of sales...Freshly Picked is having their semi-annual sale right now, too! They are having up to 50% all over their site, which is a big deal. Their shoes are on the expensive side and they rarely have things on sale. Plus if you are a Fringe member you can apply your 20% member discount to the sale prices! These are my favorite baby shoe brand for Kai because they actually stay on his little feet. He's going to start walking soon, so I'm going to be stocking up during this sale big time!

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Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you all had a lovely weekend. We had an amazing one! We hosted our annual Friendsgiving dinner and it was Kai's first one! He tried turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce for the first time and loved all of it. I'm so excited for Thanksgiving this week and for him to try even more! I have this whole week off of work to prep for hosting Thanksgiving and just spending quality time with Kai. I've been looking forward to this week for awhile now and am just so grateful that I'm able to take this time for myself.

So it's Monday and you all know what that means...it's Tiny Talk day! Today's topic is all about self appreciation. This is something I've struggled with my whole life. I've never been able to reach that point of being content with myself. I've always strived for more whether it be to be skinner, prettier, more intelligent, more loving, the list goes on and on. While I still strive now to be my best self, I've actually never loved myself more. Ever since becoming a mother I've really looked at myself in a new light. Thanks to my little boy, I can finally say I love who I am.

Ladies, we make humans. We grow them inside us and then bring them in to this world. Then we sustain them in every way possible. Just think about that for a second, whether you're a mother or not. That is INCREDIBLE. That is what we're capable of. The thing that blows me away, too, is I didn't consider myself the most healthy when I got pregnant. Heck, I've never really taken care of myself the way I should have my whole life. Yet somehow I endured 15 years of gymnastics, ran a half marathon after I was told I'd probably never really be able to be athletic again, wake up every single day and do life,  and had a baby. This all gets me thinking...I wonder what I could do if I give myself all it needs the best that I can? How would I feel then? Why don't I appreciate what I have in myself because the list of what I've done and endured in amazing? The same goes for all of you. These thoughts early on in my postpartum journey changed my whole life. From that point on I've taken care of myself and appreciated who I am because I deserve it. The list goes on and on but some of the things I've started doing religiously is eating well, working out consistently, taking baths, getting massages, drinking lots of water, meditation, and getting at least 8 hours of sleep every night. I don't do all of this to lose weight or be more beautiful or whatever else I may be insecure about. I do it because my body deserves all the love and attention.

I've always been self conscious and even during my pregnancy I would wonder what others thought about my shape. Or how I would look postpartum. But after I had Kai, I literally did not care. I have a nice squishy belly with stretch marks but I'm damn proud of it. It's like my little mom battle wound that I get to rock and when my yoga pants slip down a little during yoga and my weird little belly button and stretch marks show, I'm like yeah that's right ladies, I'm a mom and I'm here doing my thing! I cared so much about making sure I wasn't making others feel uncomfortable when I breastfed in public. Ha! 10 months later and I literally give 0 Fs how other people feel. I'm not going to excuse myself so my baby can eat. My body physically makes my baby's food and feeds him. If you think about it that way then it's not weird at all...it's actually amazing.

I still have a ways to go but at the same time I am so satisfied with how I feel about myself. I wish I had the encourage to just whip my boob out in public and not cover Kai's head if others are around like I do at home, but I'm not quite there yet. That's ok though...maybe I'll get there, maybe I won't. I haven't had to wear a bathing suit yet with my mom bod so we will see how that goes, too. But at the same time, I am so proud of myself and how far I've come and all I can hope is that you feel the same way about yourself, too.

I will be hosting my weekly Tiny Talk chat on Instagram Live (@dmcab) tonight at 7 PM CST and we will all chat more about loving ourselves and ways to just be more appreciative of ourselves. Talk to you all tonight!

Guys, our tiny dapper fox is 7 years old today! This little pup has brought so much joy in to our lives. He really is our first baby. He's taught us how to be more patient, loving, and care for another. He's been here for it all. The happy, the sad, the losses, and the gains. Wrigley truly is my best friend. I was chatting with my family a few weeks ago about Wrigley and how he is my biggest support. Of course I am so grateful for Caleb, my mom, my family, and my friends and they are always here for me too but any time I'm upset about something, not feeling well, or even so happy for any random old reason, it's always Wrigley that's there for me. In fact, he's snuggling with me as I write this. He is my constant and the most incredible, loyal, dog I could ever imagine having in my life. I love you more than I can ever explain, Tiny. You're the real MVP.

We absolutely love to travel and are so excited to get back in to travel mode in 2019. One of my favorite parts about travel in general though is planning our trips! I find the logistics and anticipation so fun. I get so many questions and comments around how we plan our trips and how it can be very overwhelming. So today I want to share with you all my tips for how to plan out the ultimate travel itinerary for your next dream vacation + show you a little sample of how to build your itinerary!

Make a big list of places you want to see and eat for your destination. I like to use Google Sheets and add everyone that will be going on the trip with me, so they can give their input, too. About a month before the trip, I will go in to the sheet and categorize it by food, attraction, and entertainment. Then I'll sit down with my travel buddies and go through the list and mark down our must visits and take off any items that are not doable or don't have a lot of interest to everyone.

I make a new Google Calendar for each trip we take and share it with whoever I'm traveling with so everyone has access to it. I will start plugging in entertainment dates and times (baseball game, attraction tours, etc). I usually do the day view in Google Calendar to better visually see length of time for each place we're going to visit. From there, I start filling in the days with the more flexible items from our Google sheet.

When filling in your itinerary, stick to certain locations as much as possible. What I mean by this is if you're going to a museum on a certain day, pick a restaurant for dinner near that museum that you have on your list of places you want to eat at. That way you're not running all over the city to get from place to place and wasting a lot of time on travel. Same thing goes for dessert spots or bars. Pick things within walking distance or a couple of train stops away from your dinner spot whenever possible.

Leave room for open exploring, breaks, and traffic jams. Remember that not every day is going to go according to plan, especially if you have kids! I personally like to use our first day of vacation as an explore/rest day. So if you're going on a tropical vacation, use that first day to just lay on the beach with a margarita. For other days throughout your trip, just schedule in "exploring" time. We don't always like to have something specific in every time slot. We always leave room to just explore neighborhoods and go shopping. That way if something comes up where we want to change what we're doing, we're not stuck cancelling a bunch of reservations or tours. It makes for a much more relaxing vacation. We love structure and to know where we're going, but we also really enjoy the freedom of just discovering gems on our own while we walk around while traveling. There's nothing like walking the streets of Rome and just happening upon an amazing restaurant on getting a glimpse of the Colosseum down a quiet alley way!

Have some full days, and have some light days. Have some long meals and have some quick bites to eat. Have some nights where you grab dessert and some nights where you grab a cocktail. See where I'm going with this? I absolutely love trying all different kinds of experiences when we're in a new place from having brunch one morning to grabbing doughnuts the next. Book a spa day one day and then do surf lessons the next. The best way to immerse yourself and have the best time in a new place is to try it all! Do what you love but also get out of your comfort zone.

Step 1: Add the basics - Add your flight information + your hotel details

Step 2: Add it set activities - Add any shows, sporting events, tours, spa appointments, etc in to your calendar since they all have set times and places. You obviously can't change these things so they are a good place to start.

Step 3: Add in other activities - Add in your other activities that have more freedom like exploring a neighborhood, going to a museum, or shopping. Take it easy on day 1. Exploring a couple of areas is always best. Get to bed early on night 1 to recover from traveling and hit the ground running the rest of your trip.

Step 4: Add in Meals - We usually shoot for 1 hour for brunch or lunch and 2 hours for dinner. This way you can take nice breaks throughout the day to unwind and it pads time in case you need to wait for a table. We always do a pre-dinner refresh, too in case we want to take a nap, shower, or change our clothes. For quick bites to eat like getting doughnuts or sandwiches, I'll usually just do a 30 minute block. Be mindful of your set activities though with dinner! If you have somewhere to be in the evening it's best to grab a quick bite to eat like a burger near where you need to be and keep it a short and sweet. Like in my example above, I have a 1 hour block at a burger joint and the same hotel as the The Beatles: Love show is at.  It's best to always make reservations if the restaurant takes them, too. This way you're never crunched for time and stressed about your schedule.

Step 5: Add in day trips - Add in any day trips that you want to take on completely open days. These kinds of things tend to take all day and require extra travel so it's best to keep meals quick and simple on these days and allow for a lot of extra time for travel.

That's all I do when planning! Start with the basics and build upon them for each day of our trip. Planning it all out is so helpful for us especially when it comes to food. We don't like to wing it too much when it comes to food because we quite literally travel for food. We want to make sure we're going to have an amazing food experience wherever we travel so we love to plan all that out. As for the exploring bits, we all have in mind what we want to see when we travel somewhere, so picking when and where you're going to go do these things helps you to know when to start your day and where you need to head to! I hope this helps all of you a little bit for planning out your trips, and as always, I'm always here to help if you ever want to reach out! You all know how much I love to plan trips ;)

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