Hi friends, I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! It was a cold and rainy one here, but we still made the most out of it and were super productive. On Saturday, we took Kai to meet Santa and do some Christmas shopping! He didn't cry at all, was very interested in the big guy's beard, and looked a little dubious when Santa held him for his picture. I'm calling it a win though! Yesterday I did my weekly yoga class in the morning and then we spent the day running errands and finishing up decorating the house for Christmas. Kai and I baked our first batch of cookies for the holiday season, too! We always start out with snickerdoodles in our house. You can find my recipe here!

For today's Tiny Talk, I want to talk all about confidence in yourself. This is something I've struggled with for so long and it wasn't until a few months ago that I really felt like I am proud of who I am. Things really started to change for me when I became a mom, but even at the beginning I really lacked confidence in motherhood. I was always worried if I was doing the right thing for Kai or if people had negative things to say about my parenting style. I reached a point though where I finally realized, I am doing the best I can at every aspect of my life. I give 100% to all areas whenever I can and that is enough. I am enough.

When this mindset finally took over I honestly haven't felt judged or mom shamed. I probably have been but I really don't care or notice anymore. Kai is thriving and so happy and so am I. We breastfeed in public and I just smile when someone looks at us. I wear crop tops to yoga and if my pants slide down and expose my tummy stretch marks I just keep going until I have a few seconds to readjust. Let me tell you friends, it's so freeing. I am so proud that I'm still breastfeeding my son at 10 months old. I didn't even think I'd make it to 3 months let alone 10! I do yoga twice a week and am doing poses I wasn't even able to do before I was pregnant. Plus I always pick a spot in the front row! The thing is, you need to find things that make you proud of yourself and use them to build your confidence. Thrive on them. Let them spread through your life. For the first time in my life I look at myself in the mirror and I truly smile at myself. It's wonderful. Here are a few things that I've done to change my mindset to really help with my confidence especially in motherhood.

• Begin a wellness journey
• Listen to podcasts + good playlists
  • The Goal Digger by Jenna Kutcher
  • Better Than Happy with Jody Moore
  • The Birth Hour with Bryn Huntpalmer
  • Your Best Self playlist on my Spotify account
• Get out of your comfort zone
• Make a list of your strengths and a list of all of your achievements
• Smile all day, every day
• Every night before bed, think of 2 things that you did well that day

I'm planning on doing a whole blog post on my current wellness journey very soon here but a slight overview of this is that I've started doing things that make me feel well from the inside out. I eat healthy because that's what my body deserves (see self appreciation post here), I drink water because my skin and breastmilk need it, I sleep 8 hours a night because my mind, soul, and body need that much sleep. By gradually doing all these things for myself I finally feel well and in turn I am able to let that shine on the outside. When you feel happy and healthy you will automatically have more confidence.

I am a big lover of podcasts and one that I recently started is The Goal Digger podcast by Jenna Kutcher. Just listening to her speak gives me this sense of happiness all throughout myself. She instills confidence in me just by listening to her 30 minutes a day. I always listen to a podcast to and from work and hers just brings so much light in to my life. I also have this killer playlist that I love to listen to on Spotify. I created it myself and I believe my account is public so you all are more than welcome to follow it. It's called "Your Best Self." The songs on this playlist aren't specifically confidence boosting songs but what they are for me are reminders and motivators. Each of these songs fills me with love, adrenaline, happy memories, and motivation to be my best self. Some songs remind me of Caleb, some of Kai, one of my papa & dad, and so on. I listen to it on my way to yoga, when I'm cleaning the house, or when I'm getting ready for the day. So I encourage you to sit down and just add a few songs that have a lot of meaning to you to your own "Your Best Self" playlist! I didn't just create this playlist overnight either. As I hear songs that resonate with me, I add them to my playlist, so it is ever growing.

Do things that scare you. You can do anything you set your mind to and when you succeed your confidence will grow. If you don't succeed, find motivation to keep going or try again. Trying again to me is a success in itself because you had the courage to pick yourself back up and do it again. My biggest example of this for myself is in yoga. Like I mentioned, I love wearing those cute matching crop top and yoga pants sets. This scared the shit out of me at first. I was always like "what if other women judge how big my boobs are in this top?" "what if my stretch marks show?" "what if my love handles pop out?" But I went for it. And you know what, I feel so strong and beautiful in my yoga clothes now!

Literally sit down and make two different lists that are ever growing. One of all your strengths and one of all your accomplishments. Keep them in your Notes on your phone and just add to it whenever you think of something. Remember, your strengths matter more than your weaknesses. Yes, you should work on improving your weaknesses but they don't define you. Your strengths and accomplishments are what define you. A few of mine that might help you get started are:

All the cliches...a smile is worth a thousand words, fake it till you make it, smiles are infectious. They're true though. Smile at everyone you see. You will make their day and in turn it will fill yourself with warmth and confidence in yourself that you can bring goodness in to the world around you.

I've made it a habit when I lay down in bed for the night to think of two things I did well that day. It can be anything from I made a great batch of cookies or I got everything on my to do list at work done. Big or small, it doesn't matter. When you do this you start to realize how much of a boss you really are!

Apologizes for getting this post up so late today! I will host the Tiny Talk on Instagram Live tomorrow night instead of tonight since it's such short notice. Tune in on my Instagram at 7 PM CST for a great chat and head over to the Tiny Tribe to talk with the group about confidence there, too.

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!

Oh friends, this post has taken me a long time to write. I've sat down to try to write it multiple times and always stop for some reason or another. Sometimes it feels like a rant, sometimes I just can't convey how I really feel. Regardless though, it's something I've wanted to discuss with all of you for a long time now. Before I start though I want to say one thing, in no way shape or form will any negativity, shaming, or pure meanness be tolerated in this discussion. All comments must be approved before they are published on this blog. So if you have nothing nice to say then please don't even bother. Same goes for all social media and e-mail. You will promptly be removed from this discussion and any future Tiny Talks. Thank you!

Mom shaming is a real thing. It's awful and truly sad that it happens. Before I became a mom, I know I would judge. Heck from time to time I still do, but since becoming a mom I will never ever vocalize it because I know how much it hurts. As a mom, we're all just doing our best but many times it's not seen that way. It saddens me when someone tells a mom that they're not doing it right because they may do things differently than someone else. This is the number one factor of where I see mom shaming come in to play. We all have different styles of raising our babies and to me that's the awesome thing about parenthood. I 100% understand about being passionate about something, for me, those things tend to be baby wearing, breastfeeding, Babywise, and vaccinations. If you want my personal views on these topics then let's chat on the side, but I mention them because I fully appreciate the differences of opinions surrounding these topics. Just because some mamas are on the complete opposite end of the spectrum of where I am on these things doesn't mean they're bad moms in my opinion. I know for a fact they believe what they believe and do what they do out of the goodness of their hearts for their children, and for that I applaud them. I wish so many others felt the same though. Why is it that we feel the need to be mean and degrade each other for a difference of opinion?

The hardest part about mom shaming is that it sticks with you, at least it does with me. I have very distinct memories of other women making me feel incredibly inferior for things such as Babywise and breastfeeding. It was to the point one time where I actually questioned if I was a good mom? I'm sure some of you have been to that point, too in your motherhood journey. Isn't it the absolute worst feeling? You go from sad to mad. I've gotten so heated over these shaming incidents, it's crazy how much time and energy is wasted on it. The worst part about it too is that it's so hard to just shake it off. I define myself as a mom and to be basically told I'm bad at it just shakes me to my core. But in the end, who cares what that person thinks, right? We just have to look at our babies to see the proof of how amazing we are at this motherhood thing.

So the next time you run in to an incident that breaks your heart, go snuggle your heart on the outside and remember you're the perfect mom. I am so proud to be a part of this tribe and thank you all so much for being a part of it with me. Every single one of you are the best mom ever and don't ever let anyone else tell you otherwise.

Let's all band together here and help bring awareness and stop the shame! A few things I personally like to do on the daily to bring positivity to this mama tribe is:

1. Remind all mamas that they are simply the best. You're all my heroes, seriously.
2. When I get a negative comment or a dirty look I take a deep breath, say God Bless, and move on. I look a Kai, soak in that smile and remember I'm the best mama ever to that little baby boy.
3. Join mom Facebook groups like Lemon Stripes Mamas, Babywise Mamas, Wildbird VIPeeps, Birds of a Feather, The Everymom, or my very own FB group The Tiny Tribe!

Join in on this weeks Tiny Talk on Instagram Live tomorrow night (11/6) at 7PM CST! I can't wait to chat more about this with all of you tomorrow night!

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!