Day 14 of eating Paleo

Breakfast today was boiled eggs and left over chicken. Lunch was a mixture of finger foods and snacks. Olives, left over carrots and onions, grapes, boiled eggs and strawberries. We had a late nap and slept until 5:30 so no time to make the salmon I was going to have for supper instead we made Banana pancakes, they were yummy and it was nice not to have to clean up after a big supper :)

The new lunch bag and all the snacks that fit inside. Wyatt was going to his grandparents to have a play date with his cousin so we packed more than usual so he could share. He took flower cut honey dew melon, cucumber slices, bananas, kiwi, boiled eggs, apples slices, leftover chicken & veg, red peppers, meat, and coconut milk.

It has been 2 weeks now since we started and we continue to feel great! Wyatt has gained 2 lbs since we started and I have lost 12! I am still amazed at how well we are doing with it. I am going into wekk 3 with way more confidence :)

Day 13 eating Paleo

This morning was a great day at home. We cleaned and organized the classroom and did some other cleaning all in our PJs :) I love Pj days!! I am so excited to have the classroom more organized. I was going to put some of the stuff in storage since we are selling the house but I decided to just clean it all up instead. 

Breakfast was fruit this morning and some leftover pork from last night. Lunch we had some cut up veggies and boiled eggs. Supper we had baked chicken legs, I used a smokey spice mix and it was spicy, with mixed greens and spinach. Wyatt was not a fan of the spice but he ate all the vegetables. 

Our classroom

When we built this house I always knew I wanted to put a classroom in the basement for homeschooling. Alex has a private tutor that works with him at our home so the class is great for them too actually since Wyatt is only 4 they use it more then we do. I love the classroom! I love the colour, the organization, and just the feeling in there. We just listed our house for sale and I will miss the classroom more than any other part of my house (Mike says he will just build me a new one).

Wyatt playing play-doh this morning in the classroom ( I just had to add this picture in)  

Looking in from the door 

the desks 

Alex loved these chairs and all the colours in the room are based around these chairs. The white board is magnetic too, I just took off all the magnets today (Wyatt has the Melissa and Doug letter and number wooden magnets that he loves to play with on the board).

One of the book shelves, our other one is in the play room and FULL of books! 

I love the closet! It is hard to really get a picture of it but it is 4' deep and 5' wide. 

Alex's tutor always hangs things on the wall for the kids :)

The room is 11x14 and all the furniture was from Ikea. We used a vinyl strip floor in there, it is great! We decided to get a desk top computer for the kids. It is not used often but has come in handy :) It took Mike, my father in law and my brother one week to finish this room, from framing to putting in the furniture. The longest part of the job was waiting for mud to dry on the drywall. Both kids love the room too and it is so nice to have a room that is just for them!

I took all the pictures with my iPhone so sorry if the quality is not the best. 

Day 12 eating Paleo

I am excited that I am getting other people to buy Practical Paleo and try this way of eating. I can not say enough good things about how different I feel and how well we are doing on it. I understand it is not for everyone but it is great for us :) I should state that even though I am losing weight eating this way I did not start this with intent to lose weight I did it for our health and to eliminate foods to find which foods are bothering us.

I have decided over the last few days that instead of a 30 day challenge we are going to do a 60 day with a few exceptions, I am going to have a Paleo safe meal and snacks at Wyatt's 4th birthday party but I will be letting him have a birthday cupcake and on Christmas eve I will let him eat whatever he wants at the family party (hopefully he picks veggies but I am sure he will choose chips and candy).

Breakfast we had fruit in bed watching TV (it was that kind of morning). I read my book while he watched cartoons, it was actually fun. Lunch we had salad with chicken and berries with some raw veggies on the side and some fruit salad, we were visiting my aunt and just had a bunch of different things from the grocery store :) for supper we had the pork tenderloin I made last night but didn't get a chance to eat. I added some steamed spinach and some broccoli to it. I did not take a pic of it because I took a pic when I cooked the meal last night.

I should take a picture of the snacks we take with us when we leave the house. There is not always a quick and easy snack for Wyatt and I while we are out so I always bring stuff with me, he seems to eat way more now since we changed our foods too. I have little containers with different choices for him and I load up a lunch bag today I got a new lunch bag for him that will hopefully hold all his little containers. I got him a balanced day lunch kit and we will see tomorrow how it works. I will take a picture for sure :) When I unpack his lunch bag after we get home I leave all his little containers on the door in the fridge where he can reach them easily and he gets to use those when he has a snack, he loves it! 

I got some Christmas presents for the boys today. I can't believe it is only 6 weeks away! I don't know how the holidays seem to sneak up on me every year. We don't put a tree up until the weekend before Christmas and we usually do our inside decorating after Wyatt's birthday (the 9th). I do advent bags that hang on our railing and they have to be up by the 1st so I feel like I should get on that. Mike will hang the outside lights up when he gets home the first week of December. Where did this year go?

Day 11 eating Paleo

The students left today :( I love having them here for the 4 day weekends. We didn't get home until after 7 so by the time I got supper in the oven it was too late to eat it (bonus is that I don't have to make supper tomorrow). 

When we first started with the new foods we knew that Wyatt was really going to miss his pancakes (he loves pancakes). We found a recipe for pumpkin pancakes right away in Practical Paleo and they are delicious and this morning I found a recipe for banana pancakes at fastpaleo.com, Wyatt loved these and had them for breakfast and supper :) 

 banana pancakes

Lunch was a spinach omelette with kale chips (wyatt's choice) he would eat kale chips everyday if I made them for him. 

 Kale chips and spinach omelette 

For supper we had leftovers (omelette, pancakes, carrots) some fruit and some beef jerky. It did the trick :) Tomorrow night we will be having this cumin spiced pork tenderloin with root vegetables. It looks and smells so good! I had a couple bites of the vegetables before I put it in the fridge and I love the flavour in this dish. 

cumin spiced pork tenderloin with root vegetables

Now that the house has calmed down again I have to get back on track with the gym. I am hoping to get there 3 times this week and I need to run this week since I have a 5k on Sunday. 

I am also getting Wyatt's "curriculum" together this week. It is not really structured just some things I would like to work on with him but that will be a different blog post. 

Day 10 eating Paleo

Mike went back to work this evening :( We had some company over for supper plus the students and my kids so it was a bit crazy and I forgot to take pictures. I did not think we would make it through the week of Mike being home and stay on the meal plan but we did!! I am so excited, we even had pizza in the house and Wyatt and I both skipped it. I am so proud that Wyatt is doing so great with this. 

For breakfast we had an omelette with spinach and peppers. Lunch was simple shrimp Ceviche, like a salad with shrimp and diced veggies in a lime/lemon olive oil sauce that we used cucumber slices to eat. It was pretty good except it had cilantro in it, I have realized I am really not a fan of cilantro. We also had some steamed mussels. For supper we had pesto shrimp with zucchini fettuccine, I loved the "pasta" and will make it again for sure but did not like the pesto on it (again with the cilantro). I ended up having some leftovers out of the fridge and so did Wyatt. Everyone other than us had regular pasta with pasta sauce. We had some applesauce for dessert. 

Our lunch :)

We are 1/3 through the 30 days and I am thinking we may keep this up for longer than 30 days. I feel so amazing and now that we have been doing it for a bit the cravings are not nearly as bad. Part of me would love to sit and watch tv with a big bag of chips but I know that I will feel like crap after. I have a race on the 18th (5k) and I am thinking I will feel way different after this one than I usually do. 

Tomorrow at "school" the kids are having pretzels. When I seen that on the calendar I was a little worried, I told Wyatt and he said it is ok because we have blueberries in the fridge and he will take those instead (again so proud!). 

Day 9 eating Paleo

I am so proud that we have stayed on track. It is one of those things that I kept thinking in the back of my head that we couldn't do it but we have :) The food has been so good and I love trying new things! I am shocked I have liked everything so far I am not a picky person but I usually stick to the meals I know.

For breakfast this morning we had fruit on our way to the market then had some fresh hot apple cider there and an apple. Lunch we had some kale chips and apple streusel muffins. Supper was balsamic braised short ribs with candied carrots and steamed broccoli. (I was not a fan of the ribs, they turned out too tough for me)

 Apple streusel egg muffins

 Ribs on the BBQ

 The huge apple Wyatt got at the market today

Short ribs with broccoli and candied carrots

Week 2 of eating Paleo - Day 8

Each day seems to be getting easier. I feel amazing during the day, no afternoon slump. I am loving our food choices and the delicious meals we are eating. The meals are a bit time consuming but not much more than my clean eating, I could do some prep ahead of time to make it easier. I really do love the meal plans that come in Practical Paleo! It makes life so much easier than trying to figure out what to eat. We have come off the plan a bit for this weekend (with visitors here) but still eating other Paleo recipes.

Breakfast today was pumpkin pancakes again (honestly they are so good!) with breakfast sausage. Lunch we had left overs and Wyatt had another pancake. Supper we had 50/50 burgers. these things are great but would have been much better with a bun :) They are 50% ground beef and 50% ground bacon (we got bacon strips from our butcher and ground them in our meat grinder) and added some spices, recipe from eat like a dinosaur. My husband was so excited to eat these! We had some sweet potato fries, butternut squash (left over) and carrots (left over) plus we had some shrimp skewers just because the kids love them. We made applesauce for dessert.

 Wyatt helping Mike grind the bacon, he loved this job!

 Making apple sauce

 mmmm... applesauce with cinnamon

 Burgers and shrimp on the BBQ

I put the burger in lettuce with a piece of tomato but didn't think of that until after I took the pic. We did have sweet potato fries too. 

 Wyatt really wanted me to take a picture of his plate too

 Sweet potato fries

Day 7 Paleo..ish eating

I forgot to take pics today :( I have 2 international students here for 4 days and today has been a busy day. We went to our farmer to get some grass-fed beef and got to see a baby cow, Wyatt loves going to the farm!

For breakfast today we had pumpkin pancakes, they were so good!! Both boys asked for more. For lunch we had our first experience at a restaurant with our restrictions. We decided we were going to go out for lunch but it was not as easy as it used to be, we chose a small restaurant hoping the would be able to accommodate. We could not have asked for a better place to eat they were so great working with us :) We all had salads Mike had a spicy chicken caesar (he's not on a Paleo diet), I had a shrimp and bacon salad without the cheese, and Wyatt had a garden salad with no dressing (he ate all my shrimp). Supper was citrus & herb whole roasted chicken with carrots and butternut squash (leftover). I also made some mustard glazed chicken thighs for the boys. I just noticed now that on the meal plan it also called for roasted rosemary roots .. oops, we were full with what we had anyway.

We had a full day out of the house today so first thing I did was pack snacks for Wyatt and I am glad I did. He was so good with all our running around. I notice that his behaviour is the worst right before supper so I think he needs to have a snack closer to supper.

With a full week gone this is what I have noticed. I have lost 9lbs, have more energy, sleep better, have not had any stomach issues since day 2 (for the first time in 15 yrs!), and I overall feel better. Wyatt has gained 1lb, has been calmer, easier to talk with, better behaved and sleeping better. I am going into this week with way more confidence and I am looking forward to see how we feel after 14 days!

Day 6 Paleo..ish eating.

Almost a week! I have made it 6 whole days .. lol. It is always so crazy when Mike is home and this week is a little crazier so I feel even more proud that we have done so well. We have learned to always have snacks for Wyatt with us when we leave the house. I feel great!! Wyatt says he can watch things better (no idea what he means by that but it seems like it is a positive thing) and the other day he told me he felt "lighter". I am sure he is feeling the difference like I am these last few days. The longer we do this the more I think I could do a version of this diet full time. 

For breakfast we had poached eggs and fresh fruit. Lunch we had leftover stir fry. Wyatt snacked ALL day on olives, raspberries, peppers, nuts and I am sure more, it seemed like he was eating all day. For supper we had lamb lettuce boats with avo-ziki sauce (this was a big hit in our house), asparagus baked with cumin and mashed butternut squash. Wyatt helped me make the sauce by scooping out the avocado for me and helped mix it all together with the hand mixer. We also made maple walnut ice cream for dessert but it was too late to eat it by the time we were done so we will eat it tomorrow night. 

Today I made up some more spice mixes. I finally bought a motar and pestal so I dried sage, thyme, lemon peel and rosemary then made salt spice mixes. Again the house smelled amazing all day :) 

 dried sage and sea salt.

The 4 salt spice mixtures

Lamb lettuce boats with avo-ziki sauce

  

All rolled up. they were so good! Mike and Alex both had seconds. 

Day 5 Paleo..ish eating

Today was a bad day for cravings. I feel like I could run someone down for a cookie .. lol. I don't have much time to write tonight but I thought I would still post what we had for meals today.

Breakfast we had bacon and eggs with some fruit. Lunch we had mustard glazed chicken thighs, butternut squash, kale chips and green olives. For supper dh and A went to my in-laws for spaghetti and fresh made bread (yes it was hard not to go .. lol) W and I stayed home and made a beef stir-fry with veggies. After dinner we all made ice cream in the new Kitchen Aid ice cream maker (I am loving this thing!!). We just put in some coconut milk and raspberries and it turned out pretty good. Next time we will use coconut cream so it's a bit thicker. There are some yummy recipes in the book that came with it.

Beef stir fry. I missed the soy sauce. I am having a hard time finding coconut aminos to use in place of soy sauce.  

The boys watching the ice cream :)

I am off to bed. It has been a busy day as it always is when dh is home. 

Day 4 Paleo..ish eating

Why do I call it Paleo..ish? We are following a strict Paleo diet right now but will not be after the 30 days. There are different versions of Paleo and some are stricter than others. I say Paleo..ish because the plan I am following may not be the same as someone else. I am following the digestive health meal plan from Practical Paleo.

Today was a busy day since my husband came home from work (he works away and is home for a week every 2-3 weeks). We had our first real problem finding something to eat today. We were at the airport (it is a very small one) and the only food they had there was Tim Horton's (we can not eat any food from there) and 2 vending machines with chips and chocolate bars. Of course W was starving, I was going to get a wrap from Tim Horton's and just throw out the wrap. Finally dh's plane showed up so we didn't have to worry about it. Did you know that Tim Horton's does not have an ingredient list for any of their food? The guy handed me a nutrition guide and I told him I needed ingredients, he just said that is all he has and he has no way of finding out what is in the food.

For breakfast this morning we had fruit (honeydew melon, grapes, raspberries and apple). Lunch was left over honey glazed chicken thighs with random other left overs from the weekend (kind of a clean up lunch). Dh was home for supper and we had pan seared scallops with cauli-rice and oven roasted butternut squash. It was a big hit!!

I am exhausted and going to bed early. I will let dh put the kids to bed :)

Again no gym today, this food prep and cooking takes all my time .. lol

Day 3 - Paleo..ish eating

The time changed last night and for most people this means their children will get up an hour earlier. In my house it was the opposite, My son was peacefully sleeping and I was up at 4am :( This extra couple hours gave me a chance to get some paper work done, pay some bills and watch shows I had recorded that I never get a chance to watch. So it wasn't completely bad. I did sneak a small nap in before supper.

Breakfast was crustless quiche, fruit (I had an orange and W had a banana), raisins and fresh made juice (we put apples, kale, raspberries and a pear). Lunch was poached eggs, bacon, left over sweet potato pancakes and W had some left over baked beets and a pear for snack right after lunch. I have never seen him eat so much! For supper we had mustard glazed chicken thighs with cauli-rice (shredded cauliflower fried in coconut oil) and steamed green beans.

We managed to get out of church without the snacks after. W really wanted to stay but I told him we were in a hurry so we couldn't (not completely true but he loves the cookies they have after church). I was starving too so I really did want to get going. On the way home he told me he doesn't like special food anymore.

Today I made up some of the spice mixtures for the recipes this month. My house smells delicious! They are in containers and labeled. I feel like the only things in my cupboards right now are spices and canned salmon/tuna.

My husband comes home tomorrow and things are always harder to stay on track when he is home. He has been very supportive of our decision to make these changes but I am not sure how he is going to like it. We also have 2 international students staying with us for the weekend. I am sure some boys will be sneaking out for fast food. Wish me luck!

W and I went for a great, chilly, early morning run. Well I ran while he sat back wrapped in a nice warm cozy blanket looking at books in his jogging stroller. I don't know what I will do when he is in between being old enough to run with me and too old for the jogging stroller. I am lucky that A loves to run with me.

I bought an ice cream maker for our Kitchen Aid mixer today. I am so excited to try it out with coconut milk and fresh fruit. we also picked up a cute little food cutter that cuts fruit into flowers. W is pretty excited about it. 

I had a talk with W today about his school snack tomorrow, he seems ok with not being able to have fishy crackers tomorrow and he helped me pack a special snack. He chose to have raspberries and olives with some vanilla coconut milk. His behaviour today seems to be better. I think he is listening better but it could have nothing to do with the food and just be a good day. We will see how the rest of the week goes. 

I feel like I ate too much crap today between eggs, bacon and chicken thighs I feel like I should go to the gym .. lol. It really is harder than I thought to have no grains in my diet. My body is feeling great and I have had energy but my brain wants to have other foods. I think W is actually doing better with it then me at times. 

Honey glazed chicken thigh, cauli-rice and steamed green beans. It was really good!

W helped me shred the cauliflower. I was not sure about this but it turned out really good. the recipe called for fresh cilantro but I am not a fan so I ate it with just some black pepper. 

Day 2 - Paleo..ish eating

Today was a great day! We had a few situations that I thought W was going to have a problem but he impressed me. We went to the grocery store and he always gets a cookie when we are there, today I told him that we were changing our food and could not get a cookie but I would get him some kiwis and he was absolutely ok with that :) We also had a friend offer some candy and although he was upset at first he did really well with it.

Our meals were yummy today! We had crustless quiche for breakfast, left overs for lunch (from last nights supper), and sage turkey legs, sweet potato pancakes and steamed spinach for supper. we had some dried fruit, home made apple sauce, kiwis, and almonds for snack.

 Crustless quiche with zucchini and carrots :) W loved this so much he had seconds!

 Frying up some sweet potato pancakes in coconut oil.

 Sage roasted turkey legs.

All together for supper :)

This is the 3rd night in a row my 4 yr old ate all his supper! That is a big thing in this house. He is not a picky eater but he just doesn't always eat much. I think the difference is he is not eating all the snacks throughout the day. I still have not tried the avocado but I plan on it tomorrow. I got some great ideas for fun kids food from eat like a dinosaur. I am going to have to send snacks to school with W next week and I am hoping I find something he likes enough that it won't bother him that he can't eat the snacks the other kids are having. 

W's temperament has been better, he had some meltdowns yesterday. I feel great  :) For the first time in a long time I have not had an upset stomach at all and I have had energy all day.

Again I didn't go to the gym today but W and I played outside for a bit and it was chilly!

Day 1 of the new meal plan

so technically it should be day 2 but I didn't get everything out of the house in time or the food bought that I needed so today is day 1 :)

Today I cleaned out my fridge, freezer and cupboards. I am the type of person that will eat it if it is here (My friend loved the grocery delivery this afternoon). W had a hard time letting go of the peanut butter and "monkey balls" which is organic gorilla crunch (his fav!!). I have been explaining to him that we are going to eat a little bit different for a bit and that it will make us healthy his response was that he is not sick .. lol. A, being 10, is not a fan of the changes at all he keeps asking me what he is going to eat I told him FOOD.

So today was day 1 of the meal plan and I have to say that I love having it all mapped out for me. I am going to be a bit out of my comfort zone but I think that is great for everyone. Today I tried fennel for the first time and I have never baked beets before, both were a huge hit with the boys!

Breakfast we had apples and grapes (while running late for school) and some coconut milk. Lunch was kale chips and chicken with mixed greens. Supper was grilled garlic flank steak with peppers & onions along with baked beets with fennel and orange slices. Water was with all meals except breakfast. We had a banana for snack and some homemade apple sauce, I feel like we must have eaten more :)

This looked way better in the cookbook but it tasted delicious!! 

I am basing the majority of my meal choices around Diane Sanfilippo's meal plans in her book Practical Paleo. This book is so awesome for so many reasons. I went grocery shopping today with a list right of out the book for the meals in the meal plan this week. She has 11 different meal plans and tons of information in this book! 

I missed the gym this morning because I was at the grocery store and then the butcher learning about cuts of meat and the different food I am gong to be eating. It really was an informative morning. 

So tomorrow is another day and I am hoping that W comes around and stops asking for "monkey balls" and peanut butter :)

The switch witch

I know .. I leave the blog for a year then 2 posts in one night but I had to write about our Halloween :)

Knowing that we were about to embark on a new nutritional journey Nov 1st, I was a little worried about how we were going to be rid of all the candy before hand. I purposefully did not buy candy at all this year, we handed out glow sticks to trick or treaters (it was a big hit). I told W that if he left ALL of his candy in a bowl at the front door that the switch witch would come and trade it all for a cool toy. I let him eat as much as he wanted that night then he left it all for her. He was so happy when he woke up in the morning and got his 'Jake and the never land pirates' treasure chest. He has not asked about the candy or even talked about eating candy :) I should have thought of this years ago when A was younger. Definitely doing this again next year!

I love that he got to experience Halloween with the trick or treating and candy for one night. He helped me hand out the glow sticks and loved seeing all the costumes.

Our journey to a healthier and happier life

For years (like 15!) I have had digestive problems. The doctor has told me it is IBS. We have tried medications but the only time I have ever really had relief is when I restrict my diet. My chiropractor and naturopath have been telling me to take out grains but this seemed like way too big of a jump for me from my whole food diet. How do you not eat grains? Our whole lives we have been told that we have to have grains in our diet to be healthy.

My 4 yr old son has been having adverse reactions to food and we don't know for sure what it is. Some days it is like he can't sit still (no not like a regular 4 yr old) he actually will shake his leg and not be able to stay still. It is like he loses control, we have seen it with dyes for sure. I figured that we will both go on a sort of elimination diet for 30 days and see how things improve with us. We will reintroduce foods in December and see if there is a reaction at that time.

Our diet is based on the Paleo way of eating. I say "based" because we have changed some things. I am  doing our first 30 days of meals based on a meal plan from Practical Paleo. I am loving this book and all the information Diane Sanfilippo includes. I have read several books about Paleo and this one of the easiest to understand. I also really enjoyed It starts with food. I have looked at what feels like hundreds of websites and hours of reading before we decided to do this.

In December 2010 we made a plan to change the way we eat. We gave ourselves until December 2012 to make major changes in the foods we eat and how we cook. I think we did really well and I am happy with the changes we made. There were too many changes to list but we try to eat as whole and natural as we can.

I think the biggest problems we are going to have are: 1) when W is at preschool they have a snack and I will have to send one for him, he has always been able to eat what everyone else does so I don't know how he will react. 2) other people giving W food, like family or at the gym (yes the cafeteria lady loves to give him treats) 3) My husband travels so the week he is home will be harder for us since we are usually on the go more (I eat more convenience food when he is home).

I will be posting some of our meals, ideas, struggles and improvements along the way.

I would like to add that we have done research and we are working with a naturopath while we do this. I know it is not for everyone and I appreciate comments and advice, please keep it polite.

I understand that these posts are not really what this blog was intended for but it is still about what we do in our house with our kids :)

 I have so much more to write and will try to post once a day. Tomorrow is the first day at school for W with the new restrictions .. wish me luck.

I'm still here

I have not been on here much lately. Just regular life stuff and keeping busy but also I am trying to decide what I want this blog to be. So many people do the giveaways and reviews and I have done a couple but I am not sure that is what I want to do. When I first started I got overwhelmed by all the blogs out there, I could spend all day reading and still not see everything I want to. I am really interested in the homeschooling blogs and cloth diapering blogs and there are some amazing ones out there! So I have been spending the last week just on here reading different blogs and not sure what to write on my own.

I have been thinking a lot lately about doing my own business instead of childcare so I have more freedom to do things with the boys. I have a couple things in the works that I am not 100% sure about yet. I have been meeting some really great business women the last little bit and I am really getting inspired. We move into the new house in a little over 6 weeks and I am going to be crazy busy for a bit, which I am very excited about. I feel like my life has been on hold for 18 months and I am finally going to be able to live it again.

I will be here reading all the blogs even if I am not saying too much on mine.

Clothing labels

I found some clothing labels I love. I blogged a couple weeks ago about trying to find great labels for the kids clothes, toys, books or shoes. I wanted something Canadian ( I try to support Canadian companies when I can). I found Olivers labels and they are so cute! I would take pictures of the ones we got but I put our last name on them so I could use them for both boys. We got the crossbones design which is so great for boys! They had some really cute designs to choose from.

I love how affordable they are too. you can get a preschool package for just $33.99 with 20 large labels, 14 shoe labels, 35 stickeez clothing labels and 1 large bag tag. They have more packages available too with more labels in them or they have a starter package for less money if you just want to try them out.

My favourite feature they offer is "found it", they put a code on your labels and if someone finds your article with the label on it they can email the address on the label and give them the code number. Oliver's labels will email you with details on where your article with the label on it is. I think this is great and can be so useful when you have school age kids!

They also have photo tags now. I have not tried these yet but they are so cute. They are a 50mm X 50mm sticker with a picture of your kids face on it. I think I may have to try these ones out soon :)

They are also waterproof, which is great for sippy cups and toys. They are weather proof, scuff proof, tear resistant, they are made of high performance vinyl with super strong adhesive. They are so cute and bright!

I have put our sippy cups in the dishwasher with the labels on and they have been great. I also have some in Wy's shoes and on his coat. I was amazed how great they were in his shoes, I thought for sure they would peel off but they are still going strong :)

You can use these labels for allergies as well. If your child has a peanut allergy you could put a label on his things to remind people not to give him peanuts!

You have to check these labels out (even if you are not in the market for them right now) they have some of the cutest designs you have to check out! go to http://oliverslabels.com and see the huge selection of labels, packages and designs they have.

Potty Learning

I have been getting a lot of feedback from people about potty learning (even if I don't want it) Since Wyatt turned 2 everyone seems to have an opinion on how I should get him to start using the potty. I am in no hurry to have him out of diapers (he has some really cute cloth diapers ..lol) I don't want to push it until I know he is ready. We talk about it and he does seem like he has interest in it somedays. He has gone on the potty a few times and loves wearing big boy underwear. We move into our new house March 24th and I am thinking we will start more routinely on the potty learning then. He will be 28 months by then so that still isn't bad.

I just wish people would stop trying to pressure me into doing this now. I can't imagine the pressure a child feels when I can't handle all the pressure I am getting from everyone. 

When did your kids potty learn? Did you also get the pressure to do it earlier than you did?