I’m Alive!

Well hello! If you follow me on Instagram (something I highly recommend you do if you want to see pics of workouts, food and super cute kiddos), you’d know that I’m still around. Running & eating real food as best as possible.

Since I last left you…in January?! We’ve had lots of things go down on the home front.

• Someone totaled our car…While parked in front of our house…During my last day of maternity leave. I was on my way into spin class when I got a phone call from Larry asking me to come back home. I immediately thought it was one of the girls. Luckily that wasn’t the case. Since he was home alone with two littles, he needed me to come home so that he could deal with the cops and such. Fun times.
• Isla came down with a pretty terrible illness that landed us at Children’s hospital for nearly a week. At the end of February, our then almost 4 month old came down with a horrible case of bronchialitis. Because her lungs were so little, she had to follow a certain protocol and meet various requirements before she was allowed to go home. Thankfully, we have a wonderful support system who all helped out with Madelyn and it makes things easier when we live extremely close to Children’s. I told hubs that as long as we have kids 18 and under, we are never moving. Ever.

  

  Giving me the look…”put your phone down & get us home ASAP!”

• In March, we had a small electrical fire with our gas stove. The story is too long to explain and I’ve told it I don’t know how many times, but the bottom line comes down to faulty wiring from the previous owners. It could’ve been so. much. worse. We are lucky to be alive.

This happened in the middle of March and we are still without a fully functioning kitchen. When this little mishap occurred, we decided to take this as an opportunity to remodel our kitchen. Apparently I picked out a pretty awesome sink…everyone else thinks so too because that sucker has been on backorder since  May. After weekly calls to Louann, they were able to track one down for us in Texas and were supposed to be shipping it this week. So fingers crossed it’s here this week or after the Holiday. Hopefully, our kitchen will be up and running sometime in July. Before our stove was hooked up we were eating at the Whole Foods hot bar, restaurants and my mom’s house. Our insurance is pretty awesome and partially reimbursed us for all of restaurant meals.

So between all of the events listed above plus trying to keep alive and nurture two small human beings, there hasn’t been much “real food”cooking or running…the title of this blog.  I did manage to partially train for a 2 half marathons (within two weeks of each other) and did surprisingly well, but I didn’t set any PR’s. Summer running is always a toss-up.

That’s been our year in a nutshell. In between all the chaos and stress there have been princess parties, story times and lots of laughs. Long days followed by short nights. We’ve spent time trying to find the balance between caring for a new baby while still giving your oldest child your undivided attention (newsflash…that can’t be done.) It’s been an adjustment for everyone and I finally feel like we’re at a good place with everything. Madelyn LOVES playing with her sister and Isla is now at the age where she can interact with Madelyn. Watching these two play together (even with the 3 year age gap) makes my heart very happy. I know it won’t always be that way, (I have a sister, I know how this works.) but I’m going to savor these sweet moments while I can.

Goals for the New Year

Happy New Year! 2015 was a wonderful year. The highlight was welcoming baby #2 into our lives. Little Isla arrived early November and she is the last chapter in the “babies” part of our story.

I spent the majority of 2015 focused on growing a healthy baby girl and knowing that it was my last pregnancy, I enjoyed every single minute of it.

Now that she’s here safely, growing and thriving, it’s time to set some new goals for 2016. This year I plan to…

1. Set a new PR for my half marathon. I would love a sub 2 half marathon. My time to beat is 2:03
2. Try a tri. This past summer, I spent a lot of time on my bike because running just became too uncomfortable with the growing belly. There were some days, where even walking was a pain in the ass. Literally. Biking always felt great to me and I want to do more biking events in 2016.
3. Have more date nights. No matter how strong a marriage is, new babies/life changes can put stress on a relationship. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in your new bundle of joy and forget about the person who helped bring her here. This year, I want to have more date nights with my husband, try new places, and spend more time with one another. A new schedule change should help that.
4. Stay caught up on the girls’ baby books. One of my projects that I wanted to get done while I was on maternity leave was to get caught up on Madelyn’s baby book & photo book as well as start Isla’s book. I’m not 100% caught up, but it’s better than it was before.

I have a few more goals for this year that I’m keeping tight lipped for awhile, but I’m excited to share then once the time is appropriate.

Do you make goals or resolutions for the new year? How did you ring in 2016? What are you looking forward to most about the new year?

 

Back to It

When I found out I was pregnant and due early November, I realized I would be in my postpartum period over all the holiday goodness. Thankfully, Isla’s birthday was close enough to the holidays that it’s still acceptable to rock stretchy maternity jeans.

I told myself that I wouldn’t start worrying about trying to lose baby weight until after the holidays and until Isla had established a good eating schedule. Since this is the last maternity leave that I’ll ever get, I also promised myself that I wouldn’t do anything but cuddle my new baby for two weeks after she was born. Done and done. For two weeks, I didn’t lift a finger. It was amazing.

Even though I didn’t really contribute to any household chores during that time, I still couldn’t sit still. The weather has been wonderful for this time of year here in Wisconsin, so we managed a few family walks those first few weeks. Once the weather got cooler, I was on my own. The cool temps felt so refreshing after being inside all day. For the first few weeks I kept the mileage to about two miles or thirty minutes of fast walking. At about four weeks postpartum, I was feeling pretty good and started to add some running in there. Talk about humbling. I stayed pretty active my whole pregnancy, so for that reason I wasn’t expecting it to be so difficult. My legs itched like crazy and my lungs hated me. Not to mention my lower abdominal strength being completely gone. I have some work ahead of me.

I’ve been getting out as often as I can and running the treadmill during nap time and it is getting a little easier than that first time a few weeks ago.

On Sunday, my sister and I laced up our running shoes and headed out for a run by my mom’s house. It was my first “real” run. We had a distance goal and got it done! We set out to run 3 miles and it felt really good. We ran around Humbolt Park…

and by the time we got back to my mom’s we were at 2.3 miles. So we ran around a few blocks and during that last stretch of distance, I was running close enough to my old pace again that I was hopeful it won’t be much longer to be back to where I was.

And I celebrated my first glorious postpartum run with grandma’s 75th birthday cake…

My first “race” will be a 5k in January. I’m excited to see how I do and where I am as far as speed goes by then. Now that I’ve added cardio back into my life, I’m looking forward to take a barre class next week! My sister and I are doing the last blast of 2015 (75 minute cardio class), but I’m hoping to sneak in a regular barre class before then.

How do you celebrate a really great run?

Any advice on returning back to running after pregnancy or an injury?

What’s on your schedule as far as races go in 2016?

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

 

 

The Past 6 Weeks…

We are alive! In case you were worried 😉

Life with a brand new baby & a very active 3 year old tends to be highly exhausting, but I now feel like we are on the upswing and settling into our new life.

Sleep. So apparently we got lucky with Madelyn who was sleeping through the night at 6 weeks old. At Isla’s one month appointment, her pediatrician asked if I had any concerns. I said, “She’s still waking up every hour and a half to 2 hours to eat.” He informed me that it was completely normal and when I told him about Madelyn’s sleeping patterns as a newborn, he told me to consider myself lucky. Her sleeping has definitely gotten better since the first two weeks of her life. We used to have staring contests in the middle of the night during which I would sit and ask her why she wasn’t sleeping. Now, I put her to sleep around 7:30pm, feed her again around 10, last night she slept until 3:45am, I fed her and then she slept until 7am. I’ve noticed that my diet also affects her sleep (gassiness). I’ve pretty much cut out dairy and last week, while I was indulging in Christmas cookies, her sleep was really off as well. When I decided to spend one day eating “clean” she actually slept better, waking up only once. If that’s not motivation to eat well, I don’t know what is.

Madelyn.  Overall, big sister is very happy to have Isla in her life. Whenever Isla cries, Madelyn tells her that it’s going to be okay and that mommy’s here. I love it when she calls Isla sweetie or honey. Within in the past few weeks, she has been acting a little naughty when she sees me feeding Isla. I don’t know if she’s jealous or if she’s bored because I’m not entertaining her at that moment. Probably a little bit of both. We’ve been making sure that if one of us is with Isla, the other parent is spending time with Madelyn. For the first 6 weeks after Isla was born, we sent Madelyn to daycare. I didn’t want to interrupt her life too much, she likes going there and I was still adjusting to being up during the night and resting when Isla slept. Now she’s home with me until the rest of my maternity leave and we’ve been able to get some fun stuff done this week-like gingerbread houses and Santa visits.

Life. Life with two littles changes in every aspect possible. I have yet to go out in public with just the two of them by myself. I’m still getting used to having one in the car seat carrier again. I did run into the mall the other night after the three of us left my mom’s, but we were in and out of one store…10 minutes tops so I don’t really count that. Some days, I feel really onto of things and that I’ve got the hang of this, and then there are the days when I don’t get out of my pajamas until after noon. Those are the days when I have to look around and realize everyone’s alive and happy and that’s all that matters today. A new baby can also put stress on a marriage. Larry helps out a lot (Thanks babe!!), but with his schedule I can’t help but sometimes feel like a single parent and that I’m doing a lot of the hard stuff by myself. I get that right now this is my “job”, but soon I will be going back to work as well and probably still getting up in the middle of the night to feed this little milk monster. It’s hard not to feel a little resentment when you’re up all night and your spouse gets to sleep 4+ hours uninterrupted. I just keep reminding myself that this is just a phase and that “I can do hard things.” I look at Madelyn on the floor playing dress up with her dolls and then I look at Isla sleeping away on my chest and it feels like it was just yesterday that Madelyn was the little baby sleeping on me. It makes me want to cry sometimes when you realize how fast time goes.

As far as anymore babies go, we both are in agreement that Isla is the last chapter in our baby book. I love my kids to the end of the Earth and back, but I’m done. As much as I enjoy being pregnant, this last labor pretty much sealed the deal that I don’t want to do it again. We are perfectly happy with our two little girls and are looking forward to what the years ahead of us will bring.

Campbell: Party of Four

Last week we welcomed Isla {eye-luh} Hope into the world. She was a perfect 7 pounds 6 ounces and 19.5 inches long.

Our hearts (and coffee mugs) are full and we are head over heels in love with this little lady.

Everyone is adjusting well and big sister couldn’t be more proud.

Welcome to the world Isla! You were completely and utterly worth the 16 hours of labor I endured to bring you here.

Pregnancy #2 Weeks 34-38

And here we are…almost 39 weeks. This will be my final pregnancy update and to say I am excited/nervous/ready is an understatement.

I’ve been doing a lot of things over here to get my body ready and to help get labor started. As of right now, I’m feeling like I did the few days before I went into labor with Madelyn, so I know she’s on her way. I’m trying my best to be as patient as I can, but I can say waiting around for baby #2 is much more difficult than it was the first time around.

Up until this week, I’ve been feeling really good. Almost too good to be true, leading me think that I would be pregnant forever. I’ve been seeing an acupuncturist in Bay View who specializes in treating pregnant women and also seeing a chiropractor throughout my pregnancy. I think the combination of these two are the key for feeling so great throughout these last few weeks of pregnancy. That and staying as active as I possible can with barre and walking.

I’ve been having irregular contractions and other things happening since Saturday morning. So naturally, I went for a 3 mile walk this morning and cleaned our house from top to bottom. Nesting happening in full force over here this weekend. It’s hard for me to sit still when I keep thinking that moving around will help her get into a good position for active labor to finally start, but I finally put my feet up long enough for me to write this post.

This pregnancy has had its shares of ups and downs (lower back/sciatic pain early on) but overall it’s been mostly all good. I’m so thankful that I was able to do this again and that I had a very healthy, uncomplicated pregnancy. Now all I can do is wait and pray that the delivery goes just as smoothly as it did the first time around. We’re ready for you baby #2. Can’t wait to meet you 🙂

The Balls that {nearly} broke the Vitamix’s Back

As we’re nearing the end of this pregnancy, I’ve been doing a lot of things to prep my body for labor & delivery. This includes lots of walking, lower body exercises, consuming 2 cups of red raspberry leaf tea a day, sleeping as much as I can, hydrating like I’m preparing for a marathon (which I kind of am), and eating dates.

A few weeks ago, my acupuncturist recommend I trade in my sweet tooth (she could tell I’ve been consuming more sugar than normal by the looks of my tongue!) for dates. I had never tried them before yesterday because I wasn’t sure on how to eat them. So I went home looked up some recipes and kind of came up with something of my own. I present to you…BALLS. My first time ever making them and they are delicious. I made them with walnuts, pecans, coconut, dates and sea salt. They’re the perfect combination of sweet and salty.

Not only do they satisfy a sugar craving without consuming any processed sugar, but they also have great benefits in labor and delivery. My acupuncturist sent me this interesting article highlighting the study results on the effects of consuming dates and labor and delivery. Overall, they found that the first phase of labor was shorter for women who consumed dates in late pregnancy compared to those women who did not. Eating dates also lowered your risk of augmentation and induction of labor.

If you’re NOT pregnant, dates are high in protein, vitamins (folate, iron, potassium) and fiber without being high in fat. they also provide a lot of energy because they’re high in good, natural sugar. (Source) Below is the recipe that I used. I suggest pre-soaking your dates in water before you make this recipe because the Vitamix was not a fan of how much power it was going to need to blend these up. Just as I was finishing up, the thermal heat sensor kicked in and it just stopped working. I seriously had a small heart attack because I thought I burned out the motor. We unplugged it and let it sit for about 20 minutes and it’s working good as new. Hallelujah!

Date & Coconut Energy Balls

Ingredients

• 1 cup of walnuts
• 1 cup of pecans
• 1 cup of unsweetened, shredded coconut
• 2 cups of SOFT dates, pits removed
• 1 1/2 Tbsp of coconut oil, not melted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp course sea salt

Directions

In a food processor or high speed blender, add the nuts and coconut until you have a crumbly mixture.

Add the dates, coconut oil, sea salt and vanilla and mix until sticky and well-blended. On a cookie sheet with parchment paper, place the rolled balls on there and sprinkle with extra coconut. Place in the freezer until hardened. I kept mine in there overnight and they taste delicious frozen. A perfect frozen treat! I plan on making more of these this weekend so that we have extras to take with us to the hospital.

I’m also enjoying a few dates along side my nightly cup of tea! Hopefully I reap the benefits of these, if not, they are a very tasty snack.

What’s your favorite go-to snack? I’m trying to stockpile some healthy go-to snacks to have on hand when baby arrives, so any recipes/suggestions are appreciated. So far, I have some lactation cookies and date balls in my freezer.

She’s Here…+3rd Trimester Workouts I’m currently Loving

I’m excited to announce the arrival of our new treadmill! 😉

Since we purchased our house a few years ago, hubs and I have entertained the idea of getting a treadmill. We just weren’t sure of where to put it. We have three bedrooms upstairs, and while 1 sat empty for awhile, we knew sooner or later another babe would fill the space. Larry was worried that if we put it in our basement, he wouldn’t be able to use it because he would hit his head on the ceiling. We decided, last weekend, to take that risk.

Instead of purchasing one from craigslist, we opted for a brand new one. I know this machine will be put to great use so I wanted to make sure we had something of great quality that would last us without zero problems. We purchased it from 2nd Wind and are very happy so far with the customer service and sale. They also delivered it and assembled it. I came home from work yesterday and there she was just sitting there, waiting to be used. 2nd Wind will also come out and service it if something goes wrong.

Buying the treadmill forced me to focus on decorating our rec room. Initially, we thought the space would be great for a bar. But then came the Princess Sofia tent, the Frozen ball pit, and a mini trampoline and soon it became Madelyn’s play place. Larry’s dreams of “The Bear Den” will have to be placed on hold…indefinitely 🙂 Instead, I finally displayed the 2013 Chicago Marathon poster which depicts the Chicago lakefront running path-my favorite place to run. Around it, I have saved bibs from special races (PRs, first 5k/half marathon after baby, etc). Before I hijacked Larry’s “mancave” I made sure he was okay with it and he was. So this is what we have so far:

My second favorite room in our house.

I cannot wait to actually use it for RUNNING! I was able to manage a slow jog for about 2 minutes yesterday and it actually felt pretty good, but I didn’t want to press my luck since it’s been many weeks since I last ran. So instead, I did a walking hill workout while watching Usain Bolt on Ellen. How crazy is it that he was on Ellen the same day our treadmill arrived?! After my hill workout, I did some barre-like glute and thigh work and then headed upstairs for dinner.

My workouts these past few weeks have slowed down dramatically while my motivation has ramped up. (Hello Ragnar Relay 2016!!!)

Things that work for me in the 3rd Trimester

• Walking! Something that felt uncomfortable for me the majority of my 2nd trimester finally feels okay. I’ve been doing a lot of walking along the lakefront-trying to enjoy the weather while I still can. A have a few different 3 mile routes that I tend to stick to.
• Riding my bike. I’ve been told that pregnant women shouldn’t ride their bikes because of loss of balance or something. I’m happy to say that my balance to still pretty great and bike riding is still working for me.
• Elliptical. Hello early 2000’s it’s nice to see you again. I can’t remember the last time I used to the elliptical at the gym before this pregnancy. But the elliptical reminds me of the early days of college when I’d head to the Klotsche center in my fold over cotton yoga pants and t-shirt with a Cosmo magazine in hand. My workout gear has slightly improved and I’ve since switched up the literature-making it a more enjoyable experience.
• Spin class. My go-to cardio these days. As my belly grows and burpees and jumping around are getting slightly more challenging, spin class has become my replacement when I want a good sweaty workout without the high impact.
• Barre. Always and forever. The only part I ever have to modify are abs and positions when the instructor has us on our bellies. When I can’t get to a class, I rotate through DVDs at home. My favorite substitute to an actual class are Physique57. They’re challenging, upbeat, fast paced and not super cheesy.

My goal in this pregnancy was to stay as active as I possible could as long as it was safe. I think I’ve done a good job of that. I still feel pretty good until I get to the end of the day and I have some sciatic pain that I’m sure won’t go away now until I deliver, since we’re so close to the end. The only benefit of this is on demand massages from my husband. Maybe we can keep that tradition up post baby?! I’m hoping that staying active will help me come delivery day and to help me bounce back a little quicker after the baby. And exercise while pregnant makes babies smarter…it’s science!

Pregnancy #2 Weeks 29-33

So far this third trimester is just flying by. The month of September was a busy one for us. I’m hoping October settles down a bit so I can finish up some projects around our house before little bebes arrives, but our weekends are filling up. When I look at how close we are to the end, it freaks me out a little bit. Soon we’ll have two little lives to care for and nurture. Yet, when I look back at when I first found out I was pregnant, I feel like I’ve been pregnant forever. It’s a strange feeling, but I cannot wait to meet this little peanut!

Aversions: Nothing really new since I’ve been sticking to what I know works for me. Coffee smells in our house still get to me. I don’t really get this one since I have no problem drinking it, but the smell of someone else making it, makes my stomach turn.

Cravings: Still going strong with burgers and sandwiches. Carbs & protein…it’s what the baby’s craving. I’ve definitely been eating more red meat than usual and I haven’t had any problems with my iron levels this pregnancy. I’m pretty sure that has something to do with it. On the flip side, a cinnamon roll from Cinnabon has been high on my list the past few days. I haven’t had one of these probably since my BMT graduation, roughly 12 years ago.

Workouts: Things are definitely slowing down over here. I still feel good, but I’m not as mobile as I was just a few weeks ago. Exercising while pregnant is a very funny thing and varies from person to person, pregnancy to pregnancy, day to day. While I was pregnant with Madelyn I could walk 2+ miles every day with no problems. I walked (er, waddled) nearly 3 miles the night I went into labor with her. With this baby, walking can be uncomfortable one day and perfectly fine the next. I walked for 20 minutes last week outside and I had such horrible round ligament pain and cramping. But two days prior, I went to a bootcamp cardio class and had zero problems. I’ve been missing running like crazy as of lately and I’m already scoping out races to do in January. I’m still attending spin class at least twice a week and doing barre and the elliptical for cardio. I walked into spin class a few weeks ago and the instructor (whom I’ve never had before) came over to me and asked how far along I was, if I’d done spin etc., etc. He’s like “Well I’ve delivered babies before so if you go into labor, I’ve got you covered!” hah! Thank you sir for that. I plan on pedaling away until baby’s born if all goes well.

Madelyn: We did a big sibling class with her which was fun. It gave me a chance to see where I will be delivering since we’re at a different hospital this time around. Madelyn enjoys walking into the baby’s room, looking around at everything and saying, “This is where I’m going to rock and feed the baby. This is the book I’m going to read to the baby. This is where I’m going to change the baby’s poopy diaper.” haha! I can already tell that she is going to be a big help.

Energy: Sleep the last few weeks has become a fleeting memory. I’ve been waking up at least 2-3 times a night to use the bathroom and when I get up, baby’s having a dance party in my belly which makes it hard to fall back asleep. Somewhere between midnight and 3 am. So that’s fun. I’ve been making it a goal of mine to get to bed every night NLT than 9pm. I’ve also been trying to rest on the days I have off of work while Madelyn’s napping/resting as well. Nap time in our house has also become a fleeting memory. Sometimes they happen, other days they just don’t.

What’s new these past few weeks? We found two doulas we really liked. Decided to go with one and then decided I didn’t need one. I was having a hard time justifying spending the money on one when I’ve had an all-natural birth without one. I’ve been doing lots of research on pain management in labor and I’m pretty confident that Larry, the nurses and I’ve got this covered. Also, the acupuncturist I’m seeing offers acupuncture in labor and delivery. It’s $100 to have her come to either your house or the hospital and spend up to 3 hours with you while in labor. A much easier pill for me swallow as opposed to the $600 + I was about to shell out for a doula. I got the clear from my midwife that I’m allowed to have an acupuncturist come in while I’m laboring in the hospital. Baby’s car seat and bases have been washed and are ready to be installed into the car. I’m still gathering stuff for my hospital bag and slowing putting the finishing touches on the baby’s room. I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress on things the past few weeks, but we still have a lot to do and time is ticking away! As it gets closer I’m getting more excited but yet a little more nervous to go into labor. I’m actually looking forward to giving birth again, just more nervous because you never know how it’s going to happen. I also had a dream that she turned out to be HE. So fingers crossed there is indeed a girl in there or else this little boy will be wearing a lot of pink 🙂

A Recipe for Back Pain

…Or any pain really! Happy Friday friends! Any fun plans for the weekend? We are embracing the first weekend of fall with open arms. Apple picking and harvest fests are on our agenda for the weekend.

So, I’m not really sure when I first heard about essential oils. I remember someone at work was talking about it and saying, “Who would pay that much money for oils?!” I still didn’t really think anything of them until I was on a girls trip a few months ago and one of my friends brought along her diffuser and oils.

At this point, I became a little bit more intrigued because I was getting really stuffy at night and was looking for an all-natural alternative to help me breath and sleep better. Still, I was having a hard time spending $180 on a starter kit for something I didn’t really know too much about.

Enter Google. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. The world of essential oils is filled with lots of (sometimes contradicting) information. I spent weeks and weeks researching blogs and consulting Amazon reviews before I made my first oil and diffuser purchase.

I wasn’t looking to spend a fortune. I just wanted an oil and a diffuser that would help me breath at night. I ended up purchasing Respir-Aid by Plant Therapy & this diffuser from Amazon. I decided to go with these two based on the reviews and blog posts I had read. Also, if they didn’t work or I didn’t care for them, I wouldn’t be out a small fortune.

The diffuser was only $26 and while it does its job, the quality of the product shows. My biggest complaint about this diffuser is the light…it never shuts off! If I have the diffuser run continuously, the light is red and doesn’t really bother me. But if I have it on an intermittent setting to run a little longer through the night, the light is set to green and it gives off a good amount of light in our room, so much so that I’ve had to wear an eye mask to bed. And even though I wash it out every single day, the lid can sometimes get stuck and tricky to get on.

The glowwww!

The respir-aid oil worked really well and smelled amazing. I added about 8-10 drops to the diffuser. It did help keep my nose clear though and on nights when I didn’t use it, I could tell a difference in the morning.

From there, I started researching essential oil usage & aromatherapy in labor and delivery…game over. A lot of the blogs had mentioned Young Living’s Valor as a must have for all-natural labor and delivery. I messaged my friend (who is a Young Living Rep) asking her about it along with some other “must have” oils for labor. After doing some research on the company I decided to finally purchase a starter kit which included 11 essential oils, a diffuser and a bunch of samples for $160. I figured that would be the most cost effective way to get started and to stock up on different oils and as a wholesaler (<—referral link), you get a discount. So far, it’s been the best investment I’ve made in awhile.

I decided on Young Living because I felt I was getting the most for my money when it came to the starter kit & I had read plenty of reviews of other women who had used Young Living oils while pregnant, so I knew they were safe to use. They also grow and cultivate their own seeds on their own farms. So if you are comparing prices of essential oils between different companies you will notice that Young Living is by far the most expensive. BUT I think of it this way: It’s like buying meat from the farmer’s market. When you buy from directly from the farmer you know what you are getting and most often, the meat is more expensive than if you were to buy it in the grocery store, where they get the meat from different farmers/distributors. Young Living is the only essential oils company that I have come across in my research that has their own farms. While I’m not opposed to giving other oil companies a try (I was pleased with the Plant Therapy blend), Young Living is definitely my go to for oils that I’m using on myself or with Madelyn.

The diffuser I received in my starter kit is amazing and puts my $26 amazon purchase to shame. It is nice to have multiple diffusers though. I keep the YL one on hand to move around the house and keep the Amazon one in our bedroom. I’d like to buy an extra YL one and give keep the Amazon one for the kiddos when they need it since the lights change color.

Since Pinterest is the best place to go for inspiration, I came across a few muscle rubs that looked interesting and useful for not only labor and delivery but for any time something hurts. I’ve been having some lower back pain with this baby, so I was looking for something to help with that.

I made a very easy pain cream at the beginning of the week and tried it out immediately on my lower back and within 5 minutes the soreness was gone and without the stinky, overpowering smell of a typical muscle rub. Two nights ago, hubs gave me an even better back massage than I was able to give myself, and I felt good as new when it was over. I wish I would’ve made this sooner and I honestly can’t wait to use it when I got into labor.

Recipe for Pain Cream

-10 drops of Valor

-10 drops of Peppermint

-10 drops of Panaway

-1 Cup of coconut oil

I put everything together in my kitchenAid mixer and whipped away.

In less than 10 minutes I had an all natural pain cream to help alleviate all the aches and pains that come along with late pregnancy.

I’m always looking for a more natural alternative to medicating and I’m looking forward to learning more about essential oils and how they can help our growing family.

Do you use essential oils? What for and what brand do you tend to favor? Have a great weekend! I’ll be back on Monday with a pregnancy update!