I’m Jamison Michel - I’m a wife in my mid-twenties who is into farmhouse style, cleaning like there is no tomorrow, finding positivity, and of course Christmas!

Clean Floors & Open Doors

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Postpartum (Mama’s Diaper) Caddy Must Haves

I am still over here prepping for baby 2, and it is safe to say I am still in nesting mode. My house is NEVER clean enough or organized enough. God bless Jared (my husband) 

. Now, I am 37 weeks pregnant! Excuse me…where did the time go?! Baby 2 could be here any minute. Josie arrived between the 38th and 39th weeks of my pregnancy, 10 days early, so who knows when the next one will decide it’s time to make an appearance! I am in a bit of a panic prepping for this baby's arrival because I know that once the baby is here, nothing will get done until after Christmas…newborns, they are no joke! A necessity to have once the baby is here is a postpartum caddy (TMI - really it’s a diaper caddy for mom). Everyone’s experiences are different, but in my experience, the recovery and keeping a newborn happy and alive phase is WAY more challenging than actually birthing said newborn. You literally created a life for nine-ten months and then you are just sent home with a newborn with no instructions; good luck! Not to mention, your body just went through this hugely traumatic (however wonderful) experience and you need to recover too. Being prepared makes sure that you are not only taking care of your baby, but yourself also. You are important too mama! 

 MUST HAVES for my postpartum recovery for a second time mama: 

These items are things that I absolutely used and loved when I was recovering with Josie (besides #10). I am certain that if you have these items, your postpartum recovery will be significantly more manageable, and dare I say pleasant. I hope this blog post helped you create your own postpartum caddy! 

 what item(s) you are most excited for, and if you have had a baby, what item could you not have lived without in the postpartum recovery phase?

If you liked this blog and/or like video content check out my 

 channel. I’d love to have you stop by!

**A video about my postpartum caddy is linked 

Pospartum (Mama's Diaper) Caddy Must Haves

Postpartum Caddy Must Haves

As I am preparing for the arrival of baby 2, I am in full nesting mode. When I say full nesting mode, I mean touching up paint level of nesting. It is wild to be completely exhausted while chasing a toddler daily at 32 weeks pregnant, but at the same time, have an overwhelming need to prep the house for the arrival of a little tiny human, who will just further destroy the house. One thing that I am grateful to have had when Josie was a newborn was a diaper caddy. So, you better believe that I am going to be prepping one for Josie and the new baby. 2 under 2 here we come… When Josie was in her first weeks of life, having a changing station on both floors of our house was insanely helpful. The caddy on the main floor of our house was mobile and could travel with the baby. I also brought the caddy into our bedroom at night to make the night feedings and changings more smooth. I quickly learned what I liked having in the caddy and what was unnecessary. These are some of the items that will be making an appearance in my diaper caddy: 

These 8 plus items really helped with Josie, and I am hoping they help with the next babe! I am sure there will be new or different items that I will add or remove, but for now this is what I am sticking with. I hope that anyone who is currently prepping or hoping to prep for a little one finds one of these suggestions helpful. 

youtube channel. I’d love to have you stop by!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCee2Z1X-HnaesRiXonbQ2UQ

Diaper Caddy for 2 under 2

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. 

I have always been a bit Christmas obsessed. The magic and joy of Christmas truly cannot be topped. I have 3 younger siblings, so I got to experience the magic longer than most kiddos. My memories have made a lasting impact on my life, and I want to be able to bring my daughter as much happiness and joy as my mom has brought me throughout the years. As Halloween ended, then Thanksgiving came and went, I quickly realized Christmas would be here before I knew it.

The most wonderful time of the year soon became the most stressful time of the year. 

If you are like the current me…you are overwhelmed and overworked, but you still want to strive to make memories. Here are 5 things you can do tomorrow to create traditions and build some Christmas magic:

: I don’t know what it is about Christmas PJs, but they are far superior to my non-christmas pjs. Get your kid some Christmas PJs. Boom. Festive. Odds are your kid is growing like a weed and needs new ones anyway. Josie has way too many pairs of pjs. My mom and I have a problem in the best way possible. Make it a tradition to get new matching PJs each year! We love Old Navy family pjs. Much to my husband's dismay, we will be doing this yearly.

: Adding Christmas sheets to Josie’s crib transformed her room into feeling more cozy. I love it so much that I want to get Christmas sheets for my bed too. 

: As a first grade teacher, I am a little more into children’s books than the average adult, but Christmas books are a wonderful way to read with and to your kiddos while building excitement. You can wrap 25 Christmas books and use them as an advent calendar, keep a basket of books under the tree to read whenever the mood strikes, or simply trade out some books on your kids bookshelf. Josie is more into eating the books than listening to them, but there is always next year!

: Putting up a mini-christmas tree in your kids rooms just spreads the excitement. As your children grow, they will enjoy decorating and having the twinkly lights while playing or hanging out in their room.

: There are Christmas lights everywhere you turn. Make it a tradition to wear your matching Pjs, drink some hot chocolate, and hop in your car to go Christmas light hunting. You can even plan to go and see a Christmas light show. 

Josie won’t remember a single thing from this Christmas, but I will. Let’s make traditions and feel the magic!

Simple Christmas Traditions

Nothing really prepares you for taking care of a child. You can read all of the books, ask for advice, attend classes, and get your home ready, but bringing your little pumpkin home, who relies solely on you to keep them fed and happy, is something you cannot fully anticipate. The first month home with our sweet Josie was honestly a blur. I experienced some of the most incredibly happy and joy filled moments full of awe and love. I also experienced some of the most exhausting and trying moments of my life. We were not only learning how to take care of a baby in general, we were learning how to specifically take care of Josie. I cannot imagine raising and taking care of Josie on our own. Jared and I were and still are so blessed with friends and family that support us in this journey of raising Josie. 

In reflecting on Josie’s first month of life and my first month as a mama (I am currently writing this about 7 weeks postpartum), I am filled with so much positivity about this part of my life. Now, some of the positive vibes come from getting more than an hour and a half of sleep at a time. I get 4 hours straight and feel like a new human these days! These weeks have flown, and I know as more time passes, the quicker it is going to feel. I want to remember these times for more kiddos in the future, God willing or for Josie when/if she becomes a mom. 

The first month home with my Josie girl has taught me to…

Most people experience baby blues after having a baby, and sometimes those blues can turn into postpartum depression and/or anxiety. Knowing this, I was ready to feel unlike myself. I am so grateful that Jared would check in with me and touch base on how I was doing, and he also was very understanding of the frequent and random tears. What got me through my baby blues (that sometimes still linger) is to talk about it. I was, and sometimes still do, experience anxiety when it comes to taking care of Josie. I am fearful of the worst: What happens if I fall down the stairs while carrying her? Is Josie breathing? What if we get into a car accident? What happens if her stroller goes off the edge of the sidewalk and the stroller flips over? Is she choking? It was a constant string of worries that would prevent me from sleeping in the small amount of time that we were able to have those first weeks. Talking to Jared and my mom was a saving grace. They would acknowledge my worries and help pull me from the darkness. You cannot pour from an empty cup.

Not only is the sun good for your baby, but it really was good for me too! Being in the sun would help me recharge my batteries and help me stay awake during the day. After being in the sun, I felt more capable and happy.

Some moms have this desire to breastfeed and are so passionate about it. I am not one of those people. I went into the delivery room completely unsure of the path I was going to take with Josie. I was open to trying breastfeeding, but if it didn’t work, it was not a big deal to me. I heard so many times that ‘breast is best’, but I do not completely agree with that statement. If mom is in a good place emotionally and the baby is fed, then that is best. If that means your baby is breastfed, formula fed, or a mixture of both, just do what works for you and your baby and do not feel guilty about it. 

Resting could look like sleeping, but it doesn’t have to be. So many people told me to sleep when the baby is sleeping, which is good in theory, but not in reality. Sometimes it was better for me to read a book, watch ‘The Office’ and laugh on the couch with Jared, or even clean the occasional dish. It goes back to doing what makes you feel good. Having a clean and organized home makes me feel good, so I think it is worth it to spend some of my me time cleaning and organizing where others might view that as a form of torture. 

God chose me to love, cherish, and raise Josie with my favorite person. She needs me, and I am the best mom for her. As long as she is happy, safe, and loved then I’ve done my job. I am so blessed to have a mom who has paved the way and shown me what an incredible mother is. Not once have I ever questioned her love for me. My mom is the epitome of selflessness, an incredible role model, and my best friend. I hope and pray that I can be half the mom to Josie that she is to me. If I can do that then Josie will have a wonderful life.

First Month with Josie Ruth

One Month with Baby

Ahhh….I'm pregnant, and my pregnancy is flying by! In the same breath, I feel like I found out I was pregnant many moons ago. It is a weird feeling. 

Before getting pregnant, Jared and I had been trying for a while. During this time, I felt very discouraged. I know that many, many people have experienced more and longer struggles than we went through, but that does not discount the emotional toll I felt. Eventually, we stopped focusing all of our energy on getting pregnant and went back to being us. Thankfully, that worked for us. I personally believe that I was unable to get pregnant because of the stress that my body was under. We got pregnant right as the summer was coming up and I was ending the most insane year of teaching in-person and virtually in 2020-2021. Coincidence? I think not.

I felt a little off the morning I found out I was pregnant, but nothing too out of the ordinary.. Knowing I had gotten my hopes up many times before, I honestly was not expecting a positive result. Plus, I told myself that I was feeling normal and only a handful of days past my expected period day therefore I was likely not pregnant. I only had one test left and thought..what they heck I’ll try it. I was getting ready to leave for my brother’s soccer game when I glanced down at the test and saw ‘pregnant’. I was honestly so surprised and shocked. I hid the test because I did not want Jared to find it. With the poor track record of ‘not pregnant’ results, I wanted to make sure that this was not accidentally a false positive result before getting hopeful. 

I had to keep this secret from Jared and my family for what felt like an eternity, but in actuality was just a few hours. As I was headed to watch my brother's soccer game, I was a ball of nervous energy. I needed to pick up a second pregnancy test to confirm that I was actually pregnant, so I just was in this limbo period. Once I finally grabbed a pregnancy test, I rushed home to take it. Jared was waiting for me to go out to dinner. I had this plan on how I was going to tell Jared I was pregnant. I, of course, left all of the items I was going to use to surprise Jared with in my classroom over the summer. To make matters worse, I was unable to get into the building and get them since the floors were being waxed - I tried! I was taking so long before heading to dinner that Jared ended up coming back inside from waiting in the car. I ended up just blurting it out that I was pregnant and pushing the pregnancy test in his face. It did not go according to plan, but it ended up still working out! We went out to eat at East Coast Pizza and bought our first baby items from Target. 

After finding out we were pregnant, I still had to wait to see the doctor for a few weeks. Jared and I held on to this information of knowing we were pregnant, but not knowing much more. Up until this point, I felt very much like my “pre-pregnancy self”. I was eating normally, working out, and enjoying my summer! We were just so thrilled to be starting this new chapter in our life. However, it was hard to sit back and relax without confirmation from my doctor that all was well. 

It was also extremely challenging not to tell my mom immediately that I was pregnant. I wanted to tell my parents and siblings in a memorable way, and we decided to tell them a couple weeks later on our family vacation. I ended up making little baby t-shirts that I put into the clean laundry my mom was folding one morning while on vacation. One t-shirt said “I love my grandma!” and the other said “Michel - Sporting - 12”. The idea was to have one shirt that was for my mom and one for my dad. In the middle of our vacation week, my mom was upstairs folding laundry and the rest of the crew was down stairs doing what we do best on vacation…nothing. :) I will never forget hearing my mom shout down asking if I had something to tell her. I looked over at Jared with wide eyes and waited for her to come down stairs. It was very comical seeing her throw the t-shirt that was meant for my dad at him. Once she was downstairs and both baby t-shirts were out, we just said that we were pregnant. It was such a fun moment for Jared and I to tell my family and see their surprise and excitement.

After the vacation, I started feeling nauseous and extremely tired. I had about 3 weeks where I felt completely useless. Jared was a saint, and he was at Walmart every other day getting the random things that sounded semi-appetizing for the day. I ranged from wanting to drink only chocolate milk to hating the idea of chocolate milk and only wanting to consume Ritz crackers and so on. I really got lucky with both a wonderful husband and mild first trimester morning sickness. I did not ever get sick; I just felt horrible. My “morning sickness” also started around 2pm, so if I wanted to accomplish anything, I had to do it in the morning. Luckily, this section of my pregnancy was only a few weeks and ended before the school year started. 

Right around the time that I was starting to feel better, it was time for our first doctor's appointment. We were so excited and unsure of what to expect. Based on my last missed period, Jared and I were thinking I was 7 or 8 weeks along in the pregnancy, but we found out that we were 10 and a half weeks along. I was shocked. It doesn’t seem like that big of a difference, but I was almost already out of the first trimester. That was so wild for me to wrap my head around. We got to see our little babe for the first time. It was truly an experience like never before. Our excitement about being parents has continued to grow, and we couldn’t be happier or more nervous! 

First Trimester

Looking for a simple yet tasty treat to bring to Thanksgiving or a Fall Party this year? This white chocolate coated trail mix is sure to be a crowd pleaser. I brought this to my family's chili cookoff and it was passed around constantly! I kept hearing that it was so sweet, so I added some salty pieces to balance the mix. You be the judge!

**The original recipe can be found on ‘ottestyle’ under the ‘fall treat’ highlight on Instagram.

Fall Trail Mix

2021 has continued to kick my butt (just like 2020). I have been living day to day and most times hour to hour. Yet somehow, January is already flying past. Before I know it, it will be spring break. I don’t want Valentine’s Day to sneak past without recognizing some of the amazing people in my life. I am not normally a big Valentine’s Day person, probably because I have to save all of my holiday energy for Christmas. But, I still wanted to make some sweet treats for some of my pals. I wanted to make something easy and quick to show my appreciation. I decided to make coated oreos and heart shaped rice krispies. 

These oreos were so easy to make (3 ingredients only) and super tasty.

You will need: 1) Oreos - I used double stuffed 2) Almond Bark 3) Sprinkles - pink ones for Valentine’s Day

I feel like rice krispies are known for being an easy dessert to make. I wanted to switch it up and make it more festive, so I added just a few extra steps. You will need: 1) rice krispies cereal 2) marshmallows 3) butter 4) red food coloring 5) almond bark 6) heart shaped cookie cutter 7) 9x13 pan 

After both treats were made and hardened, I placed them in a baggie and secured the top with a ribbon. I realized the day after I bagged the treats, I should have put the made baggies in an airtight container because the rice krispies got hard really quickly! Oops - I am new to this baking thing :)

Valentine's Day Treats

After the holiday season, it always feels so good to get the Christmas decorations put away and have a clear and decluttered home. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas and all of the decorations and festivities that come with it. But, I have the mindset of “go big or go home” when it comes to celebrating - so Christmas takes over my home in the best way possible. Now that it is January, it’s time to clear Christmas and start the new year with a clean slate. The one area of my home that feels so nice and fresh now is the kitchen. I changed up some of my go tos for a new look and feel:

The goal was to keep a very clean and semi-wintery look to the kitchen, and I am pleased with how it looks (for now!). 

Kitchen Refresh

It is finally starting to feel as if life is getting back to normal. The feeling of normalcy has urged me to get my act together and decorate my porch. My focus was to incorporate fall colors, pumpkins, and mums to create a welcoming environment.

I was happy to be able to repurpose a few items from the past while changing things up by adding items from Hobby Lobby and Walmart. I purchased my mums and pumpkins from Stuckmeyer’s pumpkin patch. Jared and I stumbled upon this pumpkin patch our first fall married and have gone back every year! They have the largest, most beautiful, and best priced mums I have found. It will continue as a fall tradition for years to come.

Pulling into my driveway and seeing my festive porch is such a highlight of each and everyday. Happy Decorating!

Fall Porch 2020

Over the summer, I tend to spend a lot of time at my parents’ house hanging out with my mom and siblings (if they are there). One of the many things that I like to do with my mom is to craft. I usually have a difficult time getting started. I feel like I exhaust all of the ideas on Pinterest, like a few things, and then cannot decide. But, one of the times that I was crafting with my mom, I made a welcome sign and I absolutely love it.

It is a super simple craft to make. I hope that you try to make it and enjoy a homemade welcome sign!

Recent

August 13, 2023

Pospartum (Mama's Diaper) Caddy Must Haves

August 4, 2023

Diaper Caddy for 2 under 2

December 11, 2022

Simple Christmas Traditions

April 8, 2022

First Month with Josie Ruth

February 13, 2022

First Trimester

November 8, 2021

Fall Trail Mix

January 23, 2021

Valentine's Day Treats

January 13, 2021

Kitchen Refresh

October 3, 2020

Fall Porch 2020

August 9, 2020

Welcome Sign

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