Since May of last year I have been writing daily on Baby’s First Year. It has been fun to document my daughters first year of life and really blog about something near and dear to my heart. But Monday I will be saying goodbye to Baby’s First Year.

It is bittersweet and I am having mixed feelings about it as a whole. So of course the only way I know how to get my feelings out… I will blog about it.

There have been so many positives of the past year, but now that Addie is getting older I feel like I am missing out on more and more. (more…)

Lets all say it together now…maternity leave in the United States sucks!

Ok… now that we all got that out of our system, lets talk about the problems our previous little ones can face because of the crappy maternity leave system we are saddled with.

Well for starters look at the amount of time most women take off from work. Some take as little as two weeks. No joke! I have known women who had no choice but to hurry back that quickly because of the serious loss of income in their household.

Read more of the impacts of short maternity leave, and leave your two cents over on Baby’s First Year!

December 30th brought Addison’s eight month mark with our family. It is so hard to believe in only four months she will actually be an entire year old.

Where has all this time gone?

It seems like yesterday she was this tiny little 5 pounds bundle of fragile, and now she wants to play with her brothers, throw toys and chew on every last thing in our house. including my boobs. I wish I was joking!

Take a stroll over to Baby’s First Year to see how big Addison has gotten!!

I am not a huge fan of the winter, but any way I can actually embrace the cold season, I am looking for it!

Hair clips, headbands, boots, clothes… the best place to find the most adorable gear is to look through Etsy. And I am sure for those of you who follow my posts here, you know that!

With winter finally in full swing, I had to look through for the cutest winter gear to share with everyone, because who doesn’t want to shop after Christmas right? Ha!

Check out the full list on Baby’s First Year!

Addison will be 8 months old on the 30th of this month. And it seems like in the past week, and through the holidays I have gotten the same question repeatedly from nearly everyone I came in contact with…

“Oh… she is still breastfeeding?”

Uh… she is only 8 months old… it is not like she is eating a four course meal, and chugging it down with a glass of wine… what would you expect her to be doing?

Read more over at Baby’s First Year!

If there was something 2011 was great for here on Baby’s First Year… it was cute babies!  I mean, I am sure we are all pretty partial to them because they are our babies, but seriously… I have to give all of our moms a big pat on the back and say… these are some cute kids!

I wanted to give a big shout out to all of our moms, and their cute kids, and say here it to a great 2012, more cute babies, and thank you for being such great colleagues to write next to this year!  It has truly been my honor!

Sucker for cute babies?  Click over to Baby’s First Year to check out all of our sweethearts!

Other parts of the world look at breastfeeding like something women just do… never really much thought about it, no weird creepy feelings about a baby sucking on a sexualized breast. Just simply feeding a baby. Which is SOOOO how I wish it was here in America!

Unfortunately this group of women banded together because they needed to share awareness of breastfeeding rights, and of course promote widespread acceptance of nursing in public.

Click over to Baby’s First Year to watch the video!

When my boys were babies… They hated Santa. Hell if you look closely at the picture, my middle child Benjamin absolutely still to this day is scared to death of the guy.

But not Addison. Even after falling asleep, and being woken up to have her hair brushed, headband put back on and then sat in the lap of a jolly stranger with a New York accent in his Ho Ho Ho and a fake plump belly… she was like… Yup, whatever am I supposed to smile now?

Read more about our trip to see Santa at Baby’s First Year!

With hardwood floors in our house, and a brick fire place, our kids have always used a play pen at some point in their infancy, and toddlerhood.

They learned the art of pulling up, crawling, and sitting up for the most part while using them, and it has always worked great for us.

After our older two sons out grew the play pen it became a storage unit for toys, and eventually got packed away, and when we unpacked it this time around it had water damage and had to go right to the garbage.

Come over to Baby’s First Year and Enter to win!