Colin's First Birthday Party - Piyo Piyo Theme

Our little bear turned 1 last month and we had a fun party for him.

The theme was Piyo Piyo, the cute yellow duck from the scissors we use to trim his nails. They're such a life saver. I was terrible at clipping his nails until we got these scissors.
We suggested guests wear yellow to fit the theme. Colin had a special outfit but it was a few sizes too small so he was camel toeing at the diaper pretty obviously. I changed him into a Warriors shirt for comfort.

 Piyo Piyo nail scissors

We had some toys around the house for the kiddos.

Like this inflatable duck that's actually a baby bath. I can't imagine anyone giving their baby a bath in this. It makes a much better pool toy.

Inflatable Duck

The kids didn't seem to care about the other activities. This ball pit was unanimously the most popular thing. We ordered it on Amazon but it doesn't come with balls so we had to order two separate bags of balls. 800 balls is a good amount for this size. This ball pit is still in our living room and we all play with it everyday.

Ball pit

 Balls

Vietnamese food catering (not pictured) was from our fave caterer in San Jose, Cha Ca Long Phung

The cake is a passion fruit flavored cake from Whole Foods, not special order, picked up the same day. I prefer not to have passion fruit but it was the only cake that was all white.

Large macaron cookie lettering, Piyo figurine, and small Piyo macaron cookies were by MacAhhRun in San Jose.

The ducks are from this bath set we bought for him. He uses the little babies in the bath and the big mommy as a squeaky toy.

 Piyo Piyo duckling set

Picked up a dozen assorted Sprinkles cupcakes. I'm too cheap to buy enough to have one letter per cupcake so this was my solution. Like that solo Y?

I haz all da sugarz!

Colin received the Piyo feeding set as a gift from his grandma which we are very excited to use when he's ready.

 Piyo Piyo feeding set

And a big thanks to Piyo Piyo USA for gifting him the hair brush and rattle.

 Piyo Piyo hair brush

 Piyo Piyo rattle

Yesterday was Piyo Piyo's 25th anniversary! Happy birthday Piyo!

Product Review - Baby Bottles - Dr. Brown's Options Narrow

I have been testing this bottle for a few months and finally have time to upload a video about it. This post is not sponsored, I received a sample bottle for free when I signed up for a mailing list. 

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Dr. Brown's released a new bottle this year that is supposed to address the concerns from their previous line: large bulky body, too many parts to wash, doesn't work without the vent. See my last bottle review for a refresher. Here are my thoughts.

Photo from Dr. Brown's site

Dr. Brown's Options Narrow Bottle - 4 oz

The bottle is meant to work with or without vent by having a different type of nipple and ring that does not leak, pretty much what Avent does. The body is slimmer which is a very nice modification even compared to Avent.

Video version of my review here:

Photo from Dr. Brown's site

Photo from Dr. Brown's site

However, the cons of this bottle are that it has a small and narrow nipple. The soft nipple with a large base was Dr. Brown's biggest selling point as it was closest to the real breast. This new Options bottle loses that feature which is unfortunate because having the ability to use the bottle without vent isn't a strong enough selling point versus the realistic nipple. While the bottle can be used without vent, the flow is significantly slower without the vent. So to really optimize the performance, you should still use it with the vent, thus there would still be as many parts to wash. 

Overall, I think Dr. Brown's is making progress with the new design. A slimmer body is a good feature. But the other improvements are not enough to get me to switch from Avent. 

Maui 2016 - Baby Goes to the Beach and Ali'i Lavender Farm Tour

Day 2 in Maui, Colin takes his daily dip in the ocean and this time it's too cold.

We take sun protection seriously here. 

OOTD: 

Hat from iPlay

Sunglasses from Target (the girl's section because it was the last pair left ;)

Long sleeve rash guard from iPlay

Board shorts that are as long as pants

Mickey Mouse aqua socks from Target

(not pictured) Water diapers, the cheapest set I could find on Amazon and they work great

If you want to watch a video version of this post, see this YouTube vlog

Colin seems to find the water relaxing because he fell asleep right after we took him out and wrapped him in a towel.

Now off to a tour at Ali'i Lavender Farm

Hydroponically grown lettuce

Large avocado tree that was purposely shaped like a bonsai by trimming the growth on top and weighing down the branches

One of Hawaii's famous flowers, the protea

Maui 2016 - Traveling with a Baby

Who ever found the transit portion of vacationing to be any fun? You basically stand in line for everything - TSA, boarding, baggage, rental car shuttle, rental car renting. But traveling with a baby looks something like this plus all the above. 

Fake smile, tired eyes.

For a video version of this post, you can watch this Vlog I posted on YouTube.

We are less mobile with little one in tow so we arrived at the airport with 2 hours to spare just in case anything went wrong. This meant I got hungry and paid $25 for a small burnt panini with side salad and a cup of juice from Plant Organic. Not at all worth it but it's airport food for ya.

A 6 hour flight later..He actually did pretty well. If no one on the plane realized there's a baby on board, it's a successful flight! 

We didn't get into our AirBnB condo until close to midnight. Phil went to the nearest Safeway and bought some 50% clam poke, spicy salmon poke, and shoyu ahi poke. They're not the greatest but they do the job and we did not get sick. Hooray for half off.

We're Maui ready!

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Here are some things I learned about feeding and packing for a 9 month old on vacation:

1. TSA allows you to bring bottled home made baby food or sealed pre-packaged foods in up to 3.5 oz containers which you declare separately from your toiletries. No one really checked ours so I probably could've brought enough for our whole trip but I only brought a few days' worth.
2. If you're traveling somewhere near a major grocery store chain, like Safeway, they'll probably have baby food and diapers. 
3. I brought a sandwich bag of rice cereal and my pump. Each morning I just pumped some milk (extra before nursing) to mix in with rice cereal. Then I added some fruit puree that I brought or from Safeway.
4. Use containers that have multipurpose. I use Avent bottles with sealing discs to store the food on the plane, then they became the containers I mixed the cereal in too.
5. Buy just enough or less than you need. If you have time in the itinerary to go buy more food, do it. Don't end up with extras that you need to carry back on the plane.
6. I don't check in luggage. Virgin America allowed each person one carry on up to 25lb and one personal bag. Phil carried on a big duffel bag with all adult and baby clothes. He wore a backpack with the bottles, food, toys, diapers, etc baby items. I wore a backpack with all my electronics and I carried on the Pack n' Play. This is how we saved on paying for checked baggage.
7. Virgin allows checking in the stroller and car seat for free.

Product Review - Breast Pumps - Spectra S2 and M1, Medela Harmony

Breast pumping has been a major part of my life for the last 7 months and hopefully for another 5 months as I strive to exclusively feed breast milk to my baby for the recommended first year. As you can expect, I have many opinions on many things and breast pumps is now one of those things.

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My baby is 7 months old. Supplemented with formula in the first 5 weeks then exclusively on breast milk ever since. I exclusively pumped until week 8 when I re-introduced nursing. Now I pump 5 times a day and nurse twice. On weekends, I exclusively nurse. He drinks 32-35 oz of milk a day, 4.5 oz at a time. He eats about 3-4 oz of solids, twice a day.
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Here's a video I made to show the three pumps I use. I am very impressed with the Spectra line of products. Thanks for sticking with me through these long videos. I'm working on saying less but I find that to thoroughly review the entire product, I feel like I need to cover so much information. At least this is an improvement from my last 10 minute video on bottles.

*Links are affiliate links*

Spectra S2

Photo from Spectra - annotations by me

This pump was available through my health insurance. It retails on Amazon for $114. It is a hospital grade pump and has lasted me for 7 months and counting through heavy use in the first few months (8 times a day at 15 minutes each session) and currently used once daily. It runs on wall plug in only. Be sure to play around with the cycle speeds and vacuum strengths to your comfort. I thought it was uncomfortable at first until I learned to adjust the vacuum strength and cycle speeds and now I think its very gentle. I get the best let down at a cycle speed of 70 with a vacuum strength of L03. I read that hospital grade pumps need to run at a cycle speed of at least 60 to mimic a baby. The S2 goes up to 70.

This pump comes with two flanges for double pumping but you can close one off to do one sided pumping.
Weight: 3.3 lbs.

Spectra M1

Photo from Spectra, labels by me

The M1 is a portable version and runs on either a wall plug in or battery. I find that it can run straight for about 30 minutes, or I can pump 2-3 times of 15 minutes each on one charge. It is a bit weaker than the S2. To get the same amount of milk, I turn up the cycle speed and suction which puts more pressure on my breasts but its not too bad. I use this 4 times a day, 15 minutes each, at work. It is louder than the S2 but still nothing too bad. This pump comes with one flange and you can buy a second one from the Spectra website for double pumping.
Weight: 1.5 lbs

Medela Harmony
This is a manual, single sided hand pump. It works really well as an emergency pump. When I came home from the hospital engorged and with swollen nipples, I used this pump for a gentler suction and an ease into what would become my exclusive pumping journey for a few weeks. Some people have sensitive nipples and can't tolerate even the lowest levels on electric pumps, then I think the Harmony is a good option for them. I say any bit of breast milk you can feed your baby is still better than none. The Medela Harmony is a good price/value for this purpose.



Converter kit for using the Medela collection bottles and flange with the S2 or M1
The bottles for the Spectra pumps can be loose so I prefer to pump with Medela bottles. There are tubing attachments sold for making the Medela flanges compatible with the Spectra. I can't find the exact link to what I have but here are two similar options. It's the yellow tube part that's most important. There's also a way to hack the Medela flange to fit the Spectra. I personally don't want to do this because I don't want to cut the hose.

Extra Flange with attachment tube - 21 mm

 

Extra flange with attachment tube - 24 mm

Hands Free Pumping Bra
Do yourself a favor and get a hands-free pumping bra. It is so worth it. I use the Simple Wishes one in black, XS. Sizes are adjustable because your breasts will change sizes as the months go by. Don't buy it too large, you can adjust up but there's a limit to how small you can make a larger bra. You want the flanges to be held securely to your breasts.

Product Review - Baby Bottles - Dr. Brown - Avent - Munchkin Bottle Cleaner - Dr. Brown Microwave Sterilizer

Being a mother is one of the craziest and hardest jobs I've ever had. The learning curve is steep and fast. I knew nothing going into it but babies are effective teachers and mine made sure I learned how to take care of him quickly. Everyone has their own journey and I would like to share mine in product reviews. I'm going to post a series of baby product reviews that will hopefully provide some would-be parents an insight into what brands and products to buy for their needs. Here are my thoughts on Avent and Dr. Brown baby bottles.

*All links are affiliate links*

I started out fully investing in the Dr. Brown's family of products.

Dr. Brown's Starter Set - comes with three 9 oz bottles and two 4 oz bottles, 3 pipe cleaner brushes. They work just fine but are a hassle to clean. Advertised to reduce colic. I couldn't tell the difference.


Dr. Brown's Microwave Sterilizer - Works great. Easy to use. Fits in any standard microwave. Much faster than boiling water.


Dr. Brown's Bottle Cleaner - Most bottle cleaners are standard. It was my personal preference not to use one with a sponge on top. It needs to be sanitized and replaced often. I'd rather just get the bristle only brushes.

Munchkin Bottle Cleaner - I preferred this brush more. It comes with a twist out smaller brush used for cleaning nipples and small parts. A very convenient option.

The Avent brand is my favorite right now. I have so many of their products and hope to stick with it as the parts are compatible with each other.

Avent Natural 4 oz 4 pack - The Natural bottles are rounder and meant to be more natural for the hand to grip. I find them a little bulky. I send 5 bottles with my baby to my mom's house each day and these don't fit as neatly into the cooler bag.

Avent Classic 4 oz 5 pack - I prefer the Classic bottles more for their convenient slim size. I bought 8 bottles.

Avent Classic 11oz 3 pack - This size is quite large for any baby but I wanted the flexibility. I could freeze milk or pump into this bottle. I only bought 3. With the 3 large Dr. Brown's ones, I have 6 large ones for when my son grows up.

Avent Sealing Disc - These sealing discs are so handy. They convert all Avent rings (Natural or Classic) into closed caps. The caps make the bottles into storage containers. I freeze breast milk or store pureed food in any bottles I don't use. 

Avent Sippy Cup - It's too early for sippy cups but I took advantage of a product discontinued by the manufacturer. For some reason these green bottles aren't manufactured anymore even though they're just as great as other Avent cups. I'm currently using the bottles with the Classic rings and nipples

Munchkin Bottle Warmer - I don't mention this one in the video. It's the bottle warmer I use and it's been really great. It fits all the bottle sizes mentioned above. When I put pureed food into the Classic bottles, I can use the warmer to heat it up. I prefer not to microwave food that my baby gets. I'm hippy like that. This warmer has a digital timer. The directions have a chart for how many minutes are required to warm up how many ounces.

Mom's Fit and Well Event at Sunnyvale Sports Basement

In 2010, I wrote a post sharing my tips for exercising and weight loss and it is still one of the top performing posts of this blog. Check it here. In the years since then, I lost more weight and got more toned by running half marathons, lifting weights, and going to the gym 7 days a week. Pretty much if I saw it on Instagram, I did it. When I got pregnant, I only walked, took some Zumba classes, and did light hand weights as my exercise.

Having such a large belly made me feel like my arms and legs were still skinny in comparison. Now that baby is out, everything just sags and looks chubby. At 7 weeks postpartum I started swimming which is actually the perfect exercise to get back into losing weight. It's low impact and stretches out all the muscles. I didn't lose too much weight from a month of regular swimming but I definitely felt my muscles get back into balance. The pool is closing soon so I joined a gym. As eager as I am to get back into distance running and lots of crunches, when I work out, my hip joint hurts and my muscles spasm. Everything just feels so misaligned and rusty.

Shari from my blogger group posted this Fit and Well event aimed towards moms so I went last week and learned so much that will help me with my work outs. I need to be patient with my body's ability to recover. Healing is much more than how skinny I look. For me, it will be about
Running without having this loose hip joint feeling.
Doing ab work without feeling like a turtle on it's back.
Ending a workout without my leg muscles going into spasms.
Improving the posture of my upper back which is constantly hunched from holding my son.

I stopped doing exercises that target the ab muscle specifically and started doing more things for my back, arms, thighs, and hips. Many of these exercises will also engage the abs but at least they won't directly strain them.

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The first class of the fitness event was Bombay Jam Dance Class, which was like Zumba with Indian belly dancing. It was very fun. The moves are easier to learn than Zumba and gives just as much of a workout. (Photos by Shari)

The event was sponsored by Smarty Pants vitamins. They make naturally sweetened gummy versions of daily vitamins. 

The prenatal vitamins were good. Not very sweet or sticky and easy to eat. It takes about 6 gummies to equal the amount of vitamins usually found in a pill. Prenatal vitamins can be very large and hard to swallow. Some women have difficulty with this and the gummy vitamins are a good alternative.

We got this nice goodie bag and I am making my way through some of the snacks.

There was a bounty of Hint Water at the event. It tastes as natural as infusing water with fruit. These are some of the best flavored water I've tasted.

I haven't had a chance to try the Big Slice apple packets yet.

I just finished eating the Smart Candy vitamin gummies in the top right corner. It's a bit too sour and sticky for my preference in gummies. Smarty Pants prenatal vitamins tasted much better. It doesn't look like these two companies are related despite the similar names.

Those Beanfields bean and rice chips have a good flavor although the texture gets mushy in your mouth quickly. It definitely gives me gas. I still feel healthier eating it versus potato chips though. I also tried the peanut butter Dynamos in the middle and they're really good. Not super sweet. Just enough bites to fuel a short workout.

I have not had a chance to try these products yet but I can't wait to try the chemical free WaterWipes and Goddess Garden Sunny Kids Organic sunblock on my son when he's older. Mommy Nearest is an app to find family friendly places near your location.

I already devoured all 4 of the Krave Jerky packs and they were yummy!

Gomacro bars were available at the event. The are smaller, healthier versions of energy bars. It's less dense, not as sweet, and tastes lighter.