Why I ETSY

I recently set up a little ETSY shop called littlericky, the decision came not because I have so much free time I just don’t know what to do with it or because I am trying to make extra cash. I did it for my mom, not a lot of people know this and I hate to ruin your day with my sob story but if I don’t tell it then it defeats the whole purpose of this post. I grew up in a home with an alcoholic father who was gone for a lot of my early childhood, and while he has since mended the relationship with my brothers and me we owe our family staying together to my mother. My mother, who took the bus with two kids while pregnant 30 minutes away from our home so that I could attend preschool, who took odd end jobs here and there to buy us kids ice cream after school or snacks or whatever we decided we wanted. One Halloween she sewed and sold four costumes so that she could have enough money to make ours, she has just given so much. While we were growing up she had no choice but to stay home with us and be our mom, she neglected her education, her own pursuits for ours. Now she is still a mom to my seven-year-old brother and as she is in her fifties now it is almost impossible for her to go back into the work force. Instead she keeps supporting all her children in any way she can, when I was pregnant with Ricky she crotchet every piece of baby clothes she could, she called me daily, and when he was born she spent two months with me in Hawaii to take care of the baby and all the housework while I worked. It was then that I realized she deserved for me to do something for her and the shop was born, out of gratitude and love, because there is no one more deserving of the little extra time I have in my days than her. This is why I ETSY. Here is some of her work, that I proudly display to anyone who cares to see.  

Our Shop

Our weekend in pictures

Had an amazing weekend and I hope you all did too. We are running out of summer so that means fall shopping and also huge sales. True story, there I was in the middle of Forever21 feeding Ricky while he was in the Ergo carrier, with techno music pumping in the background and for one second I thought (am I too old for this?) they don’t have a changing table! But then I was like naw I’m good! They were having an awesome sale on all the summer clothes I could not possibly leave. The next day we hit up the pool and had dinner with our awesome neighbors, of course I sneaked some fall decorating in there. We finished up the weekend with a beach day where there was way too much baby cuteness going on. I just got a new camera so I have been going crazy just trying to soak up all the Hawaii I can! Thanks to Zebulon Brackman for the cool pictures ;) and how cute are the two little beach babes?! 

My hope for these two is long life friendship, they are so adorable!

Let him cry

Ricky is now about 3and a half months old so we started the whole self-soothe, let him cry it out method at bedtime. Since my last post lots of friends have given me suggestions and shared their experience, for which I am very grateful. I have a friend who is a mother of three and is trying to breastfeed for the first time.  In her case she always put her babies right to bed after feeding, no rocking or cuddling just gentle patting to reassure them when they began crying. They are all independent sleepers and need no help with naps. My immediate reaction was shit! I am so screwed, I always rock Ricky in my arms, let him lay on my chest after a feeding and snuggle him until he is fast asleep before putting him down. Am I forever trapped doing this? Then last night I started thinking. Why am I in such a hurry to teach him to self -soothe? How is rocking him or holding him until he falls asleep such a burden? It’s not! I miss him so much that sometimes when I come home and he is sleeping it’s a little disappointing to not see his little smile. It might just be my working mom guilt, it might be that I am a first time mother and I feel like I have to overprotect. I don’t know what it is, but I do know that I cannot be alone. You know those times when your eyeballs burn and you want to just collapse on the floor from exhaustion but you can’t because baby is awake, then somehow when they are asleep you wish they would wake up so you can play with them. It’s a totally insane thought process I get it, but maybe that is why we are moms, that insane thinking is what makes us moms! Maybe Ricky is ready to self-soothe, but when am I going to be ready?  

                       Going to hold on to this just a little bit longer 

Paleo (week 3)

I have to say this last week was by far the hardest week for me, I find myself craving all sorts of pastries and sweets (bummer) that being said here is a little something I made to help me with that. I am an absolute mess when it comes to recipes so I will give you one that is easy to follow because when I bake I kind of just look at the recipe and then do my own thing.Paleo banana bread

Discovered the amazingness of fish tacos (without the tortillas) it was amazing!

 Fish tacos

Had a lettuce wrapped burger at Teddy’s and if you have not gone there (Hawaii friends) you are seriously depriving yourselves.  Other than that it was our usual eggs and bison sausage as well as chicken breast and some garlic shrimp. IN other news we are discussing the sleeping habits of Ricky,I want him to get to the self-soothe stage where he can put himself to sleep. I just don't know how, I don't want to just let him cry it out. I am going to do some research on the topic and share some stories on that. By the way I am about to start a new adventure, just bought this today. 

Yup that means, there will be tons of pictures coming your way.....here is something from tonights adventure. Obviously I need to do some work :)

This weekend

We started off on a good note with no work on Friday! Had a mojito night at our house, my all time favorite drink :) the best part about it was that it was Paleo!

Here is how I did it (when I say me, I mean my awesome neighbor):

Raw honey

Bacardi rum

Lime juice

Ice

Club soda

Mint

Sorry there are no measurements, I just kind of did a little of this and that until it was to my liking

 

Saturday we all go to sleep in, until 8! Seriously it was amazing then we had some amazing times shopping for all things fall. I am seriously obsessed with baby pajamas and fall scents right now. We enjoyed the last days of summer poolside and then headed to one of my favorite spots (this is going to sound crazy) but its HOOTERS, seriously chipotle honey wings are awesome.




            All these toys are from Target, very reasonable prices and Ricky loves them

                           Can you tell I have a little monkey obsession?

                                        How cute are these?!

Seriously, too cute!

See that mommy clip making an appearance? that thing is awesome 

Sunday, fun day was all about getting Ricky some new toys, he is so curious now. He reaches for my phone and just about anything he gets his eyes on and then it goes straight to the mouth, this kid is trying to eat leaves and anything in sight!

Overall it was a great weekend, winding down the our summer and even though we wont have a full blown fall, I am so looking forward to cooler weather, maybe I can even sneak a sweater soon. OH yeah and Ricky is happily breast feeding again, I will never know what was up with him, but I am so happy he is back to normal.

 Isn't this girl gorg? She is my sister-in law/ life saver. Ricky loves her and so do we.