Erin Akin Carroll

1. So, girls, my rings have never really fit. I mean they really don’t fit now because I gained 40 pounds and am still holding onto a lot of water weight in my hands and face. But even when I’m not pregnant my rings are snug. I think I was having a skinny day when I got fitted for my ring back before we got engaged.

They always feel tight in the summer time and TC could tell you a story about me trying to tug on my ring on a hot day in the middle of Chicago that almost ended tragically. But, anyway…

I took my rings with me to my parents’ house and one day they fit! They went on so easily! But guess what. They wouldn’t come off. So I decided to just sleep in them and try the next day. The next day, after about an hour of soaking my finger in ice water (to make it smaller), spraying it with Windex (a suggestion from a Twitter friend), using liquid soap and Aquafor, my finger just got more and more swollen. And it almost started bleeding from all the tugging!

I found a jeweler who said they could cut them off for me with the little ring saw. Super sad. Look at my tragic finger after he cut the rings off.

My rings are currently being repaired and resized and I should have them back in two weeks.

2. My sweet Hazer is smiling! It started a little over a week ago and he does most of his smiling first thing in the morning. We had a pretty good night of sleep last night and he was just so happy this morning and wouldn’t stop smiling or cooing. I can’t believe he has already reached this milestone. Time goes so quickly!

3. Hudson had a great time at my parents’ house. We all did, but Hudson is at such a fun age where we can do really fun things. He played outside in the baby pool. We went to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum and he had such a great time. He woke up the morning we got back asking for KK and Poppie. Fortunately, we’ll see them again soon! I think 2 is such a fun age– a challenging age– but a really fun age!

I’m back to answering a few questions for y’all. But these are all really fun!

What kind of double stroller did you get? Do you like it? What kind of stroller do you recommend for a first time parent?

We chose the Baby Jogger City Select with all of the extra attachments to make it a double stroller. This stroller has so many different configurations and that’s one of the things I like most about it. I also love that it can be a single stroller. Someday when Hudson is too big for the stroller and we just need a single again, Hayes can use it all by himself without having an empty seat. It wasn’t a small investment at all, but I really am pleased with everything that it can do.

I especially like that Hudson can sit in front and face out or face me. So many of the double strollers that we looked at had the older child sitting in the back and close to the ground. Hudson would have been mad at me forever if I had disrupted his stroller time that way!

My only complaint about the stroller is that it’s not really a jogging stroller. It’s very smooth and easy to push, but when compared to the BOB, it’s not nearly as easy to push. But we chose this stroller over the double BOB because I didn’t want something as wide as the double BOB for every day use.

When Hayes is about six months old, we’ll probably go ahead and get a double BOB for exercise purposes. We kept our single BOB because sometimes you just want to go running with one child!

For the first time parent, if you know you’ll need a double stroller at some point, I highly recommend getting the Baby Jogger City Select. It folds up beautifully, it’s comfortable, it’s a smooth ride and you can turn it into a double stroller without having to buy a whole new stroller!

But I’m also a huge BOB fan and highly recommend it for trails and running!

Where did you get the bedding for Hudson’s room? What fabrics did you use?

The bedding for Hudson’s big boy room was custom made, but I can tell you where we got the fabrics. They all came from a local shop here in Columbia called Forest Lake Fabrics. You can also find two of them online that I know of. I haven’t been able to find the stripe anywhere online, though, and I just LOVE the stripe. The green leathery fabric is also from Forest Lake Fabric and I haven’t been able to find it online.

Elmo, Ernie, and Burt are sold separately!

The cars and trucks fabric is by Fabricut and it’s called Traffic Jam Primary

The polka dot fabric is also by Fabricut and it’s called Great Spot and the color is Chartreuse

What kind of crib is in the nursery? What is the paint color? What kind of fabrics are in the bedding? Where did you get the rug? Tell me about the shelves in the corner.

So we just reused the same nursery for Hayes that we created for Hudson. The only thing we changed was the artwork on the walls. Kim from Small Words Art created the Hayes canvas and we just moved around the artwork we had in Hudson’s room. My plan is to frame a couple of Hayes’s newborn photos and put them under the “Hayes” canvas on the wall.

The crib is by Newport Cottages. I ordered it through my mom’s business, but you can find Newport Cottages cribs in so many different gorgeous finishes on Posh Tots.

The paint color is Benjamin Moore “Hay Stack” 317.

The fabrics in the bedding are all Annie Selke fabrics. I am still in love with them. Part of the reason I didn’t do a new nursery is because I wouldn’t change a thing about this nursery. The fabrics are bold and happy and still youthful.

The rug is from Pottery Barn from 2008 or 2009. Not Pottery Barn Kids in case you decide to search for it on eBay or Craigs List.

The piece of furniture in the corner that we use for displaying books and storing diapers is an old pie safe that my parents had. My mom gave it to me a few years ago and I used it in my kitchen before TC and I got married. I decided to have it refinished and stained darker to use in the nursery and I just removed the doors that covered the shelves in order to have open shelving. I love this piece!

The amazing and talented Tracy Turpen came to Columbia again to photograph our baby boy and get some two-year photos of Hudson. We love working with Tracy because she just does her thing while we do ours and then she captures it all on camera. It’s always so comfortable to be around her and we are always so pleased with how everything turns out.

She got to see our family in action that day as I was feeding Hayes and Hudson was playing in his room. It was a really fun day and I’m so happy to see how everything turned out.

You can also see these on her blog!

I just love this picture of Hudson in his bed with his Sesame Street friends and his scabby knee! Such a little boy!

And perhaps my favorite from the day… Hudson and TC giving each other knucks!

I’ve used the phrase, “You can fight a bear for a little while” in a few posts of mine in the past. It’s something my grandfather always used to say and my mom would say it to me whenever I’d get scared of something or nervous about something.

When I’d get scared before going away to summer camp and I’d tell her I didn’t think I could do it, she’d say, “yes you can.You can fight a bear for a little while.” And it’s true. I’m tough. And God has shown me that more and more over the past few years.

I don’t just mean physically tough (although I have found out that I do have an extremely high pain tolerance). I have tackled some huge projects at work (well, my former place of work) and at home. Nothing I’ve ever been afraid of or nervous about has been as bad as I ever thought it would be. And I always survive.

But the two biggest “bears” I’ve been fighting are at home. And their names are Hudson and Hayes.

I’m only kind of kidding. The other day, my mom and I were in one of those family restrooms in a mall in Indianapolis so we could use the restroom and change both boys’ diapers. Hudson made changing his diaper really tough and he ended up screaming and thrashing around on the bathroom floor. Disgusting. Hayes was crying because he was wet and hungry, but we were trying to get Hudson off the floor. My mom and I were both doing the “tee tee” dance because we had to go so badly. And I just knew that everyone out in the mall could hear my kids screaming. And I just started laughing and couldn’t stop laughing.

After Hudson was born, if that had happened, I would have started crying in the bathroom with him out of frustration, fear, and embarrassment. But so far with Hayes, the only thing I’ve cried about were our breast feeding woes. I’m getting better at fighting the bears!

My sweet little bears are adorable, but they demand every single second of my day from me. I could be getting more sleep than I’m actually getting. I can’t blame the lack of sleep on Hayes. I stay up so late after he goes to bed just so I can finish all of the little things around the house.

But just as I’ve said before, it’s a season. God gave me these precious little lives to raise and nurture and sometimes there are moments where they are both screaming bloody murder and the house is as loud as it could possibly get. And I don’t even worry when that happens anymore. I actually giggle a little bit because I know that I can handle it, everyone is okay, and God is always teaching me something.

I’m so Type A and He’s forcing me to get over it. I’m getting over it and focusing on my family rather than the dishes or the laundry or the fact that dog hair is stuck to Hudson’s toes!

Getting a full night’s rest would be pretty awesome, but I firmly believe that each little phase in my children’s lives will send me running to the Father looking for wisdom. And I also believe that this age is the easy part. It’s only going to get harder, right? They’ll get older and I’ll worry about much more serious things in their lives than just how much sleep they’re getting and what caused the latest temper tantrum.

There are moments when I’m sad that I can’t focus more on myself. I don’t have the time to exercise the way I need to or cook the way I’d like to. I’d love to have a nanny a couple of days a week to watch them so I can get some other things done. But none of those things are my reality and that’s okay with me. I won’t receive a medal for raising my children and some day they may thank me. I’ll cry a little and a laugh a whole lot.

But every time I look at them during the happy times, I will smile and thank my Lord for blessing me with the two of them. And every time I look at them during the crazy times, I’ll just remember that I can fight a bear for a little while and God is going to get me through to the next phase.

Isaiah 41:10

Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, surely I will help you,
Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.