A little throwback Thursday

One of my favorite things to do is find old pictures of me from when I was a little girl... I’m still missing a lot of them but here some of my favorites I’ve found:

My first birthday 1988

Fest junina with my mom and cousins 1990

At the beach with my cousins 1992

                   With my godparents in 1987

Ugh I miss my family in Brasil so much... Thank goodness for all the amazing memories and journal entries I have from all different stages of my life.

Do you have a favorite childhood memory?

Happy 3 months baby Olive

 

Dear baby Olive,

Today you are 3 months old! And your many faces tell your how excited you are to be growing so much. 

We love the fact that you are smiling so big and making faces back at us when we call your name or make funny sounds! 

You are now about 9 pounds and your doctor was happy that you are moving up the curve. We are going to have to check back with her soon just to make sure we are going the right direction with your weight.

Mama can see the difference though... All I have to do is look at your chubby cheeks and tummy to know that your gaining weight.

This month was a little emotional for your mama because we made the hard decision to start formula feeding you more. My milk never came back enough for me to keep feeding you and I could tell you were hungry. And even though I cried a little bit because I was so attached to our bonding time, I know that it is for the best and FED is best!

Your sissy follows me around and wants to hold you every chance that she gets. Sings to you and tells you all about how when you are 3 years old you will both be playing so much! 

Taking baths is still not your favorite but we are working on that. 

When it’s the weekend, daddy and I bring you to our bed and lay you between us. You get so happy and start to wiggle your little body. 

You met your Tia Bia for the first time and you are in love with her. She was able to put you to sleep right away when holding you, and that made you so happy!

Baby girl, mama is still waking up a couple of extra times in the middle of the night to check on you. I love how deep you sleep. I love the fact that people around you can make noises and you are sound asleep.

Oh! After trying a few different formulas it looks like you love the smiths brand. Which is great for mama and dada because formula is expensive and somehow you love the cheap one! 

We just love our growing baby girl so much,

Calculating MACROS

Need a quick snack idea? 

Try rice cakes with your favorite nut butter, fruit, and chocolate chips. I’ve mentioned this snack before but today I wanted to teach you how to actually look at the food labels and count your caloric intake correctly. 

It’s time to do some math to show you how easy it is to calculate your macronutrients: 

Here is what each macronutrient has: 

Carbs: 4 kcal/g  

Fat: 9 kcal/g  

Protein: 4 kcal/g 

The daily recommendation for carbs is 45-65% fat 20-35% and protein 10-35%

For you to calculate what your percentage for each day should be all you have to do is the following:

Say you are on 2,000 calories a day plan. You will then complete the following formula to get to your recommended caloric intake:

Carbs: 2,000 x .45 = 900 calories 

Fats: 2,000 x .20 = 400 calories 

Protein: 2,000 x .10 = 200 calories 

To determine the number of grams for each nutrient we need to divide the calories above by their nutrient density.

-Carbs: 900/ 4 = 225 grams

-Fats: 400 / 9 = 44.4 grams 

-Protein: 200 / 4 = 50 grams 

From here it all depends on what your nutritional goals are. If you are trying to gain muscle then you would up your carbs. If you are trying to lose fat then you would up your protein intake. 

Happy 2 months baby Olive

Dear baby Olive,

Today you are 2 months old. Life with you in it just keeps getting better and better! 

I love that mama can carry you around the house while doing chores and you just sleep away!

You are slowly gaining more weight which is good. So far your doctor told mama to keep doing what I’m doing. 

My milk production has slowed down a little ever since we started feeding you one bottle of formula before bed time. I’m hoping that I can still breastfeed you! 

Breastfeeding you is one of my favorites. I get to massage your little bald head, smell your baby smell, and just take a deep breath and relax while you do the same. 

It makes mama so happy that I can contribute to your growth! You are going to be such a strong little girl I can already tell.

You are now noticing things around you. Lights make you so happy! You are little moth (as daddy calls it) just go towards the light every single time. 

Bath time is still not fun for you as you dislike being cold! Mama realized that you do love taking showers with me. So I hold you against my chest and you can feel my heart beat and I think that it makes you so happy!

You are loving your binky and it’s helping you soothe when you are a little upset but now hungry. 

One of my favorite thing I noticed this month is that you absolutely love listening to music! I think it has do to with the fact that I listened to music every single night before going to bed when you were in my tummy.

Sometimes, when you fall asleep in my arms, you drop your little head to the side and I can see your little neck and chubby cheeks. 

October is your big brothers birthday and this year we went down to vovó and vovós house to celebrate. We needed to get a little sun and you went on your first beach trip and you love it! 

Baby girl your personally is changing every day and it’s adorable! From your little sounds that you make to your little grins. You are the happiest most calmest baby.

We are so blessed to have you little angel.

Love you, 

My love-hate relationship with Social Media

so·cial me·di·a

/ˌsōSHəl ˈmēdēə/

noun

1. websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. (via google.com)

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

   There was a time where waking up and checking all my social media channels was my first priority in the morning. I distinctly remember waking up this one morning and getting the worse migraine after mindlessly scrolling through my Instagram. At the time I didn’t think there such a correlation between the two. 

   
   

   In 2020 I gave up most of my social media channels. It all started with Instagram. It was due to my mental health. I was catching myself comparing my looks, my life, and just being jealous of all the “picture perfect accounts”. The stay-at-home moms that were sharing how perfect their days were with their 4 plus kids. Or the fashion accounts with their perfect outfits (made me think of how much they must spend to have a new outfit for each picture). Lastly, the fiftfam community, which has been a huge part of my Instagram journey and who I used to be. I couldn’t bear looking at all those perfect bodies and muscles (while I was miserable and pregnant). So yes, you could say that my mental health played a big reason I deleted my Instagram from my phone.

   
   

   At this point Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were still part of my life. The difference is that my usage was very moderate compared to Instagram. 

   
   

   It wasn’t until the pandemic hit hard that I decided to quit all the other social networks. There was something about reading the same stuff over and over and just me getting tired of the bad news on the daily.

   
   

   My pregnant-self just couldn’t handle it. I’m pretty sure I told my family members not to talk to me about pandemic related news until after baby was here. 

   
   

   So as we reach the end of 2020, here a few things I’ve learned about my social media cleanse:

   
   

   I’ve been posting on the Internet for almost 11 years (blogging being the main platform) so with this in mind it is okay to take a break.

   
   

   It’s okay to be different than others and not try to follow every single trend out there. I never created a TIKTOK account and probably only ever will if it is for my baking business.

   
   

   Instagram was once a huge part of my life, but it’s not my passion. And if I don’t want to focus on that platform I don’t have to. I never was an Instagram influencer but more of a blogger anyways so I’m not missing out there.

   
   

   When you work on social media, you most definitely can pick your favorite platform and post on there only. Mine being my blog/Pinterest/YouTube.

   
   

   I learned this from a blogger that I interviewed once. We were talking about being creators and what platform made more sense for our craft. I told her that Instagram just wasn’t the same anymore and my blog at the moment was the only thing that was bringing me joy. She then told me that I should do that! I should just focus on my blog if that’s what made me happy. It’s was a great conversation and I’m glad it helped validate my feelings.

   
   

   YouTube was also another platform I turned to this year. The reason was all to better myself and my business. I spent hours watching cooking channels. Perfecting my craft. Learning from the pros. It also helped me create 3 business plans for all my businesses. 

   
   

   So, here we are, almost a year later and I don’t regret my decisions. My love-hate relationship with social media has gotten better. I’m loving the creativity I’ve had all year. I’m loving the fact that I’m doing me. 

   
   

   If I ever decide to get back on Instagram it won’t be for the likes and competition. It will for the content that I truly want to share. There won’t be a schedule or me refreshing my account every 5 seconds to see if got new followers. 

   
   

   PS: Thank goodness for blogging. If I wasn’t able to put my emotions out there, my mental health would not be the same.

   
   

   There you have it, 

   
   

   Have you ever done something extreme like this before? Did you regret it? What were the results?