Category: Personal

7 Intentions for the New Year

Jen LawrenceLeave a comment

I’m a firm believer that the new year is a great time to inventory your life and set new goals. I know, I know. Time is a made up construct and honestly, yes, if you have a dream, you really should start working towards it now. Don’t wait for the new year, next month, Monday, or tomorrow. Start today.

That being said, I still believe the new year is ideal for reflecting and realigning myself. I make a big thing out of it. I sit down in a quiet place with my journal and some music and dig deep about how the past year went and what I’d like to accomplish for the next year. For my businesses, this is a much easier exercise as I look at revenue and page views. It’s very data and product driven. But with my personal life, I like to dig much deeper into my behaviors and habits.

Here are my 7 intentions for the new year.Read More »

Pumpkin Carving 2018

Jen LawrenceLeave a comment

Avengers Assemble!

For our little pumpkin’s first Halloween, we chose the easy route for Cameron’s costume and bought an outfit on sale from Disney. I’ve always loved their body suit costumes for babies – they are just so cute!

Enter Captain America – saving the world… until naptime.

We used Cam’s costume to guide our pumpkin carving selection. As always, I started with the patterns at Zombie Pumpkins. Every year I use their patterns and they never let me down!

But this year, I made a mistake like I’ve never made before. Keep reading to find out about my total facepalm moment.

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Mother Nature’s Farm – Gilbert Pumpkin Patch

Jen LawrenceLeave a comment

When we started looking into all the fun “firsts” to do with our son, we were overwhelmed by the number of fall activities available in Gilbert. Street fairs, kid-friendly spooky events, and of course, pumpkin patches. I’ve been to a few local farms in the area in the past, but when it came to taking the little one, we wanted something simple, small, and close by. A friend recommended we check out Mother Nature’s Farm – and we absolutely loved it!

The family-owned farm has been in Gilbert since 1968 and has been a pumpkin patch open to the public since 1991. Located mere minutes from downtown, you could actually miss the farm if you weren’t looking for it. A little slice of Gilbert’s agricultural history right in the heart of town!

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Our Birth Story

Jen Lawrence4 Comments

As you will frequently hear, birth never goes as planned. Thankfully, in our case, our birth plan was “whatever is safest”, so we were well-prepared for the unexpected turn my pregnancy took at the end.

This is quite long because I think the more detailed birth stories are the most helpful. Plus it’s fresh in my mind and I might as well document as much as I can right now. So get cozy and enjoy!

On a Tuesday, we went to the doctor for our weekly check-in. After being evaluated, my doctor confirmed I was at 4cm dilated and estimated 75% effaced. I started dilating during Week 36 with constant progress since then, so my doctor informed us we were basically as far as my body was going to go until contractions start. Then came the discussion of inducement. How far past 40 weeks did I want to wait for the baby to decide on its own birthday? Sometimes nature needs a little help and we were totally okay with that due to the immense pain I had been enduring. After some discussion around the possible size of the baby and how healthy everything had been, we decided on the following Saturday, which would put me at exactly 40 weeks.Read More »