thelittlemama.com

…and we’re off!

April 27, 2013 by Caitlin · Leave a Comment

As I type this, I’m sitting on a Disney Cruise Line bus on my way to Port Canaveral to board the Disney Fantasy. To say I’m excited, is an understatement! This is the first cruise for our family, and after the whirlwind year that we’ve had this is a much needed vacation!

I will be signing off to enjoy the rest of my ride with the munchkins! Since I’ll be off the grid for the next week, I won’t be able to return any emails or anything like that. So if you’re waiting for something from me, be on the lookout next week.

Have a wonderful week, and I’ll be sure to have a drink and say hello to Mickey for everyone!

Filed Under: Disney!, Momhood, Personal Life Tagged With: cruise, DCL, Disney, vacation

BHI: Start Fresh, Buy New – Sponsored

April 24, 2013 by Caitlin · Leave a Comment

Thank you BHI for sponsoring my post today. Explore the benefits of a newly built home. Learn more here.

Ok, let’s be honest – everyone dreams of building their dream house. I love an old house with lots of character and charm, (which is why we went partially old) but as someone who watches WAY TOO MUCH HGTV, I’ve seen what new construction looks like and possibilities with building new. For months now, I’ve been talking about move and everything that starting from scratch entails. It hasn’t been an easy ride so far, especially living among the construction. But it’s totally worth it.

While we did leave the basic shell of our home, we’ve added new construction and changes to the inside of that existing shell. This allowed us to keep some character, but get new construction we so desperately needed and wanted. There are a lot of reasons that buying new is worth it. Here’s some of them:

Modern updates and family living – When we bought, I was so excited to make this the modern living space we always wanted. We’re a young family, and we wanted our house to reflect that. With modern construction, you can make the floor plan exactly what you want it to be. You can think about every aspect of the home, and make it to fit your needs.
Energy efficient - Homes today are built in a generation where it seems like everyone wants to do their part to save the planet. And that’s a great thing. When we moved in, we re-wired our entire house with brand new electric, new lighting, and all new energy-star appliances. With new construction, houses are being built to make sure they are as energy efficient as possible, which is not only better for your wallet, but ends up being better for our ever changing environment.
Have to-do list vs Want to-do list – In older homes, it seems that everything is always needing repair. With new construction, that’s not the case. When you go the new home route, the possibilities are endless. Newly built homes allow you to personalize it to fit your needs. That snazzy bathtub you wanted? Done. That amazing kitchen? Done. Great, right? No more spending weekends covered in sawdust from a DIY project.
Health – In our old house, the age alone played a factor in the health of our family. Little man as allergies, that’s no secret, and it was horrible for him. The house was old, and we ended up finding mold which I now know was a major problem for Liam and I. Since we’ve moved, and done the work on our house, he’s improved 200%. New houses and new construction can be built to meet those health needs you or your family may require.

As you can see, there’s good reasons for buying new, and the list could keep going on and on. New homes have many advantages, but it can also be overwhelming thinking about being involved in the creation of a brand new home. Start Fresh:Buy New is a wonderful resource for you to explore the benefits of purchasing a newly built home. They have many categories that you can review to help you on your way. They include everything from low-cost ownership, energy efficiency and quality construction. I know when purchasing or building a new home I always want to find the most information I can on the process. Before we started everything, I researched EVERYTHING! This is a wonderful resource for you to do just that. Home ownership is an amazing feeling with so many benefits. I love living in my home home and making it our own, perfect for our families needs.

So have I convinced you at all? Ready to start building yet? If you would like to find out more about purchasing a new home, please visit BHI’s Start Fresh Buy New website at: http://clvr.li/XqTRfR

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Filed Under: Personal Life

Little bit of love | The Gnarly Whale

April 12, 2013 by Caitlin · Leave a Comment

Hey everyone, happy Friday! Instead of bring you one of my usual Friday recaps or memes, I wanted to tell you guys about a really awesome business – The Gnarly Whale.

Starting a new business is scary, overwhelming, but so unbelievably rewarding! When I first started my photography business, it was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. But it’s becoming one of my greatest accomplishments. It is amazing to watch as we all grow and become successful, and it’s also exciting to meet new people who are in the same boat as you, building a career in doing what they love! When I heard about Ashley and Nathan’s business, The Gnarly Whale, I immediately fell in love. Their company, which makes 100% vegand, and eco-friendly, and minimal ingredient products is becoming my favorite. Here’s a little about them……

I’m Ashley from The Gnarly Whale – an all vegan, eco-friendly minimal-ingredient bath and body shop. Today Melis was gracious enough to let me share our story about our company and our dream and I am SO excited to do so. This business is what I do – day in and day out – and to be able to share something I’m so passionate about is truly a privilege for me.

The Gnarly Whale launched in October 2012 from a dream that I was unsure I would ever fulfill. I approached my husband about starting it as a hobby, needing something else to focus on while I was designing and consulting. By the end of the year, we both realized it was never meant to be a hobby. It was never meant to be a small side project. Instead, it was meant to change our lives and restructure our dreams. And that was exactly why I’m here today, sharing our story and even asking for your help after you get to know us.

About Us
We’re a husband and wife team doing what we love to do and hoping that some day, doing what we love will be enough to financially support our entire family. Our dream is to someday relocate ourselves and our business to Florida to open up a shop oceanside. We know that this dream will become our reality as soon as we can afford the cost of relocation and the cost of doing business in Florida where there are much stricter guidelines for cosmetic type businesses. Until then, we’re focusing on growing our brand awareness and our current product lines.

About Our Brand
All of our products are 100% vegan and cruelty free. We’re tree huggers ourselves so we made sure that all of the ingredients used in our products are completely vegan and have not been tested on animals. Final product testing was also done on humans. Most of our printed materials (business cards, postcards, etc) come from recycled paper. We also use reusable packaging when we mail out our orders whenever possible. Our hope is to leave the Earth a little better than when we found it and provide our customers with a way to do the same.

In the almost seven months we have been open, we already have plans to work with an international retailer to carry our products and will be featured in two celebrity gifting suites this year: The Primetime Emmy’s and The Cannes Film Festival. Our current product line includes: hair detangler, beach waves, body and face scrub, body spray, shampoo, and lip balm. In the future, we have plans to include a child product line, a pet product line, soap, skin care, and various other hair and body products in the future.

And here is how you can help us make all of this a reality. We’ve asked Intuit to grant our small business wish and we’re hoping we can get enough votes to win the money to expand our product line, purchase better equipment to speed up our manufacturing, and to put towards the cost of relocation. All you have to do is take a couple of seconds, click the link, and vote once a day. And if you really think our story is worth it, share it with you friends. With your readers. With your family. With your neighbors or co-workers. Shout it from the rooftops if you like us that much.

Anything you do to help is appreciated. No matter how big or small of gesture, we’re grateful for you even taking the time to get to know us and our dream. And if you’d like to connect with us further, we’d love to hear from you! Follow us on Twitter. Like us on Facebook. Send us an email and say hello. Or even stop by our shop.

Thank you in advance for anything that you do!

- Ashley and Nathan

BLOG | SHOP | TWITTER | FACEBOOK

Filed Under: Personal Life

Kitchen Renovation: Part I

April 9, 2013 by Caitlin · 2 Comments

Everyone always says, the kitchen is the heart of the home. In this house? Not so much.

See, when we bought the house we knew that it came with one major caveat – the kitchen contained faulty plumbing from the bathroom above. Faulty plumbing, that with a family of four, would need to be repaired before it completely crapped out (no pun intended) on us and ruined our kitchen. Unfortunately, that meant ripping our outdated (I know, devastating….) kitchen and starting all over again from scratch.

Obviously, a kitchen renovation is an ultra-important and major project. And the biggest part of any major renovation is coming up with a plan. Without a plan, the project can become that much harder, and seem that much more daunting of a task than it already does. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working on a good plan for our kitchen renovation.It’s been interesting to say the least, given the age of the home and the shape of the kitchen we have to work with. Just in case you need a refresher on what we had to work with in the kitchen, check out these pictures:

Over the next few days, we took some time to contemplate exactly what we were going to do with the kitchen. Our first thought was to that maybe we could demo and possibly save cabinets to save on some expenses. We also thought that perhaps we could create an opening or half wall/bar like area next to the chimney into the dining room to open up the space a bit. But then there’s the layout. The layout is a basically a straight up galley kitchen, with a few quirks. Here’s a look at what the layout entailed:

Clearly, there are a two major problems that needed to be addressed:

Placement. The placement of the sink, the appliances didn’t make for a productive cooking or eating environment. The sink is situated so that you only have a few inches on either side. There is no dishwasher, which with two kids needs to be added. To make matters worse, the stove was nestled in that open area right next to the back door, which means two things – no counter next to it, and no one can use the door if someone is cooking – not convenient when I have a great entertaining space right outside the back door. And the fridge is in the most random of places as well. Therefore, it’s important to us that we have a productive working area in the new kitchen, as well as proper placement of cabinets, appliances, and the sink.
Continuity is key. The kitchen is relatively cozy, so we needed to do everything we could to make the space seem bigger. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to open the wall next to the chimney because we’d have to move plumbing and vents, a project we’re not willing to take on at the moment. We did however decide that the pantry has to go. It’s relatively small, and wouldn’t hold a lot anyway. And the space is tight with our basement door. So, we’ve decided to take out the pantry so that we have one continuous wall. We’ve also decided to only keep the header on the other end of the kitchen, allowing us to get rid of the archway and dividing wall. That too will allow for a continuous kitchen flow, and allow us to properly place appliances, and move the sink in front of the one window.

With these dilemmas, the resolution was obvious: we needed to start from scratch. Yep. Scratch. The cabinets were in good shape, but there was nothing we could do with them because we weren’t reusing them and didn’t now anyone that would them either. The old fridge is now residing in our basement, for extra storage, in what will be a pantry area.

After ripping out everything, taking down all the plaster on the walls, and replacing the header to get rid of the wall — here’s the layout right now, this very second.

In our opinion, it doesn’t even look like the same place with the pantry and wall gone! It looks SO MUCH LONGER + OPEN! Exactly what you need in a galley kitchen. It may be an empty room now, but we can already envision the new kitchen coming together. “What’s the plan?” you ask. Here’s what we have in mind:

Location, location, location. The sink and the appliance layout has completely changed. Now that we have one continuous wall, we have the options to move thing where we want. We know that we want the sink in front of center window, and the new dishwasher to the (most likely) left of that. We’re thinking of moving everything down, allowing for some open space next the back door and bathroom.
ALL NEW! We decided, after lots of talking, and opinions from others, that we would in fact replace everything. Cabinets, appliances, all of it. Because most of the house is move in ready, with the exception of outdated cosmetic stuff, we agreed that we would put a big chunk of our budget into the kitchen. It’s a room we’ll use a lot of, and if we’re going to have to renovate we should do it right.
New electric. Just like the rest of the house, the electric is outdated. So, we’re replacing it to allow for cabinet lighting and overhead lighting for the kitchen.
New floors and walls. Because the walls were plaster, and the floors were some sort of awful vinyl sticky tile – they needed to go. The plus to getting rid of the plaster was that it added a few inches on all sides to the kitchen. I know inches doesn’t seem like a lot, but in a small kitchen like ours, it makes a BIG difference!

So that’s the plan, Stan! Now that we are armed with one, we feel as though we have a good start on this major project. Next time we talk about the kitchen, we’ll discuss cabinets, fixtures, etc.

Filed Under: House Love, Kitchen Reno

Wordless Wednesday – Where are you, Spring?

April 3, 2013 by Caitlin · 2 Comments

I know what the Groundhog said, but I’m still waiting….that there up above? That’s little balls of snow. Snow. I’m so over the winter weather, and ready for warmth! I’m taking the kids to Ikea so I can get a few things, and they can run off their energy in the Smaaland. It’s too cold for us to do anything outside, and I’d hate to sit at home and do nothing on their spring break from school.