How was everyone’s Fourth of July!?
Wednesday was a very fun family day for the Hulteen clan (: We made a short, 50 minute trip, to my cousins house (who also has a set of twins) and spent the afternoon there with our family! Our day consisted of playing in the pool and grilling out. Sounds very American to me! After a few hours it was time to head home because it was bedtime! Unfortunately, we did not go to see the fireworks because I did not want to mess with the babies schedule and honestly I am not sure whether they would like them or be terrified- eeeeek! If I had to guess I would say Oliver would be amused and Olivia would be downright scared. I guess we will find out next year!
Let’s dive into this weeks, Thing’s You Ask Thursday!
1.) How do you make time for blogging while staying home with your twins? I am a stay at home mom with one babe trying to make it work with my blog. I find that I just can not stay consistent and I know in order to succeed with it I have to be regular. Any tips would be GREATLY appreciated!
I’m sure to some of you readers I am going to sound like a broken record player when I say this but my best advice is NAP TIME! When your babe is down for the count that is when you go into beast mode. If you are attempting to work from home this is your time to get a dent into work. Don’t turn your tv on and only use your phone if its for work purposes. I do not answer my phone duirng this time. If my mom, matthew or my sister try calling I text them to see if they need anything but I do not get caught up on the phone for any period of time because that is my time to get work done. I set boundaries during their long nap (12-3 p.m.) If Matthew has the day off work or is home at that time for some reason he knows that my time and to stay quiet. It’s a very interesting (yet cool) experience being a stay at home work mom. I’ll be honest other aspects suffer because I dedicate this time to work. Sometimes dinner is a frozen cauliflower pizza from Costco because I did not put any time into making dinner. Not to mention my laundry room looks veryyyy scary at points in the week because I choose to work instead of doing a few loads of laundry- FYI I hate folding laundry…DESPISE IT. Just the other day Matthew and I worked on our laundry room for 45 minutes at 10:00 p.m. because it was so bad we could not go another day having it look like that- yikes! What I am trying to say is that I have to cut out time from other things to make it work. I do not watch much televison and hours baking/cooking is not happening over here in the Hulteen Household. Sometimes I let my house get a little messy because I have a deadline with a company and work has to come before a perfectly tidy house. The important thing is that your partner is understanding of that. Thankfully, my husband is awesome and totally gets it. For example as I am writing this right now he is headed to the grocery story to get some shopping done while the babes sleep and I can blog! I texted him a list of everything we needed and off he went!
My last piece of advice I have is to set a schedule of when you want to get your blog posts out. Their needs to be some sort of consistency so your readers know when to check your page! I typically always post on Monday’s and Thursdays. I like to do more posts if I can but these are the concrete one’s that I have set in stone so I stay consistent. Sometimes that means I am getting up at 5:30-6:00 a.m. before the babies to work. The one big boundary I made for myself (not saying you have to do this) is I will never be on my labtop or phone answering emails or working while they are awake and with me. I like keeping it separate and do not want them to remember their mom glued to some device. This has actually made me more productive because when they are sleeping I do not waste any time! I know it is limited. Personally, I like the pressure and time crunch. It has made me way more efficient and focused because I have to be- there is no other choice!
2.) How do you find companies that you want to reach out to about collaborations?
A new thing I have been doing lately is browsing Target (or any store I am at) and looking at things that I would genuinely like and use. I whip my phone out and take photos of the products along with the companies name so later in the day I can reach out to them. Not to mention, there are a ton of bloggers that I follow who I greatly admire. Sometimes, while reading their blogs or skimming their Instagrams, I come across products they recommend so I naturally check it out. This is probably the biggest way I found out about new companies that I reach out to! If their is someone you admire and come across a company they have partnered with there is no shame in reaching out to them. I think sometimes our pride gets in the way and we feel like that’s “copying”. Keep in mind that person you admire also found out about that product from most likely someone else. That is how the collaboration/business world works- it’s the domino effect. There is no shame in that game! Don’t be bashful- reach out because you literally have NOTHING to lose!
Oh! Also, if any of you are Amazon addicts (like yours truly), skim the app! I find so many of my collaborations through Amazon! It’s really cool because you can read the reviews before you reach out. I have said this before but I will say it again. Do not just collab, to collab. I get it why it would be easy/tempting to do but it’s important to believe in the product and try it out before you promote it! You do not want to mislead your following and readers.
3.) I follow you on Instagram and love your baby play pen that you have for your twins! Do you recomend it? What brand is it? Where did you buy it?
I love it for several reasons! Oliver and Olivia have offically outgrown their bouncies (or should I say they just do not prefer them anymore) so I needed a safe place to put them when I leave the room for a few moments (making bottles, getting food, going to the bathroom, letting Stella outside, etc). They have gotten very fast at crawling and can get into things they are not suppose to in a matter of seconds. I ordered this playpen for my own peice of mind and their safety! I do recomend it. The size is awesome. I can fit comfortably in there with both of them. Lately, after our morning run/walks, we all three go in there! I close it and do my normal planks, push-ups, bridges and tricep dips in there while they play! This is easier than being free in the living room because I do not have to chase them around in betweens exercise sets. I get all my body weight exercises done in 10-15 minutes (as they crawl around…or on top of me!) and then we play in the living room area!
I am going to link the baby pen here so you can find it pronto (: I ordered it off Amazon! I hope you love it as much as I do!
4.) Which Prenatal Vitamins did you use?
I used a different prental in the first trimester and then switched over around 15 weeks pregnant to a gummy one! The first prenatal I used contained iron and caused me to get veryyyy backed up (if you know what I mean!) so I switched to a gummy pronto! It does not contain iron so I made sure that my iron intake stayed strong though my food consumption. Periodically, I would switch between the gummy and my original one (containing iron) just to be safe. This worked well for me! Make sure to consult with your Doctor though (: That is what I did and we made a plan of action!
Happy Thursday lively folk! As always, thank you for stopping by the blog! I hope you have a great, productive rest of the week (:
If you want your questions answered on next weeks blog, email them to me at livelygirlfitness@gmail.com