Choosing a mattress for long term health for your children - My Green Mattress Review

Sleep. The final frontier for parents, right? We strive for sleep for our children and ourselves pretty much from day one. I don't remember ever being so obsessed over the thought of sleep before becoming a parent! Coordinating nap times, bed times, coping with your own interrupted sleep that can last for years, dissecting why your child isn't sleeping the same way as they did last week. It. is. exhausting.

As our two girls are growing older we have begun to consider how we are going to adapt their bedroom from being toddler-focused to more a forward, long term set up.  From the time that my second daughter was night weaned and no longer bedsharing with my husband and I, she has been sharing a bedroom with her older sister. Each girl had her own cute toddler sized bed. We knew that we wanted the sisters to continue to share a bedroom but graduating them to twin or full sized bed frames would occupy too much space for their bedroom. Thankfully we scored an amazing deal at our local furniture store for a floor model twin-over-full bunk bed frame and we snatched it up right away!

To give you a short background on where we are coming from; we bedshare with each of our children until they are night-weaned at about 18 - 24 months. Our first two children were girls and we excitedly helped them embrace this special relationship by sharing a bedroom. When we purchased the new bunk bed, we naturally we expected our older daughter (Penny) to want to take the top bunk. But as it turned out our 3 year old (Ruby) was the better candidate because she sleeps through the whole night and never leaves her bed. It's always been that way! Penny is still a night waker; which we've concluded is because of her primary love language: physical touch. The girl still very much loves her snuggles and works diligently throughout the night to sneak into our bed for more! Towards the end of my last pregnancy we set goals for her to find ways to cope with this need; giving her need a name ("the snuggle tank"), with increased snuggles at the end of the day and self-gauging her needs. But we had to draw the boundary for how much time she sleeps in our bed in preparation for our bed-sharing time with Baby Brother whenever he arrives. It's been a slow and gentle process that we are hoping will make more sense to her when her brother arrives and she can tangibly see- there just isn't a whole lot of room for 4 people in our bed as well as it's just not going to be very restful sleep for ANYONE.

In the wake of purchasing the new bed frame that we intend for the girls to use until they move out, we also knew that an equally (if not more) important decision was what type of mattress they would sleep on. Why would it matter? Consider that this piece of furniture will be in contact with your child for usually over 10 hours a day for over 10 years (the average lifespan of a mattress). Not only is comfort a key factor, but the material needs to be as well! There is a broad range of mattress styles, thicknesses, material choices and price points available on the market and it's important to understand how to balance those in the best way for your family.

When I started doing research for new mattresses for our children I started with a wide cast net - what is the least expensive but most readily available option? What kind of mattress does this provide? What kind of product is offered at the opposite end of the spectrum? What do my friends recommend? What are the online reviews? Does it have springs, is it entirely foam, or a combination? Why would material choice matter; comfortable is comfortable, right?

It turns out no; not all mattresses are created equal! No surprise, the quality of materials and the type of comfort you are looking for play a huge role in the price of the product. There are tons of options available at both ends of all the factors one would want to consider.

Long term studies are still being conducted on the effects of the use of memory foam and other petroleum products in the sleeping space. One can't argue that the costs are lower, they are easier to manufacture and memory foam is comfortable. The use of flame retardants in mattresses and childrens clothing has also been shown to be toxic; with several of just as effective non-synthetic options to consider. But because many modern manufacturing practices focus on the bottom dollar rather than the well being of their customer, I am wary of how the use of certain products will affect myself or my family over the course of our lives. This is why I research as much as possible if I am given a choice in a product and opt for responsibly sourced materials and manufacturing practices.

My main goal for choosing a quality, safe sleep mattress for the long term use by my daughters was that it was made from natural materials and did not use memory foam.  Memory foam has become a very popular choice in mattresses; in fact it's quite difficult to find any mattress, especially childrens mattresses to be without it.

This is how we discovered My Green Mattress. Their Pure Echo mattresses are made with GOTS certified organic cotton and wool. No petroleum based memory foam that off gas and emit VOCs that are dangerous for developing systems. The coils keep the mattress soft yet firm without the need of foam to make it more comfortable.

The mattresses arrived tightly rolled up, also in an effort to be more eco friendly and save on shipping space and costs.

Well, this may be the biggest piece of fluffy mail I have received! One of our two @MygreenMattress have arrived! #mygreenmattress #natural #organic #organiccotton #organicmattress

A post shared by Bianca @ The Pierogie Mama (@thepierogiemama) on Jun 1, 2017 at 11:14am PDT

We unrolled them and expected to have an air out period to get the manufacturing smells or any other scents to dissipate before having our children sleep on them (this is called "off gassing"). There were no obvious odors, but we gave them a day to relax and the following morning I put them onto our brand new bunk beds.

The girls were both so excited for their new big bed. Both bunks have been the source of hours of imaginary play and a quiet nook to snuggle or read. Since Holden's arrival, there has been a night or two that my husband slept with either girl that needed some extra snuggles. I've even crawled into bed with each of the girls, when the whole house is asleep, to catch up on snuggles that I have been missing from them while I've been focusing on the new baby.  Even in being accustomed to a very soft and forgiving memory foam mattress, the Pure Echo mattress is still very comfortable to an adult. Best of all, I know my kids can safely sleep on them for years to come.

Learn more about My Green Mattresses and why you should consider them when purchasing mattresses for your family's long term health.

Disclosure: Thank you, My Green Mattress, for facilitating this review! 

I received product in exchange for my honest opinion. No other compensation was provided. 

All photography and opinions are my own. 

Transitioning Siblings to Sharing a Room + Naturepedic Love

Thank you to Naturepedic of sponsoring today's blog post 

and providing an organic crib mattress for Ruby to transition to her "big girl bed" in! 

Check out our experience below and see why Naturepedic is our #1 choice. 

Just about 2 years ago I shared my story of how we transitioned our daughter from co-sleeping to independently sleeping in her own room, in a toddler bed. Today I'm excited to share the follow up story of the transition of having the sisters share a room!

Safe bed sharing just makes life easy for us; from the first night of welcoming both of our daughters to the world we have slept with our baby in our bed. It encourages on demand night nursing and it is simply how I am the most comfortable sleeping with my children. But all great things must come to an end and shortly before Ruby's 2nd birthday we decided that it was time to transition her to a toddler bed in the same room as her 4 year old sister, Penny.

This was nerve wracking - why make changes to a well working machine? Everyone was getting *almost* a full night's rest and undoubtedly a change as dramatic no longer sleeping with mom and dad every night would turn everything on its head. What if Ruby doesn't take to sleeping in her own bed, what if she cries a lot and that also wakes up Penny? How do I coordinate putting the kids down at the same time? What if Penny isn't quiet enough for Ruby to fall asleep? All of these questions, and more, weakened my resolve. But we finally did it and let me share a few of my tips below.

Tips to make the transition smoother for moving a cosleeping toddler into sharing a room with her preschool aged sibling:

• Have a solid night time routine that includes some wind down time in the bedroom, such as getting dressed in pajamas, snuggling and reading to your children. The more time you spend with you children in their bedroom they will realize that this is comfortable and safe space. Allow the younger child to play in the room during the day and practice getting in and out of their new bed.  At night time we dim the lights in the room for about 5-10 minutes before lights out time, this also allows them to have a visual queue that it's time for bed. 
• Carrying over a few creature habits: Ruby always fell asleep to the sound of our Sleep Sheep, and recently I had introduced a classical music CD to Penny when she was having trouble falling asleep. We combined those two white noise factors for both of the girls' combined bed times so that both of them still were listening to their familiar night time noises. I also slept with her new sheets on our family bed for a few nights to help transfer the familiar scent.
• Night weaning: Ruby was night weaned for about 3 weeks. We still nursed during the day, but my gentle weaning process with both girls starts with night weaning at about 18 months and took about 2 months to have both of us fully committed to milk free nights. We helped this transition by nursing more frequently during the day and longer before bed and nap time. I chose to continue to nurse her through this transition because it's another source of comfort that helped her recognize this as a safe sleep space.
• We payed very special attention to the lighting in the bedroom; from the main bedroom light and lamp down to what electronic devices emit a small light on their power button or display. Take a piece of blue painter's tape to cover button lights if they seem to be a distraction to your child. 
• As with any childrens room, ensure that you have child safe window treatments.
• Finally - the most important thing - the bed! Am I right?

Because children can spend upwards of 16 hours a day in their bed, it's really important to be aware of what kind of mattress they are sleeping on. We have specifically chosen Naturepedic mattresses for our children because of their high level of commitment to quality and intentional sourcing of products that are the best for our bodies while adhering to safety standards. 

Why would you need or want an organic mattress? Recent studies have shown that the flame retardants in both mattresses and sleepware ending up in our bodies, and it's not good. I am already mindful of the foods and products that we use in order to lessen the impact of unnatural chemicals, so including the one product that my child will spend the most time using (her mattress) made sense to me to make sure that it didn't have those harmful chemicals in them. But there are still federal requirements for fire safety in mattresses so Naturepedic took a close look at how to still have their mattresses be fire safe but not use the harmful fire retardant chemicals that other mattress companies rely on. Organic cotton is less flammable than the traditional polyurithane foam found in most mattresses. Polyurithane foam, though inexpensive, is highly flammable and therefore needs to be treated with flame retardants. Through innovative design, Naturepedic has created mattresses that are natural and safe for our bodies and meet Federal and State flammability requirements. Naturepedic mattresses are also made in the USA!

We received Naturepedic's Ultra Breathable 2-Stage Organic Crib Mattress for Ruby.  Penny has been sleeping on the Naturepedic Organic Cotton Deluxe Crib Mattress for 2 years and I was excited to see what the difference was between the two models. Ruby has been successfully transitioned for about 2 months and we have been really happy with the quality of the mattress. Unlike most other children's waterproof mattresses, Naturepedic childrens mattresses aren't NOISY! No scritchy-scratchy noises as your baby moves around at night or when you stealthily ninja out of the room. The mattress is a two-stage mattress so one side if firm enough for safe sleep for an infant and when baby gets older you can flip it to the softer toddler side. Both sides, however, are very comfortable. This is coming from the mom who has slept on the mattress with her transitioning two year old on more than one occasion! This model of mattress also includes a breathable, washable cover and is unbelievably lightweight. 

Because we get the rare opportunity to compare two Naturepedic mattresses side by side, I wanted to include some of the differences that you'll find between the brand new Ultra Breathable 2-Stage Organic Crib Mattress versus the Organic Cotton Deluxe Crib Mattress that we've had for 2 years. 

Both are two stage mattresses with a firm "infant" side and a softer "toddler" size. They are made from the same quality organic materials and do not use harmful flame retardant chemicals.  

• The Deluxe Crib Mattress has inner springs, the Ultra Breathable uses wavesupport™ technology. I personally do not see a difference in comfort between the two though. 
• The Ultra Breathable mattress comes with a removable washable cover and weighs less (thanks to the wavesupport™ technology).

All in all, we love Naturepedic mattresses not only for their quality and commitment to healthy ingredients for the whole family, but also because they are truly comfortable mattresses that my children love to sleep on!

Find them:

Naturepedic mattresses online

facebook

instagram

pinterest

Disclosure: I received product, free of charge, in exchange for my honest review. No other compensation was provided. However, I would not be giving this product 5 stars 

if I didn't absolutely love them too!

Catch the Moment: Week 17

A picture a day, for one year.

 So many things to love about this picture. I'm not a huge Mariner's fan, I mean - I'm from Seattle, have lived here most of my life and I will go to a game for the food and company. There, I said it. However, the grandparents are sports fans so every once in a while I oblige and send them a picture like this one. But seriously, when did my baby grow up? She's wearing K-Swiss sneaks, for gosh sakes.

 These are a few of my beautiful sister in laws. We celebrated a couple birthdays at the local trampoline park, which ended with two glamorous injuries (including yours truly) thanks for a moms vs. dads dodgeball. Yes, on trampolines. It's a long story, but basically an 11 year old sprained my ankle and it was so awesome because the next morning we flew out for our trip to Dallas! Yay! Because babywearing 2 kids and hauling a stroller with carseats and carry ons isn't hard enough to do; we needed to add a sprained ankle into the mix to make it interesting.

 Our trip to Dallas was flight #2 in the last year with both kids - and we have our third trip planned in December to fly across "The Pond" to see my parents over Christmas. Our first trip was to Long Beach in October, which was a mere 2 hour flight from Seattle. Seattle to Dallas is about a 4 hour flight, so we learned a few more lessons about how to fly efficiently and sanely with two littles. One huge travel tip came from That Mama Gretchen, who had recently flown to Texas with her littles too, and that was to put the ticketed non-lap child in their carseat for the flight. Penny was comfortable and calm for the flight. She's used to sitting in her car seat for sometimes hours at a time, so this wasn't that different. Miss Ruby, on the other hand.. well, she was a wiggly 15 month old who wasn't allowed to adventure like she wanted to. Again..more lessons were learned, but this was the exciting start for our super fun week in Dallas, which I will share more full details with you soon!

 Due to that (im)perfectly timed sprained ankle, I had to take it easy for the first part of our trip. But that wasn't going to stop me from taking the girls up to the infinity pool at the Omni hotel. How did I manage a 3 year old and a 1 year old in the water, by myself? Babywearing, of course. 

 Ok, I seriously lucked out on the hotel's restaurant. Texas Spice rocks my socks. The breakfast buffet was to die for. My glutinous, eager fingers made this photo come out embarassingly blurry, but what you'll find on that plate are eggs, breakfast potatoes, breakfast veggies, bacon, bread pudding, rice pudding and waay up there at the top were blueberries and raspberries. Why don't I just eat like this every day??

 More poor quality, but this was taken with a cell phone in a pretty much pitch black room so you'll forgive me. Both girls nap for 2 hours in the middle of the day and I was very thankful for their flexibility in our routine. I wasn't sure how it was going to go down with putting them to sleep in our hotel room each day, but it worked perfectly. Watching them sleep together on the bed made me dream more about them one day sharing their bedroom and perhaps even trying out sibling co-sleeping if that suits either of them. 

This picture won't do it justice but I hope you can get a good look. This is a pano of the view from the Giants of The Savannah view point at the Dallas Zoo. I actually ended up visiting the Dallas Zoo on two separate days because there was so much to see on the first day that we didn't get through everything. Thankfully I have an annual membership at the Woodland Park Zoo, which gave me reciprocal membership benefits of discount tickets. Zoos are kind of my thing (here's a list of zoos I've visited), so keep an eye out for what we thought of the Dallas Zoo. 

Catch the moment archives

These aren't on Instagram, but most others are!

Window Covering Safety Month with Blinds.com

Last month I shared the progress of our sister room. I got a lot of fun feedback on some ideas for the closet space so that's been in the works! Meanwhile, I've also been working with Blinds.com to upgrade the current blinds in Penny's room to something that meets child safety standards. 

Child-proofing the Sister Room goes beyond being selective about toys and securing furniture properly. A common forgotten element is window coverings. Most rooms, especially bedrooms, have window sills that are at least 37" from the floor, but in this case this window had been replaced by the previous owners in preference for a larger one. The sill for this window is only 18" from the floor. We put in a window lock and then we started to think about reducing other risks.

When selecting child safe window coverings, here are a few points to consider:

1.       Make the switch to cordless blinds or shades. Check window coverings for exposed cords that could pose a strangulation hazard to infants and young children. Replace corded window coverings with today’s cordless safer products. Draperies, shutters and cordless cellular and roller shades are a few preferred cordless options. Shop Blinds.com’s Safer For Kids Collection to find the perfect replacement. 

2.       If you cannot install newer products, ensure that all window cords are out of sight and reach, and that they are inaccessible to young children. Order a free window cord retrofit kit from www.windowcoverings.org.

3.       Prevent Access to Cords. Move all cribs, beds, furniture and toys away from windows and window cords, preferably to another wall. These items could act as unintentional “step stools” that allow a child to reach a window or cord. 

4.       Continuous-loop pull cords on draperies and vertical blinds should be pulled tight and anchored to the floor or wall with a tension device.

5.       Be sure cord stops are properly installed and adjusted to limit movement on inner cords on blinds and shades.
All recommendations provided by Blinds.com via The Window Covering Safety Council.

Blinds.com makes choosing child safe window coverings easy because they have a blind-finder tool where you can narrow down exactly what you need, including specifications such as being child safe. But sometimes you just gotta talk to a human being, you know? So for all of the window coverings in my house, I've talked with Josh from Blinds.com (email // facebook). After a few emails back and forth with my list of requirements for the room, he sent out samples of what he thought I might like (a Blinds.com complimentary service!!) and I was able to see with my own eyes what I felt would work in the room best.

My list to Josh included:

• child safe - I want to be comfortable with my toddler playing independently in her room for a few minutes while I fix a quick snack or am nursing Ruby down.
• black out - we still use blackout curtains, but with two kids I need to capitalize on full naps and long nights!
• withstand humidity - we heat our house with a pellet stove, which dries out the air something terrible. Last winter I ran humidifiers in the bedrooms, which of course can lead to standing condensation and possible bacteria build up. I wash the windows and curtains often to help prevent any nasties, but the window covering also needed to be either washable or I can wipe it down.
• last, but not least - it's got to be cute!

Shortly after, the samples came in the mail and I was able to narrow them down to three choices. I posted them onto Facebook to see what you all thought!

And you all confirmed what I felt down deep in my gut - the  Laura Ashley Roller Shades in Chesil Print Amethyst & Cream were the best for the room!

I love the roller shades because they're completely cordless. The print is fun, but also something that both of the girls can grow into. It was less than 20 minutes between removing our Bali 2" Fauxwood blinds (which I love and are on all of our other windows) to installing and using the new roller shades. Installation is a SNAP! The quality is also awesome.

Here are some pictures showing their blackout ability. These are completely unedited for exposure so you can see how they would look in real life. I'm really impressed with how well they can darken a room. If this were a guest room I would leave them as is, but because I want the room to be completely dark and non-distracting for night & nap time, I will continue to use the curtains to block out the little bit of light that comes in around the sides.

These roller shades have met each of the requirements that I gave to Josh at the beginning of my research - they are child safe, black out very well, I can wipe them down to clean them and of course the print is very cute! Penny absolutely loved them as soon as Adam installed them. She wants it down all the time!

This giveaway is over - thanks to all for entering! 

Keep an eye out for more Pierogie Mama Giveaways.

Disclosure: Thank you Blinds.com for helping me pick out and providing the safest shades for Penny's room! All opinions are my own, though I wouldn't be sharing about this awesome company if I didn't love them already! Keep an eye out for another post showing the other Blinds.com window coverings that we have in our home. 

Dreaming, Scheming, Thrifting and Pinning for a Sister Room

Welcome to the September 2014 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Home Tour

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have opened up their doors and given us a photo-rich glimpse into how they arrange their living spaces.

***

Ahhh renovations. We love it, we bought our second house on the cheap and have been chipping away at our to-do list. Using our talents and staying out of debt is how we are able to do whole-home renovations, but gosh it takes a long time.

Today I'm going to share our most complete room..which is no where near complete! We bed-shared with Penny until she was 18 months old, and on the first night that we moved into this house we set her up in her big girl bed in her own room and waited with baited breath. Was she going to wake in the middle of the night and be scared? As I am reminded many times, I under estimate her too often, and she loved her new room.

When we bought the house, we gave ourselves 2 weeks to get the carpet replaced, the walls painted and start on the kitchen renovation.

This was the state of Penny's room through out my pregnancy with her little sister, and upon Ruby's birth I started dreaming, scheming, thrifting and pinning for a Sister Room.

Thrifted Bed Canopy // Stuffed friends // Train table // our fabulous Blinds

Woah, want to see how this beauty started out?

With my girls 2 years and a week apart, I hope that they'll be the best of friends and enjoy sharing a room together. With that in mind, while I still have the time of Ruby bed-sharing with us (and not having to worry about creating a "nursery" style room), I've begun collecting the pieces that will become Penny's Room Phase 4 - also known as The Sister Room.

And now for my dreams and ideas for what we can do with the space. Chime in on what you think works!

Storage, Beds or Fun?

A couple accent pieces; I love chalk designs. And a coat & hat hanger is a must.

The current window coverings in her room are standard blackout curtains and Bali 2" Fauxwood blinds, but we are looking to swap them out for a cordless option as they are more child safe. I love these floral prints from Blinds.com and am excited for my samples to come in! In October I'll be sharing about window coverings for child safety month so keep an eye out for that post.

Laura Ashley Cellular Blinds

And then I've got this interesting little alcove in the room. Can't quite decide what I want to do here (except stop storing random stuff in it).

Oh and there's one last thing I need to be sure to add... Cheer and love! All this work wouldn't amount to much of anything if we missed out on that! As I continue to embark on this journey of being a mother of two daughters, I continually reassess what values and morals I want to instill in these two hearts that have been entrusted to me. I don't have a sister to call my own (instead a gaggle of wonderful sister in laws!), and I want to be intentional in the relationship that I help cultivate between them. As the days pass I see so many precious and tender moments between them; I can only hope that my girls will remain close for their entire lives.

Don't want to miss out on any of our renovation shenanagins? 

Click here for a full list of my posts on it!

Find my sources of pinsperation and watch me add more to my Pinterest Board for The Sister Room

***
Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
(This list will be updated by afternoon September 9 with all the carnival links.)

• Being Barlow Home Tour — Follow along as Jessica at Being Barlow gives you the tour of her family's home.
• A Tour Of My Hybrid Rasta Kitchen — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama takes you on a tour of her kitchen complete with a Kombucha Corner, a large turtle, her tea stash, and of course, all her must-have kitchen gadgets. Check out Hybrid Rasta Mama's most favorite space!
• Dreaming of a Sisters Room — Bianca, The Pierogie Mama, dreams, schemes and pins ideas for when her younger daughter is ready to move out of the family bed and share a room with her older sister.
• Building a life — Constructing a dream — Survivor at Surviving Mexico-Adventures and Disasters shows you a glimpse inside the home her family built and talks about adaptions they made in constructing their lives in Mexico.
• Why I'm Sleeping in the Dining Room — Becca at The Earthling's Handbook welcomed a new baby but didn't have a spare bedroom. She explains how her family rearranged the house to create Lydia's nursing nest and changing room in spaces they already had.
• The Gratitude Tour — Inspired by Momastry's recent "home tour," That Mama Gretchen is highlighting imperfect snapshots of things she's thankful for around her home. Don't plan to pin anything!
• Our Home in the Forest — Tara from Up the Dempster gives you a peek into life lived off-grid in Canada's Yukon Territory.
• natural bedding for kids — Emma at Your Fonder Heart shows you how her family of 3 (soon to be 4) manages to keep their two cotton & wool beds clean and dry (plus a little on the end of cosleeping — for now).
• I love our home — ANonyMous at Radical Ramblings explains how lucky she feels to have the home she does, and why she strives so hard to keep it tidy.
• Not-So-Extreme Makeover: Sunshine and Rainbows Edition — Dionna at Code Name: Mama was tired of her dark, outdated house, so she brightened it up and added some color.
• Our little outdoor space — Tat at Mum in search invites you to visit her balcony, where her children make friends with wildlife.
• Our Funky, Bright, Eclectic, Montessori Home — Rachel at Bread and Roses shows you her family's newly renovated home and how it's set up with Montessori principles in mind for her 15-month-old to have independence.
• Beach cottage in progress — Ever tried to turn a 1980s condo into a 1920s beach bungalow? Lauren at Hobo Mama is giving it a try!
• Conjuring home: intention in renovation — Jessica at Crunchy-Chewy Mama explains why she and her husband took on a huge renovation with two little kids and shares the downsides and the ups, too.
• Learning At Home — Kerry at City Kids Homeschooling helps us to re-imagine the ordinary spaces of our homes to ignite natural learning.
• My Dining Room Table — Kellie at Our Mindful Life loves her dining room table — and everything surrounding it!
• Sight words and life lessons — The room that seemed to fit the least in Laura from Pug in the Kitchen's life is now host to her family's homeschool adventures and a room they couldn't imagine life without!
• A Tour of Our Church — Garry at Postilius invites you virtually visit him in the 19th-century, one-room church where he lives with his spouse and two kids.
• Preparing a Montessori Baby-Toddler Space at Home — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares the Montessori baby-toddler space she's created in the main living area of her home along with a variety of resources for creating a Montessori-friendly home.
• The Old Bailey House — Come peek through the window of The Old Bailey House where Erica at ChildOrganics resides with her little ones.
• My New House Not-Monday: The Stairs — Claire at The Adventures of Lactating Girl shows you her new laminate stairs in her not-so-new-anymore house.
• To Minimalist and Back Again — Jorje of Momma Jorje shares how she went to the extreme as a minimalist and bounced right back. Read how she finds it difficult to maintain the minimalist lifestyle when upsizing living space.
• Our Life As Modern-Day Nomads — This family of five lives in 194 square feet of space — with the whole of North America as a back yard. Paige of Our Road Less Traveled guest posts at Natural Parents Network.