Hannah Morrison

Hannah’s Home Guide

As you know, we are building our dream industrial farmhouse meets boho vibes… hehe. I have been sharing posts the last couple of months with the items I have in our cart for each room in the new house. And today… nearly ALL OF IT is on massive sale. I rounded up my favorites below, but you can shop the two rooms I have shared thus far in full blog posts via the links as well. Nearly everything in my shopping carts are from Mcgee and Co. or Anthrologie (both of whom are having site-wide sales today!!)

The Kitchen

The Living Room

Peloton Bike Review

All I want for Christmas is… A PELOTON BIKE! Guys, if the Peloton is on your Christmas list then you best just copy and paste that URL and send this post to Santa, because I AM TEAM PELOTON.

I have never been more thankful for home workouts than this season of life. Our gym is amazing, but a trip there is 30 minutes + 1 hour workout + 30 minutes back… it’s a 2 hour endeavor to go at minimum. Some seasons of life have been great for that set-up. This is not one of them… lol. From being stuck at home by force with quarantine to having just small spaces of time to devote to a workout with two boys and running multiple new endeavors, my Peloton has been the freaking best thing ever. When I lived in Dallas, I went to a dome-style cycling studio. I LOVED IT. I would ride every single day after getting home from my shift at Pure Barre. So I was doing barre and cycling every day… I was in the best shape of my life. The Peloton gives me both of these now in my office whenever I can make it happen. I legit did a 30 minute barre class last night before I made dinner with Rory in his chair watching, and Knox even ran in and out doing it with me. I love the instructors, I love their “vibe”, and I love having so many options to pick from every day. Whether I have an hour or just 15 minutes to squeeze something in, they have a wide range of options for me at different lengths of time.

Every single penny we’ve spent on this has been worth it. 

For my mental health, my physical health, and overall ability to have some “me time”, the Peloton has delivered above and beyond my wildest dreams. 😉 Only slightly being dramatic.

Right now, the original stationary bike is under $2k because they just released their Bike+! The Bike+ has a screen that moves so you can do the cardio and ride combo classes easier. However, I will say, it’s not necessary. I have the stationary and I just do the floor classes behind my bike! They also have bite-sized monthly payments for the bike if you need to. This thing is WORTH IT. Especially for my work from home/stay at home/entrepreneur mommas out there.

My Fit Guide:

Exclusive Pumping Q&A

Well y’all, I have never been asked so many specific questions about something before! I realized over the last 4 months as I have casually mentioned I exclusively pump to feed Rory that it’s not so simple and (in some cases) something other mommies didn’t know was okay to talk about. I am the #1 advocate for FEED YOUR BABY. Breast fed, bottle fed, formula… whatever you do… do it and do it proudly. You, momma, are a rockstar. You grew a human inside you, brought that human into this world, and work tirelessly to keep that human alive all day… Like, woah. You’re amazing.

With this all said, I rounded up the most asked questions I have received about exclusively pumping to hopefully help some of you with your own feeding journey. For starters, I have been an exclusive breast feeder, hybrid, and now exclusive pumper. I have pretty much done it all, and I am an open book about it. With Knox, I had to FIGHT for a supply and was exclusively breast feeding for the first two months. But, we just weren’t getting enough for him so I started adding formula to the mix with bottles at night and eventually adding a scoop or two to his breast milk as I weaned off of breast feeding. We did breast milk until almost a year with Knox, but about 4 months of it was pumping.

Why do you exclusively pump?

First, having breast milk on hand and doing bottles in addition to feeding has worked really well for us. It’s allowed Paul the ability to help with night feedings for both boys, and allowed us to really carry the burden equally together so we could both get sleep and take turns. We are both entrepreneurs and business owners, so we a. work non-stop jobs but also b. have the flexibility to take turns.

My plan with Rory was to breast feed again and hopefully with fattier milk to be able to avoid formula for as long as possible. To be super honest, though, I really don’t like breast feeding. *gasp* I don’t feel like I need it to feel connected to them, and in fact enjoy seeing their face better with the bottle. So when Rory ended up in the NICU the whole first week of life, starting night 1, I had to start exclusively pumping almost immediately. When you have a baby in the NICU, the nurses pretty much tell you to go home… I slept with Rory the first night but caught on they didn’t want me there as much as I was, and they had their reasons for it. I tried honoring their request as much as possible… but still went up for hours every day. Having a baby in the NICU is just freaking hard.

That said, I had 1. to pump milk to bring up to them to feed Rory with for when I wasn’t present to breast feed and 2. had a HECKUFA supply. I nearly lost all my baby weight that first week because I was pumping 90-100+ oz a day, y’all. [Random fact: 22 calories an ounce is what you burn]. Both a blessing and a curse, to be honest. By the time we brought Rory home, he was so well-trained on the bottle and I didn’t feel like fighting to breast feed, so I just ran with exclusively pumping!

How do you establish a supply?

As somebody who had a very difficult time with supply the first time around, I do really feel like I have something for you to try due to the STARK contrast of supply my second time around. I started pumping at 37 weeks, and began getting colostrum almost immediately in small doses. Then at 38.5 weeks I started eating MiracleMilkookies a few times a week. I believe I had 5 by the time I delivered, and my supply was already almost FULLY in by night 1 with Rory. I was pumping 8-10 oz. of COLOSTRUM y’all. All my nurses who came in were baffled by it.

Because I was getting SO MUCH MILK a day (normal pumping is like… maybe 25-40 oz. a day – I was consistently doing on average 100), it was only a matter of time until I got mastitis. And, boy, I got it BAD. My left side was nearly completely shot dry. I was getting maybe 3 oz. a day all of a sudden while my right side was still producing as normal. After a few weeks of pumping/or keeping the Haakaa on what felt like ALL DAY LONG to get anything I could, my supply started to build back up. But, it hasn’t returned to my original supply amount (but I am actually thankful for that).

How Often Do You Pump?

At first, every 3 hours 24/7. If I went too long after letdown, it was bad news and I had to work harder to get it all out. I tried my best to start pumping WHILE I felt the tingling of letdown. After Mastitis (in September), I dropped one pumping a night (the 11 PM) so that I could start getting a bit more rest. I literally was going to bed at like 7 PM and waking up around 2 AM to pump and then again at 5 AM, etc.

Scheduling Pump Times

It really just develops off your body’s natural rhythms at first, and then making sure you’re following the every 3 hours rule with letdown. It worked out where my pump times lined up exactly with feeding times, and they were like CLOCKWORK. This was sorta a drag in the beginning because it meant I was up at night every 3 hours no matter what [even if it was a “Paul feeding”]. Eventually I started to extend time in between for better sleep.

Storage

Breast milk is good frozen for a YEAR. It’s fridge life is 8 hours and “room temperature” is 4 hours. With that, we store my milk in Doctor Brown’s bags *not all bags are created equal!!!!*, and had SO MUCH that we had to keep in our spare freezer out in the garage in addition to 1/4 of our massive freezer in the main fridge. If you saw my stories, though… our garage fridge evidently died and we didn’t know. Our electricity briefly went out last week and we think it never came back on for that fridge. Y’all… I stopped counting how much I lost because it was too depressing. We are talking at least 2 months of overflow supply. SO, check your overflow freezer regularly. My biggest takeaway from that. *insert tears here*

Which pump do you use?

Well y’all, I have used it all… haha. Not really. But almost. With Knox, I had the Ameda that my insurance covered. It was great, but SO FREAKING LOUD. I got rid of it after I stopped pumping with Knox. Then, I got the Elvie for Rory and LOVED IT. It was a game-changer. I told everybody about it… and then… it just stopped working one day. Like, legit starting spitting my milk out everywhere. Obviously, as an EP-er, that’s a huge deal. Because I was losing so much milk, I would shorten my sessions which was cutting my supply. It was bad. Long story short, Elvie Customer Service was a hellish ordeal (and y’all had SO MANY stories of the exact same issues with product AND customer service) and I had to FIGHT to get to return my product. I originally just wanted to replace it because I really did love the product. But, after my customer service experience, I demanded a refund. I returned the product last month and have yet to receive my refund. *They claim a 30 day grace period before you see your refund – so I will keep you posted)

The Evenflo Electric pump is a favorite one and I really enjoy having it on hand. It’s just not discreet, which is shocking after you’ve had the Elvie. You also have to replace the flaps, which I didn’t know at first, and is why I was having trouble with mine recently. I am sure their double electric is probably just as great and would suggest giving it a shot! While having trouble with my Evenflo last week, we purchased the Lansinoh double electric pump and I really like it so far!

ALL IN ALL: I love exclusively pumping. I am currently trying to build back up my supply, because of how much I lost in our dead freezer. I was starting to wean down to only 30 oz a day because between both freezers, I had about 4 months of milk + my daily pumps. Basically, I was already prepping for weaning off pumping. Womp. So, it’s back to Miracle Milkookies and pumping a bit more frequently again to restock some spare. Pumping isn’t for everybody just like breast feeding isn’t. You  make the choice for YOU. Do what’s best for YOU. If you’re a WFHM or have an office job, though (but EP-ing is NOT exclusive to only those categories!), I hope this helps because I really believe pumping makes it easier to still fully give your baby breast milk if that’s something you feel committed to providing while you go back to work. You can do this, momma!

Family Advent Calendar

As Knox is getting older [and a Christmas time baby!], it’s so fun to make the entire Christmas season exciting with new adventures and surprises. This year, I am using the Advent Prep Club to custom tailor our 25 days of surprises from their resource guide of over 150 activities. They are so fun and provide you every link, tool, and printable resource you could possibly need, including a budget spreadsheet to help you navigate having fun WISELY this Christmas season. You sign up and have full access all season long! It’s GENIUS. I have known the owners of this fun idea for years, and have personally watched them do this Advent calendar for about 6 years- long before they ever turned it into a resource for others to use! They make Christmas so magical for their girls, and I can’t wait to do this for our boys. Follow this link to see more.

I don’t want to share our WHOLE calendar of events, because I really want to encourage you to 1. Make your own and 2. Support this small family-owned business! But here’s 10 of my favorite ideas we will be doing at a wide range of price points:

  1. Bed time story with somebody special: My hope would be to surprise the boys with their grandparents for a special reading of a Christmas book!
  2. Christmas Charcuterie Board + a Movie: Knox LOVES “making” in the kitchen, so anything that can have him be a chef is a win for him!
  3. Donuts in Jammies with Dad: Self explanatory 😉
  4. Living Room Slumber Party with Mom and Dad: We are talking DECKED OUT, twinkle lights, sleeping bags, and snowflakes hanging from the ceiling!
  5. North Park Santa: He IS the real Santa Claus
  6. Visit a Christmas Tree Farm
  7. Pick This Year’s SPECIAL Ornament: I want our boys to pick out a special ornament every year for their tree!
  8. Random Rudolph Gift Exchange with BFFs: Every year, my best friends and I draw names for our babies and they buy one another gifts and we all hang out. It’s so fun and one of my favorite nights of the season.
  9. Bake and Decorate Birthday Cupcakes for Jesus: Again, Knoxy LOVES to “make.” But, I really can start teaching him about the story of Christmas this year on a deeper level, and I can’t wait to dive into that with him.
  10. The Polar Express for Knoxy’s Birthday: There’s a few Polar Express experiences in the area, but we are buying tickets for this one in Palestine, TX. Word on the street is it’s the most magical! Majority of our Advent experiences are free or very minimal cost. This one is our splurge for Knox’s birthday!

Colorful Advent calendars to put your surprises in:

Happy Advent Prepping! I hope you check out this site and sign-up for their resources to making Christmas as magical as possible for your family.

 

Our Family Christmas Photos

They’re here, they’re here! I wasn’t sure when I wanted to share these, but as you all are navigating your own Christmas sessions, I wanted to go ahead and share our family shoot this year as aid for poses/outfits/inspo! Of all the years of Christmas photos we have done with Hannah H. from Cottonwood Road Photography… these are without a doubt our favorite to date. I shared a bit more about our outfits on this post and want to give another shoutout to Sydney Grace Beauty who made me feel like an absolute rockstar. I don’t do makeup at all, and it was so fun to get my face done for these, because Lord knows I could never do my eye shadow like this… hehe.

2020 has without a doubt been such a wild year for everybody. And it’s arguably been the hardest year by circumstance we’ve ever faced in our family. And yet… the most full, life-giving, joyful one. I mean it. I am not just saying that because it’s the Christian thing to say. I mean it with every ounce of my being. We have experienced heartache and slander and hurt we never thought we’d have to journey through. We’ve experienced a pandemic, being pregnant and having to go to appointments alone. A hospitalization at 22 weeks, a perfect newborn baby in the NICU… we’ve experienced lost dreams and squashed expectations.

But there is always hope.

Today, as I share these photos, I truly hope you see a family who has been through hell this year. And yet, we smile. We are genuinely smiling in these. We are genuinely the happiest we’ve ever been, and it’s all on the other side of a treacherous season I would wish for nobody. The key to our smiles… HOPE. We know there is a hope far beyond this Earth for us. We’ve held to the promises of God through every high and low- not only the ones we feel God has promised us personally for our future. BUT, the promise that He is GOOD, FOR US, and NEVER LEAVES US. The promise that He fights for us. The promise that He makes all things work together for our good. The God who promised a Savior to His people centuries before they ever saw it come to fruition, He is the God who always comes through with His word at the perfect time.

So, we enter into the Christmas season *err… maybe a hair earlier than usual this year* with the greatest reminder of hope the world has ever known. Jesus was the fulfillment of all the promises God told His people would come at the exact right time. He is for you. He is the epitome of good. He is the best gift ever. He IS hope. That even when we can’t see it, He is working. He is fixing. He is healing. He is your defender.

This family you see in these photos, we walk with a new understanding by the grace of God what it means to cling to hope. In a way that truly can only be grasped by a season of NEEDING it, hope is alive in this family. And it can be inside of yours, too. I hope our smiles, at the very least, can encourage you today if you find yourself aching for hope.

If you’re in the north Texas area and have’t heard the news, my family is launching Cadence Church in the fall of 2021. This hope we have that got us through this year is available to everybody, and we want the city of Frisco to know it. It’s a year long process to plant and we are currently building our launch team. We’d love to meet with you, answer any questions, and ultimately pray that if you feel called to it, you’d join us!

xoxo,

The Morrisons

I seriously had to reel it in and not share 60+ photos… You can see more on my Pinterest! But the key to a great family shoot: happy kids and just “playing” with them while the photographer snaps away. Get to their level, laugh, talk, make jokes, tell them secrets in their ear. We seriously had so much fun with this shoot, and you can see it!

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