I miss taking photos for the sake of taking photos, and having time to edit them for hours — just for fun.

I hope to get back into this more this summer. Speaking of editing, I’m giving away a copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4!

More great Wordless Wednesday bloggers

Angry Julie Monday,  Better in Bulk,  Five Minutes For Mom,  Live and Love…Out Loud,  The Divine Miss Mommy, and Dagmar’s Momsense.

If you link-up, please take a moment to comment on the post.

If you are a mom, you know all about A+D Ointment. You’ve no doubt had your fingers in it a thousand or more times, and you’ve trusted it on your baby’s most delicate parts.

I really thought I knew all that there was to know about A+D, but I actually wasn’t aware that the Zinc Oxide formula is specially formulated to TREAT diaper rash, and the Original Ointment is better for prevention. That is really good to know, since I had been using the products interchangeably.

This is a photo of Kara right after she was born in December. She just turned 5-months-old yesterday, and just recently we’ve been experiencing a bit of diaper rash with her.

I used the A+D Zinc Ointment to treat her diaper rash. I’m used to this product, so I was not surprised when the problem cleared up in just a day or two.

After her rash was completely gone, I switched to the Original A+D Ointment, which provides a protective layer against moisture. I have really noticed since I started using the Original Ointment, the diaper rash has not appeared again.

Just a little dab will work — love that!

Sometimes the products that we are the most familiar with really are the best, and in the case of A+D Ointment, this is definitely true. A+D Ointment is truly a baby must-have.

Time for a giveaway!

The awesome folks at A+D have provided this great giveaway prize pack for one Dear Crissy reader! Entering is a snap, just check out the rules below.

Giveaway includes:

• Fleurville BabyCenter branded diaper bag filled with prizes including:
• Two tubes of A&D Cream
• Swaddle Designs Receiving Blanket and Baby Burpies
• BabyCenter book on Baby’s First Year
• Bebe Au Lait Nursing Covers
• Diapees & Wipees

How to enter

1. Leave a blog comment telling me why you would like to win this prize pack.
2. Follow @Crissy on Twitter and RT the below. Comment with your Twitter handle:

Treat & Prevent Diaper Rash with A+D Ointment #Giveaway #Parenting bit.ly/Jnde2T

— Crissy Page (@Crissy) May 16, 2012

USA Entrants only please. 18+. Ends on 5/20 at 11:59 p.m.

This is a sponsored post in conjunction with the BabyCenter Blog Network.

I feel like this balance is even more difficult for WAHM’s (work at home moms) to achieve, because the lines between work and home life overlap completely. 

In fact, there are days when I wonder if I would not be happier and healthier (emotionally and mentally) if I worked outside the home.

Don’t get me wrong, I treasure the time that I am able to spend at home raising my two beautiful children, but I often don’t feel like I am ever truly separate from them in order to work, and vice versa, I feel as if work intrudes far too often on my family time.

So, what can women do to strike that perfect work-life balance? Is this elusive balance just a myth? Is it even possible for women to really reach a point of harmony, where work is work, home is home, and both can function separately?

I wish I had the answer for you in this blog post, but this is an answer I seek daily. I would love to hear more about your situation, and whether or not YOU feel like you are achieving this balance in your life.

Answer the question bolded below for a chance to win!

Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of clutter. From the blocks and Hot Wheels under my feet, to the fifty Post-it Notes stuck to my desk with reminders about doctor’s appointments, business calls, and upcoming engagements.

I am a list-maker by nature, but my lists are really becoming just one more mess.

This was really evidenced last month when I actually missed one of Kara’s doctor visits because I am so dreadfully unorganized.

I envy women who keep their lives neat and tidy. They know when the bills are due, when the sheets need to be changed on the beds, and when the kids have a dentist appointment. I know that in reality, no one is perfect, just maybe a little more organized than me — it doesn’t take much!

While I doubt I’ll ever stop stepping on Cheerios, tripping over Hot Wheels, or tackle organizing the stack of bills laying on my desk, I feel like I have really made some progress due to this wonderfully intuitive app for Windows Phone called AboutOne.

My house? A mess. The important details of my family’s life? Organized, clean, neat, and easy to access. Sigh of relief. AboutOne is really just one more little perk that makes me love my new Nokia Lumia 900 more and more.

Cool AboutOne features

• Store your important receipts for easy access.
• Keep emergency contacts organized.
• Never miss an important event or appointment.
• Save special photos, videos, and artwork.
• Keeps personal health records.

The AboutOne app is really a fantastic little family management tool. I love knowing that my important documents, receipts, contacts, appointments, and even treasured family memories are securely locked into my phone, and available to me with just a simple touch.

A little less chaos

Part of parenting, for me, means that not everything (or almost nothing) will be neat and tidy. Do I really get super stressed about the toys on the floor, and the fact that I almost have to wash a sippy cup when I need one? Nah. It’s just part of raising kids, and I feel pretty accomplished if I get a shower most days.

It does feel extraordinarily gratifying to have something in order, though. There are so many ways my Nokia Lumia 900 makes my life easier, and the AboutOne app is right up there near the top.

Are you organized?

Where do you fall on the neat vs. messy spectrum? Are you completely organized, a mess-a-holic like me, or somewhere in between?

Every now and again, a reader will email me asking for photography tips.

For a beginner, my first suggestion is always to purchase a great DSLR body (I shoot Nikon) and one good fast prime lens. Next, learn to master the camera, and shoot, shoot, shoot.

My other go-to piece of advice is invariably to purchase a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS for editing — but for folks who are really serious about photography, and who are shooting a lot of photos, I can not recommend Adobe Photoshop Lightroom more highly.

Keep reading to find out why I simply adore Lightroom, and then find out how you can enter to win a copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4!

So what is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom?

Lightroom is a workflow program that was developed specifically for professional photographers and amateurs who are serious about photography. It allows photographers to organize large quantities of photos in a visual index called a catalog, and to edit photos either individually, or as a batch in a completely nondestructive manner.

Why I love Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

While I no longer shoot professionally, I still deal with a large volume of personal photos, and photos for my blogs, so I consider Lightroom an absolute must have product — particularly to help cut down on the time spent managing and editing images that I use on this site.

My absolute favorite thing about Lightroom is the ability it gives me to save and apply presets. A preset is a group of settings, a formula if you will, that can be used to change the look of a photo. With one click, I can apply these settings to an image to give me the desired effect.

Presets may be simple, adding just a touch of contrast and saturation to an image, or converting a photo to black and white. Some presets, however, are highly artistic and may change the entire mood of the photo.

I have literally hundreds of presets stored in Lightroom, and I’m always scouring the internet looking for interesting new presets to purchase. Some of them are even available for free!

Here is an example of an image of Kara SOOC (straight-out-of-camera), and after I applied one of my favorite presets, and a made a few additional adjustments to the contrast and sharpness. Pretty dramatic difference, huh?

Enter to win Lightroom 4

I could go on and on about the amazing features of Adobe Lightroom. Seriously! You really just need to try this product for yourself, and thanks to the fine folks at Adobe — you can!

This is going to be the easiest giveaway you’ve ever entered. I’m running a special Twitter contest to win a copy of Lightroom, and all you have to do is follow @Crissy, then ReTweet the following Tweet. Be sure to follow the link in the Tweet afterward to check out the promotion page!

#Win a copy of Adobe Photoshop @Lightroom 4! To enter follow @Crissy, then share the #LightroomLove & RT! bit.ly/J75zGO

— Crissy Page (@Crissy) May 15, 2012

GOOD LUCK!

I received a copy of LR to facilitate this review. Opinions are my own.

Well, we believe she is working on cutting her first tooth, and I have been searching high and low for a product that might offer some relief.

I really don’t recall Evan having much trouble cutting his first couple teeth, they sort of just appeared one day. Kara, on the other hand, seems to be having some pain, so I was really happy to have the opportunity to try a new product from Orajel this week. Have you heard of Baby Orajel Naturals Teething Tablets?

These teething tablets are belladonna free, and contain chamomile. Of course, I always taste test products that I give my children, so I put one of the tablets in my own mouth first. The tablet dissolved almost immediately, and had a pleasant taste.

Kara was really interested in the flavor (hello, this kid is ready to eat some real food!), and she really did seem somewhat soothed after I put the tablet in her mouth. I’ve always heard that chamomile is soothing to infants — maybe it’s true?

I’ve been a big fan of regular Baby Orajel, and I’m really happy to have this product on hand as we enter the world of baby teething.

Enter to win!

I have two packages of Baby Orajel tablets and a BabyCenter tote bag to offer one Dear Crissy reader! Photo of the cute BabyCenter tote bag below! Super easy entry, just leave a comment telling me why you’d love to try Baby Orajel Naturals Teething Tablets!

Get one extra entry when you Tweet this post (use the button at the bottom). Comment with a link to your Tweet.

Ends 5/17. USA only.

This post is a sponsored post in conjunction with the BabyCenter Blog Network.

Because I love my readers so much, I decided to give one away. Yes, me. :) You can gain extra entries for each person you can refer, so your odds could really get a boost! Go, see!

Be sure to share your custom referral link with your friends, on your blog, and on your social profiles for more chances to win!

Good luck!

I had to go to the doctor earlier this week due to a UTI (it’s fun being a woman, right?), and I was prescribed the antibiotic Macrobid to treat it.

Newsflash — I am apparently allergic to this drug, and within 5 minutes of taking one pill, I was completely overwhelmed with nausea.

As the nausea washed over me, I experienced an immediate visceral memory of being pregnant.

I was sick for about 24 hours and I thought a lot about what I went through last year at this time.

One year ago this week, I was 6-weeks-pregnant with Kara, and already starting my long battle with hyperemesis gravidarum.

I suffered with severe morning sickness until week 17 when I was pregnant with Evan, and during Kara’s pregnancy, I soldiered on through day-and-night nausea and vomiting into my 30th week.

Do you know what it’s like to be totally consumed with nausea during every waking and half-sleeping moment?

You can’t eat, you can’t rest, and you can’t play an active role in your own life. You become a hostage to your illness, and it is nearly impossible even to appreciate what should be one of the most beautiful experiences a woman is blessed to have — pregnancy.

I am now the mother of a 4-month-old and a 2.5-year-old. Life is busy and I rarely sleep, but I don’t feel like puking 24/7 and by golly (yeah, I actually talk like this), that is pretty darn WONDERFUL.

I am just so grateful to feel OK.

How do you feel right now?

I am by no means an expert in the kitchen. In fact, this is one shortcoming that really plagues me as a mom.

Recently, I’ve been making an effort to put more wholesome, home-cooked meals on my family’s table. In fact, you may have noticed a new category on my blog called food stories. I’ve made it a personal goal to cook more, and to experiment in the kitchen, and to keep myself accountable I am going to be blogging about this journey.

There are so many times when I am at a loss for dinner ideas, so I’m almost always thumbing through the scrumptious photos of food on Pinterest. Today while I sat in the waiting room at my doctor’s office, I used the Pinspiration app on my new Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone to search for tonight’s meal inspiration.

I chose a yummy-looking mexican lasagna recipe pinned from A Couple Cooks as my starting point, and opened up the Shared Shopping List app to jot down the ingredients that I would need to pick up from the grocery store.

I love the Shared Shopping List app because if I can’t make it to the store, I can share my grocery list with my husband’s Windows Phone, and he can pick up items for me on his way home from work! I make lists for him perhaps far more often than he would like. :)

I adapted the mexican lasagna recipe to meet my family’s preferences. Having a toddler, the first thing I cut out was the hot sauce.

The original recipe also did not call for ground beef, but we are pretty big meat eaters in this house, so I decided to incorporate it into the dish. Ground turkey would also be a delicious choice.’

From Pinterest to plate, I love being able to scout recipes and make grocery lists with my Windows Phone. It also made me feel so good inside seeing my family devour this dish — it was really good! I feel like tonight I had a parenting win, and I am not even more motivated to continue making family meals and family meal time a priority in my life.

I hope you enjoy the recipe, my family certainly did!

I am so glad that spring is here, and that summer is right around the corner.

My family and I had been dying to have a proper spring cookout, and over the weekend we did it in style. We did it in Snapfish by HP style — that is!

Have a peek into our little party. Don’t these cupcakes look divine? I printed those adorable toppers, cut them out, and taped them to toothpicks to make really cute and festive cupcake decorations. Love the little fish!

I also loved this cute banner, and will be using this template to make one more personalized when Evan’s birthday rolls around in August.

Snapfish sent us a big box filled with all kinds of goodies for our guests. I assembled these cute pink swag bags for all of our party guests. The kids were all really digging the shades and the fake mustaches!

It was so incredibly nice to have some of my family and close friends all gathered together in one place. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and even a few steaks.

Rounding out the grilling were some baked beans, and my mom made some delicious macaroni salad!

As you can see, Snapfish really made our party fun!

I was also able to go online and order some really special keepsake photo products to share with party guests. I made some really awesome photo magnets featuring images of the kids for our relatives who are always begging for photos of Evan and Kara!

I LOVE the Snapfish photo magnets. I even ordered like 10 of them for our fridge. They are a fun and functional way to display photos in the kitchen — perfect for holding up Evan’s artwork, too.

Of course, I made this special mug for my own mom and dad. Cute, right?

We couldn’t have had a more beautiful day for our party on Saturday. It wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t too cold. The sun was shining and the kids had a blast. The food was good, the decorations were adorable, and this was really the perfect way to celebrate everything that is so wonderful about spring.

A big thank you to Snapfish by HP for making this such a delightful day for our family!

I am a compensated Snapfish by HP ambassador. All opinions are my own.