Monday, July 2, 2018
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Monday, September 5, 2011
3 Summer Finds you'll love too
I've been meaning to put this new post up for weeks, but the summer just flew by and here it is Labor Day and now I'm finally getting around to it. A bit too late for this summer, but at least it will be up here for next!
A few weeks ago, I posted about my favorite outdoor toy and how much fun my girls and I had playing with our water table. In addition to our water table, I'd like to add a few other items to the list of favorite summer finds.
Cool find #1: Bubble machine
Bubbles are always fun for everyone, especially when I don't have to do all the bubble blowing! I found this Turbo Bubble Machine and it has been a hit in our house. It runs on batteries (which we still haven't had to change yet!) and is simple enough to use that my 1-year old can turn it on and off herself. Just dump a little bubble soap in there and wa-laa! Entertainment for the masses. Unfortunately, I think I've become a bubble snob now, because I won't even consider an old fashioned bubble wand anymore.
Cool find #2: Pool Floatie
Back in July, we had Kid #1's 3rd birthday party. For the second year in a row that day was quite possibly the hottest day of the year. Thankfully, we have an in-ground pool in our backyard and planned a pool party, so we were able to keep our party guests from melting. Up till this point, Kid #1 (who is not swimming yet and still very scared of the pool) had been wearing regular swimmies (ie, "water wings") whenever she was in the pool area. But several of our party guests arrived with a much much cooler version and I knew it was something we had to have immediately. I actually couldn't believe I'd never seen them before, as I always like to stay current on the cool mom finds, as you know. Check out the "Puddle Jumper" PFD if you've never seen it before.
10x better than regular swimmies. It does a great job at holding my daughter upright in the pool and I think will give her just the confidence she needs next summer to venture into the deep end.
Cool find #3: Monkey bar buddies shorts
Girl mommas, you might relate here. I love my girls in cute little sundresses in the warm weather, but do not appreciate seeing a little girl's underwear when she hangs upside-down at the playground. (Call me modest if you must.) Kid #2's sundresses are baby sizes and they all come with a diaper cover for under the dress, but Kid #1 is in toddler and girl size clothing and many of them don't have anything to cover the diaper/pull-up/underwear underneath. I set out in search of the perfect "panty cover" (oh, ick how I loathe that word!) and my good pal Google pointed me to these Monkeybar Buddies shorts (also available at Target.com) They are a soft spandex-ey material and are so perfect for under Kid #1's dresses. Definitely buying more for next summer!
A few weeks ago, I posted about my favorite outdoor toy and how much fun my girls and I had playing with our water table. In addition to our water table, I'd like to add a few other items to the list of favorite summer finds.
Cool find #1: Bubble machine
Bubbles are always fun for everyone, especially when I don't have to do all the bubble blowing! I found this Turbo Bubble Machine and it has been a hit in our house. It runs on batteries (which we still haven't had to change yet!) and is simple enough to use that my 1-year old can turn it on and off herself. Just dump a little bubble soap in there and wa-laa! Entertainment for the masses. Unfortunately, I think I've become a bubble snob now, because I won't even consider an old fashioned bubble wand anymore.
Cool find #2: Pool Floatie
Back in July, we had Kid #1's 3rd birthday party. For the second year in a row that day was quite possibly the hottest day of the year. Thankfully, we have an in-ground pool in our backyard and planned a pool party, so we were able to keep our party guests from melting. Up till this point, Kid #1 (who is not swimming yet and still very scared of the pool) had been wearing regular swimmies (ie, "water wings") whenever she was in the pool area. But several of our party guests arrived with a much much cooler version and I knew it was something we had to have immediately. I actually couldn't believe I'd never seen them before, as I always like to stay current on the cool mom finds, as you know. Check out the "Puddle Jumper" PFD if you've never seen it before.
10x better than regular swimmies. It does a great job at holding my daughter upright in the pool and I think will give her just the confidence she needs next summer to venture into the deep end.
Cool find #3: Monkey bar buddies shorts
Girl mommas, you might relate here. I love my girls in cute little sundresses in the warm weather, but do not appreciate seeing a little girl's underwear when she hangs upside-down at the playground. (Call me modest if you must.) Kid #2's sundresses are baby sizes and they all come with a diaper cover for under the dress, but Kid #1 is in toddler and girl size clothing and many of them don't have anything to cover the diaper/pull-up/underwear underneath. I set out in search of the perfect "panty cover" (oh, ick how I loathe that word!) and my good pal Google pointed me to these Monkeybar Buddies shorts (also available at Target.com) They are a soft spandex-ey material and are so perfect for under Kid #1's dresses. Definitely buying more for next summer!
Friday, July 8, 2011
Cute little teethmarks
When Kid #1 was about Kid #2's age (around age 1) I went into her room after she was obviously NOT taking a nap to find that she had chewed on her crib rail. Her crib is a dark brown "espresso" color and she had espresso colored bits all around her mouth and cheeks. It was terrifying! She looked like some sort of demon baby.
(Wouldn't you know that I recently also found Kid #2 in a similar state, but slightly less scary since her crib is white. We had to remove Kid #1's crib rail cover to use in Kid #2's room. So just today I got a good look at those newly uncovered, very obvious against the dark colored wood, two year old, cute little teethmarks on Kid #1's crib and it gave me a major flashback to the day she made them. Aw. I'm a little nostalgic actually.)
Back to my story...
After cleaning Kid #1 up, I immediately jumped online to check out the crib rail covers on the BabiesRUs website. Of course, nothing they sold was going to work for me because my genius daughter was not chewing on the front crib rail... She was chewing on the curved decorative side rail!
In my travels of various baby message boards and mommy blogs, I remembered reading about a DIY no-sew crib rail, so off I went to the fabric store to get some fleece fabric. Armed only with a couple rulers and a scissor, I managed to fashion a pretty decent crib rail cover for all four sides of the crib.
I don't really have directions for you to follow. If you look at the picture above that I stole from someone's "tutorial," I'm sure you can figure it out. You basically just cut strips and tie them between the crib slats. Have faith. If I can do it, you can too.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Favorite outdoor toy for summer
I'm home for the summer with my 3-year old and 1-year old. The three of us are loving our time together and enjoying the warm (ok, sometimes HOT) weather outdoors. Perhaps lucky for me, my 3-year old is as cautious as her mom used to be and is a little scared of our backyard pool so we haven't spent much time in there. It's no fun for me anyway with two kids clinging to me for dear life.
We do have a small kiddie pool, which the 3-year old enjoys. The 1-year is not quite walking and doesn't really want to sit in the kiddie pool without me. It was quite a sight to see all three of us "swimming" in the kiddie pool last week.
For keeping cool and entertained this summer, my favorite outdoor toy is the water table. Both my girls absolutely love it. It's the perfect height that the 1-year old can stand, play, and have something to hold onto and I don't have to be right there behind her every second. The 3-year old has a ton of fun with her watering can and buckets. I love that they can play together and I don't have to chase them in opposite directions around the backyard.
Once the weather gets cool again we always put sand in our water table for even more hours of enjoyment.
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We do have a small kiddie pool, which the 3-year old enjoys. The 1-year is not quite walking and doesn't really want to sit in the kiddie pool without me. It was quite a sight to see all three of us "swimming" in the kiddie pool last week.
For keeping cool and entertained this summer, my favorite outdoor toy is the water table. Both my girls absolutely love it. It's the perfect height that the 1-year old can stand, play, and have something to hold onto and I don't have to be right there behind her every second. The 3-year old has a ton of fun with her watering can and buckets. I love that they can play together and I don't have to chase them in opposite directions around the backyard.
Once the weather gets cool again we always put sand in our water table for even more hours of enjoyment.
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Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Hi, I'm a Momparazzi
Can I assume that all moms are photo-happy like I am? I've taken thousands of pictures of my children already and Kid #1 has not even yet reached the age of 3. I'm like the paparazzi of moms. I'm a Momparazzi!
The next question, then, is what do you do with all those photos? And is anyone else but you going to get to look at them? I would go broke if I tried to print them all out. And I wouldn't even want to print them out because I have no time to compile photo albums anymore and no place to store big bulky photo albums anyway.
But I do like to have some photos printed in a non-digital/non-computer format and I do like to be able to share photos with family, so I have found a friend in Shutterfly.
One of my solutions to my photo mania has been to create a photo sharing site on shutterfly. There, I upload the best of my pictures every month or so. I also add journal entries from time to time to keep track of how the kids are growing and share some of the milestones they reach. The people who benefit most from this are my siblings, parents, and in-laws because they are the ones who actually do want to see all the thousands of my pictures. I've added friends and other relatives as members of my share site as well, but I can set it so they receive site updates much less frequently than the immediate family. I don't want anyone to feel that I'm spamming them with my photos!
It must be a trendsetting idea because after I set up my first share site when Kid #1 was born at least 7 or 8 friends set up their own share sites and sent me a link to view their photos. I love it because it enables me to see pictures of my friends kids growing up too!
I also like that I have a majority of my best pictures saved on the Shutterfly website. In the unfortunate event that something happened to my computer and my backup hard drive at least I'd still have my memories somewhere!
I admit that it does take time to maintain the share site, but I'm pretty obsessive-compulsive about my pictures and Shutterfly makes it as easy as possible to do.
Since all my favorite pictures are already uploaded on Shutterfly, I use the Shutterfly photo books for my family photo albums. They are much less bulky and can hold many more pictures than a traditional album. I've been making one photo book per year and think they are great memories to have!
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Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Baby wearers...
Do you know that baby wearing in the "facing-out" position may not be healthy for your child's development? I didn't! When Kid #1 was born I had no idea! I carried her in a "crotch- dangler" carrier - how awful! Good thing she was a chubby kid because she was so heavy I couldn't carry her like that for long... Don't think I did permanent damage. ;-)
I feel like I should help spread the word...
See these links for more information:
http://www.sleepywrap.com/2008/11/strollers-baby-carriers-and-infant-stress/
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