Come to the free Cloth Diaper 101 class this Saturday night in Richardson at Chilosos! It’s from 7-9. Chilosos has great food, so feel free to grab a burrito or quesadilla to munch on while you learn. Children and spouses are welcome. Chilosos is located on the east side of 75 off Campbell Rd. in the new shopping and eating area.
Hard to believe that it’s 2013 and that the next consignment sale is almost here. We decided to switch to off season sales because as we all know, the weather in Texas is CRAZY and it’s really hard to plan in August what size your child will be in January!
Come out tomorrow and shop!
8-11am early entry $5
11am-1pm regular entry $1
Trinity Bible Church
400 W Campbell Rd Richardson
Coming up with activities for your children to do can be challenging. Sometimes an extra creative hand would be very helpful to jump-start a dull afternoon into a fun afternoon. Enter BabbaBox.
Similar to the other monthly subscription boxes of toys or clothes, each Babba Box comes with a handful of themed activities.
We received a BabbaBox with a moon theme to enjoy and explore. In the box was a book, two crafts and a moon chart complete with binoculars to track the phases of the moon for a month. Also included were instructions for each activity as well as an appropriately themed wine stopper for mom and dad.
My son really enjoyed the paper mache moon but it met a tragic fate before we got to finish it. We will attempt it again soon as there is enough materials to do another one in the box. It was fun and easy to construct, but not left far enough out of a toddler’s reach to stay round like the moon it was meant to represent.
My daughter enjoyed the constellation sun paper frame craft because it was easy enough to complete by herself. Both of them thought it was neat that the images were left behind after the sun created shadows on the paper.
BabbaBox is a theme-based box delivered to your door that allows you to enjoy a little convenience and inspiration! As any parent can attest, the most important thing you can give to your child is quality time. BabbaBox makes this possible by helping you to save time, money, & mindspace.
Just think! Fantastic monthly activities with ALL the materials for kids ages 3-6. Included in the box are 3 projects + 1 bestselling book + digital download + parent surprise gift!
The best part? Babbabox makes a GREAT unique gift during the holiday season.
Act now! Get 50% off your first month when you sign up for a monthly membership using the code, SWAY100. Offer expires December 31, 2012.
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of BabbaBox. The opinions and text are all mine.
All children want to touch and help hang the ornaments on the Christmas tree. If they’re small, they’ll want to do it over and over again. The solution to this is rather simple, either get them their own mini tree to play with or make a really easy felt Christmas tree.
I made this last year when I had an almost 1 year old cruising around the house and didn’t have the space or desire to risk a bunch of breakable ornaments.
Very simple and did’t require a lot of talent or money. You can buy felt by the yard at most fabric and craft stores. I bought fusible Velcro, a yard of green, a few squares of other colors for ornaments and some brown for the trunk. You’ll only wind up using half of the green most likely as the felt comes on really wide bolts, at least I only used half! A small rectangle for the trunk is tacked on at the bottom.
The ornaments are circles about 4 inches in diameter. You could also do shape ornaments. I made a few starts, but the rest are circles with ribbon and other scraps of fabric and trim I had lying around. If you’re able to sew, sew on the trims, if not, tacky glue will work just fine! On the back of each ornament, you’ll need to iron on a small piece of the rough side of the Velcro. Make sure you follow the instructions on the box on how to iron or you’ll melt the Velcro…true story!
I hung ours up with removable sticky tabs. And there you go. A tree that the children can play with over and over again. I just took ours out to hang back up this year and despite being folded up, it looks great!
When you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, it’s hard to be sick. Most cold medicines are off limits and moms are usually wary of taking anything while pregnant. So what do you do? Here are some easy home remedies that have worked well for my family. They won’t cure you, but they may make your cold shorter.
Garlic soup – yes, I’m sure it’ll keep the vampires away too. Hah. Peel and chop up (or at least crush) a whole bulb of garlic. Saute lightly for a few minutes in some olive oil, then pour in 2 cups chicken broth. Cook until boiling. Remove from heat and strain out the garlic. Wait until it cools a bit and drink like tea.
Essential Oils – if you have a diffuser, a few drops of eucalyptus EO will help you breath easier. If you don’t have a diffuser, boil a few cups of water, remove from heat, place a few drops of eucalyptus EO in the pot, place a towel over your head and breathe in the steam.
Warm showers – the steam helps break up the mucus. Great for doing before bed.
Vitamin C – we like the vitamin c packets that you can mix with water. We always take some when we start to feel like a cold or cough is coming on.
None of these will actually cure a cold, but with any luck, they may shorten the duration of a cold so you can get back to parenting!
Check back on Friday for our Black Friday deals which may include discounts on our baby wearing products, but until then, remind yourself why you want to order one of these helpful items!
Benefits of baby wearing:
1. Babies cry less. Baby wearing mimics the soothing motions that your baby was used to in the womb. By allowing them to “relive” those movements, your baby is soothed and comforted.
2. Babies learn more. By being with mom or dad more often, they are spoken to more, see more (because they’re not stuck staring at the ceiling) and are interacted with more than non-worn babies. I would get stopped constantly in the stores when my daughter was little (actually we still do!) and people would talk to her because she wasn’t hidden away in a baby bucket. She was up close to eye level and once she had the head control, would look around and interact with others.
3. Babies are more attentive. The baby is up at eye and voice level and tend to participate more in conversation with adults. When I would get stopped while baby wearing, almost every single person would remark how alert my daughter was.
4. Parents get more done! I can’t tell you how many times the only way I was able to make dinner was because of baby wearing. Of course I never did anything with the oven or grill while wearing her. You also shouldn’t use knives or the stove, but you can get most of the prep work done while baby wearing!
5. Mom and baby are more in sync. You know exactly what may have startled or frightened your baby because you are right there with him.
6. Easier breastfeeding in public. With a bit of a learning curve, you can easily breastfeed with a stretchy wrap or soft structured carrier and you have a cover built right in if you want to remain discrete!
The carriers that we sell are very easy to use and last a long time. The Boba stretchy wrap goes up to 35lbs and the soft structured carriers go up to 45lbs. I still wear my toddler (24lbs) when running errands and it’s very comfortable!
Scoop one up this weekend and you’ll get free support from me on how to use your new carrier if you need it. They are quite easy to use, so all you may need is the instruction booklet!
A CuddleUppet is a stuffed animal/puppet that is also a blanket. They retail for less than $20. One of my best friend’s children have been drooling over these so I was excited to check it out for my own children.
The CuddleUppet comes in eight different choices: Pink Poodle, Blue Elephant, Purple Monkey, Yellow Puppy, Brown Bear Green Crocodile and the newest additions Pink Ladybug and Magic Unicorn. Most of which are pictured above.
We were hoping for the dog or the alligator as they both look really cute in the advertisements.
We received the dog CuddleUppet. My children were excited to see what was in the package as they love it when I get mail, even when it’s cloth diapers! My five year old was a bit intrigued, mostly because he figured out very quickly that it terrified his 22 mo old sister. She won’t touch it and every time she sees it she screams and makes me put it away. I do have to disclose that she is terrified of puppets.
I have mixed feelings about this product.
Negatives: Our dog doesn’t look happy like the one in the ad. It’s eyes are very sad or tired looking. Not sure which it is. If I had actually ordered the dog and received the one that we did, I would have returned it.
Positives: It is a really soft blanket and the whole puppet concept is neat provided you don’t have a puppet-phobic child in the house.
They are available online for $19.99 at http://www.cuddleuppets.com and in major retailers as well as Amazon.
I received a CuddleUppet courtesy of Jay at Play through The Blogger Connection to facilitate this review. All opinions are my own.
I really, really like Rockin’ Green soap for diaper washing. What I didn’t know about it until recently was how awesome it works on all laundry! Whiter whites, stinkies taken out of undershirts, stains on baby clothes…oh my! I am impressed and want to wash just about everything in my house with Rockin’ Green now. It even helps with nasty toilet build up. AND it’s phosphate free and made of biodegradable materials so it’s good for the environment and your family.
But what about the cost you say? I said the same thing which is why I didn’t buy any until this past March when I got a sample. My daughter’s diapers now smell clean. I was sold. I bought some and sucked it up paying $14.95 for a bag. Seemed like a TON of money. But I ran out of the All Free & Clear I was using last week. Sigh. I had a bag of Rockin Green sitting there so I used some figuring that a little extra cost to do laundry would be okay just this once. Then as I was tossing in dirty clothes, I started doing some math in my head and then quickly got a calculator to figure out cost per load according to the bag’s load amounts. Not bad but how did it compare? I ran out to Target and cost analyzed nine other detergents. Here are the results:
These are listed from most environmentally friendly, then gentle formulas, then regular old soap. Prices were accurate as of October 2012 at my local Target.
So there you have it. If you’re already using an environmentally friendly or hyper allergenic detergent, you’ll save some money (and clutter in your laundry room) if you only need use 1 tbsp per load. It seems that most people probably use somewhere between the 45 and 90 loads, but you get the point. Rockin Green is a decent competitor when it comes to cost per load laundry detergent.
I didn’t do a whole lot of baby wearing when my son was little. I wasn’t very well informed at that time and used a Bjorn for awhile, but then he got too big for it and it hurt my back so out went baby wearing. I do, however, remember reading a tiny blurb of an ad in Parents Magazine when my son was about 1 yr old about a really cool looking backpack carrier. I remember thinking, man if only I had known about that product a year ago! I wasn’t about to spend the $100 on it this late in the game.
Fast forward a few years. My daughter comes along and I’m faced with the dilemma of having two small children and still needing to do errands, etc. Because I am thrifty at heart, instead of buying a baby bucket car seat for her, we upgraded our son to a 5 pt harness booster and used the convertible he had been sitting in for the past two years for the new baby. Convertibles don’t go on errands as they stay buckled in the car. Now what?
I still had the Bjorn and I did use it for about a week or so with her legs in a froggy position inside until I did my research. I started poking around, joined a few baby wearing groups and discovered a world of baby wearing that had not been around 3.5 yrs prior. Jackpot! I quickly bought a Boba Sleepy Wrap (made from a soft, stretchy knit for children up to 35lbs) and when she out grew that, upgraded to a Boba 2g carrier.
Running errands was easy now! Pop baby in the carrier and my hands were free for my purse and holding the hand of my preschooler. I recommend these products to all of my clients and anyone who will listen! If you want to learn more about these great products, visit my site’s store, or contact me for an in-person demo.
In all the excitement about opening our online shop, I forgot to write a post that JBP has been around for a year!
JBP started out as an idea to help other moms, with one focus and has grown in ways I never imagined. Now instead of just preparing parents for their new arrival, we offer all sorts of classes, have a store, a consignment sale, and have many other things in the works!
It’s been an exciting roller coaster of a ride and I can’t wait to see what this next year brings to JBP and all our lovely babies and families that have joined us on this ride.
