these are a few of my favorite things

I have a bit of a baby gear fetish. At one time I had, no exaggeration, 10 strollers. 3 umbrella, 3 double, a car seat frame stroller, a fancy stroller, a bike trailer, and the horrid travel system stroller. I have trimmed it down to 2 Maclaren Volos and umm 2 Phil and Teds. One is for sale, the e3. And also my travel system is for sale. ;)

So, from left to right, top to bottom, my ravs:
1. fisher price healthy care booster seat. Easy to clean, easy to wash, easy to travel with. It's our every day highchair.
2. jj cole system bag. Has oodles of pockets and a nice travel pack for diapers.
3. Maclaren volo (triumph or quest)turns on a dime, light, easy to fold. Love!
4. Moby wrap! Seems like a huge undertaking to get on but its actually pretty easy and is so comfy for mom and baby. You can make your own quite easily!
5. Pouch sling, the one shown is the polkadot papoose sling, easy to use and easy to make! Lovely for newborns.
6. Car seat frame. I bought mine from a friend and it has made the mommy group rounds because it is just so handy. It's very light and has a huge basket.
7. Boppy. Some love, some hate. I love. Made nursing a breeze.
8. Britax Marathon- totally worth the splurge! The little extras make it easy to use and the durability and ease of installation is awesome.
9. phil and teds, also known as phillip and theodore at our house. This stroller is nothing short of brilliant. The single stroller that is also a double. We love it so much we just splurged and ordered a new one!
10. Robeez, they are cute and they stay on the feet!
11. Kidco peapod plus, a whole post of loving is a couple days back. It is just too handy!

Oops! I missed the bum genius diapers. Great colors and they do the job at hand well. Sometimes pretty gross to deal with but a huge moneysaver!

*********ATTENTION!!!

I wrote this post for a very fun friend and her hubby who are expecting their very first little bambino in a few months! What was your favorite piece of baby gear? what was a total waste of money? Give her your best tips and I may just have to give a little something away to a lucky commenter. Maybe some babylegs? :)

compare and contrast

moo @ 9 months, ella bella @ 12 months

mini shopper

another fun little purchase we got in the mail. I may not like it so much after Moo runs over my feet with it...

Melissa and Doug Grocery Cart

the peapod plus

For the last couple months I have hardly bought anything, including groceries. Not really intentional... just with packing up a lot of stuff in our house to maybe move I wasn't really into buying more stuff to fill it again! However, this last week I have been doing some online shopping and yesterday both fedex and ups came a knockin.

We do a fair amount of traveling and therefore, I do a fair amount of dreading all the gear that we haul around to travel with 2 small kids. The stroller, the pack and play, the toys, the high chair. My least favorite being the pack in play. Oh yeah, it's GREAT once you get it set-up. Unless you want to move it into another room. But, pack and plays are bulky, heavy, hard to carry, and take up a lot of our precious cargo room. I also have nightmares about one hitting my kids in the head during a wreck.

Anyways.

I ordered a Peapod Plus for Ella Bella to use on our future trips. And it is so cool! It comes with a sleeping bag, air mattress, pump, carrying bag and the tent. It folds up to about the size of a large frisbee and weighs just a few pounds. Certainly light enough for Moo to carry it. It is easy to fold also, this coming from someone who can not fold a sunshade to save her life.

We have been using it in Ella Bella's crib the last couple night to get her used to the idea of sleeping in it and she loves it. It also has the added benefit of keeping Moo from bugging her because he can't touch he.

Kidco Peapod Plus

the great pee bath of 2009

My kids have taken disgusting to a new level lately. They make a public bathroom look tame. My apologies to my facebook friends who read my utterly disgusting updates, but it's just so bad I have to share. However, I think maybe some explanation is in order. Text in pink italics is from facebook.

I have seen a new low in gross. I just found ella bella playing in her diaper pail sucking on a soiled cloth diaper. Yes. Gross. Happy Mothers Day.

I really do watch my children closely. I Promise. Close enough to know the nano second any piece of unapproved matter goes in the babies mouth. Never mind scratch that. She did suck a diaper after all. Oye. Vey. On the plus side it was just wet and I have heard pee is sterile. And also on the plus side we still cloth diaper....

note to self: lock up ALL sharpie markers. simply putting them 4 ft off the ground is not a deterrent to my little tattoo artist. and the baby really likes dum-dums suckers. Oops.

Thankfully not gross. Just amusing. A little sharpie on the arm every now and then is not going to hurt them. And the dum dum thing, that was just amusing. I might need to get it on video.

discovery of the day: my barely one year old can fully undress herself during nap time and fling all her clothes over the side of the crib. Quite the shock since my 3 year old still can't undress himself!

Judging from the facebook comments, people thought this was charming. And I will say she is pretty darn cute in her birthday suit. However, not so cute when literally every square inch of her sheet was soaked in pee and therefore she was soaked in pee. Moo thought it was hilaroius.

agh. that makes twice today my son has peed on his little sister. But on the bright side, at least this time it wasn't on her head.

That brings us to today. I hope it was International Pee on Your Sister Day because we clebrated really well. First time: Moo sprints for the potty. We have been encouraging him to do all the work by himself (pants down, on the throne, ect) this week. He has done really well. Err, had done really well. He didn't guite make it and sister had started crawling after him to see what was up. Small bathroom, bad aim preschooler, curious baby sister. Ella Bella ended up with a wet head, face, and clothes. Into the tub for her. The rest of the bathroom wasn't much better, or Moo for that matter. Into the tub for him too.

All clean, new clothes, new underwear. Dinner. Playtime.

Moo has some bladder control issues when his sister gets him hysterically laughing. It only happens every now and then, but, it unfortunately happened today as little sister was unfortunately crawling under his legs. Luckily she mostly dodged the flow on that one, only getting some on her feet.

Foot bath for her.

Mom has had enough. Diapers all around and time for BED!

moody blues

I love all the little faces Ella Bella makes these days, she has become so expressive. She rubs noses with us to show affection and scrunches up her nose when something amuses her. She smiles so hard her dimples show when she is super excited. She scowls and whimpers when we have the gawl to do something that displeases her royal highness. She sucks her lip when she is bored. Oh, if she would just stay at this stage a little longer!

Next

My faithful blog readers know I "heart" google reader for keeping me up to date on my favorite blogs. However, you don't get to see blogs with their original content and design and cool links which I miss.

BUT

NOW

THERE

is

NEXT!

Google has added a new feature that allows you to view blogs in their original format. Go to settings, it's in the upper right corner of the google reader screen. Under settings, go to goodies and then follow the directions for NEXT.

I got the hot tip here, one of my fav blogs! Making it Lovely

before I forget....

ella bella and moo had their check-ups today:

moo:
35 lbs, 39.5 inches
running a fever, we had no idea. Otherwise healthy.
no new info on peanuts. darn.

ella bella:
25lbs. 10 oz. ella bella chunka monka indeed
32" tall
Dr. is a little concerned she is not cruising, we are not. She is a laid back baby. It will come and as her daddy says: "She has her whole life to walk."
5 shots, MMR, chicken pox, hep a. and umm... 2 others.
Cried 30 seconds and then was happy. Woohoo!

the many moods of moo

the things she loves at one

I wanted to try to capture just a few of my baby girls favorite things as she turns one. Her brother, mama, and dada didn't make the cut. Sock dog had to be a stand in for her first furry love, bear bear. She peed on bear bear during her very European nude nap yesterday. Oh well.

1. stuffed animals, especially "bear bear"
2. books, she sneaks off to the shelves and looks through her books.
3. her air-tivity table. She finds it very silly.
4. bananas, and pretty much any other food!
5. frosting, she did not however like her cake.
6. baby dolls and their fake hair
7. glasses and other accessories. Oh goodness, the need to accessorize starts YOUNG.
8. Shoes! Again, starts YOUNG.
9. Mama's cell phone, her very favorite toy.

smash the cake

happy birthday ella bella chunka monka!

There just simply are not adequate words for how much we love this little girl. She makes my heart all smushy with her wet kisses, silly laugh, and head butting nuzzles.

Happy Birthday little Ella Bella Chunka Monka, Happy Birthday to you!

crafting from the stash: first birthday shirt

The shirt says it all, my baby is *almost* one. 3 more days. I made this shirt using the freezer paper method, which is both easy and works really well. I don't remember which tutorial I used the first time I tried it, but there are many out there! Just google freezer paper stencil. I still need to trim down the sleeves since it is May, despite the fact I am wearing jeans and a hoodie right now! At some point in the past 2 years, target had all their white onesies and shirts 75% off and I am a sucker for a clearance sale and bought 2 dozen shirts and several packages of onesie. I think more of these freezer print shirts will be appearing on the blog soon!

divine

I love soup. I could eat it every day of the year. We have had a few cool days so while hubs was at work the other day, I whipped up a big old pot of rich and delicious french onion soup. The kids decided to take late naps (till 7pm!) and so I got to enjoy fresh french onion soup topped with perfectly crunchy and melty cheese on top. Mmmmmm. Oh it was good. It was good yesterday too. And today. Yum!

I got the recipe from the Pioneer Woman.

Her site is such an wonderful space full of inspiration for recipes.

Or photography basics.

Or photoshop tutorials.

Or homeschooling.

Or just having a good laugh.

Again here is the link for the soup: French Onion Soup Try it, it is amazing! I only changed it by using feta and swiss cheese on top of the bread and the broiling it for a few minutes after adding the cheese. Yum.

crafting from the stash: denim and tulle skirt

I made this happy little skirt after being inspired by the amazingly creative Dana over at MADE. She made this skirt after being inspired by the also amazingly talented Chris at Pink Picket Fence. Chris made this skirt after seeing this skirt at Baby Gap. The internet has so many creative people making some really cool things! This skirt was really easy to make, although I should have taken the time to get matching thread and need to make the cut more generous in the back to fit over baby girl's big diapers. I made it for Ella Bella's birthday which is just a few days away! Now to make the matching shirt....