win an ergo from heavenly hold!

Win An ERGO Performance Baby Carrier!

ERGO's newest baby carrier is the Performance. It's 1/3 lighter than the standard ERGO and has Cool Max mesh lining on the inside of the body for a more breathable, cooler babywearing experience.

WIN a Performance from Heavenly Hold by entering our September Contest now!
5 Entries per person:

1. Become a Facebook Fan of Heavenly Hold (yes, it's that simple!)

2. Suggest Heavenly Hold's FB page to your FB Friends
(email Amber to tell her you've done this...honor system!)

3. Blog about the contest and post a link to it (email Amber with the link)

4. Tweet about the contest (email Amber with the link)

5. Post a link to the contest on your FB page (email Amber with the link)

Contest will end Sept 30, 2010 and winner will get to choose which color ERGO Performance they like!

what mom does......

apparently she doesn't wash clothes, cook meals, pack lunches and read stories. she plays bunco. with a drink in hand. which was illustrated for his teacher at a small christian school. great. sure i made a great first impression. oh and now i'm 44 (or so he thinks, but is not quite sure).

thanks for the laugh bubbie. i will save this one forever.

bento? what's a bento?

in case you haven't noticed... i've been mia. why you may ask?? well we've been very busy sending this boy,

to KINDERGARTEN!!!

and along with the joys of starting school has come the joys of making lunch each day (except wednesdays because that is pizza day and bubbie is excited about that).

we bought this lunch box: (the one on the left), but that's not really ours, that's the one from the pbk's website, ours is red and blue to match our uniform.

the first week of lunch making went fine, except i noticed all those pre-bagged snacks i bought weren't being eaten. i asked him why and apparently he can't open them and no one has helped him. i was inspired by bento lunches before but thought they looked too hard, too much work, but while at wally world last night i found the perfect plastic box to fit in his lunch box (and it fits to a T!) so i thought i would give it a whirl.... here's what i came up with

dinosaur pb w/ honey sandwich on raisin dirt, with pretzel trees, whole grain goldfish and some cookies. i couldn't do any wet fruit yet because my silicone cupcake liners haven't come in from amazon.

so what's a bento you ask? well mine is as bare bones as it can be, but a bento box is a really tightly packed, cutely presented lunch. there is tons of inspiration online to get good ideas. here are a few sites i have found:

http://bentolunch.blogspot.com/

http://bentoforkidlet.blogspot.com/

http://lunchboxlimbo.blogspot.com/

have you made bento lunches? i would love some inspiration, so please share your links and ideas! check back I will post some more as i get a little more daring and creative!

sweetness

i love this picture. i love the looks on everyone's faces. it wasn't planned to come out like this but it just looks like it tells a story. pure sweetness.

back from the beach.....

with a not so lovely souvenier....



it all started wednesday night at the beach. bubbie, mema and uncle frankie were the first victims. i think mr.bear had a touch while we were there too. then friday night it hit super dad and saturday aunt mel. i thought we were finally turning a corner. super dad was returning to the land of the living.

i should have known something was up when i told sass she didn't have to nap but could just play in here room where she promptly fell asleep on the floor. after the impromteu (and had to be uncomfortable) nap, she meekly came down stairs and snuggled up on my lap. she mentioned her tummy hurting, but often that just means she's hungry, so i attempted to get her to try a bite of granola bar. big mistake. the volcano erupted all over my kitchen floor. and my feet. yuck.

super dad brought home some pedialyte and we let her start sipping some. big mistake number 2. the kitchen floor took another hit. lucky for me, this time it was super dad's feet that fell victim. oh and one of our recliner chairs (not the one she puked in the last time this winter that took weeks to get out the sour milk smell, now we have matching puked on recliners).

all afternoon she insisted on laying on top of me. the only person who has yet to fall victim to puke bug 2010. what are the odds that i'm not puking in the next three days? i'm praying hard that i have an immune system of steel as friday is bubbie's first day of kindergarten and i will be devastated if i can't take him. pray healthy thoughts over this mama please.

okay, so that's all. sorry for writing the most disgusting post ever. i promise for a more appetizing post next time!

bumgenius 4.0s..... the lowdown

first off... no i did not get eaten by the disaster of my bedroom. it actually looks amazing, but my camera phone just wasn't cuttin' it to take pictures and i honestly have been super busy this week and haven't had a chance. you will have to wait a few more days to get to see the amazing transformation that took place and unleashed a cleaning, purging monster. we still have a few things to go through, a book shelf to buy, etc. but the progress is fantastic. i'm in love with my new closet. it makes me happy! LOL!

okay onto bumgenius 4.0.... the official review. my sweet friend amber owns a great online carrier store called heavenly hold. she also sells bumgenius products and i have purchase probably 90% of mr. bears diapers from her. i own flips, 3.0s, sized AIOs, and elementals (organic aios). i love them all for different reasons.



i used 2.0s with sass until i wore them out, so i upgraded to the 3.0s with mr.bear. these are great diapers for babysitters as they go on just like a sposie (except when some one in the church nursery puts one on inside out. as in the PUL facing the baby. as in the cloth on the outside.... craziest thing i have ever seen... sorry i digress). then sweet amber asked me if i would like to try out a 4.0 and write a review on it for her. ummm.... YES! ( ps. that is my disclosure that i did not purchase my 4.0 from her, but have purchased many many other diapers from her prior to this gift, there you have it FCC). Wow, this is a long post and i still have yet to review the diaper, sorry about that.



okay so i chose a noodle (aka... off white) 4.0 w/ snaps. i do have to say as a lover of the brights, i was taken aback by how drawn to the noodle color i was and i really like the name. it is a nice neutral and will be perfect under some of our "church" clothes that brights show through. the inserts haven't changed at all, nor had the inner, but that is fine since i liked both already. i'm loving me some snaps. i keep several aplix on hand as they are better for others who aren't use to cloth diapers ( well usually, see above mentioned nursery story) but i love my snaps for me (and super dad has gotten quite good at puttin' snaps on if i do say so myself). i don't sew so i don't really understand how the whole replaceable elastic feature works, but i'm sure if i get to that point, i will appreciate it. i have a fairly good rotation though, so i would be surprised if i had to replace elastic. other than that, the fit is the same ( i know they say it will fit bigger babies, but mr. bear is a string bean so i really couldn't tell the difference). if mr.bear was a mrs. i would be all about the bubble color, but lavender doesn't really suit him.


so the bottom line (no pun intended).... not too terribly different from the 3.0s, but i'm okay with that as i love my 3.0s. all my bumgenius diapers are bullet proof. they wear well, are super trim and last a long time. the snaps are a fabulous up grade. so happy to have them. and prints are supposedly ( i totally say this supposably... apparently i've said it wrong all these years) around the corner so i am holding out on those. right now our medium aios still fit fine, but once we out grow those i will probably replace them with 4.0s since they have snaps and i find them better for older babies.

have you tried out a4.0? what are your thoughts?

ps... if you are new to cloth diapers or are curious about trying them, bumgenius is the place to start! they are so simple and trim and work great. i highly recommend them!

keepin' it real

okay internet. you've seen bubbies pretty bedroom all cleaned up. you've seen my cute, organized playroom but you ain't never seen what i'm about to show you. i'm all about keepin' it real. don't want you putting me on some sort of pedestal or anything. so with that said....

proceed with caution....

the images below are disturbing....

no this is not a recent episode of hoarders,

this would be the contents of our master bedroom closet.



yes we had all of that in our closet/office/ gift room/ baby storage. a big closet is not what it is always made out to be. ours was our dumping ground. an easy place to drop some clutter when we wanted the rest of the house to look nice. just close the door and no one gets hurt. well not no more! closet systems have been purchased. the dumping ground has been emptied out. holes are patched. super dad is ready to paint and put in our new system and i've got a morning of sorting to do. watch out ebay and craigs list. here i come with lots of junk to give you!

super dad is busy on a call in his newly cleared out office (um i mean closet?)