children's warehouse sale

If you like MonkeeMoos, come see it all in person!! We will be at the Children's Boutique Warehouse sale on Friday and Saturday this weekend. Click here for all the details if you are in the Atlanta area!

wipes solution.... it doesn't belong in a sippy cup

I use these wonderful little bits to make wipe solution for Gracie. First I started with them in the good ol' peri bottle that we all get sent home from the hospital, then I use a wipe warmer, but am now back to dry wipes and the peri bottle. Basically, baby bits are just glycerin and tea tree oil. You add one to your water solution and desolve. It's a good, natural cleansing solution. I have been using them for awhile and purchase them from Jillian's Drawers.

So, now to why wipe solution does not belong in a sippy cup. Yesterday, I was changing Gracie's diaper. I went to put the dirty one in the pail with the wipes (which I keep in our laundry room since it's right next to her room). I come back to find Gracie chugging wipe solution right out of the bottle. I normally put the bottle up on her dresser, but must of left it down while I was taking care of dumping the diaper. I looked at the ounce mark on the bottle and going by memory of where I thought it was prior, it look like she had drank about two ounces of it. I called poison control and the good news is tea tree oil is not toxic and nothing happened to her. The solution was mostly water ( I actually tasted it while on the phone with posion control) and they told me the worst thing that might happen is she would vomit, which she did not. Now if only I can convince her that vegetables taste way better than wipe solution........

great ground beef sale at Harry's

For my Atlanta based readers.... Harry's (which is owned by Whole Foods) is having a great sale on ground beef right now. They are selling hormone free, antibiotic free ground beef for a $1.99 a lb. We tend to use ground beef once a week or every other week for things like taco meat or in tomato sauce or for burgers, so this was a super sale for us! I don't know if all Whole Foods are doing it, or just Harry's. There is a minimum of 3 lbs that must be bought. I sent Matt this weekend and he stocked up. He brought it all home, divided it, made burgers out of some and froze it all! I am always lovin' a good sale!

ps.... I hope I don't offend my vegetarian readers with this post. We try to eat organic and healthy, but I haven't been able to give up meat!

whole food vitamins

Several months ago I went to this great seminar on food at my church. One of the things the speaker said that was totally a light bulb moment for me is that it's important for us to take vitamins that are made from actually fruits and vegetables. Why this was such an "ah ha" moment for me I am not sure, in retrospect, it seems pretty obvious. I went home and looked at Charlie's gummy vitamins that I had been giving him. About one of the only ingredients I could read on the label was of course.... High Fructose Corn Syrup. Wonderful!

So off to Whole Foods I went to see if I could find a better vitamin for him. That is where I discovered Yummi Bears, which are a wholefood vitamin. I am always hesitant to purchase stuff like this because who knows if Charlie will accept or refuse them, but I was determined to try. He never questioned that these were the least bit different from his other gummy vitamins. He still occasionally asks for Spider Man vitamins at Target, but is perfectly content with the healthier version at home!

Below is an image of the nutritional information for Yummi Bear vitamins, much more encouraging than our previous label! I attempted to find an image for the gummy vitamins we use to use, but their website doesn't provide that information.... interesting! Luckily for us, I still have an almost full bottle in my cabinet so you can still compare! Here are the first few ingredients:

glucose syrup (corn), sucrose, gelatin, citric acid, lactic acid, ascorbic acid, di-alpha-tocopheyl acetate, retinyl palmitate, zinc, citrate, biotin, and the list goes on and it never actually mentions a food except black carrot somewhere down the list!

Here is the Yummi Bear label:

so what did you get during the outlet sale

I didn't get a chance to get on until this morning so I know I probably missed out on a bunch of good stuff, but I did great still I think! I LOVE Swaddlebee pockets and love their contour inserts because they are super trim ( I do not have a heavy wetter though!). Anyway, Gracie still fits in mediums but could go up to larges, and I have none so I ordered 2 mediums plus contour inserts (the inserts were full price), then I ordered 6 larges plus inserts. So all in all I got 8 new diapers plus 8 first quality inserts for $72 shipped. I thought I did pretty good! It helped that Matt had Paypal, so it wasn't like spending "real" money", LOL!

So, what did you get??

the stocking has been delayed on the diapers!

I just got this email from blueberry:

This is to let you know that the complete stocking of the Outlet Store is currently delayed due to the inability of the server to handle to the huge amount of site visitors that came at exactly 3 pm at the Swaddlebees site. This has never happened before, and our server has usually been able to handle sudden surges in traffic. We will continue to stock the Outlet Store throughout the day as the site permits us to. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I guess we will just have to keep trying until it works!

need cloth diapers at a great price??

I just got this email from Blueberry Diapers. Blueberrys and Swaddlebees will be on sale, two of my favorites!

This is a heads up to let you know that we will be putting up a lot of items on clearance starting tomorrow, Friday at 3 pm ET.

These items will be available to order through the Outlet Store section of our sister company Swaddlebees.com. A mix of both Swaddlebees and Blueberry diapers will be offered and stocked on the Outlet store tomorrow. Full descriptions of all items will be available on this page: http://swaddlebees.com/products/newoutlet

Please note that this will be an Outlet Clearance Sale, which means that all items will be sold as is, without any warranties, and are not eligible for return or exchange. Elastics are guaranteed though. All item flaws will be clearly described.

pure fruit popcicles.... do they exist??

Last night after dinner Matt wanted to run to Publix to get some ice cream. Charlie hit the popcicle aisle and wanted to pack the whole aisle up and take it home. We told him he could get one box of popcicles. Do you know how hard it was to convince him that he really didn't want the Dora or Superman ones that were nothing but HFCS and artifical coloring. I was amazed at several that "claimed" to be all natural and had HFCS as one of the main ingredients. The Edy's fruit bars above were the best I could come up with. They aren't perfect by any means, but better than the alternatives. I guess I need to head to Whole Foods and see if there is a pure fruit popcicle around....

ps... I know I could make them.. I probably will, but he really wanted to pick out his own treat last night, kwim?! I think I am going to make the deceptively delicious yogurt fruit pops, I just need to get some molds.

vaccines....I hate this part of parenting!

Today was Gracie's 15 month appointment. I also go into these appointments feeling like I am playing Russian Roulette with my child. I have attempted to research vaccines in the past and always feel like I am being scared into believing that either the shot will be super detrimental to my child or by not giving the shot I am risking my child's life. It is so hard to figure out what is the right thing to do and what to believe. With Charlie, I started off just doing what the pediatrician recommended.

I was a first time mom and pretty much thought vaccines were an all or none, you either gave them or you didn't.While I still have so much to learn, I have learned since then that it is not a black or white issue. I can deny only certain vaccines if I feel the need and I can space them out so Gracie doesn't get a gazillion vaccines in one visit. This has kind of been my method this time around and I am sure the next time around I will be even more educated and picky.

All that to say, I am ordering Dr.Sear's Vaccine Book today from Amazon. I have heard really good things about the book and that he doesn't try to scare you and that he offers a good delayed vaccine schedule. Right now, I will only allow Gracie two vaccines a visit. We delayed the MMR and the chicken pox vaccine today until later. I am pretty sure she will eventually get the MMR, but not before her second birthday. I am not sure about the chicken pox vaccine....

I would love to hear your take on this. As a parent it is my responsibility to research and advocate for my children. The only way I can do this is to keep reading and talking about it with other mothers, so I love hearing other peoples perspectives (please keep them respectful though!). Also, if you have heard about green vaccines, share that info too! Thanks!

healthy hot dog or not??

I thought I was doing something really healthy and good for my family by purchasing nitrate free hot dogs. I mean I know a hot dog is a hot dog, but I hated depriving my kids of a summer time classic, but also wanted to make it as healthy as possible.

I just stumbled upon this article from seriouseats.com and now I am second guessing myself. You can read the whole article for yourself, and you should because it really has challenged my thinking, but I will summarize what it says. Basically she says that no nitrates added does not mean that it is nitrate free. That most "no nitrate added" hot dogs have celery juice in them which has nitrates in it, so while they aren't straight nitrates added to them, they still have nitrates in them. I am going to have to look into that information some more and figure out exactly what it all means because if she is right, hotdogs like the ones pictured above actually do have nitrates in them even though the label says they don't.

Bottom line, the article made me more aware of the fact that I can't believe something is healthy for my family just because it's labeled organic or bought at a store like Whole Foods. I need to be better about reading labels and learning exactly what it is I am putting in my body and the bodies of my family.

there's has got to be a better "lunchable"

Dear readers I need your help! My 3 year old has discovered lunchables and thinks they are the greatest things in the world. Several children brought them to VBS this summer and by the end of the week I caved and let him bring one too. Seriously, how bad could turkey, cheese and crackers be right..... apparently pretty bad. After reading the ingredient list I realized how little actual turkey, cheese and crackers were in the lunchable. We won't even discuss how many of the ingredients I could not identify. So, my wonderful readers.... please tell me there is something out there that will appeal to him just as much as these yucky things, because there is nothing worse than having to explain to your three year old that lunchables are not a healthy choice and than fear he will go and condem everyone at the table for eating unhealthy food. Besides, I don't want to give the boy a complex, just some none chemical, nitrate filled food.

Please share with me ideas! I am deseperate!

ps... those cute stinkin' little lunchable jr's that have food already chopped to the perfect size for my little one are just as bad and I finally thought I found something super easy to take with us when we are out!

a "healthy" chip for the fourth of july

 

Let's face it, a chip is a chip and none are exactly "healthy", but Terra makes a healthier version of a chip and the Stripes and Blues are perfect to bring to that picnic or cook out on Friday while celebrating the Fourth of July. They are super yummy with a mix of blue potato, sweet potato and striped beet chips (really they are yummy, I promise!). They are so fun and festive too! And on any other day of the year, you can find me munching down on the sweet potato chips, SOOOOO good!

Check for these in your local grocery stores organic section today!

yummy mango cilantro grilled chicken

I made some really yummy chicken the other night using Annie's Organic Mango Cilantro Marinade. I took a few frozen chicken breasts and threw them into this marinade for the day. It was so yummy! We grilled it on the grill. I made some sweet potato fries and corn on the cobb to go with. Charlie (the picky 3 year old) ate everything but the corn (he had applesauce instead). I love when my family gets a really good dinner! Annie's Natural products make this much easier!