Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Baby Buds - A Product Review

From time to time you'll see opportunities on Pinterest looking for people and/or blogs to review products.  I've never volunteered to test a product before so I decided to try one!  The company is called Baby Buds.  They make baby toys using naturally sustainable, eco-friendly fabrics, including certified organic cottons and natural silks.

We received Mogo the Monkey that has a teething handle attached.  As their website said, they used minimal packaging.  The product itself was very nice.  The fabric was soft and it appeared to be well made.

I gave it to my 9 month old, Julianna to test out.  She seemed to like it because it kept her attention for a bit.  She of course put it right in her mouth, like everything else, so I was happy that it was an organic item.

Here is a video of Julianna's product test, enjoy!  Baby Buds' products can be purchased at some Target stores and I'd recommend them if you have a baby gift to buy.  Baby Buds toys get a PIN for their quality and organic makeup!  


Pin It

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Toddlers are Like Little Drunk People

This week's post isn't going to be about any projects I did but rather about a hilarious blog post I found on Pinterest that any parent of a toddler (or former toddler, or some college kids) can relate to.  It was called 20 Ways Toddlers are Like Dealing with a Drunk Person.  I loved this post.  I've dealt with my share of drunk people, and have been one myself during my college years, so after spending a weekend a lone with my kids, I couldn't help but reflect on this post and laugh!

From Motherhood on the Rocks, here is her original post:

After writing about how living with children is like living in a frat house, I got to thinking…taking care of a toddler is, in many ways, like dealing with a drunk person. The emotional highs and lows, uncoordinated movements and lack of volume control, not to mention the fact that you are on suicide watch 24/7 with them, are just a few of the many reasons that toddlers resemble drunk people. By the way, I totally want this glass.
Following are 20 more ways that taking care of a toddler is like dealing with a drunk person. What would you add to this list?
  1. No personal boundaries
  2. Falls over A LOT. Gets up, yells “I OK!” and keeps going
  3. Poor decision making skills
  4. Spontaneous vomiting
  5. Speaks gibberish
  6. Gets belligerent if you take away their beer [insert favorite toy here]
  7. Cries for no apparent reason
  8. Streaking (see #3)
  9. Philosophical conversations with inanimate objects
  10. Short attention span
  11. Argumentative
  12. Poor short term memory
  13. Zero inhibitions
  14. Loses everything
  15. Will pass out anywhere
  16. One track mind
  17. Demanding
  18. Getting them undressed (or redressed) is like wrestling an alligator
  19. Runs into things that haven’t moved…ever
  20. One volume setting – LOUD!
Hilarious right? With the exception of #15, my 3 1/2 year old goes through each and every one of these within a half hour these days.  Sometimes I legitimately think he's crazy.  Take Saturday for example.  We went to the park.  He gets kicked in the face by an older kid, gets a shiner, cries for two minutes, I say "do you want to leave", he says "no I'm fine", wipes his tears and is back playing with the kid who kicked him, climbing up the SIDE of the playground that was not meant for climbing.  Numbers 2, 3, 10, 12 and 13 within two minutes time.  He takes numbers 16, 17, 19 and 20 to a whole new level everyday.  

So what's the point of this post?  As tough as being a Toddler Mom is, a post like this can really help you find a bright spot in your daily struggles and remind you that other people are dealing with the same crap you are.  Today I am exhausted and looking like I've been through a war, because I basically have; but I wouldn't have it any other way.  Similar to a fun drunk person, he is so hilarious and makes me laugh like no one else can.  

Pinterest isn't just for projects.  You can find inspiration in other areas of life and this post shows that.  Motherhood on the Rock's post gets a total PIN from me.  She was open, honest and real about what it is like to deal with a toddler sometimes.  So the next time your little person starts acting crazy, just think of this list and laugh your way through the craziness! 

 





P.S. - A special thank you goes out to my favorite Toddler who provided the content and inspiration for this post...the one and only, Mr. Gio.  


My Crazy Toddler

Pin It

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Our Family Yearbook

As many of you know from my posts, I love doing projects with photos.  I take a lot of pictures and love to display them.  One thing I am bad about is printing them!  Recently when we lost all our photos from our computer, I quickly learned the importance of one, a better backup system and two, printing my photos just in case!

My inspiration for this project came from eighteen25.

family yearbook

The original pinner really went above and beyond what I wanted to do.  If you click through and visit her post, she talks about her process and describes the book in pretty significant detail.  She also shows sample pages.  She made hers like an actual yearbook would be.  Some pages have a lot of copy on them, others are just photos.  Her version is about 100 + pages and she uses Photoshop to design her pages, them uploads them to the site she has print the book.  It looks great!

But for me...I'm not not that Photoshop savvy and I don't think I would even have enough photos to fill up 100 pages so I kept it simple.  I used Walgreens.com to do my book.  They have templates and you can pick the size of your book.  I did an 8" x 8" hard cover.

Most of my photos were already loaded on the site because that is where I print my photos from so I used what was already there and uploaded the others I had.  From there I just plugged my photos into the template trying to go in order throughout the year. I added some text here and there.  Here's my end result:
family yearbook
Cover

family yearbook
Page Spread


family yearbook
Page Spread
Overall I ended up with 26 pages and spent $25 with shipping after a coupon.  If I had to do it over again, I would probably have gotten a larger size maybe 8.5 x 11 but for $25, I was happy with the quality and finished product over all.  This project gets a PIN!

If you have any questions about how I put this together or ordering from Walgreens, please don't hesitate to contact me at jcalero1015@yahoo.com.  


Pin It