The Busy Giffs: October 2014

October 27, 2014

The Joovy Boob

Disclaimer: This a sponsored post, however all thoughts and opinions are my own.

I've clearly been on a Joovy kick lately and had to share about these ridiculously adorable bottles by Joovy, aptly named the Boob.

I had to check them out after seeing that they had won a Cribsie award!

The PPSU Bottles are BPA/PVC free and will not absorb any odors and is perfectly designed to fit right in your hand.

My favorite part of the entire design is that the entire bottle is only 5 pieces, including the cover! There are no weird, tiny pieces that have to be lined up just right. Instead, the Boob offers a one piece CleanFlow vent that makes cleaning the bottle a breeze and allows venting regardless of how you hold the bottle!

This is what the Boob looks like without the cap and nipple:

You can see the little air vent and how easy the set up is!

Speaking of caps and nipples, the Boob offers 5 different size nipples:

Stage 0, Preemie, 0+ Months

Stage 1, Slow Flow, 0+ Months

Stage 2, Medium Flow, 3+ Months

Stage 3, Fast Flow, 6+ Months

Stage X, Extra Fast Flow for Thicker Fluids, 6+ Months

The base is wider and the nipple is longer to help assist with proper latching, helping breastfeeding last longer!

Joovy also makes an insulator to help keep bottles warmer longer! Studies show babies do better with milk that is closer to body temperature so it's an awesome new product not seen on any other bottles.

And finally, the greatest part of the Boob bottles:

They offer a breast pump adapter!!!

The breast pump adapter allows you to use a Medela, Lansinoh, Playtex, Evenflo, Simplisse, or Ameda breast pump and pump directly into the Boob bottles. Rather than transferring the milk into another container or a milk storage bag, you can simply use a Boob sealing cap and you're ready to pack it up to bring home!

I am obsessed with the Joovy Boob Giftset. It is the perfect starter gift for a new mom, offering both sizes of bottles, nipples in all 5 sizes, an insulator for each bottle size, breast pump adapters, sealing caps, and a bottle and nipple brush! You can pick it up for only $129 from Joovy's website, or you can use their handy Store Locator to find a place local to pick up! You can also find Joovy on Facebook and Twitter!

October 24, 2014

Apples > Pumpkins

You know what I dislike about October. Pumpkin anything. Yuck.

I'm as "basic" as they get. minus the fact that pumpkin spice makes me want to gag.

I'll have a vanilla pumpkin candle going in my house, but that's it.

The poor apple gets thrown to the side too quickly so I've rounded up some amazing apple treats to help you remember that apples are better than pumpkins.

McDonald's Copycat Apple Pies

Snickers Apple Blondies

Caramel Apple Parfait

Dutch Apple Pie

Cinnamon Apple Salad

3 Ingredient Apple Dip

Apple Cider-tini

Excuse me while I go pick 18 bags of apples to make all this!

October 23, 2014

The Biggest Baby Shower: Boston

A couple weeks ago, Big City Moms hosted The Biggest Baby Shower Ever in Boston and I was thrilled to be invited to attend!

The vent featured over 100 of the most amazing baby companies for new and expectant parents to check out. I'm talking super respected companies like Joovy, Nuna, Britax, lillebaby, Crane, Skip Hop, and Tommee Tippee!! They also had food vendors, manicures, and tons and tons of giveaways!

The welcome hall had vendors set up to greet you as you walked in.

lillebaby carriers! I just love the dainty bows and would totally wear it even with my little man!

One aisle in the largest room, there must have been 50 vendors in that one room!

Magic Beans had some of their most amazing products set up on the stage. The Stokke Trip Trap is a personal favorite!

The gamechanger! I am obsessed with these new clicktight technology carseats from Britax. They have made car seat installation easier than it's ever been. I'm dying to buy one for Tyler. You can see the clicktight boosters in the back as well, and if the little man gets a new seat, the princess should too, right?

Just one of the many vendors giving out free cupcakes all night!

I am in love with Tommee Tippees new themed sippy cups, the British look is adorable!

While I didn't get my hands on any prizes or one of the amazing swag bags, I did get to talk to many companies so there will be even more baby stuff making its way to Mommy by the Sea soon! I'm crossing my fingers Big City Moms comes back next year!

October 22, 2014

The Joovy Room

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post however, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Little man has been on the move lately. Like really on the move. He's not crawling so I'm not sure how he is so mobile but I'll leave him in one spot and 2 minutes later, he's facing the other direction 4 feet from where he started!

I'm not leaving him alone for long but simple things like using the bathroom or grabbing a water bottle from the fridge, now leaves me paranoid he's going to scootch himself under the couch or find one of the Princess' toys and shove it into his mouth!. It's petrifying knowing he can get into more stuff now!

We love Joovy products so looking at Joovy's site for a playard was common sense for us. The husband instantly spotted the bright orange Joovy Room and decided it was the one we needed. We had the option of ordering it directly from the Joovy website or heading to one of hundreds of stores to pick it up.

The Joovy Room starts out looking like a traditional playard, all folded up and zipped into a protective bag but opening it was such a breeze and much easier to set up than other playards we used with our first child. It was a bit heavier than other playards, weighing in at 34 pounds, but it's because the Joovy Room comes with so many fabulous extras. I love that it can be broken down to such a small size. It could be stored under the crib easily so it's not taking up precious space when not in use, however, I wish the bag had wheels on it to help it get to little man's room a bit easier.

Immediately upon opening, we realized this was no ordinary playard. The fabric feels strong and durable, and the design is sleek and modern- not childish like so many playards are.

The Joovy Room offers more than a typical playard, including a bassinet, changing station, and parent organizer.
Tyler is just under 15 lbs so he just makes the cut for using the bassinet however, we don't use the bassinet because he sleeps in his crib already! It's great to have to be able to use from night one home but it's not something we really needed to use.

I am in love with the parent organizer! It has 9 little storage compartments total, and we're using all of them! The hard top has 3 cubbies that we use for storing binkies, butt cream, and the nose frida. Two of the fabric compartments hold diapers and wipes, and the rest are full of toys! It's great to get all the toys off the floor and feels like they "belong" in those cubbies!

The Joovy Room also has an built in MP3 jack and a night light! You just hook it up to your phone to play music through the speakers and control the volume directly through your phone! If you don't feel like using your music, you can choose one of the preloaded songs, but there's no volume control for those. We use the MP3 option because little man is a big fan of the Rock A Bye Lullabies and loves listening it them while playing inside the Room.

The removable changing table supports a baby up to 25 pounds and is vinyl! Hooray for easy clean up after little has a massive blow out! After the change, you simply wipe it down and move on with your life! The changing pad also has 4 storage cubbies if you need even more space to house the essentials!

When I first set up the "mattress" part of the Room, I was a bit concerned, as I had seen some negative reviews as I was doing my research before purchasing. While it is thin, it's important to remember that it's a playard, not a mattress and the 100% cotton sheet that is included with the Room, makes it a comfortable play place for my little guy. The added feature of the velcro straps going through the base of the playard to secure the sheet is even more comfort for me, knowing the sheet can't bunch up under the little guy. I always had to use a random blanket or sheet with my daughter and I was constantly afraid she would smoosh it up under her face.

The Joovy Room has 2 wheels which makes moving it while set up super easy. Just lift one side and it's easy to push across the room or down the hallway.

The little guy loves hanging out in the Room with his toys and I love that I feel comfortable ~~using the bathroom~~ stepping away for a minute, knowing he won't get himself into any trouble.

The Room comes in your choice of three colors and I'm in love with all of them! The navy and black are neutral enough to fit into any home, and the orange just screams fun!

We are so happy we got the Joovy Room, I just wish we had it three years ago for the Princess too!

Make Your Own Starbucks Passion Tango Iced Tea Lemonade!

About half of my Target trips start or end with a Starbucks Shaken Passion Tango Ice Tea Lemonade. I don't drink coffee but that passion fruit iced tea is just the most amazing treat. The last time we were at Target, I treated myself to one of these wonderful concoctions.

via

And I say treated because $3 for a 12 oz drink is absolutely a treat.

I figured there had to be a less expensive way to enjoy this treat and then I stumbled across Tazo Iced Passion Tea. And some lemonade. And I figured it was worth a try!

The Tazo Iced Passion Tea is made to brew a 64 oz container!

I simply brewed it full strength (but let it steep for 10 minutes instead of 5) and poured it into a 64 oz pitcher I had laying around. That went into the fridge for about an hour so it could cool.

I used my double walled Starbucks cup, filled it with ice and poured the cooled tea to about 2/3 of the way full. I topped that off with some store bought lemonade and it is spot on.

I prefer my Passion Iced Tea Lemonade Unsweetended but if you wanted to sweeten it, you could make a simple syrup or purchase the syrup from Starbucks.

So delicious!

Try and let me know how close you think it is!

October 20, 2014

Clothes, Baby Stuff and More! Oh My!!

I have seriously been needing to purge my house.

I feel like even though we purged a ton when we moved, I'm already at the "over capacity" feeling again.

Moving out some of Tyler's larger baby gear items from the living room has helped, but there's still so much more.

All this week my Instagram feed will be filled with items for sale.

Baby gear, baby clothes, women's clothes, jewelry, handbags, nailpolish, shoes... tons!

It's time to destash and destress!

October 18, 2014

Little Man is 5 (and a half) Months!

Growth:

There's no 5 month check up so we're not completely sure but he is growing! His feet hang out the end of his infant car seat and is getting taller every day.
He's just shy of 15 pounds as well.

Looks:

This boy knows how to smile! He has the most crooked smile and loves to smile at everyone! His eyes have turned a dark grey and still have strawberry blonde hair. He is such a little Irish man.

Firsts and Milestones:

We're moving! Little man is scootching himself around. He can complete a full circle on his own in less than 5 seconds, can push himself backwards, and is now pushing himself up on his hands and knees. He loves ~~sucking~~ chewing on his thumb and gnawing on all of his toys. We are definitely hitting early teething.

Sleep:

We had a pretty bad wakeful period but we're back to only one or two wake ups, which is awesome as he's still just nursing! He'll have one or two nights where he's up constantly but that just means he's growing right?

Food:

I'm still holding off on solids. I don't know why I'm still holding off but I'm sure by the next update, he'll be eating solids more regularly. As of now, I'm still pumping at work and still pumping more than he's consuming so my freezer stash continues to grow!

Language:

He yells! Ha! He yells at the cat, at Emmalee, and at anything he's excited about. It's so awesome to hear. He also continues to laugh every day.

His favorites:

The cat and his toys are his new favorites. He is always trying to grab one of them and is constantly "yelling" at them! He will even move his body to get to certain toys or to be looking at the cat.
He still loves to eat and loves to hold on to things.
He loves chewing on everything, especially blankets and his thumb!

My favorites:

I love that he sleeps on his belly, just like I do with one leg pulled up closer to his body than the other.
His (still) toothless grin.
His belly laugh is still the best sound I've heard.

October 8, 2014

Disney + Fisher Price Little People

Two of my daughter's favorite things are Fisher Price Little People and Disney.

So when Fisher Price released the Disney Princess Songs Palace, we knew it was going to have to come from Santa.

It gets played with every day. Even the infant likes the songs it plays and since the Little People are solid construction, he can "play" with his big sister and I don't have to stress about him choking on anything.

A couple weeks a go I noticed a few new characters at Target and Walmart so curiosity got the best of me and I have a whole new wish list! Emma does not need anymore toys (I heard even Santa is done with her for Christmas already) but I could picture Tyler playing with this Mickey Mouse castle...