Mommy Musings

Big things have been happening around these parts for my Charlie bear.  Back in the summer, her crib turned toddler bed, broke.  The metal part in the middle that the mattress lays on broke.  So for the past few months she's been sleeping on a mattress that just sits on the floor, while surrounded by the bed frame.  Needless to say, it was time for a new bed. It was quite a process and took a lot of research to find a bed.  Charlie's room is tiny .  Like really really tiny.  So I spent hours measuring up in her room, trying to find the largest bed we could fit.  I really wanted to get a twin bed with a trundle.  We have a decent amount of people stay over our house, and I wanted to have as much room as possible to accommodate them.  I also was willing to pay for quality, but didn't want to drop thousands on a bed and mattresses, so I really put in the time searching for the best deal. After being delayed by snow, the flu, and more snow, ...

I don't know about you, but with two kids and all their toys, I swear I'm going to lose my mind over the mess some days.  I'm not looking for an immaculate house or anything, but it would be nice to be able to take a shower or walk through the playroom without stepping on something.  My girls are mostly willing to help clean up and try and keep things tidy, but it's hard for them sometimes.  I'm always on the look-out for things to help make clean-up time a little easier and more efficient. Enter in the Nuby Sea Scooper .  This big, blue plastic whale is one of the best things to happen to bath time around here.  First off, the girls think "Whaley" {his nickname apparently} is just a toy.  They love to play with his bright colored self both in and out of the tub.  And when it's time to clean up, they see it more as "feeding Whaley" than doing a chore.  Win win in my book!! Some of the great things about the Sea Scooper is that it is BPA fre...

It's no surprise that the girls are growing bigger each day.  And with their lengthening height, also comes much bigger appetites.  Emmy has been known to eat a full meal as a snack, while still eating all her meals properly, because she's constantly hungry!  So snacking is a pretty serious thing around here. Because the girls don't have to eat their snacks sitting a the table, I want the plates, cups, etc they use to be very well made and practical.  I want them to stand up to taking a little bit of a beating, wash up very well, and contain the snacks that seem to grow bigger every day.  That last one is getting to be pretty important.  I don't want the girls using my nice dinner bowls to contain their snacks, but the typical baby bowls just aren't cutting it anymore. Thankfully I was give the chance to try out the Nuby Fun Feeding Bowls .  Brightly colored and much bigger in size than all the other bowls I had sealed the deal for me.  The girls...

Here are a few things I have found recently, and am loving , and I thought I'd pass them on to you! You can just click on any of the links to purchase them yourself! {this is not a sponsored post, just some things I love, but I am using affiliate links} The Lumene skin care line I stumbled upon this at CVS one day and have absolutely fallen in love.  It really helps brighten my skin and makes it super smooth! I have been using the Lumene Radiant Touch Refreshing Foam Cleanser , Lumene Radiant Touch Refreshing Toner, 6.8 Fluid Ounce , Lumene Vitamin C+ Pure Radiance Day Cream ~ 1.7 Fl. Oz. Lumene Vitamin C Pure Radiance Night Cream for just a few weeks now and am sold on the results! Marcus Luttrell  I've talked about my love of the movie The Lone Survivor in previous posts. The book Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 was even more captivating, as was Marcus Luttrell's follow up book Service: A Navy SEAL at War I...

Big things have been happening around here this weekend!  If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, then you probably saw this picture that I posted: That would be Charlie's room with a toddler bed  in it!  I can't believe it, my sweet little baby in a big girl bed! I'll be honest, I've been putting this off for a while.  Emmy was much younger when we moved her to a toddler bed, but as is with most second child things, I was in no need to rush this.  I would have happily let Charlie sleep in a crib until she was 5. But with our upcoming trip to Disney in June, Skip and I decided it would be best to change over before that, since she'll have to sleep in a bed on that trip.  I'll ideally potty-train her before we go as well, and didn't want too many big changes at once. I realized this weekend was the perfect time to do it, because Emmy is off school this week.  If Charlie struggled to go to bed at night, I didn't want to have to get up super early the n...

My Charlie girl likes to move, grow, and develop at her own pace.  Some things she likes to do a little faster than most kids her age and some she's a little slower.  She won't be hurried or rushed but just meanders along at her own pace with milestones.  One of these areas is her teeth coming in.  She started teething right around four months, and I assumed she'd follow a similar schedule to Emmy.  So as she drooled and gnashed on her fingers, we waited for those pearly whites to pop through.  We waited, and waited, and waited some more.  She was around a year before we saw anything peeking. Even now, at 32 months, she doesn't have all her teeth in yet.  Two of them just made their appearance, and we are still waiting on two more after that.  Obviously, with this mix of established teeth, new teeth, and bare gums, it is tough to find the right toothbrush to take care of all her needs.  That's why I was excited to try out the Nuby Oral ...

I'm going to let you in on a little secret here....I'm not a huge fan of bath time with my girls.  Sure, I love their sweet smelling freshly bathed heads and shiny brushed out hair.  But the whole process is exhausting.  Especially when you're husb works the evening shift every other week, and even if he's home a certain two year old won't let anyone but Mommy bathe her.  I just can't always motivate myself to deal with all the splashing and the wriggling of wet little bodies.  So I'm definitely not always giving them a bath every day. Just because we might go a day or so in between, does not mean I want my kids to smell or be dirty.  So whatever bath products I use, I really want to last until they're next dunk in the tub. Thankfully I have found this in the Baby Magic .  Before I even opened up the bottles, I knew I would like them.  After all, their products are paraben free! The company also does not sure quaternium-15 or 1,4-dioxane in t...

It's no surprise that both my girls are getting older.  They both sit at the table, eat what we're eating {well, sometimes} and can use utensils.  They can also both drink out of a regular cup.  Just because they can  doesn't mean I actually want them to all the time.  They like to run, play, be a little careless, and I prefer not to spend my day cleaning up milk and juice, so they still use sippy cups a majority of the time. I have used tons  of sippies throughout the past five years.  My only real requirement for them is that the girls like drinking out of them, and they don't leak.  The sippy leak drives me bananas!   I am happy to report that this hasn't been a problem at all with the Nuby  Clik-it™ No Spill™ Insulated Cool Sipper™.   First off, this cup is a great way to transition from a sippy cup to a regular drinking cup.  It has a No-Spill™ soft silicone rim as well as Touch-Flo™ Technology, that activates as soon as ...

So as I mentioned briefly on Friday, we had to break Charlie of her pacifiers this weekend.  By society and doctor standards, she is really too old to have one at two and a half.  But that isn't why we had to take them away.  For the past few weeks, Charlie has been chewing on the nipple part of the pacifier. And twice in the past ten days, she has managed to chew the tops off the nipple.  We've caught it both times, but may not always be as lucky.  So the paci had to go. I waited after naptime Saturday {mainly for my own sanity} and the just cut the top off her remaining pacifier.  I didn't make a big deal out of it, or even draw attention to it.  Just cut it and left it off to the side. It was a little over an hour before Charlie even noticed it was cut.  When she brought it to me and said it was broken, I just said yes it was, and left it at that.  She didn't seem too broken up about it. Fast forward to bedtime.  As she was gathering ...

As Emmy is really loving her Nuby Foam Letters and Numbers , Charlie definitely doesn't want to be left out of the bath time fun!  So she was super excited when I gave her the Nuby Foam Bath Animals to play with! Charlie is obsessed  with every and all kind of animal these days, and was very excited to start splashing around in the bath with her new toys.  According to Nuby , "the Nuby Foam Bath Animals bring underwater creatures to your little one's bath time!  The characters float in the water and when wet will stick to the bathtub wall providing countless hours of bath time fun!  The fun colorful characters will delight and amuse your little one while stimulating their senses." I love the quality of the foam.  It is bright, colorful, and has been durable enough to handle the girls fighting over each piece.  Because there are two of each animal in the set, we were able to practicing some matching skill as well, which I just love! The girls love pla...

Emmy is turning into a little sponge these days.  She absolutely loves identifying letters and trying to spell out words.  So I have been scrambling to challenge and engage her with this as much as possible. And thanks to Nuby I can even do that during bath time!!  Who knew!  The Nuby Foam Bath Letters and Numbers are an easy way to make bath time a fun learning experience.  The 36 letters and numbers float in the water and stick to the walls when wet. These letters are absolutely perfect for Emmy.  She loves their colorful designs, and it has made adding in a little learning time so easy .  We have been working on sight words and higher number recognition.  Both can be done with the Nuby Foam Letters and Numbers! As a mom, I love the high quality floating foam, and the bright, engaging colors! You can purchase your own Nuby Foam Bath Letters and Numbers form the following retailers: Meijer www.BuyBabyDirect.com Also, make sure you are follow...