Stuff Parents Need

Easing the chaos in the nest, one find at a time.

Reusable Paper Towels Review and GIVEAWAY

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unique rabbit, supplier of reusable paper towels

Do you use dish cloths in your kitchen? Almost everyone does, it seems. They are so great to have around to wipe off your hands or the occasional mess. In my own home, I’ve been wondering for a while why I have no problem using reusable dish towels, but I am still buying paper towels for other messes. It seems a bit silly. A few weeks ago I decided to do something about it, and so I went online and found un-paper towels, also known as reusable paper towels, at a fabulous Etsy shop called Unique Rabbit. I’ll tell you more about what I ordered a little later. First, Let me tell you more about Unique Rabbit and Kimberly, the owner.

Kimberly has been happily married for 10 years and has two boys, ages 2 and 8 weeks (brand new!). She has been a crafty gal for as long as she can remember. Her shop has a focus on earth-friendly products that support a sustainable lifestyle. The inspiration for this has come primarily from seeing what things have worked for her family and creating these products for others to use as well. This includes the paperless towels and wipes, as well as organic cotton lunch sets, cloth shopping bags, and flannel hankies. Kimberly says, “I really believe in the products I make and love that with every sale I am helping someone else live a little ‘greener.'”

reusablel paper towels Paperless towels are cloths meant to replace paper towels in your home. They are not only gentle on the planet, but also gentle on your wallet in the long run! I predict that these napkins will pay for themselves within about 6 weeks at my house, and depending on how often you use paper towels, they might pay for themselves even faster in your home. Kimberly is selling a set of 6 handmade cloths for $5.50. You heard right, just $5.50. That’s a downright bargain, folks. A jumbo single roll of Bounty can cost as much as $2.00, and of course it has to be replaced frequently. I was so impressed with the quality and the pricetag, that I ordered sets for about half the folks on my Christmas list!

There are a rainbow of colors from which to choose, which was really nice. I ordered a set that would match the color scheme in my own home. While some paper towels have cute little designs on them, I don’t know of any that coordinate with your color scheme, unless of course your entire house is white. Kimberly will do a custom order for you, with any combination of colors that she has. She will even customize the thread color around the edges, if you so desire! And if you like those adjust-a-size paper towels so you can use the right size for the mess, she can make smaller or larger towels for you, as well.

I laid out one of my paperless towels on top of a paper towel. At 10 1/2 X 10 1/2″, they are just slightly smaller than a standard paper towel. These are made from a very soft flannel. They certainly feel a lot nicer than paper towels do. I can see how they would also make very good reusable napkins. I’ve even grabbed one of these a few times to wipe my infant’s face. One other great feature of these paperless towels is that they aren’t going to tear on you in the middle of a job that involves a bit of scrubbing. I really appreciate that! I’m also happy to report that they are holding up just great after going through the washer and dryer a few times.

reusable paper towels In addition to my order, Kimberly was nice enough to send me a sample set of reusable wipes to try out. I’ll be honest; I was REALLY nervous about this! Since I don’t use cloth diapers (at least not yet), I wasn’t sure if I would really be cool with having cloths with pee on them sitting in my laundry bin. But the truth is that I do laundry so often (every other day now) that it’s no big deal. I will confess that I didn’t use the wipes for poo situations. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, and that’s ok. One step at a time, right? But seriously, I really didn’t mind using the reusable wipes. They were very soft and sturdy, and the wipes solution recipe that Kimberly sent along was even more simple that the one I’ve used before, and it worked great. I will keep these wipes on hand to use with pee diapers, and that is going to seriously cut down on the amount of money I have to spend on wipes. Yay! UniqueRabbit also sells double thick wipes, which are perfect for, well, messier messes! You can get 12 single or 6 double thick wipes for $6.00. I think 12 wipes is enough to get you through one day, at least most of the time!

Edited: I noticed that Kimberly has taken a break from the business, but no worries! You can find a rather amazing selection of reusable paper towels on Amazon! I’ve tried the Skoy products (read my review here!) and quite liked them, myself.

Buy it!
In addition to selling reusable cloths of all sorts, UniqueRabbit also has other earth-friendly products and hand-made toys and accessories. The prices are incredible, so hop on over! Kimberly is even offering Stuff Parents Need readers an additional 10% off until Sunday, November 1 at 7:59pm CST! To get the discount include a note when you check out on Etsy with the coupon code “Stuff Parents Need” and don’t pay until you are sent an invoice by Kimberly with the discounted total.

Win it!
Kimberly has generously offered to give one lucky reader a set of paperless towels and a second lucky reader a set of reusable wipes! You will even get to customize the colors! The contest will run until Sunday, November 1st at 7:59pm CST, when the winners will be chosen at random and emailed. The winners will have 48 hours to reply with their contact information. You must include your email address in your comment or make sure it is listed in your profile! If I can’t find your email address, a new winner will be chosen. You must complete the mandatory entry in order for any subsequent entries to be counted. Open to residents of the United States.

How to Enter:
Mandatory entry: Go check out Unique Rabbit. Come back here and tell me your favorite item sold there other than items mentioned in the review. Also tell me if you would prefer the paperless towels or the wipes.

Additional Entries:
1. Subscribe to my blog via email or RSS. Leave a comment with your email address for the subscription.
2. Make a purchase at Unique Rabbit (5 entries). Leave 5 comments with the email address you used when making the purchase.
3. Blog about this giveaway (3 entries). Leave 3 comments with a link to the post.
4. Tweet about this giveaway and leave a url for your tweet
5. Share this post via any of the venues at the bottom of this post (digg, stumbleupon, etc.). Leave one comment with a link for each way that you shared!

Disclosure: I purchased the paperless towels myself, and received the reusable wipes as a sample for the product review. No other form of compensation was given for this review.

Rachel Ray Pumpkin Sausage Pasta

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Affiliate links may be included at no cost to you. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

Rachel Ray is a really great resource for meals that come together quickly and are easy to make! I use her 365: No Repeats recipe book often and find it to be a great tool. It has survived quite a few cookbook purges! I hope this Rachel Ray pasta recipe makes its way to your dinner table soon.

I was a little concerned when I first read this Rachel Ray pumpkin sausage pasta recipe. I mean, how are Italian sausage, canned pumpkin and a whole bunch of holiday spices going to all work out as an Italian pasta dish? Well, I’m still not sure why everything goes together so well but it does! You definitely have to try this one. One word of advice, go heavy on the Parmesan cheese at the end. Yum-O.

Recipe name: Pumpkin Pasta by Rachel Ray
Source: Food Network
Servings: 4-6

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon
  • 1 pound bulk sweet Italian sausage
  • 4 cloves garlic, cracked and chopped
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 1 bay leaf,
  • 4 to 6 sprigs sage leaves, chopped
  • 1 cup dry white wine
  • 1 cup chicken stock, canned or paper container
  • 1 cup canned pumpkin
  • 1/2 cup (3 turns around the pan) heavy cream
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg, ground or freshly grated
  • Coarse salt and black pepper
  • 1 pound penne, cooked to al dente
  • Parmesan cheese

Directions

Heat a large, deep nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and brown the sausage in it. Transfer sausage to paper towel lined plate. Drain fat from skillet and return pan to the stove. Add the remaining tablespoon oil, and then the garlic and onion. Saute 3 to 5 minutes until the onions are tender.

Add bay leaf, sage, and wine to the pan. Reduce wine by half, about 2 minutes. Add stock and pumpkin and stir to combine, stirring sauce until it comes to a bubble. Return sausage to pan, reduce heat, and stir in cream. Season the sauce with the cinnamon and nutmeg, and salt and pepper, to taste. Simmer mixture 5 to 10 minutes to thicken sauce.

Return drained pasta to the pot you cooked it in. Remove the bay leaf from sauce and pour the sausage pumpkin sauce over pasta. Combine sauce and pasta and toss over low heat for 1 minute. Garnish the pasta with lots of shaved cheese and sage leaves.

How to Clean a Breast Pump for Lazy People: Medela Quick Clean Micro Steam Bag Review

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If you are a pumping mama, then you have by now realized that you have to learn how to clean a breast pump.

how to clean a breast pump

You’ve likely also learned that it takes more time than you have to give it, seeing as how you are trying to deal with an infant at the same time. But thank goodness for folks who make products that solve problems, because there is a line of products that can help. medela quick clean bags

The Medela Quick Clean Micro-Steam Bag is yet another product that I would have absolutely never purchased had it not been given to me. Honestly, I’d never even heard of them before I received them, but if I had noticed them in the store, I would have thought that they were kind of silly. I mean, it isn’t rocket science to know how to clean a breast pump, right? Just clean your pump parts, people! What’s the big deal?!

Thank God for the mothers who have come before me! Once I started using my pump (I use an Ameda Purely Yours) I actually realized the following:

  • a) there are a lot of parts that get used when you pump,
  • b) they all need to be cleaned after every use,
  • c) they are sort of a pain to clean.

Fortunately, I remembered that my friend had given me some of these Medela Quick Clean bags, so I tried them out. Basically you put your parts in the bag, put about 2 oz of water in, and pop it in the microwave for 2 1/2 minutes. Remove the bag (carefully…think of popcorn bags an the steam that comes out when you open it). Take out your parts. You are pretty much done after that! If any parts still look a little milky, just run water over them. Most of the time I found that the parts looked squeaky clean. Furthermore, everything in the bag got really hot, which means that any bacteria or other such yuckiness was eliminated. I can’t guarantee that when I hand wash them, because I tend to wash things with warm water, not hot water (my poor hands just can’t take the heat!)

Each bag will last for 20 sessions. There are little boxes on the bags so you can take a magic marker and check off a box for each session. Otherwise, it would be impossible to remember how many times you’ve used it!

If you are pumping more than once in a day, here’s a little trick: put your pump parts in the Medela bag, and then put the bag in the fridge. The cold of the fridge will keep bacteria from growing (well, at least slow it down quite a bit) so you can re-use the same pump parts for your next session that day. At the end of the day, put them in the microwave so that they are clean for tomorrow. I’m planning on bringing a bag with me when I go to work and using this exact method. This cuts down on the work you have to do without sacrificing health and safety for your baby. Woo hoo!

Edit: And if you like this product and want more from the line, they also have Medela Quick Clean soap. This either wasn’t available when I originally wrote this post or I just didn’t know about it!

I hope this helps you learn how to clean a breast pump in the real world, when you can’t head to your kitchen sink after every pumping session! Or if you are lazy! Both apply in my case.

This post contains an affiliate link at no cost to you. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

(Almost) Healthy Mac and Cheese Recipe

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Welcome to Simple Sunday Recipes!

I absolutely LOVE this (almost) healthy mac and cheese recipe. I’m not going to tell you that it is the very best mac and cheese that I’ve ever had, because that’s not true. But it is most definitely the easiest homemade macaroni and cheese I’ve ever made, and given the fact that it doesn’t contain any butter or heavy cream, it tastes AWESOME. I suppose it isn’t exactly accurate to call this a “healthy” meal, but I really think this is a great recipe to use when you want some comfort food, but you want to skip the guilt that comes from eating a dish with enough calories in it to sustain you for 3 days straight!
healthy mac and cheese recipe Best  Healthy Mac and Cheese Recipe

8-10 oz cooked macaroni (you can opt for whole wheat pasta, to increase the health factor)
8 oz shredded sharp cheese
12 oz cottage cheese
8 oz plain yogurt
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350.

In a 9×13 pan, stir together cooked macaroni, cheeses, yogurt, Parmesan and salt and pepper. Put foil on top and bake for 30 minutes. That’s it! I seriously love when recipes are this simple. Enjoy!

A Great Bulk Purchase: Kirkland Baby Wipes

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bulk wipes from Costco (Kirkland brand)

(Image from Costco.com)

Tim and I are members of a wholesale club, Costco. Since we are only a family of 3, sometimes we have a hard time finding things to purchase at Costco, especially when it comes to food purchases. We often can’t eat the food fast enough before it spoils! But we have found a great deal that we will purchase again when it comes to Kirkland baby wipes at Costco. And little Darah has no fear about us buying 900 wipes at a time. Trust me, she’ll use them!

If you are a Costco member, you can get 900 Kirkland wipes for $27.99. That’s 3.1 cents/wipe. If you aren’t a member of Costco, you can still purchase Kirkland Baby Wipes at Amazon, and right now, they are the same price as at Costco!

I like to try to get wipes for around 2 cents/wipe, but that’s very difficult to do without coupons, and sometimes I just don’t have coupons or the mental energy to scope out deals. That’s when paying just a wee bit more is fine with me. They are still cheap baby wipes!

I’ve found the baby wipes by Kirkland to be a little bit thinner than Huggies wipes (which are my personal favorites), but they are still highly effective, and I don’t have to use any more wipes than normal to get the job done. They have a light, pleasant scent, and best of all, they are environmentally friendly by being made from renewable resources, being 100% biodegradable. Woo hoo!

I really liked purchasing so many wipes at once, because it means that I don’t have to even think about wipes for a few months. That makes my job as a parent just that much easier!

Stay tuned for a crazy cool experiment at our house: we’re going to give reusable wipes a try!

Do you have a favorite wipe, or a price point that you look for when purchasing baby wipes?

This post contains an affiliate link.

Disposable Nursing Pads Review:The Good, The Bad, and The Bulky!

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Affiliate links to the best disposable nursing pads included. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a little while, you probably realize that I’m a thrifty gal. I love a good bargain, and I’m not inclined to dish out extra money just to get a brand name. I do value quality in a product, but before I stick to something with a hefty price tag, I’m at least going to try out the less expensive competition! Such was the case for me with disposable breast pads or nursing pads. Before I began using them, I was solely fixated on getting the best bargain. Here’s what I learned about the best disposable nursing pads (and the worst)!

A girlfriend gave me Lansinoh nursing pads at a baby shower, so they were the first breast pads I used. They worked great, but I had no point of comparison. I also was given some Gerber breast pads (pads on the left). disposable nursing pads by Gerber I used those second. I realized pretty quickly that the Lansinoh pads were better. The Gerber pads were thin, which I appreciated, but they simply could not contain what I was producing (sorry, I just don’t know how else to put it!) Gerber pads are pretty inexpensive, but I guarantee you that you’ll have extra laundry to do if you use them!

For where to buy breast pads, I personally headed to Target (though you can easily find them at Walmart or even on Amazon). I saw that a 60 count box of Lansinoh pads was $9.00, and a 100 count box of disposable breast pads by Avent. These are terrible! Avent breast pads was $10.00. Despite having already had an experience with an inferior breast pad, this was a no brainer for me. I purchased the Avent breast pads (on the right). These were so unbelievably bulky! There was absolutely no way that I could leave the house wearing these, because there was not a single shirt I owned that could disguise the fact that I had giant cotton discs on my breasts! Seriously! I used up the box, and I hated every stinkin’ minute of it.

It turns out that you really do get what you pay for when it comes to disposable nursing pads. I found the Lansinoh pads to be ultra thin, so you can wear them outside of your house with confidence. And wow, they can really hold a lot of liquid, people. I don’t know what is inside of these pads, but whatever it is, it keeps moisture off of your body, which is awesome. They also have a lining on the back so that your clothes don’t get wet (learn from them, Gerber!).
best breast pads
So go ahead and fork over the extra dough for these breast pads, as I think they are truly the top rated nursing pads for a reason, and they are worth the price difference. Nothing else really compares, and this is not an area where being thrifty pays off! And if you might be interested in the best reusable nursing pads, check out a post I wrote on that very topic!

Introducing Simple Sunday Recipes

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One thing that all parents need are simple, go to recipes. If you are like us, you have more important things to spend your money on than going out to eat frequently, so you need to cook. But isn’t cooking such a pain when you already have a million other things to do, and when you kitchen is already dirty and cooking will just add to the mess?!?!

I can certainly relate to this feeling. My solution has been to come up with an arsenal of recipes that are quick and tasty. Believe it or not, I actually have recipes picked out for every single day of the year in my personal cookbook. While some of the recipes get repeated once or twice during the year, many of them are only featured once (I’m not so big into eating the same thing very often). Before we got pregnant, we actually had another blog called Feed the Moose where we would talk about our trials and tribulations in the kitchen. That blog is defunct, but I can still share with you some of the great recipes we discovered during that time.

So I’d like to introduce Simple Sunday Recipes as a weekly feature on this blog. Each Sunday I’ll share one of the recipes that we have on hand that makes cooking not such a hassle. I hope you will enjoy this feature and find some recipes to bring back to your own kitchen! You’ll find Sunday dinner ideas and ideas for any day of the week when you want cooking to be easy (which would be every day, in my book!)

Our first recipe is Larry’s Black Bean Tacos

Recipe name: Larry’s Black Bean Tacos
Source: Recipezaar (and of course, Larry)
Servings:4-6

Ingredients

2 cans black beans
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 package taco seasoning
1 lb ground beef (turkey for us)
1 package soft tortillas

Directions

  1. Brown ground beef with taco seasoning.
  2. Add stewed tomatoes and black beans.
  3. Simmer for 5-10, until black beans heated through.
  4. Serve with tortilla chips or make soft tacos using soft tortillas.

Larry, this post is dedicated to you and yours. We don’t know you, but we like you.

Our substitutions were as follows: We used ground turkey. We also used large tortillas so that these turned into burritos rather than tacos.

The dish was really simple to put together, but Larry, you made one crucial mistake; you left out the cheese! We added a small amount to ours, and that was a great decision.

So make this dish, eat it, love it, take it to work the next day, and make your co-workers jealous!

The Baby Bouncer Chair We Love: Boppy Cradle in Comfort

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boppy baby bouncer

image from bedbathandbeyond.com

Our good friends loaned us the Boppy Cradle in Comfort Bouncer to use while Darah is still small. The bouncer seat can recline or sit a bit more upright for infants who can utilize its “bounce” feature. Darah is still in the stage where the seat needs to be reclined. People, she LOVES this seat! LOVES IT! For that reason alone, I’m going to say it is the best baby bouncer chair out there.

I think there are a couple of reasons why it is so popular with our baby. First and foremost, the Boppy baby bouncer, itself, appears to be very comfortable. It really does “cradle” the baby! The material is very soft, and the angle of the chair is just right.

Second, and almost as important as the first point, is that this chair VIBRATES. Oh yes it does. Darah will only sit in the seat for a few minutes without the vibrate feature on, and then she’s over it. But once you hit that button, she’s golden, and she’ll stay in the seat for a solid 30 minutes most of the time. She will often even fall asleep in it. The vibrator turns itself off after 20 or 25 minutes, and she will wake up when that happens. Turn it back on, and she’s good to go again!

Sometimes I think of this chair as an extra pair of hands around the house. I don’t abuse it and put her in it constantly. If I did, I suspect she would rebel a bit more. But she finds herself in it for various amounts of time maybe 3 times each day. It’s also highly portable (even with the baby in it). I’ll move her all around the house in it and go from room to room straightening up while she watches. She really likes to sit in it and watch us make dinner in the evening.

Bed Bath and Beyond is selling this for $54.99 right now. We were lucky enough to get to use it for free (thank you, friends!). I have to say, I don’t know that I would have thought to put this item on my registry if it hadn’t been loaned to us. If you are expecting, my advice is to get one. It is SOOO worth $55! I’m guessing that I’d get maybe half as much done during the day if I didn’t have it. It definitely makes my job MUCH easier. I hope this bouncer review was helpful!