Stuff Parents Need

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

Do All Your Mattresses Have Protectors????

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Today I want to talk with you about mattress protectors.

I know…quite a sexy subject.

But hang with me! This is important to take a few minutes to think about, and I’ll tell you why!

Ok, not to embarrass my parents or anything, but I’m pretty sure we never had mattress protectors on any of our beds growing up. I seem to recall our mattresses all looking stained and gross. Just being honest. I don’t know…maybe mattress protectors were a bit of a novelty in the ’80s?

I’m giving you that back story so that you’ll understand why I didn’t have any idea that mattress protectors existed, even when I was a young adult! I honestly just had no clue about them, and once I did learn about them, I thought they were strictly for cribs or for beds of kids who had accidents at night.

Oh no no no, my friends, I was wrong! And I quickly learned this when Darah was born. It took about 2 accidents that she had on our bed (while nursing or being changed) before we realized that we were going to ruin our mattress very quickly if we didn’t do something. I did some research online and quickly discovered that mattress protectors are so much more advanced than old-school itchy, uncomfortable, plastic coverings. They come in remarkably comfortable materials now, and they also have added benefits that I never previously considered.

The major benefit, beyond protecting your mattress from any sort of spills is that some of them are designed to help protect your mattress from bed bugs and dust mites. A mattress is like nirvana for these type of creatures, and a mattress protector will keep them at bay. That’s a huge plus, and I only wish I had realized that when we originally bought our mattress back in 2004.

We also purchased a mattress protector for our guest bed. Even though it isn’t frequently slept in, Darah loves to play on it, and I frequently change Layah’s diaper on it. Why not give myself a bit of peace of mind that when (not if!) accidents of any sort happen, the mattress, itself, is going to be unscathed.

After all, a mattress is a quite expensive item, and I’m not interested in having to replace ours before they are ready to die of natural causes! So this is my public service announcement to all of you out there to get a mattress protector for each and every mattress in your house. It will keep them safe, it will make them more hygenic, and it will save you some money because they won’t need to be replaced as quickly!

This post is brought to you by Tesco.com. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own. 

Wiggles Big Birthday! DVD Review and GIVEAWAY!!!

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This was the first year that Darah understood the concept of a birthday, and oh my goodness was she excited for hers. She started talking about it in January, and would ask at least 3 times a week how much longer until her special day arrived. Yup, we talked about her birthday for 7 months!!!

For the last month leading up to her big day, we had a fun DVD that we watched from time to time. It is the Wiggles: Big Birthday! and it is filled with songs and dances that certainly delighted my little one as she prepared for her third birthday. It was also nice for me, as I had something to turn to when she wanted to talk birthday and I was not interested in talking about it for the third time that day!

One thing that I also like about the DVD is that it gives you an idea of what a live Wiggles concert would be like. I would really like to take Darah to one…they were actually in Nashville on her birthday, but since that was a school day, it just wasn’t in the cards for us.

This DVD also has a special treat included that I think parents will particularly enjoy. It has the one hour documentary of “Everybody Clap! Everybody Sing!” which is all about the Wiggles first 20 years. I really enjoyed learning about how the group got started, and which songs have been around from the beginning, as well as changes that have been made over the years.

The Wiggles Big Birthday! DVD runs 140 minutes and retails for $12.99. You can find it at retailers such as Toys “R” Us, Walmart and Amazon.

Win it!: One lucky Stuff Parents Need reader will win a copy of the Wiggles Big Birthday! DVD.

Be sure to enter my other current giveaways, found on the sidebar of my page.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received a complimentary product for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own. 

 

Giving Art as a Gift! Have You Ever Done It?

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Giving someone a surprise is SO MUCH FUN. That’s just one of the reasons that I love being a blogger who gives products away all the time. I have a blast sending out those good news emails to the lucky winners. I get to have a Santa Claus moment several times each week!

I also really enjoy getting the opportunity to give a gift to people in my life for no particular reason. Personally, I find those unexpected gifts to be some of the most memorable.

Recently, I had the opportunity to give a gift to my blog assistant, Alanna. I’ve mentioned Alanna before, and I’d like to take another moment to highlight all the great work she does for this site. She works tirelessly behind the scenes to promote all these fantastic giveaways we have, and her posts on various contest sites and on Facebook and Twitter are the reason so many of you found your way to this corner of the blogosphere.

Alanna takes care of most of the parts of running this blog that tend to wear me out (indeed, like any type of work, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine!). Honestly, if I didn’t have her help, I likely would have burned out and quit blogging a long time ago (GASP!). But because of her help, I am still very joyful about blogging and it is something that I look forward to doing (almost) every single day!

So yeah, Alanna is an important person in the life of this blog! And I wanted to give her a gift to express my gratitude. So I asked her to hop over to one of my favorite online shopping destinations, , and pick out the perfect piece for her home.

She was so thrilled! She and her husband combed through the site and selected the perfect piece for their home. I didn’t want to pick out the art for her, because I think that art is a really personal thing, and it can be difficult to capture someone else’s style rather than simply picking out what you personally like.

Here’s Alanna’s precious daughter enjoying the process of unwrapping their art. This is a familiar scene to me, as Darah LOVES to play with all that bubble wrap, too!

And here’s the piece, which is on birchwood (it is such a cool look!) hanging on their wall!

I really had fun seeing what they chose. I think the piece is absolutely stunning, yet it is something I’ve never even noticed on Gallery Direct before, as I tend to search for art with cooler colors (blues, greens, yellows and grays). Did you catch that? You can search for art by color on Gallery Direct. That’s one of my favorite features of the site!

If you love the idea of giving a piece of art as a gift, but would much rather completely surprise the recipient with a finished piece, you might also want to consider uploading a photo (those are easier to get your hands on thanks to Facebook, Flickr and Instagram!) and have it turned into a work of art to hang in the home. And right now, all gallery wraps of photo uploads are 50% off! Woo hoo!!!! I’m actually going to be getting a wedding picture put on canvas for my sister and her husband as their Christmas present this year (they got married in May).

I’m so happy that I was able to give Alanna a piece of art to hang in her home. I think it is a very special type of gift, and it definitely inspires me to start paying closer attention to the artistic style of my friends and family so that I might be able to gift some art to them in the future! I’d love to hear if you have any tips for choosing art as a gift for someone else…it can be tricky! 

Disclosure: I serve as a blog ambassador for Gallery Direct. Product samples are provided as part of the program. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own.

Don’t Neglect Your Deck! See How We Cleaned Ours!

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We are currently living in the newest home that we have ever lived in, as it was built in 2007. Since the home we own back in Memphis was built in 1927, we can talk for hours about the shadow side of all that “charm” and “character” that old homes have. There’s definitely something to be said for a house that has standard sizing and that doesn’t have elements that are breaking left and right!

But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take care of the property! After moving in, we quickly identified an area where the previous owners were simply coasting and not doing proper maintenance: the deck. As far as we can tell, the deck has never been stained or sealed. Nope, not EVER. So we have a 5 year old deck of untreated wood. That’s a disaster waiting to happen, folks. It’s fine for right now, but rotting wood is in our future (trust us, we know!) if we don’t take action soon.

Also, the deck was absolutely filthy when we moved in. It had layers and layers of dirt on it. And this all relates to a theory I learned as an Urban Studies major in college that has always stuck with me (stay with me, I promise this tangent is relevant!). It’s called the Broken Window Theory, and the gist of it is that any blight (for example, a broken window) left unfixed will attract additional blight. An unkempt front yard will increase the likelihood that your neighbors might not take good care of their yard. And a filthy deck will not give the homeowners any pride, but rather, will somehow cause the owners to think, “It already looks bad, why not just add to it?!”

And that, my friends, is why our back deck has looked just like this for the past 3 months (I am so embarrassed….)

As if this doesn’t look bad enough, we also had a HUGE pile of broken down cardboard boxes sprawled about on the deck for a few weeks (ok…more like 2 months) as we steadily unpacked the house. It looked like we just didn’t care one bit. And I suppose, upon reflection, that we sort of didn’t. I mean, it already looked awful…how much worse could more crap make it look, right?

Well, first, let me say that throwing crap on top of a crappy looking deck IN NO WAY helps it look better. We could have at least had a dirty but spartan-looking deck rather than a dirty AND messy deck. But we just didn’t see the point.

Now we do, but in order to get to that point, we had to start having some pride in our back deck. And that meant we needed to clean it.

That’s where Thompson’s WaterSeal Oxy Foaming Action Exterior Multi-Surface Cleaner comes in. Tim applied this product to the deck using a spray nozzle and some elbow grease, and we went from this

To this

The wood is actually a completely different color than we thought it was. How simultaneously gross and awesome is that?! One container will cover up to 200 square feet. I think Tim used about 1/3 of a container on the deck the first round, and then he used about another 1/4 later when he went back over the railings a second time. It took him about 1 1/2 hours to strip away 5 years of dirt and grime. I’d say that it was time VERY well spent!

This product from Thompson’s knows how to attack dirt, mildew, algae and fungus on a wide range of outdoor surfaces (wood and composite decks, roofs, outdoor furniture, fences, concrete, masonry, stucco, brick, siding and even some plastics such as vinyl and awnings. That makes it a fantastic cleaner to have in your arsenal! The product is biodegradable and oxygen-based, which makes it much more gentle than chlorine bleach-based alternatives.

And just to show how well that Broken Window theory holds true, you’ll be interested to hear that we haven’t put a single thing back on our deck since we cleaned it off. It is bare and beautiful…we can finally see that all that junk needed to get off our lovely deck!

Next week I’ll show you how we took steps to ensure that we won’t be replacing the wood on this deck in the next few years by sealing it with Thompson’s WaterSeal! There will also be a giveaway coming up and if you leave a comment on this post, you will get an extra entry! If you know you really need this product to help spruce up your backyard for the end of summer, click here to find your nearest retailer!

So tell me a little about the outside of your house. Can you think of something that could really use some Thompson’s Multi-Surface Cleaner? 

Disclosure: I received complimentary products for review purposes. All thoughts, opinions, dirt and embarrassing photos are strictly my own. 

Helping Kids Truly Understand Shapes: Shape Sorting Presents GIVEAWAY!!

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One of the key things that I have learned about effective learning methods since Darah started at a Montessori school is the importance of being able to move away from learning in the abstract. For example, when it comes to learning shapes, simply studying flash cards of circles, triangles and squares is not sufficient for a mind to fully grasp and commit a shape to memory. The shapes need to be understood in the context of every day life.

That’s one of the reasons that I’m really enjoying a game available at Learning Resources called Shape Sorting Presents. This game comes with 6 boxes, each a different shape, and 90 cards with everyday objects that represent one of the 6 shapes. Each box has a slot at the top so that children can drop the cards into them.

Darah really enjoys sorting objects right now, so this game is perfect for her. I would have told you before we got this game that she had already mastered her shapes, and that is true in their abstract form, but now that we are looking at every day objects and thinking about their shapes, I see that we have more work to do. I’m so glad we have this game, because it is helping her think about objects and shapes in a different way than she had before, and I know that by doing this, she is starting to truly understand what makes a shape (straight lines or not, even sides or not, etc.). She can also see shapes now even when the object isn’t 100% like a shape drawing (a throw pillow with fringe, for example, is still in a square shape).

As Darah masters these skills a bit more, we’ll still be able to use this game to do things like go on shape hunts in the house and find objects that match with the cards.

I recommend Shape Sorting Presents as an excellent resource for your home or for a pre-k or kindergarten classroom! Since there are 6 boxes, more than 1 child can play at once. This retails for $32.99 and can be purchased at Learning Resources online.

Win it!: One lucky Stuff Parents Need reader will win Shape Sorting Presents from Learning Resources.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to enter my other current giveaways, found on the sidebar of my page.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary product for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own. 

Everything Is Bigger in Texas, Including the SAVEings! Discounts to San Antonio Attractions!

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This post brought to you by SAVE . All opinions are 100% mine.

SanAntonioZoo.jpeg

I'm so excited to be sharing something fantastic I just learned about for those of you looking for a last hoorah summer vacation location, or if you might be planning a vacation this fall so you can save a bit by traveling off-season. 

Get ready to SAVE! Yes, I'm definitely talking about saving some $$$, specificaally with a program called SAVE – San Antonio Vacation Experience. Did you know that San Antonio is already one of the most affordable vacation destinations in the entire country? And now you can pack in a ton of fun for even less by checking out Limited Time Offers that are available through the SAVE program. 

I've been looking through all the different discounts that are available through the program, and I have to say, I'm pretty blown away. I've seen similar types of programs for other cities, but the discounts were marginal and the attractions very limited. I think you will see that it is very easy to create a top-notch vacation that is just right for your family and at a price point that will make you smile through SAVE. 

Here's what I would plan to do with my family in San Antonio with SAVE

Accommodations: The beautiful Menger Hotel that looks rather swanky, and that has rates starting at an affordable $89/night through SAVE. 

Theme Park: We'd most definitley be headed to Splashtown. I've been wanting to go to a water park for several years now, and I'd take advantage of the SAVE $7 coupon for admission! 

Museum: San Antonio Children's Museum, here we come! I know this would entertain Darah for hours and with a 20% discount, I'm ready for a day of play! 

Adventure: My family would really enjoy the Natural Bridge Caverns. What a great way to cool off and do a little underground exploration. SAVE offers discounted tours!

Sightseeing: With two young kids in tow, Tim and I would love to get off our feet for a while, and the Alamo Trolley can help us soak in all the sights without getting sore feet! SAVE has a $2.00 discount per ticket. That gives us more money for ice cream at the end of the tour! 

Shopping: What's a vacation without a little bit of shopping? San Antonio has some outlet opportunities, and I'd be headed to the San Marcos Premium Outlets! Through SAVE, I'd get a free VIP coupon book. Sweet!!!

I've barely scratched the surface of all the great opportunities and discounts that await you through SAVE. What adventure would your family have in San Antonio? 

To keep up to date with all the latest perks and discount opportunities, be sure to follow @SAVEinSA on Twitter! Now I'm off to check flight prices from Atlanta to San Antonio…I had no idea there was so much to see there! 

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The Easiest Way to Eat More Veggies: My Community-Supported Agriculture Experience

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This year my family joined a local CSA for the first time. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and it typically takes the form of purchasing a share of a crop from a farmer for a season.

Tim and I have been interested in doing this for a few years now. It is a wonderful way to support a local farmer and to ensure that you get some delicious veggies and fruits all season. But there are a few reasons we have resisted in the past.

1. The up-front costs are tough to work into our budget. You typically have to pay for an entire season of produce at one time. Prices can range from $200-$600 depending on the length of the season and the amount of food the farmer anticipates providing.

2. Picking up the produce each week can be cumbersome. Farmers typically have drop off locations, either at local farmer’s markets or at other designated locations. You must pick up your share within a designated time frame at the same place and on the same day each week.

When we moved recently, we realized that we would be a 2 minute walk from a weekly farmer’s market. It was also a weekly drop-off location for a few CSAs. The convenience factor was certainly there, so we just had to bite the bullet and pull some money out of savings to pre-pay for all that food. I believe we spent about $400 for a half share in a program that runs for 26 weeks. Not gonna lie…that was a tough check to write.

But I am absolutely THRILLED that I did it! I wanted to share with you all the reasons I will be participating in this same program again next year because I’m guessing that some of you have considered participating in a CSA but just haven’t been able to make yourself join, yet. Maybe sharing my experience will help you!

First and foremost, we now eat substantially more vegetables than we ever did before. I used to tell myself, “No need to join a CSA…I can just buy lots of yummy things in the grocery store and get exactly what I want each week.” If you have trouble being an adventurous produce eater and you have trouble spending a lot of money in the produce section, you are kidding yourself if you think you’ll just magically start now. You won’t. You’ll buy too few veggies and too few varieties just like always. Now that I’m part of the CSA, I get a lot of veggies every week, no questions asked. I don’t even get to pick and choose what I get, and that’s actually a great thing.

This leads me to the second reason why I’ll do this again: I’m eating veggies I’ve never tried before and that I always thought I hated! I had never even heard of kohlrabi before this year, but now I’ve got a few dishes that I love using this root veggie. I also always thought I hated squash, but I have found some very clever ways to make use of it in spaghetti sauce, in pita pockets, raw in a salad, and even in muffins, if you can believe it! I have really been able to get creative in the kitchen.

The third reason I’ll do this again is because I’m getting a good value for organic produce. Sure, I’m paying more than I would for conventional produce from the store, but I promise you, if I went to Whole Foods and bought the same items every week from their organic selections, I’d be spending more. And I wouldn’t be supporting a local farm!

The fourth reason I’ll be doing this again is because the produce really and truly does taste better. I’d heard this before but didn’t really believe it. But let me tell you, there is a qualitative difference between a tomato that has traveled just 20 miles and was picked that morning and one that has traveled 2,000 miles and was picked a week ago. The flavors are outstanding, and that means all the food we are making tastes better!

Finally, I will do this again because it has really been a joy actually getting to know our farmer. I know the faces behind the produce my family eats. That is such a cool thing!

If you are interested in seeing what CSA opportunities might be in your neck of the woods, check out localharvest.org for a list of your options!

Do you participate in a CSA? Are you happy with your experience? If you aren’t participating, what is holding you back? I’d love to hear!!!

Disclosure: Nobody asked me to write this post, and nobody paid for my CSA membership (I WISH!). I just wanted to share this really great experience with you! 

My Favorite New Baby Gear Product: The First Year’s Deluxe Reclining Feeding Seat (GIVEAWAY!!!)

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I’ve been swooning over a new product in our home. Would you believe that little Layah, at just 3 months old, has been in a high chair for a month now?

I’m guessing you are a big confused.

First let me make sure nobody thinks that she is eating solids, yet. Nope, not at all, and she won’t until she shows sings for readiness (I’m guessing that will be around 5 or 6 months old).

But she absolutely has a place at our table. And she LOVES to sit right there with us at meal time. We are really enjoying it, too. So how can she sit in a high chair when she can’t even sit up on her own?

Well, she’s got The First Years Deluxe Reclining Feeding Seat. It is designed to hold little ones from birth all the way through four years of age! It literally grows with your child, which gives it so much bang for the buck. Layah is currently in the most reclined position which is quite comfy for her, and she is safely strapped in using the five-point harness. We don’t yet put the tray on when she’s in there, and that leaves her more free to move her arms and legs around.

This chair has 5 positions (2 height adjustments and 3 tray positions). Additionally, it converts into a booster chair for older tots.

Also, this feeding chair takes up SIGNIFICANTLY less room than a traditional high chair. This is such a nice feature in our home, which is extremely tight on space in our eating area. All we had to do was give up one of our chairs around the table and strap the feeding chair on it. We are most definitely going to be selling the old high chair we have tucked away and will be using this system until she outgrows a booster.

Want to hear the best part? This feeding chair is just $39.99! That’s over $60 less than we paid for Darah’s high chair, and we are going to get SO much more use out of this one! It honestly never occurred to me to put a young infant in an elevated chair with the rest of us at meal times, but we all really enjoy it; it makes Layah feel even more a part of what we do together as a family.

The First Years Deluxe Reclining Feeding Seat is currently on sale at Amazon and can also be found online at Babies ‘R Us. I’m absolutely delighted with this product and would strongly recommend it as an affordable and very convenient alternative to a traditional high chair.

Win it!: One lucky Stuff Parents Need reader will win The First Years Deluxe Reclining Feeding Chair!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to enter my other current giveaways, found on the sidebar of my page.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary product for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own. 

 

Quick and Healthy Lunch Ideas for Back to School!

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We have one more week until Darah goes back to school as an official pre-schooler! My eyes well up with tears at the mere thought of it!

Darah won’t be staying at school for lunch, so I don’t actually have to pack one for her, but I still have to have a lunch prepared for her when she gets home every day. I work as hard as I can on the blog and on grading work for my college class I teach, so I don’t really have much time to devote to preparing a lunch. I need to rely on more convenient options so that I can spend as much time as possible working before she gets home.

But like most moms, I don’t want my need to go for convenience to eclipse my desire to provide healthy food for my child.

Earth’s Best has got some great products that are absolutely perfect for the mid-day rush, and if you are packing a lunch, they work well in a lunch box, too!

Darah has been enjoying the Earth’s Best Sunny Day Snack Bars at lunch time and as an afternoon snack. They are naturally sweetened cereal bars filled with real fruit. They come in strawberry and apple flavors, and have Big Bird and Grover on them, which delights my little preschooler. I’m delighted by them because they are the right serving size for smaller tummies, and they provide big doses of calcium, iron, zinc and six B vitamins.

The other item in my pantry “lunch box” is Earth’s Best Kidz Organic Apple Sauce. Did you know that conventional apples are one of the “dirtiest” items of produce? The amount of chemicals from pesticides that is found on them is absolutely astounding. Going organic when it comes to apples is a very good idea, even if it is one of the only fruits for which you pay the higher price. I especially like having these individual servings of applesauce on hand for days when we might be out of fresh fruit. Darah can still get a serving of something healthy and delicious when I’m overdue for a trip to the store!

I do try to keep a specific box in my pantry for lunch staples that I can easily grab to help supplement the meal with minimal effort on my part. That is really essential so that I can be confident that I can pull lunch together for her in 5 minutes every day and not find myself spending 30 minutes of my work time in the kitchen scrambling to cook something. It’s a strategy that has served me well, and I highly recommend it!

Here are some other things I keep on hand for a healthy and quick lunch for Darah:

  • baby carrots and ranch dip
  • blueberries
  • strawberries
  • bananas
  • whole wheat crackers
  • slices or cubes of cheese
  • yogurt (I usually buy plain and mix in a little organic jam to sweeten it)
  • round and thin sandwich bread (it’s the perfect size for a younger child’s sandwich!)
  • peanut butter and graham crackers for a dose of protein
  • hummus

I’d love to hear what your go-to lunch and lunch box items are. Sometimes I get in a rut and love to be inspired by what other parents are doing! Please share (and remember…comments on this post earn you extra entries in the Earth’s Best giveaway I’ll hold in a few weeks)!

Disclosure: I am a blog ambassador for Earth’s Best, and as such, I have received complimentary products as a thank you for my time. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own.