Boden and Mini Boden on Zulily tomorrow

I know there are a lot of fans out there, so here's your fair warning: Boden and Mini Boden will be featured on Zulily tomorrow, opening at 9am EST!

Click here to sign up for Zulily in advance so you can start shopping as soon as the sale opens. Unlike other deal sites, Zulily allows you to keep items in your basket for a limited time, so being logged in before the sale opens helps you get first access to the sale items. Also, keep checking back as the day goes on because items that ran out of stock become available again as people decide not to purchase the items saved in their shopping carts.

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Use coupon code ZULILYGA41 for $5 off a $75 purchase. For 10% off $75+, use coupon code SHOPMOMZ72. Also, if you plan on ordering a lot, order one small item and pay for that shipping, then order the rest of your items to receive free shipping for the rest!

DIY Toddler Activity: Make Your Own Rainstick

I haven't been posting much lately, but last week we put something together and I stopped long enough to snap a couple of pictures of the process because this would be a great, cheap, rainy day activity for toddlers!

RJ was "Star of the Week" at preschool last week, so we came up with activities he could "host" every day at school. Since he's obsessed with music, we decided to put together homemade rainsticks that he could bring in for his friends to decorate and take home.

 

Here's what you'll need:

• Rice
• Small dried beans or (unpopped) popcorn
• Cardboard mailing tube with end caps
• Aluminum foil
• Broomstick or something else long and skinny
• Strong tape (we used clear packing tape)
• Decorations like stickers

 

First, cut 2 sheets of foil about a yard long and press into long, skinny rods. All hands involved may want to wear gloves. Then take the rods and wrap them around the broomstick to make coils.

 

(1) Here's what your coil will look like after you slide it off the broomstick. (2) Now twist one coil looser to make it into a bigger coil, and twist the other tighter to make a smaller coil that will fit inside the bigger coil. Pull both to stretch the length of the mailing tube. (3) Put the smaller coil into the bigger coil. This is a little tricky. I did it by weaving the smaller coil into the bigger one, one rung at a time.

 

Slide the coils into the mailing tube. Make sure the coil combo reaches both ends of the tube. Then here's the fun (read: messy!) part. Place about 4 tablespoons each of rice and beans or popcorn into the tube.

 

 Then tape down the end caps to ensure you don't end up with a rice explosion.

 

Then decorate as you see fit! You could cover the tube with white paper and use markers, crayons, paints, and of course anything fun like stickers or foam shapes.

   

 Here's RJ proudly displaying his finished creation when we picked him up. And I guess the rainsticks worked, because as you can see in the picture, the day his class did this project it rained cats and dogs!

Let it rain!

9 Month / 3 Year 4 Month Update

Seeing as how my last blog post was the last monthly update, it's become apparent that I've unconsciously taken a little break from blogging. Life has settled into a very good but full rhythm, and even though I am always learning so much about being a parent and there's so much I want to record about life, I find that I'm way too busy doing things. And later on at night, when I have a free minute, I'm too exhausted to open my laptop and write it all down. I've even been less active on the Hellobee message boards and my precious instagram. I'm hoping this little hiatus is a phase, because I really do love blogging.

But of course I can't miss a monthly update...!! That would be madness. So here goes.

Jodie

9 MONTH STATS
Weight: 23.19 lbs (97%)

Length: 29.25 in (95%)

Head Circumference: 18.25 in (97%)

Just before turning 9 months old, Jodie finally began crawling with her belly off of the ground. She was doing the belly / army crawl until then, and getting places very quickly, but just recently will pop up onto her hands and knees. It's a little surreal to see! She's still not pushing up into a sitting position on her own yet, and when we sit her down, she slumps over and ends up back on her belly in no time. But I think she just prefers to be on her belly rather than sitting up. 

Jodie is a babbling machine. In fact, at her 9 month checkup our pediatrician told me that he was impressed with her social interaction with people as well as how much she "talks". Right now her favorite syllable is da, so we get a lot of dadas as well as anything that sounds similar.. doh doh, djoh djoh, deuh, and even some di dis. She definitely thinks she's talking. Her babbling is often very serious and has all sorts of ups and downs. 

Eating

Jodie's still doing well with purees three times a day and loves her puffs and mum mum rice crackers. She STARES at us eating food and loves to feed herself, but I tried some table food for the first time (bits of boiled sweet potato and chicken) and she gagged with almost every bite, so she's not quite there yet. As long as she's not cranky, she likes almost all flavors of baby food, but since her skin is pretty sensitive we are trying to stay away from acidic foods like tomato, apricot, and mango. 

Jodie's still drinking just a bit more than I pump every day, so I've dipped quite deeply into my frozen stash with a thawed bag about every other day. I'm still undecided as to whether or not I will quit pumping before she turns one, but since we've hit the 9 month mark and I only have 3 months to go, I might just stick with it until she transitions to cow's milk. Plus, I got another pump for free through insurance, so not having to carry my pump to and from work really helps. 

Sleeping

My baby girl is still doing great with sleep. She's sleeping about 3 hours total during the day and between 10-12 hours at night. It's rare that she ever has a nap under an hour, and she falls asleep on her own just fine. I happen to be writing this on a day when she's had horrible naps because she's waking herself up coughing, but her sleep is usually very consistent. She does wake crying every now and then, but the second she finds her blankie lovey she rubs her face in it and falls back asleep.

Here's a typical day for Jodie.

7:00am - wake up, 4 oz baby food

8:00am - 6 oz bottle

10:00am - first nap (1-2.5 hrs)

12:00pm - 4 oz baby food

1:00pm - 6 oz bottle

3:00pm - second nap (1-2 hrs)

4:00pm - 6 oz bottle

5:00pm - 4 oz baby food

6:00pm - bath, 8 oz bottle, bedtime

RJ

Life with RJ is coasting along as usual. He has his moments of rebellion and willfulness, but time outs still work great for us, and he's maturing so much and so quickly. It gets easier every day to talk to him and reason with him, so even though discipline can be challenging, the rewards are that much more fulfilling. Playing with him is so much fun, since he's so imaginative and we can see real preferences coming out in him. Lately it's been all about spaceships, superheroes, and of course his instruments, especially his drums. 

His love for his stuffed animals remains constant, and he's definitely adopted his favorite-- Bear. But of course his Banky will always be #1. 

Food is still a struggle, but he's definitely come leaps and bounds from where he has been for about a year now. In fact, just the other day he ate his first real serving of actual vegetables in a long time-- some steamed broccoli that his grandma made for him. He has also been trying carrot sticks with some success. In general, it's become easier to get him to try new things, and he discovers that he likes them. Some favorites are still french toast, eggs, chicken nuggets, and pizza.

Sibling Love

RJ and Jodie's relationship remains on a steady course. They love having each other around and are starting to interact more and more. Jodie loves to reach for him and play with his toys (of course) and RJ loves doing things to make her laugh. The look on his face when he realizes that she's laughing because of some goofy thing he did is priceless. It's like a dream come true for our little jokester. And lucky for him, he has a great audience, because she just loves to laugh. 

RJ is still learning how to deal with having her around and does have his moments (i.e. throwing a chair at her because he wants her to sit in it...) but has a very good attitude about learning how to be gentle and not forcing her to do things. 

That's it from me this month. Life is busy. Oh so busy. But amazing. Oh so amazing!!

8 Month / 3 Year 3 Month Update

It has been absolute madness in our house lately... even more than usual. I was sick for 2.5 weeks straight and even though we're all well again, we're still playing catch up. There was no cooking, cleaning, or laundry done for almost 3 weeks straight, so now we're trying to catch up one hour at a time and it's tough!! I wish we could just take a day to clean the house from top to bottom and catch up on all these projects looming over my head. But alas, life goes on and there just ain't time.

Jodie

At 8 months Jodie is still not consistently sitting up, but she has figured out how to scoot forward and is quite delighted with herself. She gets places pretty fast and reaches whatever she's aiming for, whether it be a toy, mommy's necklace, or her brother's pant leg. She will sit up and play, but doesn't show too much interest in staying sitting up because she'll just topple over or backwards, then flip onto her belly so she can scoot around. 

Jodie is babbling all the time now! Their babbles and learning how to talk is one of my very favorite parts of raising a baby, and watching her "talk" is just so adorable. Her favorite syllable right now is "da", so she calls for dada quite often. At least, we like to think so. She also says baba and wawa, and every now and then I'll get a mama.

Eating

Jodie's doing excellent with her purees and has graduated to stage 2 purees. It seems like she likes pretty much everything, but lately if she's not that hungry, she'll start to complain about halfway through a jar. She absolutely LOVES puffs and I think she gets impatient with the spoonfuls of purees. She's super quick about getting puffs into her mouth and watches us intently as we eat, so I think she is anxious to start eating regular food just like us. I didn't start RJ on table foods until 11 months, but maybe we will try some baby-led weaning with Jodie since she seems to love feeding herself!

She has also graduated to fast flow nipples without an issue and downs 8 oz bottles at bedtime. Her daytime bottles are still usually between 4-6 ounces. She seems to take after mommy in that she doesn't eat much when she first wakes up in the morning. 

Now that she's eating solids three times a day, her poops are much more regular. She has pooped in the bath a few times... I really hope this doesn't become a habit!

Sleeping

Oh, my baby girl is such a good sleeper. I think I can finally say this with confidence and not worry that I will jinx her. She has no trouble falling asleep on her own for naps or bedtime, and she soothes herself back to sleep with her lovey. Sometimes she wakes crying and her lovey is so far away in her crib that we go in and give it back to her. But for the most part she'll wake up once or maybe twice each night, cry for a few seconds, find her lovey then fall back asleep. Some nights she's awake in her crib for almost an hour! She rolls around and plays with her lovey, picks at the breathable bumper, sticks her arms and legs outside the crib slats, and eventually falls back asleep on her own. 

She also sleeps great on the go, which is a necessity for us on weekends now. She is even able to fall asleep in the stroller while we're at church, if I push the stroller back and forth. I remember walking around with RJ in the stroller for an entire church service trying to get him to fall asleep. But with Jodie I can sit and enjoy church and just push her back and forth, and she falls asleep and stays asleep. Basically, if it's time for her to sleep or nap, she has no problems falling asleep. We even took both kids to an afternoon/evening wedding and she fell asleep in my arms during the reception. I transferred her to the stroller and she stayed asleep through a crazy loud dance party!

Here's a typical day for Jodie.

7:00am - wake up, 4 oz baby food
8:00am - 5 oz bottle
10:00am - 3 oz bottle, first nap (between 1-2 hours)
1:00pm - 5 oz bottle
3:00pm - 3 oz bottle, second nap (between 30 mins - 2 hours)
5:00pm - 4 oz baby food
6:00pm - bath, 8 oz bottle, bedtime

This is the same exact schedule I wrote up for her 7 month update!

RJ

These days RJ can be super whiny and have a pretty bad attitude (his favorite phrase seems to be "but I don't want to!" stated quite emphatically). I try to nip it in the bud by speaking to him sternly at the first sign of a bad attitude. I crouch down to his level, ask him to look me in the eyes, and ask him if that's a good attitude and if that's being a good boy. He is usually very quick to acknowledge that he has a bad attitude, and when I ask him if he's going to have a good attitude, he says yes. This close communication and understanding has really brought us closer together, and I cherish every hug and kiss because I know the day is soon coming when his response will be "no, I don't want to have a good attitude." 

He has started making his stuffed animals, especially his lion blankie, speak in high voices. They have conversations with each other and they also ask for me-- "mumma, mumma!" I think he gets that from a friend at school since he's never called me mama. But I love it when he makes his blankie cry for "mumma" and I immediately jump to give blankie a kiss to make him feel better. It's a game that delights us both!

Food is still a battle, but he does try new things and every now and then he will take to something new very quickly. He's had garlic bread a few times, and now when I give it to him and ask him if it's yummy, he says "I love it." 

Sibling Love

RJ and Jodie are still getting along beautifully. Sometimes he'll notice her playing with one of his instruments and he'll cry "don't touch my guitar!" But he does the same thing when one of the dogs is sniffing around his instruments as well. It's really more him having a bad attitude than being angry at Jodie. So far, at least. He sometimes gets upset when she's not around, and he'll freely give her kisses and hugs, but most of the time he's too busy goofing off to really notice her. 

Jodie is constantly intently watching RJ. Sometimes if he's talking and he starts to say something in a silly way over and over again, she'll laugh. We tell him to say it again to make her laugh again, and we tell him "RJ, Jodie thinks you're so funny!" He really gets a kick out of that. 

Thanks for catching up with us this month!

Trumpettes on Zulily Today!

The ever so popular Trumpettes are featured on Zulily today. They have a great assortment for girls and boys including these newborn booties that we used a LOT for Jodie, and adorable tights which I never got to try out now that she's too big for them.

Click here to sign up for Zulily. Don't forget to click through ebates for 2.5% cash back, and use coupon code ZULILYGA41 for $5 off a $75 order. Also, if you plan on ordering a lot, order one small item and pay for that shipping, then order the rest of your items to receive free shipping for the rest!