Fundraising Auction at Bloom

You'll find me over at Bloom today bidding on tons of great stuff! It's all to benefit two sweet little children, Claire and Benson, who have a rare genetic disease that for Claire, requires 15 hours a day of dialysis! They both need a liver and kidney transplant. Head on over to bid on headbands, photo sessions, blankets, custom artwork and more!

Jack, Josh and Layla

I called my pal Lindsey to see if she'd let me practice my photography skills on her cute kids. Luckily for me, she was game! Here's some of the shots we got.

Baby Layla- What a cutie and such a good sport! She's so tiny compared to Charlie, I almost forgot how little new babies are!

Josh- he was very cooperative and very happy to have a train to play with!

Cute Jack was not as excited to have his picture taken but we still got some good ones of those chubby cheeks!

I had a lot of fun and I think we got some good moments! Thanks, guys!

Moms are the best inventors

When I found out I was pregnant I wanted to have the best, most innovative, most practical, well, let's face it, the coolest, baby gear on the market for my baby. John and I are total gear hounds- we love gadgetry and stuff- so of course, our baby needed to have a lot of stuff, too! We found lots of great stuff (the Moby wrap! the SwaddleMe! the Co-Sleeper!) that we have loved and used! The one thing that was missing was a great baby bath tub. For Charlie's first bath at home, we had Grandma Sue come help out and successfully turned the kitchen sink into a bathing receptacle! One week later, I still hadn't attempted bathing him in the sink on my own, so Grandma came and bathed him again for me. I just didn't feel confident that I could wrangle a slippery baby by myself. I only actually bathed Charlie by myself a few times while he was a newborn.

He eventually grew too big for the sink and we graduated to the bath tub. There I placed him into the traditional hard plastic baby tub. He was miserable. He couldn't move freely, his toes were jabbed against the hard plastic edges, and he was cold. We ditched the tub and used a towel on the bath tub floor instead. He loved it, but I hated having to wring out a soaking wet towel every time and my back would hurt from leaning over him. I ended up ditching the bath entirely and now Charlie just showers with us.

Recently, I saw a new kind of baby bath tub invented by a mom of three called the Puj tub. She had a similar experience bathing her babies in the bathroom sink and figured out a solution to the hard plastic bathtub problem. It's brilliant! I wanted one immediately to add to my baby gear collection even though Charlie is now too big. Luckily for me, I was *chosen to be a product tester/reviewer so Puj sent me a tub for free. Even without the swag factor, I would have spent the money to buy one for my next baby. It costs $39.99 which is the same price as some of the higher end hard plastic tubs I saw at Babies'R'Us. It's pretty incredible.

I borrowed a (littler) baby (thanks, Lindsey!) to try it out for myself. Baby Layla was cradled perfectly in the Puj tub in my bathroom sink. The material is kind of like foam rubber so it's soft and warm. The tub comes as one, flat piece (so you can hang it on the back of the bathroom door) that folds into the tub shape and is held in place by magnets. Like I said, brilliant!

Layla loves it!

Even if you aren't a stuff-collector like me you can appreciate the beauty of a well-designed product!

Check out the Puj Tub for yourself at the new web site exclusively for baby bath tubs. (There's a video of the tub in action, too.)

*I was not compensated for this review other than receiving the product for free and it's my honest opinion. I really like this tub.

Baby Stuff: Version 2.0

I was compiling a Baby Stuff list for a pregnant friend and realized I never published this post I'd started writing, um, in August. It's still pretty relevant and I think I'll add a few things.

Here's what we've been loving to help us make Charlie's life as cushy as possible. Seriously, this kid has it so good.


Moby Wrap: It saves my back from aching when I'm carting around my 18 pound 4-month-old baby 24 pound 8-month-old baby. He loves to face outward and look around and when he's sleepy, I face him towards me and he'll fall right to sleep.

Soothie pacifier: He is not very interested in a binkie ever most of the time, but when the stars magically align and hell freezes over he does take a pacifier, this is the only one for him!


Boudreaux's Butt Paste: This is the best diaper rash ointment. (Thanks to Mel for the intro!) It's zinc oxide based so it does the job but it isn't greasy or too thick and it smells good! And it doesn't have fish oil in it (like Desitin) so it doesn't stain.


Playtex Nurser bottles: Charlie is liking these bottles more than the Adiri ones recently. EDIT: After a brief bottle strike, he'll now drink from pretty much any bottle as long as he can hold it himself. He still likes mama the best, though.

Paper Chain Advent Calendar

Look at this GREAT paper chain advent calendar that Marie at Makes and Takes created for her family. I love the idea of an advent calendar but making one or finding an inexpensive but not tacky one have both seemed like impossible tasks! This is an advent calendar I think I could actually get on board with!

Family Photos

We had Jeanette, who is one of our greatest friends, take some family photos for us. We love how they turned out!! Visit her photography blog to see more!

Stuff to love...

...Food for Thought, former Utahn Kelsey Nixon's refreshing and fun cooking blog. She's got great Thanksgiving recipes up now if you are needing last minute inspiration!!

...Every Day I Write the Book. Funny, funny. I love her voice- just so deliciously sarcastic, especially her tips for having a Healthful Holiday.

...Mighty Girl (tagline: Famous Among Dozens). I particularly like her Mighty Closet series. I love her ideas for packing light.

...Metalia, who I have been reading for a while, wrote a hilarious rap explaining the plot of New Moon.

What have you loved on the internet recently?

Thankful...

for these guys.

Charlie- 33 weeks

Charlie is getting really mobile when he's on the floor. He is officially "creeping" which means he can do a pretty awesome army crawl. He can really cover a lot of ground! We spend a lot of time just hanging out in the living room floor playing with toys and working on that crawling.

One morning this week, the sun was shining through the window just the right way to cast rainbows right where Charlie was playing. He found them quite interesting and I loved the challenge of capturing all the colors in my photo.





And despite the fact that he is growing up all the time, Charlie is still my little baby and he is still little enough to fall asleep in the Moby wrap while at the grocery store.

Charlie- 32 weeks

It snowed and Charlie spend some time checking it out through the window. Although it wasn't Charlie's first snowstorm ever (it snowed the day he was born. At the end of March.) he really thought it was interesting!




He's still a happy guy!