Tommee Tippee Bottles

I love this bottle for a few reasons – but the number one reason is that it has a minimal amount of “parts.”  We’ve tried other bottles and after forgetting to put in the random bits and pieces in other bottles, and spilling precious breast milk all over the front of Bella because the bottle wasn’t put together right, we jumped for joy when we got these.  For us, at 3am, it was much easier to have all our bottle bits compatible so we could just grab and go!

They are pretty reasonably priced, and I have even found some  buy one get one half off at Babies-R-Us.  We have the larger size (8oz) and the (5oz) but I prefer the larger size, makes more sense to invest in the larger size because eventually she started drinking 5-6 ounces and our smaller bottles weren’t as useful.

I also, just recently discovered that the bottle is interchangable with the sippy handlebars – meaning you need even less variety.  All our bottles can now become sippy cups!  Bonus!  Now if only Bella would use them…

Baby Jogger – City Mini Stroller

This is hands down the EASIEST stroller to use.  It collapses in half with literally one hand and can be stowed away in even the tiniest trunk (trust me) without feeling like you’re one of those people having a “moment” in the mall parking lot.  We tried a Peg Perego stroller before this, and it was wobbly and clumsy.  The City Mini has the three wheels and really allows you to get in and out of crowds without frustration.

We did have to buy the cup holder – it didn’t come with one, and the front “toy bar” but they were relatively inexpensive.  The only thing I don’t like is that the basket underneath isn’t super easy to get into.  But, you can unsnap the straps holding it on and get in that way.

We tried it out at the State Fair (read: Crowds-a-plenty) last summer, and we never felt like we were stuck or in the way.  We got a lot of “ooooooooh that’s the City Mini…” from pregnant mamas — which is great because I’ve got stroller envy too so I was happy to do a little show & tell!

Keekaroo High Chair

We have a super tiny dining room.  You know when people talk about their home towns being a speed bump on the two lane highway?  Yeah, that’s our dining room.  So when we were looking for a high chair for little Miss, we knew it had to be pretty easy to conceal.  I think we both felt like having the huge plastic high chair with the barn yard print might make our heads spinnnnnn in that little nook.

See what I mean — SUPER SMALL!  Don’t judge on the mismatched unpainted chairs.  We’re working on it.  That ONE chair took almost 3 cans of spray paint.  UNREAL.

Anyways, back to the high chair:

I bought ours online at Target (thank you Sister-in-law’s employee discount!) for around $149.  At the time, ours came with the cushion set below in chocolate brown, but there were a ton of fun color options.  In the end, I chose to go with the brown though so it would blend a little better with our furniture, duh.

When we got the chair though – Bella was still too small for just the cushion set, so I did end up buying the infant insert, which we still are using.  So now it looks like this, and yes, I did get pink

The nice thing about this high chair is that it grows with your baby.  You can adjust the seat to different heights as needed, and eventually, you can ditch the tray altogether and have a nice booster seat to pull right up to your table.  For us, we find that tucking the high chair into the corner keeps it concealed, allows us to walk through our house, and gives us plenty of opportunities to eat dinner with Bella at the table!  She’s starting to really love eating little samples off our plates, which is super cute!

Bum Genius 4.0 One Size All In One Diaper

If you’re thinking at all about cloth diapering. don’t be freaked out!  We went into this whole baby thing thinking that it couldn’t hurt to use cloth diapers.  Sure there was the initial obsession with buying all the colors  investment (around $17-$20/diaper) and figuring out just what diaper we liked best (we tried a few brands – FuzziBuns, Softbums, G-Diaper, and Bum Genius) but in the end, we LOVE this diaper.  We’re casual cloth diaperers (is that a word?) – we have about 20 of the Bum Genius diapers in our stash now, thanks to some great specials you can find online (buy 5 get one free, etc…).

What I love about the Bum Genius diapers is that it’s basically built like a disposable diaper – the only thing different is that you have a small pocket in the diaper that you insert the liner into.  I usually insert all the liners (or Andy does!) as soon as they come out of the drier.  That way we have a drawer full of diapers ready to go!  You put them on baby like a normal diaper – with velcro.  The One Size diaper has three sets of snaps so you can extend the size of the diaper as the baby grows.  We’re still on the middle snap – so we’ve got a lot of life left in these diapers.

The washing of the diapers is really not bad either.    I’m not real finicky about washing them, sometimes they go days without getting washed.  I have an old fashioned washer, not the high efficiency front loaders that all you popular kids have.  And I think, it actually is an advantage for cloth diapering.  I’ve heard the the HE washers don’t use enough water to really clean the diapers well.  Either way – I basically throw the diapers in the wash with some All Free & Clear detergent, wash them on cold and the “super” load, then as soon as that is done, I rewash without detergent on hot, throw them in the drier on normal and we’re done!  I haven’t had any problems with the velcro or anything – so they’re pretty sturdy.

If cloth diapering is not for you – then I recommend Pampers Sensitive Swaddlers.  They’re the diapers we got at the hospital when Bella was born, and they’re very soft and they don’t have Elmo plastered all over them (huge bonus.)  We use the Costco brand butt wipes and we do have a little wipe warmer (from Target) for the little Diva.

Ergo Baby Carrier

A recent investment we made was in the Ergo Baby Performance Carrier and it is THE BEST.  It is easy peasy to get on, very very comfortable, and easy on baby’s hips.  I am a loyal shopper at a local baby shop here in Minneapolis (Pacifier) and usually can get some great deals there, so I got this for $115 and it included the infant insert (which is great for any future babies).   The other thing I love about this carrier is that it fits me, and my 6 foot husband.  I’m a shorty and was thrown by some reviews that wrote the torso was very long.  I disagree – it fits great!

Teenie B Stitches Burp Cloths & Bibs (obviously!)

I wouldn’t leave home without at least two.  And I’m not trying to plug my biz, I’m serious.  We have burp cloths EVERYWHERE.  The other day I was frantically getting ready for work, Andy was feeding Bella in the dark living room, and apparently there were no burp cloths around.  Because I picked up my adorable throw blanket for the couch up off the floor, felt a wet spot on it (thought maybe Ellie had “butt juiced” on it — sorry, inside joke) and gasped.  Only to find out someone had used the throw blanket as an emergency burp cloth.  Yeah, I’m talking about you, Dad.

Needless to say, if you don’t want to be using afghans or shirt sleeves, my burp cloths are a MUST have!  I don’t have anything listed for sale in my Etsy shop currently – I’m out of Chenille and apparently so is every fabric store on the planet…stay tuned!

And last but not least, Yo Gabba Gabba.

Get yourself an iPhone and sign up for Netflix.  Download the Netflix app, and add Yo Gabba Gabba to your queue.  DO IT NOW.  I can’t tell you how many times this has saved us in a pinch.

And seriously, what is it with Yo Gabba Gabba?  It’s literally like Bella Crack.  She LOVES Mr. Long Arms DJ Lance.  Seriously all we do is put it on and the sound of his shoes clicking and the white screen at the beginning makes her CRAZY.

Is this bad?

At this point, I’ll do anything to finish blow drying my hair in the morning.

The other cool thing is that you’ll go through your whole day singing “there’s a party in my tummy — so yummy, so yummy” at your desk.  Mom of the year!

Party in my Tummy

SO there you have it!  Just some tips and recommendations on what we’ve found to work for us. What’s your favorite baby product?  Anything I missed?  We’re still just in the infant phase, so I’d love to hear what your recommendations are for babies 1+ years.

XOXO

Alison

photo via lisaleonardonline.com

XOXO

So here we are, refreshed with the new year and grossed out by the sight of that old Christmas wreath holding on to the neighbors front door for.dear.life (get rid of it already!!!).  I literally have three billion things Pinned and queued up on my to-do list – so hopefully I will remember to grab my camera and document some of my projects.

For now though – here’s what’s been going on at our house:

Before Christmas I went out on a limb and bought this dresser on Craigslist for our bedroom.  I was so sick of the 1) lack of storage with the armoire we have had for years, and 2) black furniture.

I painted it Glidden’s Spicy Banana Pepper on NYE and toasted to fun new colors in our bedroom!

I’m still having a difficult, yet fun, time decorating the top of it — Pinterest isn’t really delivering in that category.  The gallery wall idea is sort of taking off, but I’m not there yet, either.

My parents got this new duvet for us from Garnett Hill for Christmas and I love the pop of color it gives the room.  I was nervous that a transition from our usual white duvet would be too much for Andy, but so far, so good! (Read: no complaints on the bold floralish pattern)

These are the other new additions.  One is a product of hunting season in MN (ye be warned…)

Scored this adorable chair for $5 at an Estate Sale for the granddaughter of James J. Hill.  That was quite the house.  I love the blue color and it’s such a fun addition to my office!

I’m working on rearranging the shelves in my office – it’s hard to pick just a few favorites.  New blue lamp and shade are from Target and the “I heart you, Blogs and Coffee” poster was a sweet Christmas gift from my Mister!

We’re working on finding this guy a home, also.  Pinterst assures me that these are trendy and can  be incorporated into your home without feeling like you’re living in Cabella’s.  For now, the trophy buck is hanging in the living room (gasp!!).

SO that’s kind of where we’re at.  I still have to paint the trim in our bathroom before I can show it off, but maybe that will be a post for another day soon!

Thanks for reading!

XOXO

I haven’t listened to the old iPod on shuffle in a long time.  I get a little sideways smile when “don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?” comes on.

What else is making me smile?

Which reminds me, I need to make Isabella a Christmas stocking.  Pinterest, I need you.

Thank God for Pinterest.  I’ve gotten some really great ideas that I can’t wait to try out at the party!

Cheeeers!!!

See what I mean?  But for real, it’s super easy to learn, thanks to my pal Judy, and look at what you can make.  Could there be anything cuter in this whole world?

Ok, this is way cuter.

In case you’re interested, the pattern for the leggings is here.  And, if you want to get together and knit — I’d love to set up some informal Stitch-N-Bitch sessions!

Dilemna solved.  And all for the cost of a pack of 3M picture hanging things.  I raided my stash of cool things, and found this old wooden cheese box.  I believe they were once the box for something like Velveeta Cheese.  Imagine that – a wood box to hold cheese.  How klassy.

Side note: Chalk is (shockingly) very cheap at Ikea.  And fatter.  Not sidewalk chalk fat, but just more substantial than Crayola (sorry, Crapola Crayola!).

This pack of 4 picture hanging strips were $4.99 at Target.  Perhaps cheaper elsewhere…

I followed the directions on the package, sort of.  Wiping wood off with rubbing alcohol seemed weird, so I only did that to the fridge.  Which by the way started to take the chalkboard paint off.  Luckily I covered that spot up in the end.

Basically the whole process involved me sticking one of the tape things on each corner, like so:

Then attaching another strip of tape on top of each piece.  Juuuust like a Velcro sandwich.  Yum.

I peeled the white tape off and stuck the whole thing right onto the fridge.  Immediately I added chalk and the eraser and squealed with delight.

Well, what do you think!?  Feel free to stop by and graffiti all you want.  You know where the chalk is!

Behold, our little owl:

The birdie leggings didn’t happen.  A girl can only do so much with raw materials.

Alright, please feel free to proceed with your Christmas countdown.

Another task on my to-do list before we get a Christmas tree put up was to organize our DVD collection and free up some highly coveted storage space for a new, but much adored, eye sore.  BABY TOYS.  I love having baby toys in our home, but when they’re not being gummed and drooled on, I’d love them more if they were tucked away.  And DVDs can take up an unnecessarily large amount of space!

Here’s what the situation was.  One pretty decent sized drawer in our living room armoire taken up completely with DVDs.

I couldn’t quite figure out what a great solution would be for this mess, besides donating or selling our stash of movies…which wasn’t really a great option.  So I hit up the Google and found these DVD sleeves on Amazon.com for $2.95 each for a pack of 20.  Not a bad deal considering we have over 100 DVDs to organize and a pretty low budget in which to do so.

Then, in one of my many Home Goods shopping sprees, I found this chunky basket with an attached lid for $9.99.  Luckily, it fit the DVD sleeves almost perfectly and with the lid, provides a sneaky little hideaway for all our movies.

It took a while to go through each DVD and remove the cover art, which for some had to be trimmed down to fit in the sleeve.  The most annoying part of this whole thing were the plastic pieces of DVD sleeve confetti littered all over the living room.  The sleeves are 3-hole punched so you can store them in a binder, but the holes were still sort of connected and fell out every time you grabbed a new one.  Did I mention the confetti was suffering from all sorts of static problems?

But, when all was said and done, I was able to condense an entire drawer of DVDs into this tidy little basket and store it on our bookshelf perfectly out of the way.

I love that it camouflages and condenses the eyesore!  It also frees up that entire drawer for these adorable essentials…

Another 100 points for being organized!

XOXO

XOXO

The Chandlers!