Cute photo idea at the pool

My Mom had this great idea. Take the kids picture next to the number they are that summer. Strangely, we had all the right ages this year! I made a 4x6 collage at Walgreens for .29 and put it on the front of a plain card for Fathers Day. It was a hit especially to the grandmas. :)

My favorite things for bringing up babies

So with four kids I have tried out a lot of different products. Some work, some don't and some go down in history and these are the best!

I found out about the Miracle Blanket when I was just 6 weeks pregnant with my first baby. I was ready and interested in anything that can help baby sleep.

Well they were right. It was a miracle! All four of my babies were able to sleep through the night at very young ages. I kept them all in this till about 4 or 5 months. Through the night is probably around  6 hour stretches. You can buy this at Buy Buy Baby.

This is a Puddle Jumper. It is coast guard safe. It takes a bit of learning how to balance it and once they figure it out they love to swim. I have 1 1/2 year old who swims all over with the pool.

Crazy how many different strollers I have gone through overt the past 8 years of Motherhood. But this one is my absolute favorite. Phil and Ted is the perfect stroller for the 2 year gap between siblings. It can be a single or a double. This time it ended up to be a great spot to sleep after a very long day at Disneyland.

BJORN or ERGO

When I had my first baby the only people who had Ergos were tree hugger women that wore flipflop on cold December days. Bjorns are great and they last well. But my last baby was a 9 pounder and he started to grow and gain a lot faster than the others. So I switched to the Ergo and I couldn't believe the difference. All the weight is on your hips. A nice thing about the Ergo is you can put a 3 year old on your back and go for a short hike. The 3 year old will feel very lucky.

A fancy expensive highchair or a stark white highchair.

The question is which one would you rather clean?

I started out with the expensive Peg Perego. It was nice, it was padded, but come on after 3 kids it had to go. Then I got this beautiful Ikea one that my mom thinks looks so stark and ugly. She is right but boy is it easy to clean and for that I love it!!!!

Crocs or flip flops

Crocs are the best summer shoe for little kids. They are bright so you can find them anywhere. The toe is closed so no stubbed toes. And most importantly they stay on. I think they look super cute on little kids. This year my 6 year old insisted on green to match his baby brother size 5. I call it the summer of the green croc.

I will add more to this list soon!

Fitballing at the Beach

If you ever want to try something new at the beach check out Fitballin'. All you need is a beautiful day, sand, shovel and a yoga ball.

You dig a huge whole and place the yoga ball inside. Pack the sand in tight and start jumping.

Hand Stamped Necklaces

I have four kids that get invited to a ton of parties. All of us moms try to figure out what to do with all the toys we get for birthdays and holidays. So this year I gave a small toy to all the cute kids and a special little necklace made personally for them. If their name was unusual or spelled differently this present was a hit. I got the washers at Home Depot. The metal stamps at Harbor Freight for $10. And I found the best place to get the ball bead chain is in the lamp section at Home Depot. Don't forget the clasps. I added a little charm which I got a Michaels. Then I put it in a little favor bag from the dollar store.
                                          

Anyways it takes a bit of practice but it works and it turns out great. After you stamp the name don't forget to color the stamp in with sharpie and then wipe it off with a baby wipe.

One Direction Babies

So I came up with this idea to copy One Direction and turn them into babies. After posting the What Makes You Beautiful video on Youtube with 0 subscribers we got 10,000 views within 48 hours. My idea of 1D Babies broke into the actual fan base of One Direction giving our Youtube video tons of hits. We are now at 3.5 million hits to the channel, Itn did a segment on us and called us an internet sensation. Harry Styles tweeted he wants to meet us and we made it into USA Today Magazine! Its been quite a fun ride. And like my Mom says we took the actual playdate to a whole new level!
Find out more about the 1D Babies here

Angry Birds All out!

My kids are crazy about Angry Birds and we needed a theme for a family camp weekend. I searched the web and found Angry Bird Bible curriculum. Basically, anger management skills for children. Angry Bird Curriculum

So since it was Angry Birds I decided to make bean bag birds. Boy did my son think I was super cool.
I made 180 birds and it was a longer process then I thought. I couldn't remember the last time I sewed so I thought jumping in with both feet was the best way to start. And here is the completed project with puffy paint faces and all. My daughter helped with all the beans.

Melissa and Doug cardboard boxes were the perfect blocks to build towers. We needed pigs and my daughter came up with the idea to make the green blocks the pigs. So I got green felt and puff painted all the different pig faces.

You can't just throw a bean bag at a block tower, there has to be a certain skill level involved. So I tried so many slingshot ideas and nothing worked. My sister said she would figure it out and she did!

PBC pipe 

glue

a pbc cutter

duct tape 

and rubber bands from Office Depot

Now this game was full of fun!

Another great way is to play with even amounts of pigs and blocks. Make sure all pigs are visible and take turns shooting each others tower down. When all the pigs are completely on the ground you win!

Control your temper because anger labels you a fool.  Ecclesiastes 7:9 NLT

Life Size American Girl Doll Box

We celebrated my daughters 8th birthday with an American Girl doll theme. I gathered all the special ideas off the internet but this was the biggest hit. Takes a bit of time but all you need is:

A golfclub/sports box from the U Haul store. $7

white duct tape $3

paint in two different shade of maroon and a white.

I made stars on the side.

I am trying to convince my daughter to wear this for halloween. I am sure the neighbors would love it!

I plan to put armholes in it so she can walk. and carry her candy of coarse.