Happy Memorial Day!!!

I just want to take a minute to say thank you not only to the soldiers who fight for our country but for the families who love and support them.  I do not support the war in and of itself but I am so thankful for our military men and women who fight in it because I know they are literally giving their lives to make my life safer and better.  I pray for the families who have lost time with their loved ones in military service whether it was permanently due to death or temporary due to deployment.  I know that either way you've given up your time with them for our countries greater good and I appreciate it so much! Both of my grandfather's fought in wars and now my Uncle (who is more like a brother) is now in Afghanistan fighting for us.  I encourage you to hug a solider today and say thank you.  If you can't hug a soldier then please send an encouraging note to one and always keep all of our military men and women in your prayers.

I am flying the flag on my page today to honor our soldiers but fallen and current.  Please note that on Memorial Day, according to the US Flag Code, your actual flag should fly half staffed from sunrise until noon only, then it should be raised to full staff.

Get your Leg Huggers for ONE CENT!!!

Everyone knows I'm a huge fan of Leg Huggers so I am very excited to share this deal with you!  I got an inside tip and an exclusive coupon code! If you go right now to http://www.leggerhuggers.com/ and enter the code "1centleg5" you can get a pair of Leg Huggers for a penny!  Hurry because the code will only work for the first 25 people! This is a one time use coupon, and can't be used with any other coupon, standard shipping will apply.  Happy Shopping!!!

I {HEART} My Baby Pumpkin, LLC!

I got started blogging because I read other people's blogs and saw the awesome things they had to review.  That led me to expand my twitter network and then my facebook network and now I am overlapping people in more places than I can keep up with.  The other day on facebook I had a message asking if I knew that I had won a $10 gift certificate to My Baby Pumpkin, LLC.  I immediately started racking my brain trying to remember who's blog I had entered to win it from.  Turns out I had just became a fan of their facebook page and been selected as a random winner!  I love it when I win free stuff but it is especially awesome when you don't expect it at all!  I hopped online and checked out their store.  They had tons of cool stuff related to baby wearing, cloth diapering, and just babies in general.  I ended up using my $10 to buy a pair of Army Friends Leg Huggers for Avin.  (In honor of his Uncle Monroe- a US Army Medic in Afghanistan!)  Shipping was free and I received it in just about 2 days!  I highly recommend you check out this great store.  Follow My Baby Pumpkin, LLC on facebook for lots of great sales and info!

May is National Foster Care Month

Did you know it would take less than 1% of the U.S. population to provide a family for every child in foster care?


May is National Foster Care Month and there has never been a greater need to bring attention to children waiting for forever homes. More than 463,000 children are currently in foster care and 123,000 children are waiting to be adopted.

Children in foster care are loving children. They are children like Shaquane and Edlina and Albert. Every child deserves to have a home with caring and supportive parents.

Help us spread the message this month to reach all Americans and teach them about the love and joy that foster care adoption can bring to your life.

Visit http://www.adoptuskids.org/ to learn more about fostering and adopting. You can also join our online communities on Facebook and Twitter.

Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood Review

I just completed a class in college called "Classroom Management".  The entire class was about how to manage your classroom by preventing behaviors when possible and by minimizing disruption when correcting behaviors.  One of the management types or theories was called "Love and Logic".  This theory spoke directly to my heart.  Love and Logic works by creating a safe and loving environment that kids want to be in and then applying logical consequences when they make poor choices.  It didn't take long for me to decide that this would be my main classroom management theory.  When I learned that they don't just address dealing with students from a teaching perspective but they also deal with kids from a parenting perspective I was very intrigued.  

Avin is only 10 months old so his "behaviors" are pretty minimal at this stage but I have already noticed that the things I thought would work with him don't.  My family has always believed in smacking little hands to keep them out of things that could hurt them.  I just naturally fell into that pattern with Avin but it only took a few times to see 2 things very clearly 1) I would have to hit Avin much harder than I wanted to for it to deter him and 2) He seemed to be learning very clearly to hit people when they did something he didn't like but not learning to leave things alone.  About that same time a study came out showing that kids who are spanked end up being much more physically aggressive than kids who aren't spanked.  That was enough for me, spanking as a routine solution to misbehavior is no longer an option.  So with no model to go on I started seeking out a solution that made sense for the gentle, loving way I want to raise Avin. 

Love and Logic just makes sense for our family.  I called my nephews' mom and told her about Love and Logic and directed her to their website. She got online and just from reading the resources posted for free on their site she began using Love and Logic techniques. Within days she reported a huge difference in my nephews' behavior.  My nephews are 5 and 7 so I wasn't sure if Love and Logic was something that I could apply to Avin or not.  I got on the Love and Logic website and saw that they had a huge variety of materials regarding parenting kids from birth and on.  I emailed Love and Logic and requested to do a review of the book "Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood".  This book focuses on teaching parents how to use Love and Logic to raise their children from birth. 

I own a million "self help" books and I've only really read about 2 of them.  Most of the time they are so boring that I can't make it through the first chapter much less the entire book.  I fell in love with this book about two pages in.  I had taken into the bathroom with me to read while I snuck in a 15 minute soak in the tub while my husband played with the baby.  Once I started reading I couldn't quit and my 15 minute soak turned into a 2 hour reading marathon.  I read the book from start to finish while in the bathtub because I just couldn't put it down.  It is a great mix of serious information and light, humorous stories.  Everything it offers is simple, quick, and logical.  I love that it works based off of loving your kids so much that they miss you when you aren't together and allowing them to learn from their little mistakes as young children so they don't make big mistakes when they get older. 

If you are looking for a gentle but effective parenting method Love and Logic is for you!  There is no yelling, no cruel or unusual punishments, no crying it out for babies, and no spanking involved.  There is just lots and lots of love.  The book teaches you as a parent how to stay calm, cool, and collected while dealing with your kids behavior.  When you use Love and Logic it takes a lot of stress out of parenting and makes it fun again.  I strongly recommend this book to anyone with a child ages birth to 6.  I will be using Love and Logic as my parenting style. 

You can visit LoveandLogic.com for tons of FREE resources to help get you started whether you are a teacher, a parent, or both.  You can also order "Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood" and many other wonderful books there as well.

Yummy Spoonfuls Review

Yummy Spoonfuls' is a company that makes fresh, organic baby foods.  You receive them frozen on your doorstep in 2 business days after shipping.  Talk about easy shopping, a couple of clicks and fresh, organic baby food literally appears at your door.  Yummy Spoonfuls’ founder and CEO Agatha Achindu frequently speaks out on the importance of diet as it relates to various childhood diseases, Achindu believes the best baby food is fresh and pure--that means no chemicals, additives or preservatives. While difficult for small businesses to achieve, organic certification remains the consumer’s best assurance of purity, according to Achindu. Achindu’s passion for quality and the health of her baby led her to found Yummy Spoonfuls in 2006.

When Cookie Magazine online conducted a reader’s poll earlier this year, Yummy Spoonfuls was named Number One over 12 other organic brands.  I think Avin would rank it high too!  Yummy Spoonfuls' comes in three "stages".  Stage 1 is "Creamy Yummy, stage 2 is "Mushy Yummy" and stage 3 is "Chunky Yummy".  I received a variety of items from the stage 2 and stage 3 for Avin to try.  Avin doesn't like carrots very well so several of the choices were not popular with him because they contained a blend of carrot.  He does however LOVE fruit (especially blueberries) and the items that contained fruit blends he ate the entire container and yelled for more.  I would have liked to see a few more single strain vegetables at the "Mushy" and "Chunky" stage but more with more than 23 distinct and flavorful organic food items for babies, infants, and toddlers I really shouldn't complain!

Each unit of baby food came frozen in its own little plastic cup.  I loved the convenience of this because you could heat and eat without needing to dirty up an additional bowl.  I worry about the BPA in plastics and was very pleased to see that all of the Yummy Spoonfuls packaging is BPA free!  I was however disappointed to see that the plastics were not recyclable in my area.  Sadly we can only recycle number one and two plastics so I had to toss these little containers in the trash when we were done.  The cooler that the food arrives in is made from Styrofoam so it is non-recyclable as well.  Packaging is a strong consideration for me so I would probably only purchase this in bulk to reduce the number of Styrofoam coolers I used. 

You can purchase Yummy Spoonfuls online at amazon.com or YummySpoonfuls.com.  I suggest starting off with a variety pack sampler like Yummy Spoonfuls Mushy Yummy Variety Pack, 4-Ounce Tubs (Pack of 12).  You can also find Yummy Spoonfuls online on twitter and facebook.  I'm sure your baby will love Yummy Spoonfuls as much as mine!

Tushie Huggers by Agoo Review

I had the opportunity to review a very brilliant but unusual product recently.  I received a Tushie Hugger (for Avin) from Agoo Apparrel.  Agoo is one of my favorite companies that produces baby leg warmers (see my previous review).  Tushie Huggers is sort of a leg warmer/short set combo.  When you see the outfit you would assume that the shorts and leg huggers are two separate pieces but they aren't.  Tushie Huggers also come in girl designs with a skirt attached to the leg huggers.  They even have matching tops to make super cute little outfits!  When I first opened the package I wasn't sure how I felt about the Tushie Hugger.  It was just so different from any kids clothing I had seen before.  The shorts are a thicker weight of material but the legging portion is a very thin, breathable layer.  I quickly saw how brilliant this product was when we hit spring in Missouri.  Our mornings were starting out cold and windy and our afternoons ended warm and breezy.  The Tushie Hugger was a perfect combination for us.  It kept Avin warm by protecting his legs from the wind but allowed him to be cool with the breathable fabric.  Avin is a super active kid and one great thing about the Tushie Hugger its unique design means that no matter how hard he plays and crawls his leg warmers aren't going to roll down.  His little knees stay protected but he stays cool. 

The cost for the Tushie Hugger is reasonable and they are made from cotton yarn so washing is super easy.  The downside of the cotton yarn is that by the end of the day the waist can get a little saggy from stretching.  Tushie Huggers come in sizes 0 to 36 months.  I think this would be super cute on a little tiny baby!!!

You can find these great products at the Tushie Huggers Website or on facebook

I'm Back and the Blog is Going to be Better Than Ever!

I've missed you all!  These last few weeks have been crazy for me.  I finished yet another semester of college and managed to pull out all A's for the third semester in a row!  They say that one year I'll graduate with a Bachelor's degree but I don't believe it- I've been in for 9 years and haven't seen one yet.  (Ok, so maybe I quit a few times along the way...but I'm back full force!)  Avin managed to get sick the last two weeks of school so I had a sick baby at finals time.  I also had not one but two unplanned, last minute visits from family during that time.  I've thought about the blog and all the things I wanted to post but the time just wasn't there for me to get any work done!  I'll be posting a ton of new reviews and giveaways in the next month or so!  Among the big ones is an Ergo baby carrier!!! Of course the Mommy Makeover event is coming up quickly and I am so excited! Make sure you visit all of my great sponsors and tell them Avin's Momma sent you!  I'm off to get some reviews banged out and some giveaways posted!