Friday, May 28, 2010

Oh the products you'll find

As you may recall, I had every intention of nursing Little G and it unfortunately didn't work out for us. At the time of reckoning, I needed to find a bottle to use and F-A-S-T, before Little G starved over the fact that I had stubbornly not even bought, let alone researched, a bottle option just because I was so adamant that I wanted to breast feed exclusively.

Because I still harbored some hopes of being able to continue breast feeding and because I knew I had a very. slow. flow. I sent my husband to the nearest baby supply store with implicit instructions to purchase a bottle system with the slowest flow available. He came home, with a system called Nursin' Smart by Innobaby.



The system is awesome for a few reasons, none of which mattered to me at the time since I just needed something to feed Little G with that would hopefully match the outflow and feel of my own breast. The bottles are made of medical grade silicone so you aren't purchasing another plastic bottle option. They collapse on themselves if your baby has a proper latch which is great for keeping your baby from getting too gassy...sort of like the plastic inserts in some Platex bottles, but instead of having to purchase a two year supply of inserts you just need one bottle. And they come with a spoon attachment for when they first start solids and a straw attachment for when they are ready to move on from the bottle.

In all, I truly love our bottles, but truth be told, I never tried anything else, so I am sure most options out there are just as good and have just as loyal a following

However, my all-time, most-favorite baby product ever is also from the Innobaby company and I never would have discovered it were it not for my Googling my bottle system and happening upon their website.

So, what is this magic awesomeness I speak of?

Behold, the Packin' Smart: As you can see from the pictures, it is a tower of up to five components that stack together. Each one has a removable funnel/spout that you can use for dispensing formula into a bottle - um, hi!! GENIOUS!! Other awesome features include only-taking-up-the-size-of-its-footprint-in-a-diaper-bag; super durable construction with a very secure click-in-place stacking function; and they are phthalate, PVC and lead free and can go in the dishwasher.

I am telling you, this system of awesomeness was my life saver time and time again as I packed multiple containers of formula for baby and snacks for mommy and headed out the door daily.

Even now with Little G eating solids I can toss in a pancake, mini-bagel, some frozen golden beet cubes and we are good to go. Of course, I have to be careful with the frozen beet cubes to make sure that they don't leak when they defrost since the containers are for dry foods only. Which is their only drawback in my mind.

But, the smarty-pants designers over at Innobaby have solved that little dry-food-only issue by developing the Packin' Smart Stack-n-Seal system!!


Oh yeah, this puppy does everything the regular stack-n-seal does but you can use it with liquids as well! I am telling you, this is by far, without question, the most useful, awesome, convenient, problem-solving baby paraphernalia item I have come across to date.

Disagree? Tell me what your favorite baby product is.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Updated Bloggity Blog Roll

Yo friends! What up?! Just took some time to update my bloggity blog roll over there on the right hand side of the page. Lemme know if your link doesn't work or if you're missing.

Peace!

Coasting anon

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

From seed to table

This past weekend we spent some time out in the yard attending to various items. As always, our job foreman perched himself in the shade to keep an eye on us:



Up first was admiring the awesome peony display:





Then I did some weeding and deadheading of the perennials:


And then I headed to our basement to the tomato plants I started back in March:



And added them to our garden! I also made a mini-support for my peas with stakes and some string. In the front left you can see the arugula which got HUGE over the past few days:


Here's one of my tomato transplants. GROW tomato, GROW!!:


Oh yeah....and here's that arugula all picked and ready to be washed and spun:


Tossed with some lemon juice, good olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper...this accompanied our yummy steak dinner:

Let me tell you...that arugula salad was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!! And it was so awesome to know I 'made' that from a seed the size of a, well, a seed!!

What garden fresh items are you most looking forward to this summer?

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Bonus picture: I had to take a picture of what was going on in the living room while I got dinner ready:

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Monkeying Around

A couple of weekends ago we found ourselves with some extra time on our hands* which seems to NEVER happen when you have an infant. So we decided to check out the Franklin Park Zoo which isn't too far away from where we live.

Neither my husband nor I had ever been despite having lived even closer at one point in our lives, so we were quasi-excited to check it out.


It was a nice day, so we had to wait in line to buy tickets:

There were peacocks wandering around all over the place:



Little G and dad check out the baby ducks:




And wave "hi" to another peacock:




Then we found a big kitty prancing about in his cage. The kitty came super close, but mom wasn't ready with the camera:


Little G doesn't discriminate...he likes the rabbits too:

Daddy took this picture of us watching the ostrich and the zebra - note to self: always put the camera back on 'auto' when handing it over to my husband:



We found another fun kitty to watch, but he was more interested in the shade than us:





We spotted some antelope:

And these llamas were pretty cool. The signs explained that they were starting to shed their fur in preparation for the warm summer:









After checking out the non-anteaters, we went inside to visit the monkeys. My husband LOVES monkeys. Me...not so much.




This gorilla was taking a drink:

...And was about to walk away...

...When she noticed us...
...and came right over!






Little G was getting grumpy, so we headed to see some other animals:



Daddy proclaimed that the warthog was indeed an ugly animal. Poor warthog:







When we went outside we found this peacock with his plume fully out! I've never seen that before:




We figured out he was trying to show his colors to the blue tarp in the construction zone...silly peacock:

By this time, Little G was asleep...so we checked out a red kangaroo:

And a family of giraffes:


And we spied yet another peacock:

And then we headed home.

We had a great time at the zoo...I wish little G had been in better spirits (the teething thing really has him mopey) but I think he will really love being able to go often since we live so close.
When was the last time you went to a zoo and where did you go?