In light of my last post, I think that I will write about this activity that I have been saving for an appropriate time. Today is the day.

My friend Wendy from www.writespirit.com forwarded me this sweet project last week. It would have been great for Thanksgiving as well, but I was a little behind on getting it out.

Remember those garlands that you made, or your kids made, in grade school? They were usually strips of red and green construction paper, linked together and then stapled to make an advent for Christmas. My nephews have brought home others that were representative of math concepts, but I don't remember exactly what... more

Over on Adrienne's blog, she reviews a book called The Family Book by Todd Parr. Although I haven't read it, it caught my eye, because it looks a lot like one of our family favorite books here at home, called, It's Okay to Be Different also by Todd Parr.

This book is one of my favorites because Chris picked it up and bought it for the kids before there even were kid(s). He was at Costco one day and saw it and brought it home. It sounds like our family philosophy but when I saw one of the pages that reads "It's okay to be adopted" my heart soared. Typically male, yes, I know this is sexist of me to say, Chris was... more

Continuing on my copycatting of other blogs, here is a type of post that I picked up from www.antiracistparent.com The Gratuitous Cute Kid Pic!

This is Becken on Halloween, displaying only one of a few smiles wearing his frog costume. He couldn't stand the thing. It was actually our back up costume, as our first pick didn't fit and we had to save it for next year. I was then on the mission to find something for him to wear.

The plan on the frog outfit was that he would be the frog prince and Miss Ivy would be... more

I have been noticing that a lot of my fellow bloggers have been doing "Love Thursday" posts. I really enjoy reading them, but didn't actually feel compelled to write them. On my blogger account, they are doing a thing called "Thursday Thirteen" that is really fun. I decided to join, last week and have been anxiously awaiting today to do my first post. Now and again, I will also be posting my lists here. Here is my initial, welcome to Thursday Thirteen post:

1…. I am 5 feet tall, and I've never wished that I was taller 2. I... more

As luck would have it, my best friend was a stroller designer during my pregnancy and while Ivy was a tiny baby. We have so many strollers that it is crazy. I believe that we had 3 types of "jogging" strollers, 2 umbrella strollers, a general folding stroller and my absolute favorite stroller, our InSTEP stroller/backpack.

While researching for this post, this link had the best price.

The pluses for me for this stroller is that it is so tiny and lightweight that I bring it everywhere.... more

One of my best girlfriends bought me a subscription to Child magazine for Christmas. My subscription started last month and even before I was through with the first issue, I was so excited about the magazine. Mostly because of the beautiful photography, but also because of the ideas that I got for this blog.

In the first issue, this advertisement caught my eye. It is from ConfirmClearly and it is a refillable pregnancy test. From their website:

The only test with money-saving refills! Be sure to save your reader for future... more

This may be a little bit out there for some of you, but I wanted to give the rest of you the link for angel cards.

I was first introduced to Angel Cards during massage school. I know, it is pretty woo woo, but I went to school with a lot of woo woo people. I was actually on the normal end of the spectrum if you can believe that! And I also don't want to turn anyone off of massage either, we really did balance the woo woo with the medical. It was a full range education.

Anyhow, whenever we would first come in to class, we were asked to draw an Angel Card to help see what our direction as an individual would be that evening. After we drew our card, we could share it with... more

"Whose Egg Is It Anyway?" by Louise Farr

I have had the September 2006 issue of More magazine on my desk since August. A close friend of mine gave me her magazine because there was a fertility article in it that she thought I could use for the blog. Well, I've read the article. And read it again and again. And honestly, I still don't know what to say about it. Talk about conflicted.

The article is about the legal battles of Augusta and Randy Roman over embryos that the couple created, yet didn't implant. And now the question is created, whose eggs, or... more

Hello! I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Halloweeen, but thought that I would be too obvious in repeating everyone else's wishes in the Title line, so I decided to add a little mystery. If your brain isn't working to it's peak on this crazy day, HH and H x 2 is for "Happy Halloween"

It isn't even afternoon and we have been enjoying the festivities to the max around this joint. I dressed up as a skater girl, which was pretty easy as that is kind of how I dress anyway. I've been telling everyone that I'm Pharrell's girlfriend! And if you don't... more

The influx of catalogs has begun to arrive in my mailbox. Catalogs like Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel and Williams Sonoma go straight to Chris' mail pile as I can't stand to see how expensive most things are and he loves to envision a life that could afford those items.. All of the other catalogs go into a pile for me and I do read most of them before tossing them into recycling. Titles like Colorful Images, Hannah Anderson (pricey but worth it), Lilian Vernon and the Right Start are... more