Baby Star Rock The Tote Diaper Bag Giveaway

The one thing I love about twitter, well and blogging is the giveaways that are featured! Some places I've never even heard about, but offer such adorable clothes, or good books or items for every day at home. At first I thought having a twitter account was just for writing down your thoughts or chit chatting with a fellow twitterer.

So while I was twittering away today I came across a comment about a giveaway from a place called Baby Star. I'm one to shop online for clothes for my kids, albeit it doesn't happen very often, but it's the route I'd rather take. I'm not much of a shopper when it comes to doing that in a store. I feel more at ease and can take my time when I'm in front of my computer and can decide with an open mind what I want.

What Baby Star is having is a giveaway to win a really cool tote. Like the one below:



(how adorable is that!!)

Here's a little snippet about the bag:

It’s time to Rock The Tote with the new diaper bag from baby star. beautifully crafted with the modern mom (or dad) in mind. this diaper bag has room for what you need on the run, even a lap top. features a wide zipper pocket on one side and two open pockets on the other side that can hold a wipe case, bottle or cell phone. also includes matching changing pad and a BPA free wipe case.

size: 18″ wide x 15″ tall (top 15 wide)
styles: offered in the daisy chain, four square blue, tag pink & blue, flutter pink & blue prints,
materials: the print is produced with a BPA-free laminate.

all products are FORMALDEHYDE-FREE and AZO-FREE, making them safe for baby and the environment.

It's safe and adorable! How cool is that. So get to your twitter accounts and check out the Baby Star website above. Good luck!

In A Slump

Here we are, the end of July and I'm feeling like I'm in a slump. Am I ready for school, fall temps, jeans, long sleeve shirts..etc? I am, but I'm not. Silly me, I just can't make up my mind. I really feel like this summer has gone by too quickly! On the other hand, I see my son getting to this part of the summer where he's bored. Books and games and puzzles just aren't cutting it. But if you were to ask him if he's ready, no way! In fact, he doesn't ever want to go back. Boy do I know the feeling. I'm not ready for the sleep deprived days, or trying to figure out rides home from school (we only have one car). But I am excited to see him grow more in his academics, make new friends, reconnect with old ones. See what I mean? A real slump. There's a few more things I've wanted to do before the school year/cold temps come around again. Camping, the beach (ugh, still haven't hit the beach yet!), a family friendly theme park...did I mention the beach?! I guess we'll figure something out, this summer hasn't been a complete waste. I've enjoyed it. One goal at a time.

Blockbuster Film

Now, I don't claim to be a movie critic, or anything that a movie big wig does...but I just watched the most amazing movie last night. I'm sure you've all heard of it, Defiance. Wow, that's really the only word that comes to mind. Beautifully acted.

It touched a nerve, kinda like Schindler's List did. Although this movie wasn't like that one, to see the hardships these people had to endure to stay alive. To see how these brothers stuck together to helps other and one another.

I don't come across many movies (that interest me) that touch me like this one did. If you haven't seen it already, you must! You won't be disappointed.

Sisters R' Us

Lastnight I had such a great time with my sisters. We got together at one of their homes and just chatted. Well, we watched a movie too. It doesn't happen very often that I can spend some time with just my sisters. No husbands or kids. Just to be able to sit around and talk and not have to worry about anything but what's going on in that room.

We had great conversations, good food and some wine. I was really glad we didn't start the movie right away, I really had missed my sisters. And as silly as this may sound, I felt like a teenager again out with my friends, staying out late (11:30 is late, right?), watching a good movie and just catching up. We've already talked about doing this again, maybe even once a month.
Something to look forward to. I'm so thankful for my sisters.

Where Has The Time Gone?

I am ashamed once again that I'm so far behind on my blog. Almost a month! I guess the summer months make it a little more difficult to sit down and write about my day. (although Twitter has become sort of an addiction)

Not much to tell ya about the summer so far. It's been a nice month and a half off, and I'm not ready yet for school to start. Although I've seen in stores all the school gear and I'm none to happy about that! But I know the ole' school year will be here before I know it.

Have been very successful with not allowing my kids to watch so much TV. Albeit we are still in this apartment, we've been finding things to do around here that don't involve the tube. We've been to a couple pools in the last week and I'm happy to have gotten some sun. I always try to make it a goal to get to the beach at least once or twice, so far that goal hasn't been reached yet. But there is still time! As always I'd like to go camping, but my husband isn't a big fan...still working on that one. But my favorite part of the summer is just being able to be LAZY! No alarm clocks or lunches to be made. I guess that's why I haven't made much of an effort to get to my blog more often. But that doesn't mean I won't try.

A Day At The Zoo

Good weather, check. Kids ready, check. That was about it, plus a purse full of food and we were set to go to the zoo. What a day! It was perfect, all of it. They have new animals, and of course the regulars. The majority of them weren't sleeping either!

Of course, the first animals you see are the birds...ducks, flamingos, turkey. But what I've never seen up close were pelicans. They're huge!


After that we headed off the usual route to see some wallaby's + a joey. So cute. And Lemurs! I've never seen lemurs before too. Well, except maybe from those Madagascar movies.


Along that trail of animals was a couple birds, a kinkajou, but that animal was sleeping in a hammock so it was hard to see it. So then we headed over to the area where you can pet some animals. What's so great this time was that they had brushes you could use to brush the animals. My son loved that right away...

It took my daughter a little bit to get comfortable with all that, but once she did that was all she wanted to do.

I think this was my favorite thing to do. Just because we could all get involved. What an awesome idea!





It was so much fun. They use these popsicle sticks and then have this bird seed mixture on the end. Then you pretty much just shove it in their face and hope they take it! We went a couple years ago and this wasn't there so I hope they do for a while.

Like I said earlier, they have a lot of newer animals there. Ones I've never seen. A tapir, pelicans, a macaw, the lemurs. What was really neat to see was the lion's enclosure. So much bigger and better, I think, for lions to have. The male lion looked pretty funny, too!


They had pygmy goats there too. So teeny!


I had really hoped we could've done this with our daughter too, but I think because she's never done this before, she wouldn't have really enjoyed it a whole lot.

Touching sting rays it pretty cool. They're soft, slimy and squishy too. Plus they had a few nurse sharks, some polka dotted shark and a few horse shoe crabs in this little pool thing too. After you have touched the sting rays a couple times, you get used to how they feel. I think it was a perfect ending to a really wonderful family trip. I hope we can do this again before the summer is over.

Fun Times

We try to get our kids out at least once a day, depending on the weather of course. We have a fairly new park nearby, but we like to check out other parks for something different. We don't have our own backyard for the kids yet, so parks are the best we can do for right now. And I'm thankful for them!

We had heard of a park nearby my parent's house that had a place to fish. You had to throw them back once you caught them, but it's all good fun. We went on a Monday to try our luck, but to no avail. Of course we didn't have any bait. We had tried bread, but they were too smart for that.

The next day we took a neighbor boy with us. He had the goods too! Worms. Yuck, just the thought of worms makes me shiver. Thankfully he has no problem touching them, as most boys aren't. So, we got there, tried out the worms, still nothing. Tried the bread again....


I caught four of those! I forgot the thrill of fishing. We tried worms, didn't catch one. Tried bread, that's when I caught the four fish. I'm so proud of myself. My daughter was pretty thrilled to see fish out of water. She was a little hesitant to touch it, but she's pretty brave. She touched it real quick and was happy with that.


It was an overall fun time that day. After fishing we went over to the playground and ran around with the kids for a while. Gotta love playing in the rain (I still do) but we left shortly after it started. You know what the best part of bringing kids outside and letting them exhaust themselves?

They go to bed that much easier!