Moms to Multiples?

Are you a mom to multiples (twins on up?) Go to this blog. Here, Rachael, who is a mom to triplets, has listed freebies and discounts that are given to moms to multiples. First she lists the specific deal and then at the bottom are the addresses to write to. I was glad to find this! A friend of mine is expecting identical twin boys any day now! She is dilated to 2 1/2 CM and is 70% effaced. She is almost 35 weeks. She is ready to go! :D
Multiples Freebies & Discounts Blog


Photo thanks to http://www.babyminestore.com

Ali Vincent, First Female Biggest Loser!

Ali Vincent made history as the first female biggest loser! She lost 112 pounds and most of that by herself. She was sent home soon after coming into the contest but she managed to work hard with the goal of being the Biggest Loser in mind! I was so psyched to see her win! Even with Roger and Kelly as her competitors she still managed to win! Yeah Ali! You are awesome! And congratulations to the other contestants who lost amazing amounts of weight! Kelly won 109 pounds! Wow!

Ignited C|hurch Great Florida Healing Revival

7 AM Pacific and 4 PM Pacific time

Ignited Church in Lakeland Florida is having a Great Florida Healing Revival as we speak! My parents in law have been watching the live stream for days now. Hundreds of people have been healed and given their hearts to Jesus! My mom in law tells me last night they were praying for birth defects. It is so amazing! I know that just about everyone knows someone who needs healing. I wish I could take my nephew there. How amazing would it be to take my nephew to a revival and then return him to his parents speaking and with full mental capacities? So cool! :D Now if you can't make it down to Lakeland (although people have been driving there from all over the USA!) you can also send in your prayer requests via email at prayer@ignited.com
To watch the live stream you can go to http://freshfire.ca/ffmstream/index.php or you can go to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/great-florida-healing-revival (if this last one just leads you to the main page at UStream, then just search "Ignited." For more info, you can go to the Ignited Church's Website at http://www.ignitedchurch.com/Home/tabid/1132/Default.aspx

10 Fun Anna Facts

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1. Anna loves Spongebob. She even sings along with the song! She says Bah-Bob, which is Spongebob.
2. Anna bites her nails! Already!
3. When we lay in bed, Anna wraps her arms around my neck! Not so comfortable sometimes, but completely adorable! I love it!
4. Everywhere we go, Anna points out babies (Baby!), Dogs (Dahg!), Cats ( Cah-Cat!), and horses (ee-eee-eee *neighs*).
5. Anna is 100% girl. She totes around dollies, feeds them, gives them drinks, puts them in strollers. She loves dresses and hates to get dirty! If you put a new outfit on her and ask her to show daddy, she will turn to him and acts shy. hehehe! So girly and she's only 16 months. LOL! I love it!
6. Anna loves to sing and dance. It's adorable watching her!
7. Anna knows around 20 words and at least 3 signs that I've taught her. She's pretty good at communicating nonverbally, too. LOL
8. Anna loves rocking on her rocking zebra. It's her fave toy right now. She gets on and rocks and says, Weee!
9. Anna loves to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and signs the word Twinkle (which is putting the hands in the air and opening and closing the hands).
10. If you say, Praise the Lord! Anna puts her hands in the air!

11... She put that hat on backwards herself! :)

Wordless Wednesday: Mini Chocoholic

She got into my dark chocolate stash! Oh, they do start young, don't they? LOL!
*edited to remove photos*

Klean Kanteen

A while back ago I won a Klean Kanteen--pre-blog. So unfortunately now I can't remember who I won it from! I think it may have been from Ecoist...? Hmm..

Anyhow, I won a Klean Kanteen sippy cup. It's a sippy cup made from stainless steel. When mine came in the mail it came with two spouts. I put one aside. How many times have you lost sippy cup spouts? I was so glad to see that this one came with a spare! Another great feature is that once Anna outgrows the sippy spout, I can replace it with a water-bottle type of spout, called a flat or loop cap. The spout is large which is so great for warm days--I can load it up with ice cubes and water with no problem.
So, why stainless steel instead of plastic? It is durable. It lasts forever. I can't count how many times Anna has dropped, thrown, and generally TRIED to mutilate this poor sippy cup. It has gone with us so far to the park, zoo, and to Disneyland. It made it through airport security with no problems... which was a worry of mine. I thought it might be confused with a pipe bomb or something lol. Thankfully that wasn't even remotely a concern. I just kept it in the diaper bag as a carry-on. The second and most important reason why some parents prefer stainless steel for their children's cups is the concern of leaching of chemicals into the child's drink. Even the Advent spouts are made of #5 polypropylene which is a non-leaching material. The Klean Kanteen is lab tested and found to be 100% free of heavy metals and toxins which might leach into your child's every day milk or water.
I've found so far that I really like this cup. I'm confident that my daughter is drinking from a safe cup. I'm also glad to know that it will last practically forever. Which is always great for a mama on a budget and for a mama who is concerned with adding to landfills unnecessarily.
On the negative side (there aren't many negative things to speak of) I've found that it gets very cold when filled with cold liquids. There aren't any handles, so it could be hard for a younger infant to hold onto. My 1 year old has had no problems with that. Otherwise it is a great sippy cup and I'd recommend it to anybody!
Right now Reuseable Bags has the Klean Kanteen sippy cup on sale for just under 17 dollars which is quite a deal!

I'm Back!

I had a great time at my sister's house! I love my sister! Please keep her in prayer. She's so lonely out there. She's far from family and also she misses my brother Sean so much. So do I. I know we all do. I think it's easy for me, though. It's easy to be distracted from thinking about Sean's death with Anna, Paul, Paul's family keeping my mind busy. She lives in Southern Oregon a few hours from me and has no family nearby. She's single and she has lots of time to think. I feel for her. I really wish I could simply fix it all, but I know it's not the way it works. I can't bring Sean back and I can't keep her from being depressed. Aside from that, we had a great time together. We watched movies, visited the elderly people that she works with, went to the park--Anna loved the swings and said "Wee!" LOL!--Anna played in the bathtub every night and loved chasing Cally Cat, Jen's white minx cat. We rented August Rush while I was there. Have you all watched it? You should! It was a great movie! I really had no interest in it beforehand, but now I just love it so much! Well, I'll blog some more later. Today I got my Clean Team products so I'm excited to get working on those. The review will come soon! :D

Favorite Foto Friday

Over at Safe in His Arms, Tonya has a Favorite Foto Friday. This week she shared photos of her beautiful new niece Allie Grace. She is gorgeous! Go and comment on her post! :D
I'm off for this week. I'm going to go visit my sister Jennifer! I'm so excited! It's supposed to be in the 70s this week, so it'll be warm enough for a trip to the park! Yay! That just reminded me that we should pack the cameras!
Now, I'm going to look through my computer and search for some of my favorite photos to share..... let's see......

These are Anna's 4 month photos, taken by my husband Paul at home. We bought black sheets that were on sale at Walmart and bought 800 film for excellent photos. I also used Photoshop to make the photos a little more sharp. I loved how they turned out. There are more of course, but these are a few of my faves. Aren't they adorable? It shows you how chubby Anna was and also how much she loves to smile!!! :D
Edit: Forgot to share what the watermarks mean. I watermarked these a while back ago... well, over a year ago now that she's almost 17 months old, with my nickname Gussie for a forum. :) And Anna Daisy, that's her first and middle name. I'll share the story of her name another time. ;)

*edited to remove photos*

April is Autism Awareness Month

Autism is the third most common developmental disorder. 1 in 150 children born have autism. 1 to 1.5 million Americans have Autism. Autism is the fastest growing developmental disability at 10-17% annual growth.
I'm sure that you know someone who has Autism or someone that has been effected by Autism in some way. My own nephew, Tell has a severe form of Autism. At age twelve, he is not potty trained and has never told his mother that he loves her. In fact he cannot speak at all. When he was about six months old he could say two words: ball and mama. Soon after that he began regressing and could no longer speak. It is so sad to know that I will never know my nephew emotionally... never have a conversation with him. But I can honestly say that he is a very joyful little boy. He laughs every day. He loves to be tickled. He loves to watch movies. He is very good at figuring out electronics and how to turn up the volume or change the channel. He can also match written words to pictures. He is a wonderful child and nobody has regretted having him in our lives.

Photo: Auntie Sarah and Telly on the slide. We love going down the slide together. As you can see from this earlier photo. The funny thing is, we never planned to take these two photos for comparison or anything like that. It was just random that it turned out that way! :)


For more information on Autism, you can go to the Autism Society of America website.
If you would like to follow a step-by-step symptom screening, please go to the Autism Screening site. Some of the symptoms to look for include not responding to his/her name, lack of eye contact, and delayed language skills.
If you would like to donate, you can go to the Autism Speaks website for more information.

She Drank By Herself!!!

We were sitting at the couch just a moment ago and Anna grabbed my glass of water from the side table and took a drink from it by herself. She did it three more times after that, too! I'm so proud of my little girl!

New Layout

I created a new header so I had to redo my layout. Man, I wish I knew how to create custom layouts. :( Wah! Anybody want to teach me? Anyone? No? Yes? You? OK! :D

First Review on Behalf of a Company

Today I was excited to get an email M80 Parents Blog who contacted me on behalf of Kimberly Clark. They asked me to do a review of Huggies products. This is pretty perfect, really. I've been wanting to do a review and on top of that I'm NOT a Huggies customer.... Perhaps I will be converted? We shall see!!!

Biggest Loser: USA Decides!!!

My Mother in Law is a little addicted to watching The Biggest Loser. And so am I. For the finale, the viewers get to decide who wins! For this season we have a HUGE chance at getting our FIRST female Biggest Loser winner! So, please go to this website: http://www.nbc.com/The_Biggest_Loser_5/vote/register.shtml and vote for MARK. By voting for MARK, you are voting in a guy who already weighs 169 pounds. He hardly has anything to lose now. WHICH MEANS the other two women who are in the finale, Ali and Kelly, HAVE A HUGE CHANCE AT WINNING AND BEING THE FIRST FEMALE BIGGEST LOSER!!! So please go to that web address simply by clicking HERE and voting for MARK (yes, I'm being repetitive because I want Mark voted on so Kelly or Ali can win!!! :D

2 Weeks of Toys

5 Minutes for Mom is giving away a new toy (or toys) every day for the next two weeks! Go ahead and go over there and check it out. I hope I win the Rose Petal Cottage. It's so adorable! :)

Wordless Wednesday: Growing Belly Weeks 5-39

This is a collage of my pregnancy pictures, weeks 5-39, with my daughter Anna, born November 06.
Photo Watermarked at http://www.bump-and-beyond.com