Disney Highlights!

We had a wonderful time at Disney World! Here were some highlights! We took on Disney World with a 2 year old and a 3 year old!

Magic Kingdom was of course... magical, and the girls had a wonderful time exploring. They were all new to the theme park "thing", so I felt like it took us the first day to catch our stride. We spent most of our day in Fantasyland and the adults enjoyed seeing the new addition to the park as well. (Which included Beast's Castle, Gaston's Tavern, the new Ariel ride, and the Snow White mine train ride which was still under construction at the time we were there.)

EPCOT was our second full day at Florida, and admittedly - turned out to be our favorite! We found plenty to do for preschoolers there, they had art stations and a number of rides that were preschool friendly. (Living Seas & the Nemo ride was one of our favorites!) The girls also loved seeing the World Showcase. The highlight that day was the Princess Lunch at Akershus, which also could be said to be the highlight of the entire TRIP! It was wonderful, and will be a must do on our next WDW vacation as well!

Our next day was spent at the beach, and we again had a fantastic time. It was the girls' first time seeing the ocean for them both, and they were definitely awestruck by it!

On our final day, it turned out to be a bit of a rain day, so we took to Downtown Disney and tried to get some last minute shopping in!

We had a wonderful time at Walt Disney World and cannot wait to go back! In fact, we started talking about our next trip the minute we got home and decided we needed to squeeze in one more trip at the end of the year! I'm excited to begin preparations for our next WDW trip in 2014!!

A bit of nostalgia - Disney World style!

I'm a bit nostalgic writing this post… over 2 years ago, I started this blog to capture our adventures at Walt Disney World when Bella (my little Cupcake, for those that only read the blog and don't follow our YouTube Channel, beingmommywithstyle) was only 9 months old! It was her first trip to WDW and I was excited to share it with her. At the time, I was not on YouTube full-time yet, and only took limited video of the trip. Oh how I wish now I had the camera out more during that time, and caught all those precious moments on film… but alas, at least I have pictures and a few videos.

And I'm back now, after a short blog hiatus - to share a Disney trip once again. This time with BOTH girls (Natalie, "aka Peanut" was "on" the last trip… but no one knew it yet, ha!), Natalie's first visit to Walt Disney World and the first vacation there that Bella would remember. I knew this would be an exciting time, and I was so thankful that I would now have more extensive videos to look back on in years to come.

We ventured to Disney World in Orlando the first week in April 2014, and the trip went marvelous… I will be sharing a separate blog recap post for each of the "Day in the Life" YouTube videos. These will be videos that I will look back and treasure for some time, and I'm excited to be able to share them with you. I will also be doing a blog recap of my YouTube Travel Prep series and traveling with toddlers. It was an adventure, but an extremely fun one at that!

New Dress Up Storage & Organization!

Tah dah! Everyone at our house is now a princess... due to our wonderful new dress up organization for the girls' dresses and accessories! It works as great storage when the items are not in use and gives them easy access to use things during play time!

We had originally seen a dress up station on Wayfair.com, but my husband thought it was something he could tackle and do himself. We came across blogger Jess, that had that same thought on "Craftiness is not Optional", which even contained a link to another site by Ana White that had some plans for similar designs! He went to work on ours and came up with a design that would work great in our play room.

My husband put it together over a few weekends, with some additional work time being added on it by using a router on all of the edges to give them a rounded finish - so there were no sharp corners in the girls' play area. We picked out paint at Lowe's (Valspar "Plum Burst" 4002- 10B, in case you're looking for it!) - and made our own stencils on some card stock using a font in the word processing program on our computer. I think it turned out beautifully!

The top shelf has storage space for tiaras, cowboy hats, and the pirate hat... if it was ever not in use!

Lots of room to hold the ever important dresses & tutus!

The bottom has a bin that is a great little cubby for purses, shoes, and jewelry:

It has been a great addition to the play room! I will do an updated playroom organization video soon!

Here's the reveal of the dress up station to the girls for the first time - and a mini tour of their dress up items (so far, ha!) in their collection:

The girls loved it, as you can see here!

Cupcake looking all grown up in her Rapunzel costume!

Peanut enjoying the dress up selections!

Great job to Daddy and Grandad - and a very special thanks to Craftiness is Not Optional who was a great help in giving us inspiration for ours, and the plans by Ana White that she linked on her page that gave Daddy a great place to start for ours!

Pre-School at Home: Week 10 - Rainbow of Reading!

Week 10 was another fun week about reading! We'll be focusing more on numbers in week 11 since we've been talking a lot about reading, but since we had so much fun during Dr. Seuss week (see our previous blog post) - we decided to keep the colorful, imaginative reading fun going with "Rainbow of Reading" week!

We focused on reading again this week and had fun reading some of our favorite bright colorful books, like "Rumble in the Jungle" by Giles Andraea.

Our crafts included making a fun circle rainbow, shamrock snake, and "R is Rabbit" art!

Busy Bags for Toddlers!

This is the project that I have been working on recently for an upcoming Mom's Group play date! We are exchanging busy bags, for the toddlers to have a variety of quiet activities to... well, keep them busy! I had never heard of this concept until I saw this event come up on the play date calendar - and I was intrigued!

After I began to look into it, I realized what a vast world of ideas there were out there for these... and I'm very excited for our first Busy Bag exchange! I can't wait to see what the girls think of the different activities!

I made two felt activities, inspired by the activities shared on Happy Hawkins blog, which I found via Pinterest. Pinterest has proved to be a wealth of ideas for busy bags (as it is with every subject, it seems) and I've already planned on doing a number of these projects for the girls!

The first is a coral reef or aquarium scene:

And the second is a "What's for Dinner?" scene, where they can chose different food to put on the plate:

What busy bags are your favorite for your toddlers?

And I spoke too soon...

Peanut is now weaned from the bottle and exclusively using a sippy cup! What, you say? Did I accidentally have the prior post in a queue and it didn't posted in a timely manner? Nope... Less than 12 hours after my blog post, I found the trick to weaning tough to wean children off the bottle... Leave them with Daddy for the evening!

I had an eye appointment last night (because I'm blind as a bat and have to stringently go to my yearly appointments to get new contacts) and Daddy came home from work a bit early to watch the girls while I had my eyes checked. During my 2 hour appointment, during daddy boot camp, Natalie magically decided she was a sippy cup baby and gave in on her non-sippy cup using stance.

Today, she has been a totally different child! Very few instances of crying (and the weeks prior to this would be crying spurt after crying spurt), she is happily using the sippy cup and I even noticed she seemed more independent when I picked her up at the gym child care today as well! (She normally would be on the little "baby" side in a swing or playing after they had to console her from a crying spurt, today she was on the "big kid" side happily playing with toys even after my hour long Zumba class!)

So what I have learned from this instance was...

1) Keep trying!! Getting to where you want to be could be just around the corner!

2) Sometimes a little tough love might be best instances of weaning... I was too soon to give in and get a bottle (either with milk in the beginning or with water at the end) to put a stop to the crying.

3) If you must use the bottle while trying to wean your little one off of it, try the cutting an "X" in the top of it! It could be sheer coincidence... but she might have also gotten so fed up with the bottle not working that she turned to the sippy!

4) Out of sight, out of mind... one thing that my husband mentioned he did differently was that his "emergency" bottle with water on it (yes, he had one - but never had to use it) was out of Peanut's line of sight. I suspect she had always been able to catch a glimpse of the one I had on hand and knew it was there as a safety net.

5) When they open their mouth while in the high chair, stick the sippy cup in it. Repeat, repeat, repeat. When we had gotten into the depths of weaning, I tried this - but gave up too easily. I would "repeat, repeat", and finally give in - getting the bottle with water. My husband just kept doing this over and over... and it is what he felt finally got her to just decide to do it on her own!

6) Once it "clicks" with them - ditch the bottle forever! My husband mentioned that Peanut had that "a-ha!" lightbulb look and just started drinking the whole sippy cup. Once they have that moment, you know there is no turning back. All of our bottles were put in our basement last night.

7) And last... but definitely not least. It never hurts to let someone else have a try at it! A mere 2 hours with Daddy, and Natalie was bottle weaned...

... I can't wait to see what he can do with potty training Cupcake! ;)

(Reservations at Daddy boot camp are currently being made!)

Battle of the Sippy Cup!

We have woes around our house weaning Peanut from the bottle... just like the old adage says - every child is different. And at my house, this rings especially true - my two girls are VERY different, almost opposites in many ways.

Cupcake was easy to wean off the bottle. She wasn't particular about the type of sippy cup that was used, we started her with them early... introducing them around 4 months and always having them on her trays at meals. Around 6 months she actually would begin to "use" them for some water along with her meal (with her main drink still being formula in her bottle) and by 8-9 months, she was proficient at using the sippy cup herself. She could pick it up and maneuver it around with ease, often times keeping a piece of food in one hand while holding her drink in the other!

At 12 months, we weaned Cupcake from the bottle with ease. The bottle was eliminated cold turkey... bye bye bottle one day, milk in a sippy cup from that point on, easy, breezy. (We did use two different types of cups for water versus milk, so that she associated a certain type of cup with a certain drink. We still do this now at 2.5 years old as well.) A bottle weaning parent's dream.

Peanut? Not so much.

Her first words? "Ba, ba!" Not as in sheep, but as in "Ba-ba, give me my darn bottle RIGHT NOW..." Even now at 13 months, it is her most spoken phrase.

She had eating issues right from the beginning of life - not taking to many kinds of formula, issues with transitioning to the soft Gerber baby foods, and then issues again taking to "regular" table food... always meeting the milestone behind the ages that Cupcake had taken to the foods. I should have know that bottle versus sippy cup would end up in the food woes category. It just takes her a longer time to adapt to change and she isn't fond of change to boot, which is all okay... well, would be okay.

If.it.wasn't.for.the.horrific.screaming.

Peanut's new trick that she has also learned in the past month (super fun that it coincides with the timing of weaning off of the bottle) - is to shriek a blood-curdling scream at the top of her lungs when she isn't getting what she wants. Fun. Fun. And more fun!

I put down my foot at the beginning of the week. She is 13.5 months old. By her doctor's appointment for 15 months, we HAD to have made at least some progress on being "off the bottle".

So bye, bye bottle - kind of. We tried cold turkey in the beginning, and it became rapidly obvious that cold turkey would not be working with Peanut. So then we transitioned into putting water in the bottle, milk in a sippy as a little psychology test. She still chose the bottle. The next step was to lay down the gauntlet. Today, I cut slits in the top of the bottle so that it no longer had that smooth flow action for her to even get water. She is not happy.

I will update you on our progress, and I'm still hoping to find a sippy cup that she actually likes. We have yet in our menagerie of cups found one that she has "taken" to... We have them all, Playtex, Nuby, Tommee Tippee, Munchkin, small ones, big ones, ones with handles, ones without handles,ones with straws, hard top... we have the full range. Peanut hates them all.

Don't let that smile fool you! Nothing is standing between this girl and her prized, "ba-ba"! 

How did you wean your toddler that loved their bottle? And what kind of sippy cup did they prefer?

Create Abilities for Kids Art Activities Review!

We received two fun January art projects to try out from Create Abilities for Kids!

Create Abilities for Kids creates art activities that are age appropriate for your 3 year old, 4 year old, or 5 year old and has a monthly subscription available where you can receive either two, three, or four art projects depending on the monthly amount you're wanting to spend. The projects arrive in the mail at the beginning of the month and have everything from start to finish you will need to complete the project, including brushes, paper to protect your table, and easy to read instructions!

The instruction sheets were one of my favorite parts of the kits, as they were easy to read and clearly laid out - with a section on what you child would gain from the activity, what materials were included in the kit, instructions for how to make the craft, and a bright picture of a suggestion of what the craft may look like. There were even fun facts on the back of the sheet, to share with your child as they worked!

I took some time with Cupcake (who was 2 years, 7 months old at the time of this review) to complete a January kit for 3 year olds - and she loved it! We've been doing more crafts around our house lately, so this was perfect for both mommy and child! Perfect for me that set-up and cleaning up were so easy - and perfect for Cupcake because she got to try some fun new art projects we had not tried before.

She especially appreciated the foam brushes that were included to do the painting work, as she's not big on getting her hands dirty. They were easy to work with and worked better for her than even brushes had in the past.

We created January glitter shapes, to celebrate the New Year:

And our other craft was to make a blue bird, to celebrate National Bird Day on January 5th:

Watch my full review and some footage of Cupcake completing the projects on beingmommywithstyle:

All in all, this art activity kit subscription is a great idea and I will be looking into it for my girls. I loved that it was so easy to clean up afterwards. These projects would also be the perfect projects for weeks that I was a bit more time strapped and didn't have time to do the "pre-activity" work, like cutting out of shapes and gathering materials. Everything you need is included in one neat little box from Create Abilities for Kids!

Get more information about the art activity kits here: www.createabilitiesforkids.com

* This was not a paid review, I've given my honest opinion and assessment of the products mentioned. I am not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned.

Pre-School at Home!

We're starting a new project around our house at the beginning of the new year, that I'm calling "Pre-School at Home"! It will just be a bit more formal learning time and structured learning activities for Cupcake, as she gets older and gets ready to go off to a few days of pre-school herself, perhaps next year. I thought we could begin working on basic things like furthering her reading, addition, subtraction, calendar basics, learning time, and other foundation learning activities to continue the learning we had already started at home.

I laid out our goals for the year with a brief introduction:

The program will primarily start out with just Cupcake (2 years, 7 months old) and will eventually be a combined learning program for Peanut as well, once she is 18 months old. (We begin reading basics at our house around 18 months old. She has already shown interest in books, so I am hoping we can capitalize on that enthusiasm!)

I also shared our first two weeks worth of lesson plans, which are fairly basic and just to get us started. I'm hoping to continually add to the lesson plans, both in structure and content wise, so that by the end of the year they are an advanced version of what they started out as...

I'm excited to begin this journey of more doing more learning activities at home in addition to the reading skills we were already doing... and looking forward to seeing what the girls' favorite parts of it are. Each week we will have a different theme, different letter focus, number focus, book focus, worksheet activities, art activities, and other motor skill activities or field trips that are related to that week's theme. I think it should be a fun adventure!

Here are Week 1 and Week 2's lesson plan outlines, for your personal use if you would like to gain ideas for your own home!

Pre-School at Home Week 1

Pre-School at Home Week 2

* Lesson plans are for personal use only, please do not distribute. All content above is my personal opinion.

Vlogging our Michigan trip!

So vlogging every day is a new thing for me, but it has been quite fun taking part in "Vlogmas" - vlogging every day on YouTube until Christmas (or the end of December - it seems to vary from person to person and we might actually just finish out the entire month)... Some of the videos I'm looking forward to having to look back on - to see how we decorated this year and that sort of thing, while I'm also thinking it will be great to have some firsts, like Natalie taking her first steps this month, on video to look back on as well.

We also vlogged our recent trip to Michigan - where we visited Somerset Collection mall, Great Lakes Crossing, downtown Rochester, and more. It was great to be back and sight see for a bit. Now we're back and with only one week left to go until the holidays are here... package wrapping and gearing up for the holiday festivities will be in full force!

2012 Toddler Girl Holiday Gift Guide!

It's that time of year to think of what gifts would be great to give for Christmas 2012, or other holidays that you may be celebrating this time of here! I put together a holiday gift guide for toddler girls (1 year old & 2 year olds), to give my opinion on what some of the best gift ideas out there this year may be!

Gifts under $20:
Melissa & Doug Puzzles, from $9.99: Target, Toys'R'Us, and other toy retailers
Book gift sets, from $12 - Barnes & Noble or your local book retailer
Holiday books, from 5.99 - Target, Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, and other book retailers

Gifts for the young toddler:
Fisher Price Magical Music Vanity, $:www.fisherprice.com
Fisher Price Zoo Talkers Zoo, $:www.fisherprice.com
Fisher Price Zoo Talkers Animals, $3 & up: www.fisherprice.com

Gifts for older toddlers:
Fisher Price My First Dollhouse, from $49: www.fisherprice.com
Dollhouse accessories, from $7: www.fisherprice.com

Joint Toddler Gifts:
Fisher Price Disney Princess Castle, from $39: www.target.com
Fisher Price Disney Princess Gift set, $17.99: www.target.com

Pretend Play:
Princess dresses, from $10: www.toysrus.com
Hand puppets, from $1.99: www.ikea.com
Fabric food, from $6.99: www.ikea.com

Stocking stuffers:
Fisher Price Wheelies, from $3: www.fisherprice.com


** This is not a sponsored video. All opinions are my own, all items were purchased by the reviewer.

Updated Britax B-Ready Stroller review!

Here's our updated review and final review showing the Britax B-ready with the infant carseat on the bottom. We've now ordered the second toddler seat for the bottom, and will be installing it this week. So the next follow-up review I do on the B-ready will have the two toddler seats!

This shows updated wear & tear on the stroller, as well as how it has held up with over a year of use:

Coat Closet Reorganization

I quickly realized while looking in my coat closet the other day, that something was going to have to be done to make getting out the door now that we would have four people needing space in the coat closet, and all of the winter items that go along with that!

My before didn't really have much organization, some gloves and scarves were tossed into a basket - many of which were not the correct size or were not items we use the most often. I had hats stowed away in the girls' closets upstairs... which is not a convenient place when I'm trying to get out the door and have to run back upstairs for a hat to match their outfit. And we also had a number of just miscellaneous items stowed away in the closet, since it is our main area of extra storage on the first level of the house.

So I took to the closet, of making the winter items more accessible, and also shaping up the functionality of the closet.

Here's my before and after:

I really like the way it turned out! Each member of the family has their own separate bin, which helps to quickly find the size you need to find - and also I like that there is a place for boot storage on the bottom. I was finally able to fit our upright Dyson vacuum cleaner into a spot in one of our closets... and all of the cleaning supplies fits more neatly as well.

Now, baby, toddler, and adult hats, gloves, mittens, and scarves can be found in a matter of seconds - and I'm hoping it will help things go back into their spot when we are done using them as well!

Our week of adventures!

This is a fairly week for us, going from one adventure to the next! This past Sunday, we visited Thomas the Tank Engine at the Illinois Railway Musuem in Union, Illinois! It was a great time, and Cupcake thought it was the coolest. (Peanut was pretty fond of the train ride as well!) The girls took their first train right, and it was a fun day.

We also did a quick vlog during the day to recap our visit:

Tomorrow we are headed into Chicago, our first shopping adventure in the city! We've been to the museums downtown, but this will be our first time hitting Michigan Avenue while we meet some friends that are visiting from Michigan. (The state!)

Wish us luck, I feel like at least for parking... I will need it!

Favorite new hair bows!

I found a new favorite hair bow maker, little miss muffets, that sells bows through Facebook and an online storefront. Everything we ordered is just adorable! Of course I do have one favorite, a bow that says, "I'm not the bow addict, my Mommy is!". Perfect!

July randomness!

July has been a busy and crazy month for us! I wouldn't prefer to have it any other way though... it was great to have lots of visitors and do lots of activities! To close out the month, here's some of our July randomness...

Cupcake's new favorite dress-up item... a tutu that she found at her cousin's house! I will be looking into making one of these for her & will post up a tutorial on how to do them at home!

Reading to Luna...

Peanut sitting up:

And practicing standing!

Some sister time!

Ahoy me maties! Cupcake has a new obsession with pirates! (And saying, "Argh"!)

Pottery Barn Kids Finds!

Well, we've cleaned up pretty well during the Gymboree RBS Sale, and I practically won't need to need to buy clothing for the girls until 2013... (Or possibly, literally?) So our kid focus for the end of 2012 will probably be less on clothing and more accessories, and those other incidental things that they need.

One of which, we were able to pick up for Bella this weekend... she got her first "big girl" pillow from Pottery Barn Kids, with a little toddler size pink polka dot pillowcase as well.

Pottery Barn Kids Toddler Pillow, www.potterybarnkids.com, $18

While we were in the store, we also saw some adorable things that would be great Christmas ideas... This toddler alphabet set looks cute and cozy to snuggle up against for winter:

Pottery Barn Kids Alphabet Bedding, www.potterybarnkids.com, $99

Pottery Barn Kids Alphabet Pillow, www.potterybarnkids.com,  $39.50

And how cute is this play Dyson vacuum cleaner?!?!? I about had a fit in the middle of the store... it is adorable and pink - and just like a miniature version of Mommy's vacuum!! This is definitely going on the Christmas wish list.

Pottery Barn Kids, www.potterybarnkids.com, $49

Gymboree Red Balloon Sale Haul!

Gymboree's Red Balloon Sale is going on in stores NOW and you can save up to 70% off the retail prices! All items from their winter lines from last year are being clearances out and some stores even have some great summer finds as well! This year's summer lines are marked down as well (although not as deeply discounted, they are around 30% off) - and there are a lot of great bargains to be found!

Here's our RBS haul from this year's sale:

Check it out at your local store now, each store has varying stock and once they run out of stock the sale is over... so the earlier you get there, the better the selection!

Lolly Wolly Doodle Mania!

We are in the midst of a Lolly Wolly Doodle Mania at our house! As I mentioned in a previous post about Lolly Wolly Doodle, I'm planning on doing a more complete review and video after we receive more of our items, however with ship times of 2-4 weeks (and usually closer to 4 weeks!)... It has been quite a wait to get everything.

Their items are just adorable though, so I wanted to share a few more of our Lolly gems that have arrived recently!

Lolly Wolly Doodle Pink Zebra Collared Dress

Lolly Wolly Doodle Giraffe Tie Dress

Lolly Wolly Doodle Zebra Smocked Two Piece Set

Lolly Wolly Doodle Snowflake Smocked Dress

Lolly Wolly Doodle Monkey Aline Short Set

Lolly Wolly Doodle Ice Cream Aline Dress

I'm looking forward to receiving a few more matching sets for the girls and also some knit items - and I will be sure to post up pictures and/or video of our newly minted Lolly Wolly Doodle collection soon!

Visit Lolly Wolly Doodle's website HERE, and their Facebook page - for more info!

Fisher Price toy reviews!

Two reviews on Fisher Price toys - the Zoo Talkers zoo and the Wheelies Stand 'n Play Ramp.

We love the Zoo Talkers zoo and accessories, Cupcake received this as a Christmas gift and it has done really well at holding her attention during the 6 months that we've had it. There are a number of animals that are available to purchase additionally for the zoo and there is also a fun jeep vehicle.

The Wheelies Stand 'n Play Ramp is great for toddler that are into cars! Cupcake just received this for her 2nd birthday and it has been a total hit! She has started really liking cars (waving "hi" to cars, making the "vroom vroom" noise, etc...), so I thought she would love the little Wheelies in addition to the great ramp features. It is a great height for them to be able to access it on all levels and the features are very toddler-user friendly. The elevator makes a fun click noise and the sounds make her squeal when the car rolls over the sensor.

All in all, we've had the best luck with Fisher Price toys over any other brand we've tried. We're very pleased with all of the toys we've purchased. I think the quality is exceptional and the retail prices are reasonable given the amount of use that our children will be able to get out of them!