When people ask me what my favorite baby products this one tops my list. It is the Infantino Tubsider. I seriously cannot imagine giving my kids their baths without this seat. It makes it enjoyable for me and gives them more time in the tub so Win- Win!

I had no idea this product even existed so when I was strolling through Homegoods 7 years ago I saw it and just had to buy it. Now I am on a mission to tell all moms that this thing needs to be on every baby registry. This is going to probably sound like an ad for this product but I promise they have no idea I even exist. 🙂 When I give baths without it my knees and back are killing me. How do people give baths without this thing?

Here is their lovely model…

I went upstairs to the kids bathroom to take a picture of ours and after 7 years of it being beside the tub it is looking nasty so I’ll spare you. Let’s pretend our bathroom looks sparkly clean like the one above. 🙂

I found this at our Homegoods 7 years ago  and I just found out they no longer make it but you can find it on EBay.

Here is a link to the place to purchase. I need to stock up on these to give them to friends having babies.

When you are a Mom to kids who are getting into sports you realize your water bottle needs change quickly.

First – they all go missing….ALL THE TIME!

Second – you stop worrying so much about quality

Third – you find a kind you can live with the quality/cost and stock up on a bunch of them.

I used to buy the Thermos brand. I liked that they didn’t sweat and they were well made and great for not getting things wet in their lunch boxes. My daughter has one and they work great for when I am still in control of their backpacks and getting them to and from their activities and school so I can make sure we don’t leave without it.

Here is my daughters…

Then your kids grow a little and their sports practices become so often that the parents finally say to each other “This is crazy for us to all be driving here every day…Let’s Carpool!” This is awesome in so many ways except the one negative. The kids become responsible for their own sports gear and getting it off the field and into the car of their ride home. I don’t know about your kids but my kids have no sense of responsibility. We start missing random things like a shin guard or ball or the most often is water bottles.

We have been through a bunch of water bottles and this one is my new favorite.

Here are my reasons why I love it the best (as of this week).

1. simple, only 2 pieces
2. large enough for all the water they need
3. doesn’t have a lid that could potentially not be closed properly and leak
4. cheap enough that I can buy a bunch to keep on hand and not be completely annoyed when they lose one.

Moving on to these type of water bottles makes me feel like my boys have grown up….no more characters. 🙁

If you want to purchase these you can use my affiliate links.

What type of water bottles do you use?

Did you know they make headphones in a child’s size?

I didn’t until we kept going to the library and tried to use the computers in the kids section and the headphones didn’t fit my kids heads. Someone next to us said “I don’t understand why they don’t have kids headphones at the kids computers.” All of a sudden all my times of trying to fit my earbuds into my kids ears and the frustration they had of them constantly falling out all came to a head….why didn’t it occur to me that they make child sized headphones!

Here is an affiliate link. We have the Sony brand but it won’t let me link so just click on this and search for Sony if you want the same kind as us.

Kids are happy to have their own headphones and I am happy to not have them turning the volume way up to hear over their siblings.

My Mom asked me about this tip again the other day. In our family whenever my kids have a runny nose or the start of a cough we use Vicks. This comes from my husbands side of the family and trust me, when he first did it I was questioning why he was rubbing that sticky stuff on their feet. My kids have always easily run fevers whenever they are sick, so the start of sickness has me worried about all the missed school and activities. If they show signs of colds Matt will rub Vicks on the bottom of their feet at night before bed and put socks on to cover them. When they wake up their sniffles and coughs are never worse and after a couple nights of the treatment the symptoms go away. I swear it has helped ward off so many colds in our house.

You can get some Vicks through my Amazon affiliate link here.

Let me know if Vicks on the feet works for you!

I had a huge response from friends this summer when I posted pictures on Facebook of how I had my kids learn to tie their shoes. I don’t know if your kids are like mine but sometimes they don’t want to listen or learn from me. Guess what they do love? They love to do anything with the older boys down the street and look up to them like crazy.

Well, when my neighbor mentioned her 10 year old son was into earning money, I had a brilliant idea (these are few and far between for me, ha!). I paid her son and his friend $5 per kid to teach my boys to tie their shoes. They had to prove to me that they had learned by each of my boys tying their shoe for me by themselves and they earned their $5.  It took about 30 mins for my boys to learn and they were in heaven with so much one on one attention from the older boys.

My neighbor said those boys were super happy to bike to the store right after with their $5 to get a treat. Is this not the easiest way to teach kids to tie shoes ever? I’m happy, my boys are happy and neighbor’s boys are happy. Win – Win – Win!

Here is what we used to use…

Now…

–Carolyn