Breastfeeding

Texas Law-Car Seats and Freebies

Texas passed a new car seat law and it went into effect September 1, 2009. Basically, children now have to be in some type of restraint until 8 years old or 4'9. I think this is a great law because motor vehicle accidents are the #1 killer of kids. Out of all the things we worry about with our children this is one thing we know we can always do right! Having your child properly restrained can keep them from having serious injuries in a car accident.

If you don't live in Texas check out SeatCheck.com to find out your state's laws and the location where you can get your car seat inspected.

Choosing the best car seat is important. After much research, we went with the Britax Roundabout Convertible. It was compact enough to fit in my old Sunfire but had the safety features and weight limit we were looking for. I plan on having Ethan rear face until 30lbs. The law is 20lbs and 1 year old but, after much research, we have decided that the longer they rear face, the better. And the way he eats that could be sooner then later!

Ethan is very comfortable in it. He loves to be able to look out of the windows at all that passes by. This seat is good from 5lbs-40lbs so we will be using it with the next baby also. By then Ethan will be in a seat for bigger kids!

We had our car seat inspected on Tuesday and we had been doing a few things wrong. The seat wasn't buckled in tight enough. It should not be able to move more then 1 inch. We were told we shouldn't have hard toys or the rear facing mirror because in an accident they could fly around and hit us. (I think that could really go for anything you have in the car so we will be leaving the mirror so I can see him. I will risk it hitting us vs not seeing him choke.) We also didn't have his belt tight enough.

Here's before:

And after:You really shouldn't be able to get your finger in between the baby and the strap.

Over all I feel much happier now about the safety of my car set. And the great thing about it was it was free! Here are some more great child safety web sites:

NHTSA

Safe Kids, USA

Speaking of free:

I signed up to USA Baby e-mom rewards program and Ethan got a free pair of Robeez shoes! All the stores are locally owned so I'm not sure if your local store is doing the same but it wouldn't hurt to look. Robeez has the cutest soft soled shoes for crawlers up to toddlers. This is the pair we picked (retails for $19.99):

He already has a pair of winnie the pooh ones that were given to him by his aunt and uncle. After getting our free shoes we walked around the store and found this:

This is Arnold the Snoring Pig! Ethan just laughed and laughed big belly laughs the whole time Arnold was "snoring". It was so funny to see! He even started laughing when I played this video!

When we were in OK last week, a friend of mine who has 2 little boys gave us 2 boxes of cloths (2T-4T) and 1 big box of shoes! They are all so cute and I can't wait till he can fit into them. There was even a pair of cowboy boots! Good thing we live in Texas.

Harlequin is celebrating its 60th anniversary and they are giving away Free books! I found this one at the mall on a stand only the free copy is red. You can't really miss it; it's a whole bunch of the same books with a big "free" sign.

You can also go to their web site http://www.harlequincelebrates.com/ and download a variety of great romance stories for free! I'm not a big harlequin fan but I love free.

Remember: Buckle up for Safety!!

Win 6 BG 3.0!!!

Head on over to Cloth Diaper Tips and win 6 bumGenius 3.0's! I do love my BG's if the Velcro wasn't crapping out on me. I would love to have more in lots of different colors!

Turtles and Snakes and Monkeys, Oh My!

Eli, Ethan and I went to the Animal World and Snake Farm on Saturday! We had a great time and got to see lots of different types of animals. The weather was perfectly overcast and cool. Eli and I both agree that The Snake Farm was just as good if not better then a zoo. You could get really close to the animals but still at a safe distance. Eli was impressed that they had so many different types of poisonous snakes! Only in Texas.....

Here's one of the only photo's of me with the little boy. We were looking at the chickens that just roamed around the place. Ethan thought they were so funny.And this wasn't even the biggest snake they had! If I would have known how well the photos through the glass would take, I would have taken more. There were soooo many snakes and lizards inside the building and you could get soooo close to them. And, I swear, I could have opened the cages if I would have wanted to. I couldn't see any kind of lock on the cage. Don't worry, all the poisonous snakes were behind a second cage with a lock.These monkeys were happy to come down and pose for me! Eli threw food at them and they thought it was a game of swat away! Very cute.These were some big turtles! And they were very friendly. They walked right over to the fence.

And don't even ask me what this is!!It was about the size of a pig. Oh and speaking of pigs, they also had a petting zoo! I will have pics in another blog. Just so you know Ethan loved the petting zoo!

We were able to use coupons from our Entertainment Book we got for Christmas from Eli's parents last year. What great deals in this book! Most of the coupons offer buy 1/get 1 free. And it helps you to find all kinds of great things to do in your area. We also found a great local restaurant that was a little hard to find because it was smack dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood! But it was good food, cheap and we had a half off coupon. We ended the day spending less then $30.

I will post more pics of the Snake Farm when we get home from Oklahoma next week!

Score! Garage Sale Finds

Ethan and I went to 1 garage sale Friday morning because they were advertising lots of baby boy clothes and toys and they weren't opening up until 9am. Well, not so many clothes but look at all the toys we scored for $6.00!!!!!! Yes, that's right, $6.00!!!

2 Elmos' (one new)

Wiggles Guitar

Wiggles accordion (new in box)

Farmer book

fire truck (it doesn't make noise because they left the old batteries in it but I don't care, less noise!)

Halloween table cloth

2 baby toys

3 reusable grocery bags

Milo and Otis DVD

girls shirt/shorts/skirt pattern (new)

After a quick wash with the Lysol and $100 worth of AA batteries (jk) it was time to play! But how do you sanitize stuffed animals? I had to get these 2 elmo's. The one moves but I don't know what type of batteries it takes and the battery cover is missing. Maybe Eli can figure it out.

I got there while they were still setting things up. The lady really wanted to get rid of everything and nothing had prices on it. So I just made a pile of the stuff I wanted and she told me a price (6.00!!). I had to keep from smiling as she helped me to the car with my loot! As I drove away, I really felt like I had just robbed her! There were some other things there that I wanted but Ethan really didn't need them because they were almost duplicates of what he already had. I almost bought them cheap just so I could re sell them at a higher price. But I thought, No, I should let someone else have the joy of a good find!

Flying the American Flag

As we near Labor Day my patrioticness was overwhelming so I felt the need to buy an American Flag and display it on my house. That got me to thinking about the proper way to fly a flag and when it should fly. I found this great web site ushistory.org. It has tons of info on just about everything you would ever want to know and even some stuff you didn't know you wanted to know about the American Flag!

You can pretty much fly it when ever you want but here is when it is recommended:

Section 6d of the Flag Code states:
"The flag should be displayed on all days, especially on:
New Year's Day, January 1
Inauguration Day, January 20
Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, third Monday in January
Lincoln's Birthday, February 12
Washington's Birthday, third Monday in February
Easter Sunday (variable)
Mother's Day, second Sunday in May
Armed Forces Day, third Saturday in May
Memorial Day (half-staff until noon), the last Monday in May
Flag Day, June 14
Father's Day, third Sunday in June
Independence Day, July 4
Labor Day, first Monday in September
Constitution Day, September 17
Columbus Day, second Monday in October
Navy Day, October 27
Veterans Day, November 11
Thanksgiving Day, fourth Thursday in November
Christmas Day, December 25
and such other days as may be proclaimed by the President of the United States
the birthdays of States (date of admission)
and on State holidays"

One thing I never thought of was you can fly the flag 24 hours a day if it is "properly illuminated during the hours of darkness". We also shouldn't wear the flag or use anything like plates and napkins with the flag on it. They take this seriously.

No flag cakes, ether:

"There is nothing specific in the Flag Code regarding the use of the US flag as food. It does say:
'No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America.'
'... It should not be ... printed or otherwise impressed on ... anything that is designed for temporary use and discard.'
The icing on a cake would generally be eaten, digested, and 'discarded' in a most disrespectful way. We suggest that it is an inappropriate display of the flag."

I say show your pride in your country, just do it with respect. If you want to make a cake with blueberries and raspberries and it happens to look like the American Flag then go for it. I don't think anyone will be mad at you while they eat it.

So, lets all put our flags out this Holiday, be thankful for our freedom and enjoy the day off.

Meal Plan Monday (Tuesday)

I haven't planned meals this week yet. I'm still doing my shopping. So I thought I'd show you all the goodies I made last week.

I made pinwheels to take to the potluck at Express when I worked for tax free weekend. These are made with flour tortillas, cream cheese, pimentos, green chilies and black olives. I always use the mild green chilies but I think I'm going to start using some hotter ones. They really need some kick to them. I'm also thinking they could use some cilantro blended into the cream cheese. Next time.

I don't have a picture to show you but I made a coconut cream pie that my Grandma has been making a lot lately. It's really easy, cheap and low fat!

1 graham cracker crust

1 box of sugar/fat free vanilla pudding

milk

coconut

lite whip topping

Make up the pudding as directed on the box. Put a thick layer of coconut in the bottom of the crust and top with pudding. Let set in fridge for a few hours then add the whip topping. Yumm.

I made a pie crust and had some left overs so I made some of my Grandma's butter rolls. These are also super easy. Just butter, sugar and cinnamon. I also added some nutmeg and they were really good. Just put all the stuff in the middle of the dough and fold over any way you want. Bake until the crust is golden.

This is what I made the pie crust for. It's a buttermilk pie. OMG! It is amazing. We had this pie in South Carolina at the Hominy Grill and it was wonderful there. I had left over buttermilk from the dumplings and didn't know what to do with it. I thought: I'll make that buttermilk pie. I am glad I did! I was afraid it would be hard to make because you had to whip the egg whites and I have never done that. But it wasn't hard at all! The recipe can be found here. I do think I let it cook a little too long. It's not suppost to be that dark on top but it was good just the same.

You know somethings good when by 2pm the next day this is all you have left:

And there were only 2 people eating it! I will be making this one again and again. I might have to make it when I go to Oklahoma next week!

And I wonder why I can't lose that last 15lbs......