Nursing clip winner

Well, there weren't many entries (I guess I'm not the only chicken about feeding in public? but I swear you can use these for SO MUCH MORE). Any-who, here it is!

Katy

Crowning Lotus nursing clip Review & Giveaway

At the tail end of my pregnancy I was contacted by Julie, who offered me a nursing clip to review.  Since I always planned on breastfeeding, I agreed happily.  Back then I had these thoughts of how I would be brave and nurse in public.

 

This never happened.

 

Peanut was born and I chickened out.  I was barely comfortable feeding her in front of my family, forget whipping it out on the street.  To those of you who can do it - I bow down.

 

I did, however, keep the clip in my diaper bag.  You know, just in case one day I woke up and decided that I was brave enough.

 

 

That also never happened (well, yet).

 

But while I kept waiting to use the nursing clip in the way that it was intended, I found myself using it almost daily for many other reasons.

 

 

It makes just about the cutest pacifier clip.

 

This is especially handy to us since Peanut’s new favorite activity is to pull the paci out of her mouth and drop it.  Then watch as you scramble to pick it up and wipe it off.

 

 

And as we’ve embarked on our new solid food adventures, it’s also served as a pretty awesome sippy cup leash.

 

Then, a coupe of weekends ago, the nursing clip served its ultimate (for now) purpose to me.

 

Jon and I were chatting happily in the front seat as we made the long drive to Cape Cod.  About a half hour prior to our arrival, I thought it’d be a good idea to pump so I could help unpack, hang out with my friends, and otherwise not lock myself in a room for 20 minutes.  I looked around and found nothing that would cover me up and protect wondering eyes of passing cars.

 

Then I remembered that I carry my nursing clip with me at all times.  I grabbed my sweater, clipped it with my handy-dandy nursing clip, and went on my merry way.

 

My hands were free, my pumping parts were covered.  I was a happy camper.

 

Now here’s the awesome part!  Julie volunteered to let you have some of her awesome goodies!

 

The Giveaway

6 Mama Munchies Lactation Cookies (Dark Chocolate Cranberry)

1 Nursing Clip

1 Bib Clip

 

To enter

1. Leave me a comment and let me know what you love about breastfeeding
2. Visit http://www.crowninglotus.typepad.com/ and leave me a comment with something that you either like or have learned from this site
3. Visit www.facebook.com/crowninglotus and “Like” the page; leave me a comment and let me know you did it

 

Anyone can enter!

 

The Giveaway will be open for 2 weeks and I will pick the winner on Thursday, 7/28.

What helps me sleep at night

When Peanut was still in my belly,  we thought that we didn't need a lot of extra gadgets.

I'm going to go ahead and say we were wrong.

Especially about this little gadget:

picture from amazon.com

We received an old, but totally awesome baby monitor (the one that just has audio) from our neighbors and we were positive that it would satisfy our needs.

When Peanut was about 4 weeks old, I started walking on the treadmill in the basement during Peanut's naps.  While walking, I turned on the audio monitor and set it up on the treadmill.  And every time that Peanut made any kind of sound, I bolted up the stairs and into her room (now that I think about it, this was probably a better workout anyways).  So I talked to Jon and we decided that it might be worth it to invest in a video monitor.

I wanted all sorts of stuff from it - like the ability to see Peanut in the pitch black room, being able to move the monitor around the room without walking into her room, zooming in and zooming out.  I wanted to be able to adjust the volume and to hook up the monitor on the wall.  Basically, I wanted my cake and to eat it too.

Guess what?  This guy does it all!

Which means I get to spy...

Jon, feeding Peanut

and spy,

This doesn't happen often, but when it does, I spy

and watch my baby girl sleep.

Addi, sleeping like a little angel

And not miss moments like this.

Addi, learning to eat her toes.

This post was not sponsored by anyone.  I just wanted to share my favorite monitor with you.

Evenflo - Exersaucer SmartSteps Walk Around Review

This is not a sponsored post.

This activity center is awesome.  Peanut has recently decided that she prefers to stand rather than do pretty much anything else.  This isn't as fun as it sounds when you're trying to run around and get ready in the morning.  Here's where the exersaucer walked comes in.  We've set it up in the dining room and plop Peanut in while we try to pack her bottles, our lunches and feed the dogs (we prefer to keep her in our view t all times).  She's very happy to be in it.

We received ours as a Baby Shower gift - it's from Walmart.

Here's what we love about it:

• It's super light and easy to move around from room to room.
• It has height adjustments that fit our tiny little Peanut around 4 months of age.  She is able to reach the floor and move around.
• The seat portion is super easy to move in so Peanut is able to turn from activity to activity on her own.
• There are lots of entertaining toys like the birds and bees, rattles, and even a singing/talking tree.
• It can turn into a walker that pivots at the center.

Here are some things that we're not big fans of:

• There are a couple of spaces with no toys and I feel like it's a waste of space
• Most of the toys are kind of out of her reach because she is so tiny.
• There is a snack tray that we would never use and it takes up a bunch of the room.
• The seat portion is made for bigger babies - this is something that most of you will probably love, but for our tiny itty bitty Peanut, it's too big.  We solve this by sticking a towel or blanket in to keep Peanut from toppling over.
• I could do with more entertaining toys - things that Peanut can pull and push or even move around.

Braylabee's Winner

Congrats Anna!  Just shoot me your e-mail and we'll contact you to claim your prize.

Brayla Bee's Giveaway

My bloggy friend Jennifer started an embroidered and custom gift shop - Braylabee's.

And because she's sweeter than pie, she sent Peanut some adorable embroidered onesies.

Lucky for you, she also volunteered to give away an outfit of your choosing (shirt or onesie and matching pants or shorts).


Here's how to enter:
You can have up to 5 entries - just complete any one of these actions and leave me a comment for each entry.

1. Go to Braylabee's website and tell me what you like

2. Follow Braylabee's

3. Liking Braylabee's Facebook page

4. Blogging about this Giveaway

5. Tweeting about this Giveaway

The Giveaway will be open for 2 weeks(ending 4/25 midnight) and a winner will be chosen on Tuesday,  4/26.  You will have 48 hours to claim your prize.

 

Best part - anyone can play! 

So whatcha waiting for?

Amazon Gift Card Winner

And the winner is...

Hillary- the gift card should be coming your way in minutes!

Now, can I please tell you how much I loved reading your memorable events from the past year?  LOVED it.  Feel free to share more.

1 Year Bloggaversary Giveaway

With all the Valentine's Day excitement, I almost forgot that today is officially 1 year since the very first post on Living Like the Kings.  So, to celebrate, I'm going to walk you through some of my fav early posts and then feature a giveaway.  No peaking ahead - I'm watching.

The very obvious - first post ever! 

How we met - Part 1 of the love story

And this one because it's happening again.

My treadmill is trying to kill me

This one because I love the pictures of the pups in it.

Don't wake the beast

 And this one last but not least because I want them...anyone want to make some and ship them to me?

Cream Cheese Brownies - recipe

Now, on to the part you've all been waiting for.  The Giveaway.

By popular demand, I'm going with an Amazon.com Gift Card.  So here's the deal.

The Giveaway: $20 Gift Card to Amazon.com

I will e-mail the card to the winner so, dear non-US residents, feel free to enter as long as you know you can use it!

Enter here:
Living Like the Kings - 1 Year Bloggaversary Giveaway

You can enter up to 5 times (each comment will count as one entry, so you must leave a comment for each action):

1. Leave a comment: what's something memorable that happened to you this past year?
2. Follow me on Google Reader or RSS feed & leave a comment letting me know you follow
3. Tweet this giveaway & leave a comment with a link to your twitter
4. Put up a Facebook message linking to this giveaway & leave a comment with a link to your message
5. Blog about this giveaway & leave a comment with a direct link to your post

Christmas gift review - Canon 50mm lens

I'm still showing off my Christmas gifts.  Next up is my new and shiny Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 Camera lens. 

Guess who got to be the guinea pig for my new toy?

Poor Travis - I wonder if he even has eye sight anymore after all the pictures that I take of him.  I'm sure he does.

Once I got bored of taking pictures of the dogs, I realized that I have all this fun baby stuff that I can take pictures of.

And pretty little girlie bows.

Isn't life exciting?

Perhaps I need to get a new life.

Anywho...

Let's talk about the lens.

It's so freakin' tiny!  And cute!  Now, I know this isn't the reason to go and buy a lens but it's just so darn cute!  I love it.

Here's what I do like about it:
Pictures of objects up close come out super sharp and the settings allow you to choose how much you want to blur the images in the background.  Check this out:

Pretty sweet!  I'm still learning about the settings and choosing my focal points, but it's a start.

This lens is not super expensive, which is appealing. But it does allow you to take great pictures of objects up close (i.e. tiny little baby fingers and toes).  It's also great for portraits or some sharp and creative weddings shots.

The down fall is that it's only good for one distance.  This can be hard to face when you spend $$ on a lens, but after doing a bunch of research on what was right for me (portraits, weddings, baby toes), I decided this was a perfect fit.

Christmas gift review - Telephoto Zoom Lens

For Christmas I got a new lens for my Canon Rebel Xsi: Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 Telephoto Zoom lens.

To test it out, Jon and I went outside to throw the ball to Cailey.

 

It's her absolute favorite activity.

She could fetch for hours.

But we try to keep it to about 20 minutes.  Anything more usually makes her legs wicked stiff and she ends up falling over.  It's pretty funny.  But also mean.  That's why we don't do it (anymore).


A little about the lens:

It is amazing! Obviously I'd prefer to be able to afford the EF 70-200mm f/2.8, but for the dollar, this one's pretty darn great.  It has the capability to take action shots that my EF-S 18-55 f/3-5.6 lens couldn't even imagine doing.  The zoom is also pretty ridiculous, allowing me to capture my little family running all over our yard from the safe comfort of my front steps.  The shots come out sharp regardless of the action or distance of the object.

Some things that aren't great is...I don't know yet.  I'm still learning but I think for someone starting out in photography that wants a little more than the starter lens, this is a great purchase.  I'm very happy.

As always, this review is not sponsored by anyone.  I just like to brag share about my gifts.

Presto Griddle and pancakes

This is a story about a girl, a griddle and pancakes.

Every Saturday and Sunday morning I wake up, roll over (this is a way bigger deal than it seems with a big belly), scratch my husband's back and ask him where my pancakes are.

Jon usually pretends to be asleep.  So I poke him.  Over and over again.  Then ask him where my pancakes are.  Eventually, he realizes that there is no getting away from me and ends up getting up to make me pancakes.  I've perfected the art of being annoying.

Before this Christmas making pancakes was a huge deal.  We would have to heat up 2 or 3 skillets and I'd have to wait about 30 minutes to have pancakes.  But not anymore.

This Christmas my wonderful mother-in-law got us this Presto Tilt 'n Drain Big Griddle.

Now making breakfast is easy, quick, and fun!

Just plug and turn on the griddle, make some pancake batter and pour it on.

You can make a bagillion pancakes at once!  With chocolate chips of course.

There's even still room for sausage,

and eggs.

Jon and I can have all the breakfast we want in one shot!

It's incredible.  And the best part is that I don't have to wait very long for my pancakes anymore.

This was not sponsored in any way.  I just really like pancakes.  And maple syrup.  And my new griddle.