I want to be a winner!

I found this contest to win a Bisphenol-a, Phthalate and PVC Free baby feeding set. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on their blog or blog about the contest yourself. The Soft Landing blog is a good one to have in your bookmarks anyway, it's full of great info about safe products. They also have a store where you can purchase all sorts of non-toxic baby feeding products.
Robeez are coming out with a new soft baby shoe with a sole for outdoor walking. It will be available on Feb. 4th. They are also having a contest and the grand prize is 6 pairs of Robeez Tredz!
5 Minutes for Mom is giving away a '65 Mustang petal car! The twin moms that write 5 Minutes for Mom also have an online store that sells pedal cars and retro collectibles, and you can see their whole inventory of pedal cars here!
Entering contests is a little bit housewife-y feeling, but it is really fun to win cute baby stuff.

WAHM Spotlight- The Felted Sheep

Kelsey at The Felted Sheep does such amazing things with wool and dye. She dyes, spins, knits and felts all sorts of beautiful things that can be seen in her Etsy store and in her Hyena Cart.
She started out as an Architectural Drafter, but became a work at home mom in order to stay at home with her son. Her cute and durable bags are knitted and then felted and feature a snap-in lining. All that, and she lives in Alaska, too!
She also has a blog, also called The Felted Sheep.

One of Us, One of Us

I finally joined one of the online twin parenting forums. I've been meaning to for a while, but between starting the business and breaking my ankle, the local mama's group was all I could handle. But, not that the babes are getting really mobile (and so am I), I think it will be nice to be able to have somewhere to turn for twin-specific advice and commiseration.
I prepared a bunch of wool to sew today. I'm hoping to get the custom orders finished by the weekend so that I can spend a little time working on 1st birthday things for the twins. I'd like to make them some special outfits, a set of playsilks, and a Waldorf doll for each of them. I have a month, so in theory it should be doable. I so rarely take time to sew for the family, that my own kids only have a single outfit each that I've made. I imagine that it won't be all that long until they won't want to wear mama-made clothes, so I should take advantage of their "willingness" now.

Oh, and there are only 10 more days to vote for Cafe and Play! Go vote, and give Central Ohio a super-cool, family-friendly, healthy and fun place to eat and play! Go team Aderouch!!
Click here to vote!

Valentine's Day treat

I'm so in love (hee hee) with the Valentine Underwool that I just finished. I had a lot of fun making a themed Underwool and I think I'll try to keep it up for the other holidays. I'm usually not a fan of holiday themed clothing, but that will just be a personal challenge. I'm happy with the way this turned out. Cute, but not cutesy of cheesy. We'll see what the Hyenas think tonight at 8pm, when Pirate Bootie Baby restocks customs and adds a few new instock items.
This week has been really busy, but I'm finished the pile of customs that I've been working on. I'm going to be doing a childcare swap/ playgroup with a couple of local moms that I'm friends with. We'll pack up our kids and go to one of the houses and let the mom who's house it is get some work done while the rest of us watch the kids. I'll use the time to work on Pirate Bootie stuff, or catch up on some cleaning. It will be a great way for the kids to get out and play and for the moms to get some much-needed time.

Vote Cafe and Play!!

Ready, Set, Vote! Intuit Calls on Public to Select Small Business Winner

Winner to Receive $50,000 Grand Prize to ‘Just Start’ New Business

My friends, Lissi and Noah, have entered Intuit's contest with an amazing idea. They want to start a business that literally caters to children and parents. It's a cafe style restaurant featuring healthy and delicious kid-friendly food, accompanied by a safe and fun play area. No longer will parents have to choose between health and fun when getting lunch out with the kids.
For more information, visit http://www.votecafeandplay.com/
Or, just go to this website and vote for aderouch
http://jumpup.intuit.com/start/?p=finalistVideos
You can vote once per day, until January 31st. You can even sign up to get a daily email reminder to vote on the Cafe and Play blog.

New teeth, walking, sleeping

My baby girl seems to be working on her 1year molars. At 10 1/2 months! I shouldn't be surprised, the kids both got their first tooth at 4 months. It's making her a bit of a cranky pants, but only for little chunks of time. I'm glad to have found Hyland's Teething Tabs.
She's also taken some steps. It's cute, she'll take 2 or three robot steps and then collapse into my arms or squat down. She gets a big goofy grin and I know she's proud of herself. The boy hasn't taken steps yet, but he's having a blast getting there. He'll stand up, raise his arms up high, smile the biggest smile ever, and then belly-flop onto whoever is closest. It's accompanied by screams of laughter. He's having way too much fun to try walking yet.
We're attempting to get bedtime a bit more manageable with The No Cry Sleep Solution. It's worked so far to get the babies in bed earlier (8pm instead of anywhere from 10:30p,-2am), but we've still got a long way to go. I think that they are waking up a little bit less in the night than they had been, but the past two nights have been particularly brutal. I think the boy is having a growth spurt or something, because he wants to nurse all night long, almost every hour or hour and a half. Hopefully he calms down soon because it's a bit maddening.

WAHM Spotlight- The Enchanted Nursery

Teri, the mom behind The Enchanted Nursery, has a great variety of items in her Hyena Cart and also Yinia and Necessitae. She makes organic playdough in a huge rainbow of colors that I'd love to someday get for the kids to squash around, after they get past the "everything is food" phase that they are currently in. She also has developed a really interesting night diaper called a Night Owl. It's a wool cover and super-absorbent diaper in one trim package. There are 8 total layers of wool in this amazing diaper. If that's not enough absorbency, there is also a snap-in bamboo and cotton soaker. I'd love to try this diaper on my heavy-wetting kidlets. At The Enchanted Nursery you can also find cloth baby wipes, patterns to make your own cloth pads, children's clothing and herbal tea blends. It's a crunchy mama's one-stop shop.
Teri also has a blog, Wearing the Crown.

WAHM Spotlight- The Cloth Canoe

This Canadian mama makes the cutest fitted diapers! She uses all the hot printed fabrics, and also does great things with topstitching. I love this little organic bamboo velour side snapping fitted with little green bikes riding all around the edges. But, my favorite diaper has to be this one...How could I not be in love with it, I look at this fabric whenever I'm sewing or at the computer. I've been using this it to make bunches of herbal sachets for anti-moth wool storage and have a pile of it in front of me right now!
She also makes these adorable sets with a matching diaper, t-shirt, and wipes. She's got a great eye for color, and wonderful taste in fabric. You can see her gallery of past customs and purchase her products at The Cloth Canoe, and check out her Blog here.

Baby steps

Baby girl took first steps yesterday! Two of them. She's so proud of herself and so are we.
I'm stocking Pirate Bootie Baby again tomorrow, at 8pm EST. I made an adorable pair of corduroy pants, an embellished short-sleeved Underwool, and some wool saver sachets. I'll also be opening up some more custom slots.
I just finished another custom for a friend who loved my skull-n-bones shirt and wanted a bodysuit version for her son.