Friday, September 28, 2012

31 Days in 2012

Have you all heard about the idea of 31 Days that will kick off October 1st? The entire concept is explained over at nesting place and you can click here for a detailed description of "What is 31 Days?"



31 Days Starts on Monday.

Basically you pick one themed topic and blog about it once a day, for every day in October.

31 posts.

One every day.

Then everyone links up and shares their 31 Days series/posts.

Sounds fun, right?

I've thought about jumping in, but we all know I'm lucky if I post once a week. Posting for 31 straight days? Now that is a challenge.

Anyone else want to participate?

It might be fun.

Pick any theme you want.

Posts don't have to be long.

Here is one example.  And here is last years link up. 

Anyone up for the challenge with me?

Friday, September 21, 2012

Keurig Vue V700 Brewer coupon winners

Following up from Thursday's post. . .

The winners of the Keurig Vue V700 Brewer 50% off coupons are. . .

Allison 

Amanda

Gillian

How do I have three winners instead of two? I found another coupon. Lucky y'all!

Congrats, ladies. Please email me with your home address and I will get the coupons in the mail to you asap. Or I can send you all of the coupon/coupon code info over email, whatever you prefer. Remember, The coupons are only valid 9/22/12 - 9/30/12. 

Sorry, Marie :( But I don't feel quite as bad since you are not a coffee fan!! I hope we can still be friends. And judging by the lack of comments on yesterdays post, there are many others who have failed to fall in love with mornings most perfect beverage. That or everyone just thinks I'm weird and could care less about my coffee maker and ramblings. Yep - probably the later. 

OH - and you all should really take a few seconds and go click on Amanda's blog. She has some super exciting news to share.

Happy Weekend!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Keurig Vue V700 Brewer + coupon giveaway

Brandon has a way of always finding/winning us free/incredibly cheap stuff. It seriously is a talent of his. He basically subscribes to every deal website possible and watches these like a hawk. These daily deal websites along with other coupons he finds here and there seem to aways work in his favor.

Now, sometimes this is rather annoying because do we really need another oversized t-shirt or plastic water bottle with some weird logo on the side?

No, no we don't.

Yet sometimes he strikes gold. Like the time he got us a brand new 9x13 pyrex dish and some kitchen utensils for free. Or the time he ordered Clara a personalized keepsake box (with her picture and birth stats. . . love it) for $5 with free shipping.

Or the time he got me a BRAND NEW Keurig Vue V700 Brewer for FREE. Zero dollars, y'all. He obviously knows that coffee is the way to my heart.

Brandon entered us into a drawing to host a house party from this website and we won. So then Keurig sent us the brewer. Just like that. Amazing.

The only requirement from House Party is that we have friends over to test out the new brewer. Reason to get together with friends? Yes please. House Party also sent us some freebies to pass out at the party such as insulated cups, aprons, chocolates, etc.

Here's a few pics of the beauty.



I love that it has nice big water tank and a touch screen. You can control the water temperature and size of cup you wish to brew.



Not only does the Vue brew fabulous coffee but it also does lattes, hot chocolate, sweet tea etc. A list of the available Vue packs (the Vue's name for the standard K-cup) are listed here. 

A little more about the Vue V700. . .

"The next generation of Keurig® has arrived! Brew stronger, bigger and hotter with the Keurig® Vue® V700 Brewing System. It’s easy to brew your perfect cup hot or over ice with a fully programmable color Touchscreen, strength and temperature control, 8 brew sizes, removable 74oz water reservoir and a bonus variety of 10 Vue® packs. Now you can fully customize your cup of coffee, tea, hot cocoa, iced beverage, specialty or café beverage to brew what you love, the way you love it – every time!" (Source)


A close up to compare the Vue V700 with my old brewer, the Keurig Mini Plus.

You have served me well, Mini Plus, but it is time to say bye bye.

The only downside, in my opinion, is that the Vue does not allow you to purchase regular coffee and brew with a separate attachment, as you can with most Keurig brewers. You have to use the Vue packs, which are a tad more expensive than the Keurig K-cups.

So. . .

Keurig and House Party included a few coupons for friends/family to receive 50% off a Vue V700 brewer!! I have two coupons to give away on the blog! These are not the cheapest of appliances thus 50% off is a great deal! The coupons are only valid 9/22/12 - 9/30/12, so you would need to purchase soon.

If you are in need of a new coffee maker I highly recommend this brewing system.

Leave a comment on this post by 8:00am Friday, 9/21/12, if you would like a chance at one of the two coupons. I'll randomly pick two winners tomorrow morning and then get you your coupon/coupon code asap.

I'm off to enjoy a hot beverage. . . See ya!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Clara 4 months

My baby turned four months on September 2, 2012. So so crazy. I mean really. The next thing I know she is going to be crawling, walking, talking, etc. Can we please just stop time???

Here are a few pictures of our little cutie.

Girlfriend doesn't like to smile. It's all serious business.


Or apparently we are boring her to tears. . .


Or making her so annoyed that she refuses to open her eyes . . .

And since we obviously are not getting the hint, she resorts to covering her face . . . 

I can tell family Christmas pictures are going to be REALLY fun as she gets older. :)

Anyways, heres a little bit about Clara at 4 months old:

Stats:
Weight - 12 pounds 15 oz
Height - 23. 88 inches
BMI - 15.96 kg/m2
HC (head circumference) - 15.12 inches

She's now in the 15th percentile! Moving on up from the 3rd percentile, which is where she was two months ago. :) Dr reports that while Clara is still on the small end of the spectrum, she growing well and at a good rate. No concerns there.

And as you can see from the pics, she is filling out and chunking up more. I love that she is getting some squishy things and arms. So stinking cute.

Other info:
We are keeping her on her reflux medicine for now and will try to wean her next month, once this prescription runs out. Didn't want to try weaning her the same month we started sleep training!

Got four vaccines at her four month well check up. She took it like a champ. Cried for ten seconds, maybe.

Eating: She continues to eat well. I stopped nursing and am exclusively pumping my milk and giving to her via bottles. She was putting up at fight at each nursing session and eventually that just got overwhelming and exhausting. We are a much better team this way! We put rice cereal in her bedtime bottle and some nights it seems to stretch her longer and other nights it does not seem to make a bit of difference. Dr said we can try introducing rice cereal w/ a spoon and from there determine when we want to introduce baby food.

Schedule: After some trial and error, we now have a somewhat predictible daytime schedule! So far this is working well for us. Took us a while to get there but after several days spent sleep training, and working to get some consistency, I think Clara has it mostly figured out..

Goes a little something like this. . .
  • 7am - wake time
  • eat & playtime 
  • 8:30 or 9am - nap 1
  • eat & playtime/errands if needed
  • 12:30 or 1pm - nap 2
  • eat & playtime/errands if needed
  • 5pm (or so) - nap 3 - this is a short cat nap, maybe one hour, to get us to bedtime 
  • eat & playtime/errands if needed
  • 7:20 - start getting ready for bedtime (bath, book, bottle,)
  • 8pm - bedtime 
  • wakes for one feeding @ night, usually between 11pm-12am
I'm well aware this will change as she grows, cuts teeth, etc etc but for now I am loving our new routine. I am slowly becoming that mom who is super protective of her kids nap schedule. . . you know. . . that mom I said I would never be, ha! 

Sleeping: We transitioned Clara out of the nap nanny once she started rolling over. We no longer swaddle her at night. Clara goes to bed at 8pm, usually wakes about 11-11:30pm to eat, and then sleeps until 7am (sometimes 6-6:30am but we are working towards 7am). She puts up a fight here and there but ever since we started sleep training she is fighting/crying less mid night and sleeping longer stretches! We stopped giving her the pacifier at night so that she wouldn't become dependent on falling back asleep/self soothing w/ it. She's doing well with all these changes at once! I'm SO proud of her! She also sleeps in size 2 overnight/extra protection diapers to help prevent/limit night awakenings (thanks to many friends for this suggestion!!).

Development: She is smiling more (but still a ton. . . I'm lucky if I catch a smile with my camera) and she is now rolling over both ways all the time! She coos and babbles all day and is so much better at following our voices with her eyes. I love that now she will actually look at me and lock eyes! She is still working on her head control but it's getting better. She is in size 1 diapers (although I think they are starting to get snug) and is wearing 0-3 and 3-6 month size clothes, depending on the brand, but soon I'm sure she will be in all 3-6 months. She LOVES playing on her play mat/baby gym. It is so fun to turn on the music and watch her go crazy kicking her legs and waving her arms. She is also enjoying looking at her reflection in the mirror.

Adventures: We have a lot of travels over the next month so I will have more adventures to report at her five month update.

Clara 1 month
Clara 2 months
Clara 3 months
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