Resources and Product 'reviews'

First the resources :)

Someone posted this to a group I belong to today and I wanted to post it here because I'm sure I'm not the only person needing these!

James is 3 1/2 and right now fits in size 24 month onesies. Generally I don't put my kids in onesies once they are approaching their 2nd birthday, but he needs one under his clothes because of his Mic-Key button. Here at the house I don't have him wear one every day, but once he stays in the nursery and for school in the fall he will need it for safety reasons. I don't think he'll fit in the 24 month ones much longer!

So, here are two solutions. The 'usual' solution is to get snap extenders (available at onestepahead.com). This adds about 2" to the length of the garment and are really helpful!

But, if that doesn't solve the problem, here is a site that has onesies in size 2T, 3T, 4T, and even 5T! :) http://www.essentialwhites.com They're $9 each, or 4 for $27 (about $7 each). Not too bad if you really need them! I haven't tried these yet, but I'll be going back there when we need them. Oh, and they have them in long sleeve, short sleeve, and sleeveless varieties :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We've recently gotten a few things that have been VERY useful to us! One is by OneStepAhead and is a pop-up swimming pool! Ok, so I have yet to put any water in it... But that's because we bought it as a BALL PIT not to use as a swimming pool. My kids have gone through 3 ball pits since Christmas. I buy cheap swimming pools usually, but they get holes in them pretty quickly with my rough crew :) So I hoped that these pools were as great as they sounded and we bought a 'medium' size pool. All 6 kids can sit in it easily, though there's not a ton of room to move around with all 6 kids in there. It has worked great, though! Easy to set up and easy to fold back up later. It was on the pricey side of things, but knowing that I can put it away and get it back out again without having to inflate and deflate it is a HUGE bonus, and of course the fact that my kids cannot POP it is another!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When it talks, they listen! We have a 'go talk' which is a communication device. I have yet to put all the photos into the blanks and program it how it is 'supposed' to be, but the kids have been using it and being PRODUCTIVE regardless :) I quickly programmed it to say "hello ______" to each family member (there were 9 of us at the time so it worked perfectly!). Brianna and Micah would both go to the family member that it said and say "hello" to them! Now, I need to get my act together and program it 'for real'. But in the mean time, Brianna has learned everyone's name really well and can pronounce them all too!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I got our quad stroller the other day and am very glad to have a way to get out with all the kids by muself. I've used it just a hand full of times so far, but I know over the coming weeks of summer it will get quite a bit of use! A few thoughts... It is definitely made with infants/ young toddlers in mind. The seats are small and everything seeme to be aimed at that demographic. Also, when I used it the first time, I put 4 kids in and at every step the brakes touched the wheels. This was really annoying! It had about 90 lvs of kids in it, so it wasn't light to push. We did get the brake lifted slightly so it is working fine for now!