This post has been due since Lexi started walking 5 months ago.

SHOES!

Such an important part of a baby’s wardrobe.

Making sure what they are wearing is comfortable, doesn’t rub, lasts through their roughplaying, looks great and is versatile (because at $30-50 per quality pair of shoe, they better last long and look great).

Proper footwear is surprisingly important for your baby’s foot health, their developing walking skills and their comfort.

Here are our favorite shoes and brands:

This is probably the most requested review of all times. And for a good reason.

Clek’s Foonf has been the most hyped and anticipated release of a juvenile product in 2012 and 2013.

I cannot tell you how excited and honored I am to be one of the bloggers to be able to try it out and give you guys my opinion.

As my long time readers already know, our car seat experience has been “interesting”, to say the least. If you’re interested in reading our story of the first few months of constant car screams and our solution, read this post.

To be completely honest, while I was absolutely psyched about trying out Clek’s Foonf, I just couldn’t see how there could be a car seat that would be significant better than our trusty Maxi Cosi.

And it took me a good few months to truly appreciate what sets Foonf apart from all other car seats.

I could spend hours writing about the technical specs of Foonf, talking about the unparalleled safety and the technology behind the seat. It is truly one of a kind convertible seat that can arguably be called “BEST FOR BABY” without being melodramatic.

A few months ago, I had a talk with Babyhome representatives about trying out and writing about all Babyhome’s products. It was a big undertaking on my part, considering I couldn’t use some of them items due to Lexi’s age, but I was curious enough about it and felt like it would help broaden my “baby gear” horizon, as well as hopefully give some of my readers new ideas as to which products might work for them.

After slightly under 6 months of trying some Babyhome products and thoroughly inspecting others, I’d like to present to you this feature.

{and if you’re not in the market for a stroller, a bassinet, a high chair, a side rail or a bouncer, at least check out the video featuring adorable Alexis rocking out on each one of the aforementioned products. She found a way to have fun with them all. Wait for the last product, it was shot more recently and she’s the most adorable there, at 13.5 months}.

As I am slowly and painfully trying to design/fill/create Alexis’ playroom I am finding absolutely zero guides online as to how best to do it.

The truth is, while it is very personal as to what kind of playroom you design for your children, it is also important to make sure that you’ve got all your educational and creative basis covered, as well as make it a comfortable, safe and inviting environment.

So I decided to put together my own guide. It’s not a guide for OTHER people, it’s MY guide, though you can definitely use it to help you define your baby’s playroom areas, as well. I’ll be sure to put in a few finds for you guys, too.

PLAYROOM {in progress} GUIDE

The time has come for you guys to learn about what it is I have been working on so hard for the last 6 months. FEBRUARY 28th!

DAILY MOM

I’ve mentioned this name in passing a few times, but I doubt many of you noticed or paid attention. However it is now a huge part of my life that I am incredibly excited about. It took a lot of work and it’s almost here and you, guys, get to be the first ones to see it. A new portal that will hopefully stand out in the sea of mommy-oriented websites. I first came upon the idea for the website when I was sick of wading through hundreds of useless posts that sucked me in and wasted my time on big corporate website ( you know the ones I am talking about, those with scandalous news and celebrity gossip).  One post that has the potential of helping me as a mom and a woman among 10 posts of useless (but admittedly entertaining content). I wondered if there was a place for a website that doesn’t try to entertain, but tries to help. I instantly thought of Pinterest and how awesome of a service that is. My next thought was “I wish there was a blog like Pinterest, where all that awesomeness was delivered to me daily in a blog format into my email or RSS feed.”

DING DING DING

(that was the lightbulb over my head) Now over a year later after the initial idea and 6 months of grueling work along with my kick ass team of moms, Daily Mom is here.

So what is Daily Mom?

This is how we define it!

BABY JOGGER

So when Alexis started walking with support at 9 months, she walked with us holding both her hands. She was fast and excited and loved it so much that was all she wanted to do.

Soon she wanted more independence and had to ONLY hold one of our hands. At 10 months she started taking independent steps, but inconsistently, so her main form of transportation was still by holding onto our finger for balance.

Needless to say that was ROUGH on our backs. We are 5’11″ and 6’4″. To get down to her level in order to hold her hand, we really have to bend. Our backs started feeling it, so we attempted to straighten out a bit which was possible by tilting our body while holding one of Lexi’s hands. (hello, one-sided back pain!)

Then the real walking started. See, Lex wasn’t like some babies who carefully take step after step, lower themselves slowly. No, she was like the other type of babies, who sort of just take off and run. NO stopping, NO walking, NO lowering herself down. If she were to fall, it’d be a face plant, no doubt.

- Lexi, say hi to tile floors!

- Tile floors, say hi to Lexi!

I have a soft spot for Tiny Love. It’s the first company that I discovered that is conscious of toxic chemicals in children’s products. It’s the first company that I started obsessing over when I saw all their products. It’s also one of the first companies that was added to my baby registry.

For the first few months we used ( and destroyed) our favorite Princess Gym that was a gift from American grandma. It was probably THE most used accessory in the house. By the time Lexi “grew out of it” developmentally, we had nothing but the mat left. All the toys had been carried around and taken with us so much that the gym no longer served as that. Then it was time to buy a bigger mat for Lexi to play on before she started crawling.

B. TOYS are the most original toys that you will find on the shelves of toy stores. Aside from nontraditional baby colors and fully recycled and recyclable packaging, B. Toys truly represent what is, in my mind, creativity and innovation.

I remember when I first bumped into B Toys online. I was going over and over their toy list literally excited for all the toys I will get to buy for Alexis. It wasn’t long after B. Toys sent me a few of their items to try, that I went ahead and ordered most of  their Lexi-appropriate toys.

When it comes to safety, here is where B. Toys are at according to their customer service. B. Toys do not have any BPA, they meet the standard requirements for lead and other substances. MOST of their toys are PVC free, except for soft squishy ones ( damn those soft toys that just require PVC!). And while I personally do not buy ANYTHING PVC if I can help it, if you do have soft squishy B toys, you can breathe a sigh of relief over the fact that B. Toys does not use phthalates at all. Instead they use citric acid as a softener (unlike most other companies that use PVC who DO use phthalates and simply try to keep it under the government mandated maximum)

One fun thing that B. Toys does is include funny quotes from real children in their toy tags, so whenever we get a new BToy, Andrew and I sit down and read through those and laugh.

So here are some of our favorite toys.

{In the photo above: Lexi’s first time hitting the drum properly (let’s forgive the whole “holding the drum stick by the wrong end” issue). And I caught it on camera! Amazing!}