I have purchased and own 8 car seats, yep 8. We have 2 cars and 2 kids so we like to have car seats in both cars so we can get up and go at any time without having to transfer seats. We have a two infant seats, 3 belt positioning booster car seats, and 3 convertible car seats. Of all of these 8 car seats I have one favorite, it is the Safety 1st Alpha Omega Elite Convertible Car Seat
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It is an extended use convertible car seat that can be used from infant way past 40 pounds as most convertible seats end, all the way to belt positioning booster seat so it could truly be the last car seat you will need. I believe there is value in having an infant car seat for newborns and infants but after your child is too big for the infant seat this is the model you should look at.

With a nice wide seat, the padding makes it comfortable and it is well made and sturdy. When your child grows you slide the 4 position padded headrest and harness up without needing to un-thread and re-thread the straps, if you have ever had to do that you will know how awesome it is to have a seat smart enough to not need to be re-threaded. I noticed my son had grown and I was able to move the headrest up while it was still securely strapped in my car!

I occasionally have to remove and install this seat in a grandparents car and it is made to be easy to install with the latch system. The belts have a locking button that you need to push the button to release the latch belt slide to make them easy to install and remove when you need to. Once it is tightly installed it does not loosen up at all even on my leather seats, that thing is absolutely immobile. Even with it being taken in and out of my car countless times for cleaning my car or moving it into another car it is still as sturdy and tight as it was when it was brand new.

When my son is not in the car my daughter wants to ride in his seat because it is more comfortable than her seat. It is easily adjustable with a front adjustment to accommodate my older daughter while still being latched into my car. It has nice long shoulder belts so you can comfortably strap your children in with snowsuits and puffy jackets. My daughter is about 40 pounds and with her winter coat there is still plenty of slack in the shoulder straps to accommodate even larger children to be strapped into the 5 point harness.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations and keep your child rear facing for as long as is possible for the car seat and this seat allows you to have your child to stay rear facing up to 35 pounds. This seat has plenty of room and can comfortably stay in reverse to keep your children safe.

In comparison to more expensive safe seats that can be kept in rear facing for up to 35 pounds this seat is really reasonably priced.

I love this seat! It looks cool in my car, (I bought it in Proton) it wipes clean easily with the material. It will grow with my child, it is large and comfortable and has features that older kids want like the articulating arm rests and the removable cup holder. I am excited that it will still be latched into my car and can be used as a belt positioning booster when my children outgrow the 5 point harness. I wish I would have bought two when I got it, one for each kid.

I was fortunate to get the Euro-Pro Shark S3501 Deluxe Steam Pocket Mop for Christmas. I wanted to use it for a few weeks before I wrote a review to make sure I was not still in the honeymoon phase and so I could be honest as possible.

The reason I wanted a steam mop was because I wanted to eliminate cleaning with chemicals on my floors. I had been using vinegar and hot water and a microfiber washable mop head that I washed after each use. I did not like the fact that I had to empty my bucket after each room I cleaned so I was not using dirty water on my next room floor. Even though I felt my floors were visibly clean, they were wet for 20-30 minutes after mopping and I did not think they were sanitized and certainly did not smell fresh, heck vinegar does not smell fresh, it smells like vinegar, but I would rather use that than any other chemical cleaning product.

When I opened it for Christmas I could not wait to get home to try it out! Unfortunately, I had to put away the truckload of gifts that the kids received and put away the Christmas decorations so I could have an clear floor to clean. We have hardwood floors in the kitchen, living room, in two bedrooms, tile floors in bathrooms and the entryway, carpet in the basement family room and one bedroom along with plenty of area rugs to warm up the wood floors. I swept and vacuumed the rugs then was ready to get to work with the steam mop. I read the instructions, filled up the reservoir to the top, plugged it in and pumped the steam and started mopping. I used the rectangle head and the white pocket pad and was amazed at the steam, it started strong and stayed strong the whole time I cleaned the floor. The steam cleaned my floors and got the corners cleaned, I loved how the head pivoted so easily, I loved that when one side got dirty I flipped the mop over and cleaned with the other side of the pad, I actually used one side for each room. I tried out the triangle head for corners and small spaces but I felt I had no problem getting into the corner with the rectangle head in case you don’t want to switch heads.

Since I have wood floors it is much easier to use the purple steam duster cleaning pads, they glide so nice along my wood floors and they are no effort at all to push like the white pocket pads are on a textured surface like wood floors. The purple dusting pads still clean off the dirt off my floor and shine it well as well as emitting the perfect sanitizing steam the whole time. One of my favorite features is the long cord, I can clean my kitchen and halfway into my living room without having to replug the cord in. My Dyson Ball
cord is at least 5 feet shorter so a longer cord does make my cleaning faster and easier.

The coolest option on this steam mop is the carpet glider for carpet freshening and deodorizing. We have a large golden retriever that is not always the best smelling dog, he swims and rolls in dirt and does all the other gross hunting dog things. With all of the area rugs in my house I simply drag the steaming purple dusting pad across the rug till I cover the entire area, it makes my carpets smell great, I don’t like to think that my kids that enjoy sitting on the floor to play and watch TV sitting on a stinky carpet. I can smell the difference immediately after they have been steamed and they are dried in minutes, I know the kids are playing on fresh area rugs.

Today I tackled an even bigger job than my hard floors, the basement carpet! You are not supposed to get carpets wet because it will break down the carpet fibers and shortens the life of the carpet which is why many people get their carpets professionally steam cleaned instead of shampooing them, so I figured this is steam, I have to try it. The dog likes to sleep on the basement carpet and when I was doing push-ups with Gilad the other day I could certainly smell the dog.

I took the carpet glider out of the box put on a fresh white pocket pad and fired up the steam. I steamed the whole carpet twice, when it was wet on the first run I could certainly smell wet dog, I flipped the head over and saw the dingy side that had swept over my whole carpet and started on the other side. After the 2nd pass the carpet looked like it woke up, it looked lighter and brighter. I put the fan on the carpet to make sure any remaining steam was dried, and then I went down into push up position to get a close up whiff, and seriously the carpets did not stink, I had my nose across the fibers and felt success that my kids could sit on that carpet without smelling that it is my dogs favorite resting place.

I read multiple reviews by other people who put chemicals in the water reservoir. Why? The point is to have chemical free cleaning and people are adding Febreeze or Lysol into the steam, now you are not only putting those chemicals on your floors but it is also getting into your air with the steam. If you are buying this steam mop to reduce chemicals in your home don’t put them into your water reservoir! Honestly you do not need chemicals to make your house smell good, this steam mop makes your house smell fresh.

Now that I have expressed how happy I am with the Shark Steam Pocket Mop I want to compare it to the other steam mops. The Bissell 1867 Steam Mop Bare Floor Steam Cleaner only has one sided steam pad, it has a swivel head but it is a very thick head which some people who review it complain makes it difficult to get under tight places, it also does not come with the carpet glider. The H20 Steam Cleaner Mop appears to come with a carpet glider and it has the triangle head but it does not come with the large steam head for large areas or the long cord. The Euro-Pro S3202 Shark Deluxe Steam Mop is the smaller unit without the extend-able handle, the triangle head, the steam pocket, or the swivel head. I would recommend to pass up these three models and invest in the Euro-Pro Shark Steam Pocket Mop, it has all of the good features of these other three steam mops and tops them with more inventive features and attachments.

I am happy I have the Shark Steam Pocket Mop. I am enjoying mopping, I love that my floors are clean, disinfected and completely chemical free.

With cold and flu season here and if you have a baby and don’t have a NoseFrida Nasal Aspirator you need one.  The first time your small baby gets a cold and you have to try to figure out the horrible invention of the nasal bulb sucker you will realize why this is such an important invention.

A traditional bulb nasal aspirator can damage the soft tissues of the nose.  You don’t know how hard you are sucking and you have to be extra careful not to accidentally blow air into their noses which can be very dangerous.   Now you have this bulb nasal aspirator full of bacteria and virus contaminated filled snot, how do you know it is clean between uses?

My husband ordered me a Nosfrida and told me that it looked weird but his friend from work swore it was the greatest invention for babies.  I was totally grossed out by the idea, why would I put my mouth anywhere near my child’s mucus?   It made me gag just to think about it.  I stuck it gently into my poor sick newborns nose, and put the other end into my mouth and crossed my fingers.  Even with the filter in place I was afraid I would accidentally ingest some snot but there is no way that could happen now that I used it.  I sucked gently and my baby did not flinch, I quickly realized how to suck the  It was amazing, I was able to control how hard I sucked and was able to clear my babies sinuses so that he could breathe in order to nurse. I knew it was gentle enough to use because he did not cry when I sucked his nose clear like he did with the bulb aspirator, and he just laid calmly and allowed me to clean his nose.

The suction in the NoseFrida Nasal Aspirator is completely controlled by you, I find it is most helpful to do long soft suction to clear the back of the nasal passages,  it is not a short, sharp suck like a bulb sucker that just gets small amounts of snot but can never clear the sinuses behind the  nose.  You would not believe how much mucus you can remove.  To me that difference in mucus removed is the difference between a sleeping baby and one who is up coughing and choking on mucus all night.

To clean it you simply take the end off the tube end, wash it out with hot tap water, use a qtip to loosen any crusties,  dry it with a paper towel, replace the filter, I tend to wash the mouth piece with alcohol in case I am not the next one to use it and put it back in the holding case.  I love that you can see it is perfectly clean unlike a bulb sucker, even with the bulb suckers that can be cleaned can have hiding spots that you cant access that could lead to a bacteria breeding ground.

It was a life saver when my little guy was a newborn, I even still use it when my toddler has colds, he is not the best at blowing his nose yet, he still does that mouth blowing thing into the Kleenex to make the Kleenex move and make the sound like he is blowing his nose.  So I hold down his head and suck out the snot so that he can breathe.  I would refer it to any of my friends, in fact I have bought it for many of them for baby shower gifts. It truly is a life saver, it has made what could have been many sleepless sick nights, sleep-able!

Potty training was one of the most stressful things I have experienced so far in raising my daughter. She was potty trained by 2 1/2 but we continued to have pooping problems for a whole year.  She would only poop in a pull up or she would refuse to poop at all and hold it for days.   We used poop rewards, children’s suppositories, children’s laxatives, prune juice, probiotics, whole grains, cutting holes in diapers, but nothing worked; her will to hold it in was winning. When she finally could not hold it any longer, she would scream and cry when her giant poop would come out.

The fight to make her poop on the toilet or just simply poop at all, peaked one day we had been trying for 4 days every one of our methods, on the 10th day she was crying in pain and agony and I finally broke down and brought her to the emergency room.    When I got her to Children’s Hospital they did an x- ray to rule out blockage, and they found no blockages, just a ball of poop that was so big it was now impossible to pass naturally.  She ended up having to have a mineral oil enema and when that poop came out, it was so large it blocked a hospital commercial grade toilet.  When we got home from the hospital we started her on poop training.  She had Miralax laxative daily to keep her poop soft and impossible to hold in, and she had to sit on the toilet after each meal.  After the seven days of Miralax laxative was over, she started to go back to her old habits of holding it in, and we needed to try something else. No external rewards, or internal pain was going to make her poop.

I started researching and found many wonderful reviews about a book called It Hurts When I Poop!: A Story for Children Who Are Scared to Use the Potty. The Book is about a little boy named Ryan who is afraid to poop in the toilet.  He tries to hold it in because he is afraid it will hurt, he meets with his Dr. who tells him a story about a coyote who does not clean his house or throw things away, and eventually the trash has to come out somewhere.  The Dr. teaches him how food turns into poop and which foods will help make his poop softer and which foods will make his poop harder.  My daughter loved this book so much because I believe she felt like someone else understood exactly how she felt, the book even touched on pooping in pull ups.  We read this book over and over and over again multiple times each day.  Now, I can proudly say that her pooping issues are a thing of the past, she is a super, duper, toilet pooper now!

I highly recommend this book to other parents who are going through this horribly stressful poop holding experience with their toddler. Try buying this book and read it to your child and hopefully it can help empower your child to poop in the toilet, and not hold it in. 

Wow, Huggies Overnites Diapers are amazing! I just changed my little guy’s diaper after sleeping for 11 and 1/2 hours and he did not leak through his diaper!  I was so happy, I did a little dance!  His skin was completely dry, not clammy and not cold.  His pajamas did not get wet, his sheet, blanket and snuggle blanket did not need to be washed this morning for the first time in a week.    All night long he slept quietly and comfortably, because he did not get cold like he usually does from his full, wet diaper after 11 hours.

The Huggies Overnites Diapers feels just like a Huggies Snug & Dry Huggies Diapers, I was trying to figure out how something so thin was going to work all night long. The package advertises no leaks and extra absorbency and they delivered. When I took the Huggies Overnites diaper off my son, I touched his belly which has been clammy and cold normally, and his skin was totally dry and warm, how wonderful it must have been for him to sleep and not feel cold all night. Normally his morning diaper is completely full and feels like it could explode at any minute, when I folded up the overnight diaper it felt firm and not mushy.

I have been hesitating because of the price increase from regular Huggies Snug & Dry diapers, I figure if I can keep him dry, comfortable and sleeping all night long and not having to change his crib sheets every morning the extra few pennies per night is well worth it!  If you are having any problems with your child leaking through their diaper at night, and waking up to a clammy and  cold with wet crib sheets, try the Huggies Overnites diaper.