Oh my big boy, my HUGE kid.  Such the opposite in size to your brother but so much the alike in personality.  I’m guessing you are tipping the scale close to 20 pounds now, your brother didn’t reach this milestone until 14 months.  You are tall too; almost outgrown your 6-9 month clothes (I broke out the 6-12 mos. bin today).  You aren’t doing to many new things this month, just mastering the skills.  You are rolling over more now (in fact as I write this I just looked down to see you had wiggled your way about 3 feet to me and flipped to your belly).  You are starting to actually enjoy food.  You yell at your dad and me if we take your spoon away, but get mad when there is nothing left on it.   You are sitting up like a champ, although mom still is close by in case you reach too far for a toy and plop over.  I can you will be pulling up and crawling in no time.  You always want to be standing or sitting.  Gotta see the world I guess.

You are a quiet kid.  Unless you are hungry, tired, or need a diaper change you rarely cry.  You nap fairly well (2-3 naps a day, 2 short and 1 2 hour nap).  Nighttime we could work on a bit.  You still wake up to eat twice during the night, but thankfully MOST mornings sleep until close to 7, I’ll take it.  And check out those faces.  When you get excited you screech just like your brother did and wave your arms frantically up and down.  We call it the pterodactyl scream.

And boy do you LOVE your brother.  You really do.  And he loves you so much too.  I mean seriously look at that bromance happening.  It’s all in the eyes and smile babe.  Your big bro gives you kisses, hugs, and always says, “good morning Emerson”.  You two break my heart daily.  I can’t wait to see your bond as brothers grow.

The post {Wordless Wednesday} 7 Months appeared first on Eclectic Momsense.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 c. (10 oz.) Chocolate
• 1/2 c. White Chocolate
• 2 c. Crushed Pretzels

Melt your chocolate in the microwave at 30 second increments, stopping to stir in between.  This will prevent scorching and your chocolate from drying out and burning.

Once your chocolate has melted stir in the crushed pretzels.  

Use a small cookie scoop to drop bite sizes onto parchment paper.  Let them firm up a bit before transferring to the freezer to finish cooling.  

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My son will be 4 this fall so we have been slowly giving him tasks to do around the house.  From helping to set the table, sorting laundry, and putting away groceries.  He’s still at the age where helping out mom is fun, but we want to make that last a little longer.  We always like to add a little Mary Poppins magic to our chores.  Putting away toys become a race or game of hoops, setting the table turns into making napkin animals, and putting away the stockpile becomes a game.  My son had a blast making paper towel towers.

He had even more fun when they fell over.  We were soon stacking them 8-9 high and making a game out of knocking them over.  How many breaths for the tower to fall?  How many seconds would it stay standing?  Our mission was accomplished.  Paper towels were on their way to being put away, but not before having some fun.

We didn’t just stop there.  The toilet paper needed the same treatment, right?  We built a quick pyramid and of course that HAD to be knocked down.  A soft plush was the perfect destroyer. Although, he had almost as much fun rebuilding the pyramid as he did knocking it over.  His task was then completed after delivering a pack to each bathroom while mom put away the back-stock.

Once or stockpile was put away we got down to even more fun, hot lava.  We used 3 paper towels to keep us safe from the “hot lava” carpet.  The goal?  Reach the other side of the room without touching the carpet.  We could only use paper towels and had to start back at the beginning if we touched the ground. Of course it was more fun to actually touch the hot lava and pretend to be scorched.

For the most part we are not a brand loyal family.  We buy what gets our family the best value.  As long as it works and in the case of toilet paper is soft, we’re good.  The NEW Scott Extra Soft toilet paper fit our family’s needs.  We had a $1 off coupon we printed from the Scott website, plus each 24 roll package comes with a $4 movie code.  In my mind that’s a $5 savings.  Our family definitely got more value here.  And after a day of shopping and putting away groceries we all earned a family movie night.  It was as easy as redeeming our code and picking out a movie to add to our VUDU queue.  My son and husband picked out a great imaginary movie, “The Flying Machine”.     

“I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for  Collective Bias®  and Scott Shared Values #cbias #SocialFabric #ScottValues”

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Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms.  This is a special one for me as it’s my first with both my little boys.  I’m such a lucky mommy to have these wonderful little men in my life.  It’s fun to see their personalities change and their relationship grow as brothers.  We are having a quiet day at home.  We had a fun day yesterday filled with shopping, birthday celebrations, and slip ‘n’ sliding (our first of our official summer).

Haven’t printed a card yet for mom?  Checkout this cute little printable from Monster’s University.  

The post Happy Mother’s Day appeared first on Eclectic Momsense.

Disclosure: This post is part of a sponsored campaign for Hold-On Handles on behalf of MomTV.  I was provided product for the purpose of review, however, all ideas and opinions are entirely my own. 

The post Family Outings Simpler with Hold-on Handles appeared first on Eclectic Momsense.

Hold the phone this soft book is ahMAZING!

Disclosure: This post is part of a sponsored campaign for The World of Eric Carle on behalf of MomTV.  I was provided product for the purpose of review, however, all ideas and opinions are entirely my own. 

The post Bright and Fun Toys from The World of Eric Carle appeared first on Eclectic Momsense.