GIVEAWAY ALERT!!!!!

I will be hosting my first giveaway soon! Be on the lookout for your chance to learn about a great company and your chance to win a product of your very own . I am incredibly excited and I hope you are too!

1st Birthday Party Planning

As a stay at home mom it takes very little to get me excited about things. One of those things is my daughter's 1st birthday that is coming up. Another thing that gets me excited is coupon and bargain shopping. Put them together and I am in heaven. Over the last few weeks I have been shopping around for the best deals and it looks like everything is coming together.

I got super cute invitations from Tiny Prints that I won for free from Mom Giveaways.

The party theme is (plates and cups):

and I searched high and low on the internet until I found the absolute best price.

For toddler entertainment I got a small indoor ball pit on clearance at WalMart:

and I got 250 extra balls for it from Toys R Us and I used a birthday coupon (sign up for the Toys R Us birthday club and they send a coupon for the child's birthday and they get a balloon at Toys R Us).

The day of the party I will be going to Sams and getting food for everybody (between 20-25 people but that includes kids). This is mainly a family and close friend event.

For Violet's birthday her Daddy and I got her a ride on Little Tikes Coupe:

And we got it brand new in the box for 50% off from T.J. Max.

And finally we got her a leap frog learning puppy:

We mainly got it because the dog's name is Violet and of course it was on sale. It looks cool too, apparently you can plug it into the computer and add songs and stuff so that your child can interact with it.

All that is left to do is order the birthday cake. I am so excited....my baby is not a baby anymore!

Breastfeeding in Public

Water Baby

Violet is just now finishing up on week 3 of swim lessons and I am super proud of my little girl. A better term would actually be swimming survival skills. Her lessons are through Infant Swimming Resource which is the same company that I learned to swim with 27 years ago. The founder of the swim technique taught me when I was just a baby. My mom had actually taken me to two other classes before she found ISR and she felt that the methods they were using were not teaching me anything. Then she found Dr. Barnett and ISR and she knew she had found the right method for us. Even though Violet is only 9 months old I knew I would not use any other way but ISR. I know this sounds like a paid endorsement but I have not received anything for this glowing review. I just feel it is important for every baby to learn how to float should the unthinkable happen. Violet is already floating on her own for a few seconds and over the next 3 weeks or so I know that her skills will get even better and in the end she will even be put in the pool fully clothed and she will roll to her back and float. Since we live in Florida we felt it was extra important since we are literally surrounded by water.

Big Titty Commitee

So I will be going on a 3 day trip with my husband's firm without dear child. I will be wearing dress clothes and such so I have been shopping to find the perfect outfits. I also had to go and get a new non nursing bra. That was an adventure all by itself. I absolutely hate when the bra ladies try and help you with finding a bra so decided to go at it by myself like I always have. After having huge nursing boobies I kept picking bras with too small a cup size. I decided to let my guard down and have the sales woman help. She ended up being awesome and she even nursed her son for 4 years. I must have tried on ever single huge boobie bra in the whole store....which amounted to about 30. I ended up with 2 that fit good and should look good under my outfits. The grand total was a size......DDD. Ugh....thankfully the size G was too big.

Like mother like daughter.

So Saturday my mom, baby Violet and I attended a family birthday party at a park in Lakeland. While I was there I breastfed V in the car in the same spot my mom breastfed me in many years ago. It is the only pic of my mom breastfeeding me and I let my mom take a picture of me in the same spot. I thought it was sweet.

Silence your phones and leave your baby at home!

I got into some online arguments today about bringing babies to the movie theater (excluding children's movies). Seriously that is my biggest pet peeve on earth! If your baby cries even 2 seconds it has already disrupted my movie experience. Movies are expensive and I found a responsible sitter to watch my daughter and you should do the same. All it takes is one cry and a critical line in the movie can be missed. Coughing I can handle, people getting up to pee can get up all they want but please be considerate and leave your baby at home. It is loud and can not possibly be good for their hearing anyway. The only little kids that should be in a movie should be sour patch.