Tag Archives: mommy blogs

Things I’m Loving – Recently

Posted on May 9 by Jillian416 • 0 Comments

Periodically, some of my favorite blogs do posts about things they’re loving. I think this is a great idea, so I decided to do one of my own.

1- Footlogix – Where MEDI meets PEDI – I came upon this company by accident. I went for my first pedicure of the season and my feet were bad. I knew they were, which is why I opted for the FULL pedicure. The nail technician asked me about my feet and whether I used lotion daily and I had to admit that I hadn’t been. She recommended this foot mousse, and since I’m a sucker for beauty products, plus who doesn’t want cute feet in the summer, I went ahead and bought it. I am SO in love! It is easy to use and absorbs quickly, and it’s really keeping my feet soft. It’s been two weeks since my pedi, and my feet feel like it was just a few days ago. Woohoo!

2. Blogelina’s eBook Bundle for Moms (that’s an affiliate link) – I’m a huge fan of the Blogelina website, but she’s seriously outdone herself. She is giving away an entire eBook bundle packed full of tips and tricks for monetizing your blog and for making it better. Yes, seriously free! I signed-up myself, not sure if it was really free – but it totally is!! You can see (or click) the imagine below for everything you get for free.

3. Hug Time (another affiliate link) – This is Emmett’s favorite before bed book, and we read it nightly (twice). Despite having read it about 300 times in the last month, I love the book and the message that it portrays. It’s a great book that Baby Doodah and I highly recommend.

4. Potty Train in a Weekend Click here to view more details (affiliate link) – We’re not quite ready to start potty training Emmett, but we’re definitely beginning to think about it. This book is an AMAZING guide to doing it all in 1 single weekend. I’ll be doing a full review of it soon, stay tuned.

5. theSkimm – One of the best most recent finds I’ve come across. Daily, Monday – Friday, they send an email out with the daily news from around the world. The best part is, THEY read everything in depth and summarize it into quick little bursts making it easy to get caught up on what’s going on, but not spend hours doing it. The best part is it’s free! I seriously feel much more educated since I began using their service 2 weeks ago.

And just a few other things….

If you’re interested, you can sponsor Baby Doodah! I have some great options available starting at $5. If you do choose to sponsor my little ole blog, you’ll get to see your pretty blog picture over there —> in my sidebar.

If you love my blog you can follow me on all sorts of social networks! Here are my links: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin’, and Google+.

And finally, if you are feeling generous and want to support cancer research, donate to my ride. I’m riding 62.5 miles for Roswell Park Cancer Institute and their Ride for Roswell. Anything will help me reach my goal, and further advance cancer research. Just click HERE to donate.

Okay, that about does it. I appreciate all of my readers, and would love it if you’d share this post with others, using the buttons below.

Your turn!

What are you loving? I love new products / ideas, so lay it on me!

Filed Under: All About Me

Blogs I Read – Mommy Blogs

Posted on September 22 by Jillian416 • 2 Comments

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am constantly on the lookout for new, quality blogs to read. AND since word of mouth is the best way to share great blogs, I thought I’d dedicate this post entirely to some of my favorite Mommy Blogs. Enjoy!

My Favorite Mommy Blogs

A Healthy Slice of Life – I think my favorite thing about Brittany and A Healthy Slice of life is her Munchkin Meals link-up. Every first Thursday of the month she shares what her daughter is eating and provides a link-up for other mommies to share what they’re feeding their children. She also shares so much about her daughter, meal prep, the foods she eats and the different products she likes.

Ain’t No Mom Jeans – One of my absolute favorites! Shana shares great fashion finds for the momma. Clothes that are flattering to the leftover baby pooch, bras for saggy boobs and so much more. Shana was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, and is currently undergoing chemo. Stop in, read her blog and wish her well. She is an inspiration!

BuyModernBaby.com – A great site for all the new modern finds for babies and kids. Some of the room designs they feature, are items I’d love to buy and decorate my next child’s room with. They’re so beautiful!

Fitness Cheerleader – Janice’s blog is a new find to me, but I’m thrilled that I found it. She’s a working mom with three little girls who also manages to workout and stay in great shape. This blog is highly motivational for me because I’m always struggling with balancing work, exercise, being a wife and being a mom.

Healthy Tipping Point – A favorite and an old standby. I love Caitlin’s blog, always have, always will! She is currently training for a half Iron Man and seeing how much she works out and continues to be a great mom is so SO inspirational.

Kath Eats Real Food – Kath’s blog has so much food inspiration. She shares all the foods she feeds her family and since she is a Registered Dietitian everything is very healthy AND it looks so delicious.

The Alpha Parent – If you’re considering breastfeeding, bookmark this blog! It is pro-breastfeeding, and helps you believe in yourself and your ability as a mother to nurse your baby. There are weekly stories called Triumphant Tuesdays, where mothers share their birth stories and how outside forces tried to thwart their efforts to breastfeed. Reading this blog helped me to understand there is NO excuse not to breastfeed. Check it out!

The Art of Making a Baby – Another standby for me! I’ve been reading this blog since just after Emmett was born. Elena’s photos are stunning (and her daughter is so flippin’ adorable), her articles are always full of great information for new and old moms.

This Little Chickpea – A new find I found while reading A Healthy Slice of Life’s Munchkin Meals link-up. She’s also a working mom, with two kids and manages to keep things healthy in her house. There’s some great motivation to be found here!

There you have it, my current favorite Mommy Blogs.

Your turn!

What mommy blogs do you read that I haven’t mentioned?

Filed Under: Blogs

Magic Path of Yoga – {Giveaway}

Posted on August 19 by Jillian416 • 8 Comments

As parents and busy individuals, I think we are always looking to fit in more activity into our day, but with a demanding job, family and friends, it is often hard to move enough. Enter, The Magic Path of Yoga!

The Magic Path of Yoga is a board game for individuals ages 6 years and up, where the object is to get you active and moving by performing different yoga poses. For those of you who are competitive, this will encourage you to get moving just by wanting to win the game. The only way to win? By getting to the OM square in the center of the game.

When UpsideDown games contacted me, I was super excited to try their product. After a bit of research I learned that it was an active game, one that would hopefully get me off the couch and would also allow me to get my family involved. Technically Emmett doesn’t fall into their age requirements, but he is firmly in the mimicking phase and loves doing whatever I do.

The premise of the game is for two people (or two teams) to roll the dice, land on a color and pick a card of that color. On the card is a yoga pose that you (or your entire team) need to perform correctly. If performed correctly you get to keep your card, if not, it goes back in that color’s pile. If you get one of each color card, you get to move to a jump square which leads to the center of the board, where the OM is located. As mentioned earlier, the first one to the center OM wins. What a great concept!

I have always loved board games, and some of my favorite memories from childhood are playing Monopoly or another board game as a family. Looking back, I would have loved to have this game, to have my family broken up into two teams and having my parents perform the different moves with us. I can’t even imagine my parents doing the moves! It makes me giggle just thinking about it. It would have been SO MUCH FUN! I’m excited to bring this to dinner parties, where my friends and I can all play together and get a light workout, while having a great time.

From the moment I opened the game, I was wowed! The box, board and cards are all bright and colorful and very well made. The game board and all other pieces are very sturdy, it is a game that will last.

I cannot wait until Emmett is a bit older and can actually play against me or Seamus. This is such a fantastic game!

Now, here’s the best news:

UpsideDown Games wants to give one lucky reader a copy of the game! All you need to do is comment below on why you would like to win the game.

You can receive additional entries for Tweeting the following:

I just entered a #giveaway to win a copy of The Magic Path of Yoga on babydoodah.com @jillianmack @upsidedowngames

If you do Tweet, please add an additional comment that you Tweeted.

And also, by “liking” Baby Doodah! on Facebook. If you do like the blog on Facebook, please add a comment, saying that you did so.

Contest ends 8/26/2013 at 9 PM, EST, and I will announce a winner on Tuesday 8/27/2013 after 9 PM.

Good Luck!

UpsideDown Games supplied me a copy of the game for review, but as always, all opinions and thoughts are my own.

Filed Under: Reviews

My Finds Friday

Posted on August 16 by Jillian416 • 0 Comments

Time for another addition of My Finds Friday.

I hope by now you’re all out of work or nearly out of work, on this wonderful day that should be considered a holiday (each and every week).

This was a very busy and tiring week and honestly I can barely remember what I did each day. Not because I did nothing but because the days flew by in a blink and before I knew it I was in bed and my alarm was going off to start the new day. Yikes! I’m not a big fan of how quickly life is passing by but I don’t see it slowly down any time soon.

Alright, onto My Finds Friday, I hope you like this week’s finds!

(These are in no particular order.)

I’m going to start tonight right off with a motivational post. Lauren, at closer to 30, wrote the post, “Running: it’s not for everyone, but it could be.” She has some great tips on how to get into running, even if you’ve always thought that it wasn’t the sport for you. I recommend you check it out if you’re looking for some seriously good inspiration.
Here’s a hilarious article on Daily Life, titled Things Your Yoga Teacher Won’t Tell You and like it’s title it talks about everything your yoga teacher might think, but won’t say out loud. I laughed at more than one!
As I was recently promoted to a supervisory position, I’m constantly Googling and searching for great tips to be a better manager. I came across this one on Twitter, it’s an infographic all about What Makes Up a Successful Manager? There is some great info and some great insight.
All of our mornings are crazy but there might just be a way that you can cut down on the time it takes you and your family to get ready. Daily Mom’s Article, 5 Time Saving Tips For Your Morning Routine, might have some ideas you’ve never thought of before. My son’s only 1 but I never even thought about choosing 5 outfits for him on Sunday so that I can just grab and go in the morning, I’m hoping this will shave off some time.

Mmmmm… This food is good!

My father-in-law sent us a flash drive of pictures of Emmett from his birthday party, I can’t wait to share them all with you!

Your turn!

Do you love Fridays as much as I do?

What fun websites and posts have you come across this week?

Filed Under: My Finds Friday

What I Ate Wednesday – # 5

Posted on August 14 by Jillian416 • 0 Comments

It’s that time of the week again, that time for What I Ate Wednesday.

It wasn’t an exciting day for eats but still yummy nonetheless. Let’s get started right off with breakfast, I had two slices of Wegmans 100% Whole Wheat bread, with eggs that were supposed to be overhard but both yolks burst as I was flipping them (boo!). On the bread was some Trader Joe’s Goat Cheese, avocado and some absolutely delicious locally grown, never been refridgerated, tomato. Yes, I’m being very descriptive because I love tomatoes, but more specifically those that are grown and picked in WNY that have never once seen the inside of a fridge.

Let’s take a step back for a second, when I was a little girl my grandma did canning, she’d make homemade BBQ sauce, tomato sauce and tomato juice. I loved being a part of it, we’d do all of the work in her basement and crank the tomatoes through the grinder by hand. She was always so cautious, worried that one of us might lose a finger in the grinder so we (mostly my sister and I) did the cranking and she’d push the tomatoes in. We’d also then help her scrape the screen where the skins and seeds got caught, some of that would be saved and used in some of her recipes. As I retell this story, I am putting myself right back in her basement, smelling the already ground tomatoes boiling down on the stove for one of the three recipes. But my favorite thing of all would be when she’d let us grab one of the tomatoes straight from the bushel and eat it like an apple, no washing or slicing. The taste was out of this world, I can still feel it hitting my taste buds today.

When I went to the Farmer’s market this past weekend and realized that it was fresh tomato season, I did a little cheer to myself. I bought a bunch of the larger ones for salads and just for eating (like an apple) but then also bought some cherry tomatoes. When I first threw one of those in my mouth, it took me right back to my grandma’s basement. Mmmmm

Alright time for some pics, here’s my breakfast.

As you can see I also had two yellow plums and that one has a bite out of it. Well, the external flash on our camera needs new batteries and we don’t currently have any in the house so when I need to use the flash, it takes forever to warm up and I was very hungry this morning. I couldn’t wait! 😀

I completely forgot to get a photo of my lunch. I had a luncheon at work, I had 2 slices of vegetable pizza, a bowl of salad and one too many brownies.

Dinner was one of my favorites! Pulled pork with a slice of American cheese with horseradish on a Marco Polo roll, so delicious. We do it pretty easily in the crock-pot, just throw half a pork shoulder in with some salt, pepper and BBQ seasoning for about 8 hours. Then, about a half hour before you want to eat, pour a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce in and let it cook on high for about 30 minutes. Finally… enjoy!

We also had some roasted broccoli, where, yes, I put a slice of American cheese on it. I couldn’t resist, I haven’t done it in ages and thought, what the hell!?

I also had some Polar Triple Berry Seltzer Water. I’ve been really into the setlzer lately, but my favorite flavor has to be the vanilla. It tastes almost like an Italian soda. Yummy!

And finally, I work from home on Wednesdays. I’m pretty fortunate in that Emmett does a great job of entertaining himself and leaving me to get work done. However, today, he wanted to be as near as possible while I was working.

He laid like that for quite some time, while I was just typing away. Such a sweetie!

Your turn!

What did you enjoy on this What I Ate Wednesday?

 As always, a huge thank you to Peas and Crayons for hosting!

Filed Under: What I Ate Wednesday

Picture Posts

Posted on August 12 by Jillian416 • 0 Comments

We have been taking quite a few pictures of Emmett and I never seem to get to share them all, so in an effort to share his cuteness I’m going to randomly start doing picture posts. Enjoy!

The remnants of the cake Seamus made for Emmett.

Cousins!

New bath toy! Thanks Grandma!

Fun new book! Thanks Aunt Ginny!

Cards and Legos! What could be better?? Thank you Cousin Kevin, Becki and baby!

I love my new Fisher Price farm house! Thank you Aunt Katrina, Uncle Mike and baby!

Bubble blower from Grampa Mack. Yay!

Yummy!

I think I’ll do some finger painting with the peanut butter mousse.

OMG! This is so yummy momma!

Oooh! Something to climb on…

Here we go…

Almost…

There we go! Thanks for the foam flooring Grandma and Grandpa!

Emmett is a very lucky boy and was so happy that day. He loved spending time with everyone and loved each and every gift he received.

If you missed his first birthday posts, you can read them here.

Filed Under: Daily Updates, Emmett's Birthday, Family

Would you want to be known as hot? {August NaBloPoMo}

Posted on August 6 by Jillian416 • 2 Comments

Remember how I said I was joining into the festivities of BlogHer’s August NaBloPoMo?

August NaBloPoMo

Yeah, well I didn’t! I signed-up, was super excited about it (still am) and then the month of August proceeded to start and NaBloPoMo left my brain. I’m going to try and go back to catch-up on what I missed, but today I’m starting with August sixth’s prompt, (see them all here).

Would I like to be considered hot?

Hmmm…

Yeah, I think I would. I’m sure it goes back to the good ole self-esteem, that I seem to lack so much of, all the time. It’s a pretty superficial judgement but we are taught and conditioned, by TV, movies or magazines on what is considered “hot.” When I look at the women (or men) who fall into this category, I always assume they have the life, that things just come easier for them, however I do realize that this is likely untrue. That many of the folks who are considered hot still probably had to work to get where they are.

I also associate hot with being thin or fit, and I so desperately want to be either. I know it doesn’t just happen and it takes hard work but I constantly like to imagine myself with a fitness instructor body and just magically waking up that way, it consumes almost every free second I have.

[source]

So if I were “hot” in my eyes, I’d be sexy, thin and fit, I’d have abs like those above. Well technically, I could have abs like those if I cut out the junk and worked hard. Now, I just need to work on motivation and find that HOT!

Question of the Day:

Would you like to be known as hot?

Are you joining NaBloPoMo, if so please share your posts and blogs below?

Filed Under: August NaBloPoMo