One of our favorite fellow daddy-bloggers is Don Naylor a.k.a. Adeline's Daddy. He recently took the leap from workin' for the man to being a completely self sustained work from home Daddy and we couldn't be more jealous! One of the fruits of more time for his personal artwork is his new children's clothing line! When this launched we fell in love with the simplicity and tattoo-esque styled drawing & I scooped up the one that reads "HOMEWARD BOUND". All the artwork for the line is hand drawn by Don and insanely cute! ---> SHOP HERE
Comes in super cute packaging with hand made hang tags! Also ours came with a hand written letter and the original drawing as a thank you for being blog-buddies :) Thanks Don!
Sierra loved her romper! It is super comfy and soft and she kept saying "STROLLER STROLLER STROLLER!" and pointing to her belly :) I died from cuteness!
Fall is quickly approaching which means the end of sandals and shorts and hello to jeans and sneakers. In preparation for the cooler weather we are on the hunt for a hip, comfortable and affordable pair of sneakers for Sierra who is now a size 5 or 6 depending on the brand.
Up until now she has survived on awesome barely worn hand-me-downs from friends including a pair of Converse's and Nike Dunk Lo-Tops which she loved. We also purchased her a pair of TINY TOMS which she's yet to fully grow into and are more of a spring/summer shoe anyway. So little to no knowledge of the world that is toddler footwear we did what every new-age parent would do; we took to Google, Twitter an Etsy of course.
The first thing we did was to try searching for shoes we liked but in mini sizes so Google searches like "Vans Toddler", "Saucony Toddler" and "Converse Toddler" into Google were very helpful bringing up not only the companies online stores but an array of third party vendors where you can usually save a buck or two. One of these said vendors is everybody's favorite mall shoe store, Journeys, where we found pretty sweet shoes from Converse, Vans and Puma:
Thanks to a few friends on Twitter we heard of a website called Zappos.com which much like Journey's pulls in shoe's from a ton of different vendors to make it easy to search for and buy shoes in one convenient place without having to go to 40 different websites. Over at Zappos I found the same brands but with even more of an assortment to choose from:
The Last place we checked was Etsy. If you don't know Etsy is an online location for artists and dealers to sell their product online easily and securely. It is an amazing place to search for handmade and vintage goods, INCLUDING SHOES! The only issue w/ Etsy when it comes to clothes (especially the vintage stuff) is it's hit or miss on the sizes available. Our family is big into used / hand-made for a variety of reasons:
It's cheaper (sometimes)
It's eco-friendly
It's nice to support local artists
You normally find something more unique and interesting than the mall has to offer
We searched through Etsy and look at some of the awesome finds we came up with:
So we havent as of yet made our purchase but I think we're leaning towards those super cute Watermelon Vans or the Teal Chucks. Not sure yet though! Open to any suggestions to a brand, shoe style or website where we could keep looking. Would love to hear your feedback! -Craig
p.s. please take a sec and vote for us on TBB, no sign up required just click this:
While trying to think of something to write about; my daughter was busy chomping on my iPhone and it hit me like a ton of bricks: why not write about technology and babies. In today's day and age almost everyone is walking around with a rather expensive smart phone in their pocket and our kids want in!
Now while I'm not about to go out and buy my 20 month old an iPhone 4 I do feel badly tap-tapping away on it and telling her "No No" when she reaches for it with the "I want to play too Dad!" eyes. So I find myself giving in pretty often and letting her fiddle with it which usually means covering it in 'toddle gunk', rearranging my apps and once even deleting this really adorable video I had of her from around Christmas time (such a bummer!). So what is a parent to do?
Your first option is: do nothing. Realize it's just a phone and it's a baby - it's bound to happen and let them chomp away (this is the route I go). Your other option is to buy some kind of protective casing to shield your precious phone away from baby's choppers. I have never tried one of these personally because the lady and I decided no screen media before two (here's why), but our little one will be two in mid-august and it might be fun to introduce some interactive screen media which the app store is full of!
1) The Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn "iCan Play" Case - $14.99(Being released in July 2011)
I stumbled upon this case on one of my favorite 'daddy-gear' sites http://www.daddyswag.com and found it really interesting and cool! Not only does it house the iPhone securely it also has other features commonly found on baby-toys (soft rubber grips, handles and even some baby chew-links!). The most important feature is the plastic covering that goes over the phone that allows the baby to play with the phone without actually touching the screen! It is priced at only $14.99 believe it or not and I will most likely be picking this up come August.
2) Griffin's "Woogie" iPhone Case + Speaker - $19.99 - BUY NOW
Griffin's soft squid like case may seem cuter than Fisher-Price's iCan Play case but it won't keep your iPhone as safe. If you notice, the iPhone can be removed with just a little lift of the velcro flap, I don't know about your toddler but mine would figure that out in about 15 seconds. Although it might not be as safe, it does provide some other great features not found in the iCan Play, like a speaker system that will boost the audio of whatever your little one is doing on the phone and a soft fun shape which will cushion the phone nicely when your kid whips it across the room. This one will set you back $20 which again isn't bad for an iPhone case w/ built in speaker.
3) OtterBox Defender Series iPhone Case - $49.95 - BUY NOW
Now this case is a bit different than the two I mentioned before in that it's not specifically designed for children, in reality it's probably designed for being run over by a tank. This may be taking it to the extreme but this thing is as bad ass as iPhone cases come. If you check YouTube there are videos of people tossing their phone off 20 story buildings, putting them in the bathtub and even running it over with a truck. Although this one will run you about 50 bucks (more than double the two previous cases) it's nice because you can leave it on all the time without looking like a weirdo so no need to take your phone out of it's normal case to put into the baby case.
Feel free to leave some comments about how you baby-proof your electronics! -C
