Mommies With Style

Looking for a new car seat?  Evenflo’s Symphony 65 has been getting great reviews for both safety and ease-of-use.

Some of the specs:
-Evenflo’s SureLatch system, making install incredibly easy
-the Infiniate Slide Harness Adjustment System makes for easy height adjustment without having to rethread the whole strap
-Rear facing 5-35 pounds, forward facing from 20-65 pounds – and you can use it as a booster up to 100 pounds!

Other random notes:  while it has all of the necessary features, it seems a little bit smaller than some of the other 5-point car seats we’ve had in the past – which is really nice when you’re looking for a little extra room in the car. 

The straps also tighten/loosen very easily (a pet peeve of mine when I’m having to dig around to adjust)

Get Evenflo’s Symphony 65 on Amazon for $189 (retails for $199) plus free shipping.

Also – a little bonus for Toyota owners:  launched today from Evenflo, enjoy a $10 discount on Serenade, Triumph Advance, and Generations65 car seats at www.evenflo.com/safecarseat because the last thing you want to be concerned about during all of these crazy car recalls is whether your car seat is safe!
 
To take advantage of the $10 discount offer, Toyota owners should visit Evenflo.com/safecarseat through the end of March and input the model and year of their vehicle. They will then be offered a coupon in order to receive the discount on their purchase at retail. Offer is valid on Evenflo’s line of car seats including: Serenade, Triumph Advance, and Generations65.

A sample of the Evenflo Symphony 65 was provided to assist in this review.

Nobody wakes up one day and thinks, “today, I’ll lose my child in the crowd.”  But of course the reality is that people lose their kids every day. 

I’m a crazy Mom – I feel like no one is as nutty as I am about watching her kids, yet I still can see where in a crowded, harried moment, a child could wander off in an instant from even the most paranoid Moms.

Because of that – and because I knew how crowded Disney can get – I got a pack of Safety Tat’s before we left.  My buddy Heather at Mom4Life was kind enough to send me a pack when we were chatting back and forth on email.

The Safety Tat is a temporary tattoo that sticks to your child’s skin.  Using the Safety Tat pen that’s provided, you can write your cell phone number then on the tattoo.  It lasts for several days and was easy to apply.

I can’t tell you guys how many people came up to us asking what they were and exclaiming how awesome it was to have them on.  Get a pack for your family at Mom4Life.com.  Follow the link to get 8% off the Safety Tat or anything else on the Mom4Life site (just enter “Safety Tat” in the search to bring it up once on there).

Have a used car seat/stroller/bassinet, etc. lying around? I have a few old car seats that are from my daughter and I don’t think they are safe to use for my 2-year old son. So when I heard about the “Great Trade-In” event, I was thrilled!

Through Saturday, February 20th, Babies “R” Us and Toys “R” Us stores are holding the “Great Trade-In” event providing their customers with the opportunity to trade-in any used car seats, strollers, cribs, bassinets, travel systems, play yards, toddler beds or high chairs in exchange for a 25% off savings on the purchase of a new baby item, in any of the product categories from select manufacturers. Participating brands are: Britax, Babi Italia, Baby Cache, Baby Trend, Bergamo, Bertini, Carter’s, Chicco, Contours by Kolcraft, Cosco, Delta, Eddie Bauer, Evenflo, Graco, Jeep, Little Tikes, Safety 1st, Sorelle and Step2.

The “Great Trade-In” event places an emphasis on specific baby products, that due to safety concerns, may not be the best candidates to be handed down or resold. Beyond recalls, certain older and used baby items can be potentially unsafe for a variety of reasons, including damage or lack of compliance with recent advances in product safety standards.

You don’t need to have purchased the item you want to “trade-in” from TRU or BRU. You can bring in multiple items and you will be given one 25% off discount for each item traded in. The discount must be used that day on another item from the participating categories and manufacturers. Trade-In items and purchased items can be from different categories.

Looking for a few little gifts to fill her stocking?  Need something small for a friend?  Here are a few last minute ideas:

Keep mom on her feet with GRiPPiES products.  These adhesive grips are perfect for pregnant moms to prevent slipping.  I’m not always wearing shoes or slippers when I’m home.  With a house full of hardwood floors and the instability of a 7-month pregnant belly, adding GRiPPiES to a few pairs of my socks has really helped to keep me upright!  They offer two lines of products: iron on adhesives and peel + stick adhesives.  GRiPPiES can also be used for kids’ socks and tights.  Once applied, they are machine washable and dryer safe.  GRiPPiES retail for $5.99 and can be found at Target stores, Buy Buy Baby, or grippiesonline.com.

With all the stuff that travels with mom and baby, it’s difficult to stay organized and quickly find what you need.  The last thing you want to do is crawl around the backseat looking for a missing binky.  Bella Tunno’s best-selling Bella Binker keeps binkies close and clean and is simply designed to take up minimal space – no more life-size giraffe and teddy bear clips!  Bella Binkers are made from grosgrain ribbon with a simple silver clasp and velcro loop.  There are almost 100 stylish designs to choose from to make a child’s outfit funkier and a mom’s life easier.  They retail for $8 and can be found in more than 4,000 boutiques nationwide as well as online at bellatunno.com.

Help mom pamper herself for a good cause with Perfect As Is Lip Balm.  This ultra-moisturizing tinted lip balm is 75% organic, and all profits, after taxes, go to support women’s health advocacy and human rights issues.  The .25 oz tube has a fatter than normal packaging making it easy to find in a messy purse/diaper bag and simple to apply.  It smells and tastes delicious thanks to the rosebud oil and stevia it’s infused with.  It feels smooth and silky for hours after application and has a sheer pink tint to add a bit of color.  Perfect As Is Lip Balm retails for $7 and can be purchased at iamapeacekeeper.com or at select Parfumerie Douglas.

Give a naturally sweet mom some naturally sweet snacks.  Peeled Snacks are individually wrapped servings of dried fruit.  The snacks have no added sugar, oils, preservatives or other fillers and provide a full serving of fruit.  These organic snacks are a natural source of vitamins, minerals and fiber.  The small packages are quick and easy to throw into a diaper bag for a quick, healthy snack.  They’re not too sweet like many of the other dried fruits available today. You can buy them individually or in gift packs with cute gift boxes or, my favorite, the Cute-2-the-Core Gift Box which includes one of each flavor as well as an adorable onesie. Available flavors include apple, pineapple, apriocot, mango, banana, and cherry. Peeled Snacks can be purchased at Whole Foods, Amazon.com, Nordstrom, or at peeledsnacks.com.

Mom doesn’t have to change her shirt after a deodorant mishap. With just one wipe of a Skid Out sponge, deodorant, drips and drool simply disappear. This specially-textured sponge has no need for moisture and is not treated with any chemicals. It’s safe to use on almost all fabrics. Use it to remove toothpaste stains, baby drool, pet hair, deodorant skids, and makeup smudges. Best of all – it really works! This small round sponge is perfect to throw in your purse and keep in the bathroom where most of these mistakes happen. The sponges come in packages of two and retail for $4.95. They can be bought at Nordstrom stores or online at drugstore.com and garmentguard.com.

Samples of these products were provided for review on Mommies with Style.

You know, not all baby gifts are sunshine, roses, butterflies and balloons. Or even teddy bears. In fact, cableorganizer.com sent me a sample of their Child Safety kit and, upon really looking at it, I’m thinking it may be one of the greatest holiday or baby gifts one can receive. Because, really, with the holidays rolling around I can tell you we don’t need another teddy bear, baby blanket or burp cloth or bottle. But what we do need is to make our home safe for our oh-so-curious (and very rapidly growing) 4 month old.

The kit, which retails for less than $60, includes over 100 safety items. Items that keep your child safe from electrical and common household danger. In just the one kit you’ll receive outlet covers, cable tubes (which keep the wires inside and hidden away), drawer locks, corner cushions (for tables and, in the the case of my home, hearths), and much more. There are so many safety things to think about, this set makes the thinking a little easier, because so much is provided for you.

So, while the parents still have to do the work of making the house safe, what a big help a safety gift really is. (Come to think of it, it’s probably a pretty good idea to send this set to the grandparent’s houses, too. Just a sly little reminder that everyone needs to safety proof!)

It may seem like you can ease up on the sun screen, as the days grow shorter and the kids head back to school, but now is not the time to skimp. Cali girls like me know that using a great sunscreen is a year round affair. Perhaps this is why a fellow OC Mom developed the “Smart Girls Who Surf” line of Sunscreen and Products.

We’ve been living at the beach this summer and I am so glad that I discovered this line, truly through serendipity. After having several pals recommend it to me, I was at a girl’s night out and won the doorprize! A basket of these great products. I felt like I had hit the jackpot, first because I never win anything, and second because it really was all that. I just knew I’d have to write about it!

All the products in this line are just so nice to apply, and I love that it is all natural and free of many of the additives and ingredients that drugstore sunscreens contain. We’ve had as much trouble with allergic reactions to some of those as we have with sunburns!

Smart Girls Who Surf products look, smell and feel great and are designed for women surfers so their performance is really put to the test. For a beachgoing mom like myself who’s not in the water all day, they are more than spectacular. I do love that they seem to last a long time on my kids, even when they play in the water for ages. This sunscreen is also perfect for the playground and playing field. Nothing like soccer practice at noon on a sunny fall day to fry you and your poor kid to a crisp! My favorite product in their line for me is the tinted sunscreen. I can grab this instead of foundation on a weekend morning when we are off to a sunny hayride or fall fest at school.

Don’t let the cooler days and back to school season fool you. Even if you are not a Cali Girl, and not a surfer, you need to think like one. Protect yourself and your kids from the elements all year long!

Getting kids to wear a helmet when biking, skating, scootering etc can be a stuggle. It’s not negotiable around here. One thing that helps? Allowing our kids to “decorate” their helmets with a fun cover.

I love the selection of helmet covers from Tail Wags. These fleece covers simply slip onto a helmet, transforming boring safety measures into fun dress up time. I also think that Tail Wags Helmet covers might even be a great idea for Halloween. Just think how many more houses you could hit up for candy if you rode your bikes!

If helmets are an argument for you, if you want to dress up a secondhand or themed helmet that your child is less than thrilled about, and if you just love to make your neighbors smile, check out this line.

After three kids who were content to sit in their strollers, my fourth is a runner. My days of sadly shaking my judgemental head at “those parents” who leash or harness their kids at theme parks? Over.

One nerve wracking afternoon at Disney was enough to convince me to try something, anything, that would allow me to put my little runner down, but keep him close and out of harms way. He may be only 19 months old, but he’s fast! His feet fly and he has no fear. That’s scary.

What I love about the Safe2Go harness is that it is cleverly disguised as a plush backpack. It’s pretty cute so my son is happy to wear it and feel like big boy. The pack opens and you can store some small items inside. How this works as a harness is that the backpack has a retractable line concealed within. In the unit that we received to test, a monkey, the line is attached to a banana. Grab the banana from the Monkey’s mouth and the line is pulled out. We can hang onto that banana and stroll along attached to our son, or we can wait till he gets a little too adventurous and then make a grab for the banana. Either way, that little monkey of ours is happier, and so are we, knowing he is safer.

I have to admit, it felt a little odd to have my child on a retractable tether. But when I consider the alternative (screaming in a stroller, running away and getting lost) it’s a no brainer. Plus this product is so cute and cleverly disguised that it takes away the sting of other parents judgementalish (as well as my own). I’m so glad that there is a harness out there that is cute and not demeaming to wear/use. I’d recommend this product to anyone who has a runner like mine!

This one’s a biggie – lots of recalls on several Tylenol products (I know I found two of these in my medicine drawer just this morning). 

Tylenol reports on their website, “You may have heard that McNeil Consumer Healthcare (the makers of TYLENOL®) is voluntarily recalling certain lots of Children’s and Infants’ TYLENOL® liquid products that were manufactured between April, 2008 and June, 2008. All products manufactured met internal specifications. However, the company is implementing this recall because during this period, an unused portion of one inactive ingredient did not meet all quality standards. Therefore, as a precautionary measure, it was decided to recall all Children’s and Infants’ TYLENOL® liquid products listed below, which were made during this time. ”

View the full list of all Tylenol products being recalled. 

The First Years’ latest booster, the B540, is a somewhat new and reasonable choice on the booster seat market.

For starters, it folds in half, making it appealing from a storage perspective.  With a quick fold, you can have it in the trunk of your car for those days you’re carpooling or taking an extra kid home with you.  (I only have two kids but I always have seating for at least three kids in my car at any given time with an extra booster in my third row.)

The B540 has a color-coded seat belt that eases installation worries and according to my son it’s “really comfy!”  When I asked him what else he likes about the booster, he reminded me of the “cool cupholders” on either side of the booster that allow the kids to have easy access to a sippy cup or other extras they may be carrying with them in the car.  (We’ve used it for the traditional cup, but also as a McDonald’s French Fries holder, toy holder and as a convenient spot to pop a Nintendo DS when not in use.)

This booster is intended to fit kids from 30-100 lbs who are 38″-57″ tall (around ages 3-10).  Retails for $99.99 but it’s currently on sale on Amazon for  $83-$87 depending on the color you pick and ships for free.