Mommin' It Up!

July 31, 2014July 25, 2014

Back to School Trends at OshKosh B’Gosh

I am participating in a sponsored campaign with the Motherhood and OshKosh B’gosh. All opinions are my own. As are most of the children pictured in this post. Ha!

The official back-to-school countdown is just 14 days, people! WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!! Oops, was that too loud? Is my celebration a little too tacky? I DON’T CARE! I am so excited to get back to our school schedule, I can’t even take it! Just to get in the spirit, we’ve already done some back-to-school shopping. The kids were really getting into the school supplies shopping! (Side note: I love the way Joshua is getting to be a ham as he gets older.)

Man, I love school supplies! Why is shopping for them so fun? Oh, I know, it’s because it means THE KIDS ARE GOING BACK TO SCHOOL!

Soph enjoyed picking out her own folders.

This girl still had all her teeth on the last day of school! She’s lost THREE this summer!

But anyway, my very favorite part of back-to-school shopping as a kid was always shopping for clothes. I’ve always been a clotheshorse! And now I love shopping for my kids. As part of a sponsored campaign with the Motherhood and OshKosh B’gosh, I recently sat in on a learning session where I got some trend tips from the experts at OskKosh. I used to LOVE my OshKosh pink overalls when I was a kid – I loved them SO much in fact, that when they had bleach spilled on them, my mom dyed them purple for me so the bleach stain would be covered and I could still wear my beloved overalls! Classic I tell you! Well, the overalls will ALWAYS be in style, but here are a few other fashion trends that are big for back-to-school this year.

One trend I ADORE for girls is what OshKosh calls “TLC” – Tunic & Legging Collection. There’s a whole slew of mix & match styles that are trendy, adorable, and oh-so-comfortable. When Sophie was in preschool she wore these styles A LOT. (Now she wears uniforms which we will get to in a second.) I also still love to put her in a tunic and leggings on the weekend. They are cute for church or just hanging out. L-O-V-E this collection!

Another comfy & cute trend is B’Gosh activewear. Sporty graphic tees mixed with super-soft track pants = win! For school, I almost always put Jonah in a comfy elastic-waist pant like these. And the B’Gosh styles make sure that active is also attractive!

Another trend you just can’t go wrong with is denim, and OshKosh B’Gosh denim is on a hot special right now – just $10! I couldn’t pass up the chance to get Jonah some jeans! Paired with this cute $5 graphic tee, that’s a pretty trendy back-to-school look for a great price. And, it’s so comfortable, he can run around and play in it. See?

SONY DSC — You guys, I’m DYING. This is my BABY!!!

(I am thinking maybe this kid needs to model!)

Isn’t that just the CUTEST? Our church isn’t very dressy so nice jeans like these are often the foundation of our “dressy” outfits. I think my boy looks pretty darn handsome!

As I mentioned before, Sophie wears uniforms, and fortunately her school allows her to wear some things that are totally cute and not boring! OshKosh B’Gosh has some adorable options! I chose this super-sweet polo dress for her. I love the hemline on the skirt.

My big girl. I think she looks so sweet in this!

Of course I wanted to make sure she could run and play and be comfortable in this darling polo uniform dress, so she showed me that she could, for sure!

I am super-excited that my little kids are ready for their first day of school thanks to OshKosh B’gosh! You’ve got to go online or get to a store near you for their big back-to-school sale – soon the entire store will be 50% off! WHAT? Crazy!

What favorite trends are sending your kiddos back-to-school in this year?

April 17, 2014April 17, 2014

Reason to Procreate: Living Baby Dolls

Gymboree provided me with a gift card to facilitate my review. All opinions are my own.

So, I really enjoy dressing up my kiddos because well, they are darling and attractive, no? But for most of their lives, they’ve had a ton of hand-me-downs, and it’s been totally awesome. I LOVE FREE CLOTHES, and since my kids are so very, very cute, they look just as awesome in clothes that other people pick out as they do in ones that I pick out. But, it is awfully fun for me to pick out new things for them once in awhile, so when Gymboree asked if I might want to check out some of their latest spring fashions I said “heck yes!” And I went shopping to outfit my little darlings for Easter in some of Gymboree’s latest and cutest styles. See?

Orange is my favorite color, and I love the way it looks on all three of my kids. I especially love Sophie’s Orange You Cute Polka Dot Ribbon dress (of course – girls are way more fun to dress up no matter how cute those boys are, at least in my world.) One thing I love about Gymboree’s girls clothes is that they are so age-appropriate! Everything I looked at when pondering what to buy my little girlie was adorable and nothing at all was trampy. Woohoo! I love the ribbon details, the bow on the collar, and the polka dots and pleats. I LOVE it! It’s too sweet for words. And of course I love the boys‘ shirts, too. I love that Gymboree had coordinating shirts for them even though they are seven years apart in age. Don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to match them up like that.

Another thing I really enjoyed about my Gymboree shopping experience is that I earned $25 in Gymbucks for every $50 I spent! So now, I get to go back to Gymboree with those Gymbucks and get some the NEW items they just released last week. I absolutely ADORE this Yellow and Black Collection, Sophie must have it ALL!

Of course, I can’t leave my boys out – they are pretty handsome fellas after all! I love the Beach Buddies collection for all the fun we have coming up this summer.

I hadn’t been in Gymboree in years before I decided to do this review, and I’m so glad I did! I will definitely be shopping there for our next special occasion. What’s your favorite thing about shopping at Gymboree?

April 14, 2014April 14, 2014

Frozen, Planes, and Marvel – oh my!

The Wonder Forge provided me with these games to facilitate my review. All opinions are my own.

If you’ve been hanging around this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that I LOVE reviewing board games, especially when they are made by my favorite board game-makers, the Wonder Forge. I used games a lot when I was helping Sophie with her developmental delays, and thanks to this review, I’ve now started using them with Jonah to work on speech. Yeah! I was excited to see that two of the Wonder Forge’s newest games are matching games, which are perfect for his age, and that they are two of his faaavorite themes, Frozen and Marvel. Jonah looooooves Frozen (we don’t let him watch TV in general, but we went on a bit of a Frozen bender after we got it on DVD and whoops…he now pretty much has it memorized. Whoops! Mom Fail.) and he also loves the Marvel Superheroes – Spiderman, Ironman, Wolverine, and the Hulk especially.

Jonah and I have been having great fun with these games (and Sophie is ga-ga over the Frozen Matching Game as well.) These are your classic, uncomplicated matching games, but the graphics are wonderful and there are 72 cards each so there are tons of different pictures. Here is how I play these with Jonah to work on speech. I take out about 20 or 24 of the cards so we’ll have 10-12 matches – that way the game will be a reasonable length of time for a lively 3-year-old. These games teach some great concepts in speech: turn taking, same, and different. So before each turn, I have Jonah say “my turn” or “mommy’s turn” and then no matter who’s turn it is, when the two cards are turned over I say, “Are they the same?” And he will answer either “yes” or “they are different”.

I need to note here that before we started playing these, Jonah already had the concept of “same” down pat. But we did use this for him to learn to articulate “not the same” or “different” and he caught on REALLY fast! I’m so pleased!

Other ways to use matching games for therapy: have your child name the object on the cards he or she turns over. You can say: “Who is that?” or “What is that?” and encourage your child to answer. If you’re using cards that aren’t people, you can also use them to teach function. For instance, if the matching game is of common objects, and your child turns over a picture of a swing, you can say “What do we do with a swing?” and encourage/teach him to answer “We play on it.” or “We swing on it.” For the matching games like the Frozen game, you could teach gender by asking “Is Queen Elsa a boy or a girl?”, etc.! Just some suggestions!

Jonah likes these games so much he will even “play” by himself sometimes! His favorite cards are “Olaf Snowman” and “Monster Snowman”. 🙂

The next game I reviewed from the Wonder Forge is for the slightly older set, ages 4-10, but I imagine I will be able to start playing it with Jonah within 6 months or so. In the meantime, the big kids and I really enjoyed it! It’s the Disney Planes Sky Race game.

Like many of the Wonder Forge’s games, this is extra fun because it requires the players to be active and move about the room. I LOVE that! You set numbered markers around the room, and lay out an instruction card for each – it will tell you how you need to throw your plane – laying on your belly, between your legs, with your eyes closed, etc. It makes for some funny and silly plane racing!

Another feature I love about this game is that the game is won through part-skill and part-luck – if your plane lands closest to the marker, you get to keep that instruction card, but the cards all have differing point values, so even if you have the most cards, you might not end up with the most points – that gives the game a level of excitement because you really don’t know who the winner is until you all tally up your points at the end.

When Jonah is ready for it, this game is going to be awesome for working on following multi-step directions. In the meantime the big kids and I will keep enjoying it!

Do your kids need some new games for spring or Easter, or just because? I highly recommend all three of these! Thanks as always to my friends at the Wonder Forge for allowing me to share them with you!