The Lily Pad

These were super easy to make and so much fun for my little ones!

• Butter two slices of bread on one side with 1 teaspoon butter (or coat the iron with vegetable cooking spray)
• Place 1 slice of bread in the iron, buttered-side down
• Top with 1 1/2 to 2 slices of cheese (you can also add tomato if you like)
• Cover with the remaining slice of bread, buttered-side up
• Close the lid firmly and cook until golden brown (about 2 to 4 minutes).

**Hey Mom…Are you on Weight Watchers? If you use 2 slices of Nature’s Own Light (40 calories per slice) Wheat Bread, 1 1/2 slices of Kraft 2% American Cheese Singles and Vegetable Cooking Spray instead of butter…you too can eat like a kid! WW Points Value is only 3 points! Yummy!**

EASY CLEAN UP — just leave your waffle iron on and spray with a mixture of equal parts white distilled vinegar and water and let the cheese burn off.

The Bailey Baio Angel Foundation® Stride Rite® and BopStarBaby
invite you to the very first…

“Celebrity Baby Yard Sale”

Saturday, May 30th from 8:00AM – 4:00PM
in the Garden at the Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel
12825 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City, California
Phone 800.821.8511/818.769.4700

There will be lots of wonderful new and almost-new children’s products – including clothing, accessories, toys, and home décor – all at excellent prices! Proceeds will go toward sustaining children and families affected by life-threatening metabolic disorders (including GA1 and other organic acidemia)! Click here for more information.

Happy May! For the next two weeks we are selling all of our Patricia Ann Designs’ Couture Carseat Covers for 40% off!! Can you believe it?!!

You have through Sunday, May 31st at midnight to place your order!! MSRP is $110 and your 40% off makes your special price just $66!! If you
place your order on line, just use the coupon code “CARSEAT”. Or if you live local to our OC showroom just mention this coupon to get yourself 40% off!!

Infant Carseat Cover: Cocoa Sky Dot with Sky Blue and White Gingham Trim

Congratulations to Misty Sohl, winner of the Creative Clips giveaway! You'll be contacted soon!

*This giveaway is now closed!*

This week's giveaway is brought to us by Piggy Paint and the PAD showroom!

I'm super excited to introduce a company to you who offers an environmentally-friendly (yay!) and safe product for painting little girls' nails.

Congratulations to Jill Myrick, winner of last week's Cade Christian giveaway; you will be contacted soon!

*This giveaway is now closed!*

This week's giveaway is brought to us by Creative Clips and the PAD showroom!

Congratulations to Janet Carpenter, winner of last week's Bling Around The Rosie giveaway; you will be contacted soon!

*This giveaway is now closed!*

This week's giveaway is brought to us by Cade Christian and the PAD showroom!

This week, readers, I want to introduce you to Cade
Christian hats — where cute meets cool. Established in
2008, Cade Christian is the newest…and hottest line of children’s trucker and
military style caps. Fun, funky, urban and edgy are just a few words that
describe the Cade Christian brand.

Spend Time Together in the Kitchen~ Cooking as a family

So often, those of us moms are in and out of the kitchen, getting dinner cooked as fast as possible before moving on to the next task at hand. Here's an idea for slowing down a little and enjoying the little things in life together as a family. Why not cook a meal or do some baking together?

This is the last post in a series; read our little journey in Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them!

So How to Ditch the Paci?

This is Part 2 in a series ~ if you missed it, be sure to read my daughter's pacifier addiction in Part 1!

The picture above is evidence as to why I started thinking it was time to drop the pacifier from naptime, which would then basically eliminate it, except in emergencies. Lately it seems that if I give it to her when I want her to go to sleep, she gets real happy, and plays with it more than being lulled to sleep by her own sucking like before.

I noticed this about a month ago, when I drove to a friend's house a little over an hour away. I figured if I'd give Chiquita the paci in the car, she'd sleep the whole way there. Nope, just talked and played with it. I realized through observation that if she fell asleep in the car on her own without it, she tended to fall into a deeper sleep.

Since her nap has not been as long lately as it has been before, I started thinking maybe that observation would hold true during her nap, too. Maybe if she fell asleep without it at naptime, like she does at bedtime, she'd sleep better. Maybe she's accidently outgrowing her paci.

So I asked my friends on Twitter if they had any suggestions. Unfortunately for me, most of them applied to slightly older toddlers, but they were such great ideas, I wanted to reprint them here.

@SarahInMI

We used “The Pacifier Fairy” {click to read her story- I absolutely love this idea for an older kid!}. The first few days were rough, but it got better – we did it cold turkey. Rip it off like a bandaid!

@Fussypants

Paci Love

I was thoroughly against the pacifier before my daughter, Chiquita, was born. But when the nurse suggested we try one in the hospital to calm her down a little, I figured it was worth a try. And, well, let's just say it stuck. She loved it. I laugh a little internally inside when I hear people muse about babies that wouldn't take a paci, only because it's funny how different babies can be! Ours was addicted to hers from the beginning. So I decided to just relax, and go with it.

Let me start by listing a few benefits to the paci for us:

• It's soothing (and part of Dr. Karp's 5 S's for soothing is sucking).
• It's incredibly helpful in public places (i.e. airplane, baseball games) or when traveling and schedules are thrown off.
• Relieved me from having to nurse at take-off and landing every time we flew (especially since nursing was more schedule oriented for us and flying didn't always come at “mealtime”).
• It makes putting her down for a nap/to bed much easier in new places.