Hello All!!

Its been a couple of months since I last posted anything but that is going to change! In the last couple of months we have moved, I've started a new at home business and the kids are keeping me insanely busy!

I'll tell you a little bit about why we moved and our house! Sometime last summer my mother-in-law sent us an MLS link to a house. I knew nothing about the house but I can't say the same for my husband. He started showing me the photos of the house in the link. Aside from some of the bright painted rooms I thought it was a great house, but we really had no intentions of moving. Turns out the house he was showing me was the house he lived in until he was five years old before his family moved to another city. After much back and forth (and thankfully price drops in the house!) we decided to purchase the house. Our new house is my husbands old house! I LOVE this house! I'm very happy we made the choices we made to move.

The new house happened November 1st and by December 1st I opened my own home daycare, which is something that I have wanted to do since before Ella was born. The set up of our old home would not have allowed for me to run a daycare very effectively, here the playroom is right next to the kitchen, which works really well for us!

Now that things are mostly settled around here (with kids is it ever really settled?) I'm going to get a good review, complete with a giveaway up for all of you! :)

Eco Freak Dryer Ball Giveaway

Sorry for the delay in posting! I have had a teething baby that will NOT sleep!

No need for random.org... Diane you are the winner! I think everyone is hibernating!

More posts to come soon!

Eco Freak - Wool Dryer Balls Review and Giveaway!

In my quest for making our lives around here greener, about a year ago I purchased a set of dryer balls from a company. They were a rubbery-plastic and I found that they did absolutely nothing... money well wasted. Once my journey in cloth diapering was well under way I read many stories of wool dryer balls. I mentioned them to my friend, owner and creator of Eco Freak, and she went with the idea!

Shortly after she made them and tested them out for herself I purchased a set to use with the cloth diaper stash. I had never been more amazed with anything in my laundry room ever. All of the diapers were completely dry in under 20 minutes. And the ultimate test- I have a Bottom Bumper diaper that is made with a bamboo soaker, (all of the other diapers are microfiber or prefolds) this is a diaper that NEVER comes out of the dryer dry. I can hang it out over night and it is still wet the next morning. The dryer balls turned this into a drying miracle, the bamboo soaker was dry! Needless to say I was VERY impressed!

After this I decided to try them out with towels and was again very amazed at how quickly they dried. They were also very soft. I now use them in every load of laundry and no longer need fabric softeners.

Eco Freak dryer balls come in sets of four for only $16.00! Which just happens to be an awesome price when compared to other companies. I ordered mine with a lemon fresh scent, which lasted for about a month. The balls them-self are going to last for years and can be re-scented at anytime. Another great thing about them is that they are purely Canadian! Even the wool used to make them is made right in our own backyard!

Eco Freak Dryer Balls can also be found at one of my favourite retailers, Sweet Lil Dimples Baby Shop and will also be found on Canadian Co-op from November 1st to 15th at a discounted rate!

Would  you like to win a set?
Mandatory Entry: Head on over to Eco Freak and tell me what else of her products you would like to try.

The giveaway will be open until Tuesday November 15, 2011 at 7pm CST. Winner will be selected via Random.org and will have 48 hours to respond to claim the prize.

Additional Entries:

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Tweet about this giveaway! Make sure to tag DefOAWife so that I know about it :)

My Journey With Baby-Led Weaning

Maybe you have heard of the term baby-led weaning and maybe you haven't. Baby-led weaning, or what our grandmothers would have called "feeding the baby" is simply allowing your baby to try the day to day foods that the rest of the family is enjoying.

When I began solids with Ella I went to the store and bought all kinds of baby foods and cereals and she ate them happily, for quite a long time too. I wasn't too adventurous about making my own foods but I did try to find foods for her that were organic. My kitchen became full of baby food jars that I wound up finding someone to take off of my hands. When it came time to start solids with Dillan I followed the same plan, only he had a different idea of what solids should be. He refused to eat anything purred, he wanted the real deal. I have noticed with him that even from early on he has wanted whatever his big sister has. So I began to feed him whatever we were eating. I had another friend that was doing baby-led weaning with her baby who is also Dillan's age and it seemed to be working quite well for them.

Needless to say Dillan thrived from this and has been eating anything and everything ever since. I really don't mind that I didn't have to go through the whole pureed stage but it does make him seem older and like he is growing up quicker than I would like.

Have you tried Baby-led weaning? How did it work for you? Do  you plan to try this?

MIA- I'm Still Here!!

It's been a while since I have written a post! TOO long. I guess life has just been busy for a while but I will be getting back into the swing of blogging, more reviews and of course more giveaways!

Over the later half of the summer and the start to fall I was assisting with the first ever Warman Run Walk and Wiggle event along side some pretty major sponsors, including Running Room and one of our local radio stations, C95. The event went quite well and everyone was impressed. Ella is still talking about how she went running and won a ribbon.

As soon as that event was over we began a new adventure buying a new home and selling our current home. So I have been busy packing, this week especially, we are moving next Tuesday!

Without any further a due I shall get into a new post!

Bug Out! by Eco Freak Winner

Sorry for the delay in posting the winner for the Eco Freak Bug Out giveaway. The lucky winner is..... #11, Tara, as selected via random.org! congrats to Tara and thank you to all of those who participated. Stay tuned for another giveaway from Eco Freak in the near future.

Tara, please contact me via the Contact tab up on this blog within 48 hours to claim your prize!

Cloth Diapers Not Just For Crunchy Mamas

This past Wednesday I really wanted to do another "Wordless Wednesday" post but I really had more to say about the photo than letting the "picture speaks 1000 words" rule fall into place. (And I noticed another blog had done a WW that day and I didn't want to steal her post!)

Maybe you have already seen the photo that I am talking about, it has been circulating around Facebook and various other sites, and if you haven't seen this photo you really need to!

   

This is 5000 disposable diapers, which is on average what it takes to diaper ONE baby for two and a half years. This is what people throw into landfills all over North America (if not a good portion of the world) every day. I am guilty of this myself. We used disposable diapers for our oldest child the entire time she was in diapers. I am sure many of you feel the same way that I do about this photo, shocked and upset.

Cloth diapering is NOT just for the "crunchy" bunch of us, it should really be for anyone who even has the slightest bit of care for the planet that they live on. These diapers are going to take thousands of years to biodegrade and its only going to destroy the planet in the process.

I don't know where this photo came from. I have no idea who took it but I am sure glad that they have put it out there for everyone to see, because people NEED to see the daily impact that they are making.



How does this photo make you feel?