If you haven’t checked out this great deal on Dr. Seuss books yet, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! Five books for $5.95! Books make great birthday and baby shower presents, too. Order yours today.
The Cat in the Hat, Mr. Brown Can Moo, Ten Apples Up On Top, Go Dog Go! & The Tooth Book are included in this offer. Visit me on Pintrest for a collection of Dr. Seuss activities; some of my favorites from around the web.
Aubrey is rounding the corner on 6 months and has been taste testing some foods here and there. Making homemade baby food is just around the corner. I have got to get my hands on pouches like these to make it easier to take purees with us on the go. Check out my post on baby purees from when I was making them for Kelsey. If you are a blogger, check out the announcement below.
Prize:
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M.O.O.N. has now added several perks/discounts for frequent participation in our events but you must be a member of our Facebook group to be eligible. Please visit the M.O.O.N. group if you are a blogger and would like more information regarding these perks and other group events.
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We are Dr. Seuss fans here and have been working on a collection of Dr. Seuss titles over the past few years. I love that my daughter enjoys them being read to her and seemed to enjoy looking at them from the beginning. Using color copies and spray painting some old frames I had taking up space I made a little inexpensive wall art for the girls bathroom. These are the first letters of their first names.
Read Across America Day is March 1st and we are planning to go to at least one Dr. Seuss event in our area. The girls will be sporting their pillow case dresses, of course. Dr. Seuss’ birthday is March 2 so let the Seuss Mania begin!
Are you looking to build up your library? There is a great deal on Dr. Seuss books right now. Get 5 titles for only $5.95 for a limited time. Why should you take advantage of this deal?
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I bought a few used t-shirts to make this Easy T-shirt Door Wreath. I used most of the shirts in the wreath but had parts of the upper body and sleeves left over. I hate throwing things away so I decided to see what I could do with the left over pieces.
Kelsey had a t-shirt with a stain towards the bottom that I had been wanting to do something with so this Upcycled T-shirt Dress by I Am Momma Hear Me Roar was the perfect solution. Since Kelsey was in size 24 month and these were large and x-large adult t-shirts, I had enough material to cut out the pieces I needed to make this dress. For an added little touch, I cut out and ironed on a little heart on to the chest.
With a few of the left over strips I made a bracelet by braiding three strips together and hot gluing the ends together and then hot gluing a little piece around to cover the joint. I used a sleeve to make the headband and made a quick fabric bow with another scrap. I wrapped a little piece of scrap around to gather the headband and hot glued it then the bow on top of it.
Fabric Bow
This is becoming one of my favorite things to make with scraps. I’ve done these a couple different ways now but here is a no-sew version that makes a pretty bow and you can make it as big or small as you want or as much as you have scraps of. (If you are using jersey or t-shirt material, you don’t need to do worry about folding the edges since you don’t need to worry about shredding.)
Start by folding over the edges and ironing them down. Fold lengthwise to the midpoint. Then, fold the ends to just past the midpoint to have a little bit of an overlap. Pick up in the middle and accordion it in between your thumb and first finger. Take a second to look at the front of the bow to make sure the fabric is in a good position. Wrap a piece of thread around the middle and double knot it to keep in all in place.
Hot glue a piece of ribbon around the middle. Hot glue ribbon to cover an alligator clip then glue to the bow.
Finally, put on the head of the cutest girl you can find nearby!
Organic Oscar has chosen to giveaway one(1) bottle of Organic Oatmeal Shampoo and one(1) bottle of Aloe Vera Conditioner to one of All Natural Mom 101’s readers.
Giveaway will start February 26th-March 12th. Open to US residents only.
Be sure to check out All Natural Mom’s Review on Organic Oscar’s Products Here and enter the giveaway via Rafflecopter below.
Good Luck!
Disclosure: Domesticating Michelle and all other promoting bloggers have not been compensated in any form for this publication, nor are they responsible for the fulfillment of the prize. Please contact Kaitlyn at Allnaturalmom101@gmail.com if you have any questions, comments or concerns. Thank you
We have been looking forward to checking out this new show. Learn more about it here.
Get ready for NBC’s premiere of a new hit comedy “Growing Up Fisher” every Tuesday. The series begins on Sunday, February 23, 2014 at 10:38 p.m. ET/PT, and it’s guaranteed to be a new family favorite! This new television series is comedic, semi-real, and might resemble an autobiography about your own family. The story follows eleven-year-old, Henry Fisher (Eli Baker), and his atypical family, his parents’ divorce, and the arrival of his blind father’s guide dog, Elvis (Peyton). If a dog named after a musical legend isn’t enough to get you hooked, we have more about “Growing Up Fisher.”
Since about the Fall timeframe I’ve been working with Kelsey on identifying her lower case letters and matching them to the upper case letters she already knew. There are tons of ideas out there and I also made sets out of Easter eggs so she could start associating them. One idea I saw used stickers to match the letters on a poster board. I liked it but wanted something more reusable.
Supplies:
I already had a set of letter magnets that we had been using to familiarize Kelsey with the letters and she enjoys playing with magnets on the fridge so it was something for her do to in the kitchen but stay out of the way while I was cooking. Thankfully, my husband and the foresight to hang on to some of the packing paper from our move this past summer.
I decided to write all the lower case letters on the paper, jumbling them up so she’d have to look for them. Then I just used magnets to put in on the front of the refrigerator.
It worked as I thought it would from the beginning. However, 26 letters is a lot so she’d lose interest in the activity about halfway through. I would shake up the letters in the container so that hopefully she’d be working with different letters each time she played. Eventually, as she got better at identifying them she would do more and more letters at a time until she could match them all in one session.
Since Kelsey started preschool in January, they have been working on letter sounds. So now when we play with these, I ask her to tell me the letter sound when she pulls a letter out of the container before she matches it. I think I may use this concept to write her first and last name and have her match the letters to help her start learning to recognize them and, hopefully, spell them.
Variation – You can also use a regular poster board and matching puzzle piece letters to the drawn lower case letter.
I had been hearing so much buzz about wool dryer balls that I had to get my hand on some. I was thrilled to get to finally try some when Woolzies sent me a 6 pack to try out and review. Even better, they are giving one away to one of you lucky readers, too! Scroll down for giveaway information.
Soft by Nature, Inc., who owns Woolzies, is a small family owned company in New York. The balls themselves are made from New Zealand wool and handmade in the democratic republic of Nepal, where they provide a steady source of income to the women of that developing nation. Why Woolzies Dryer Balls?
So, how did they do? Overall, I am pleased with how these work. In fact, they are bouncing around in my dryer as I type this. I have been using tennis balls when I put pillows in the dryer and they can make a bit of a racket. These are just a light thud as they do their work, quieter than the zippers hitting the sides. It’s hard for me to tell if they are reducing the drying time since I have a smart dryer that adjusts the time as needed. They have been doing the job of getting the pet fur off the clothes and I really can’t tell any difference in the clothing appearance between now and when I was using dryer sheets.
I like that since these don’t have any chemicals or fabric softeners I can use them when I wash towels or cloth diapers (I like to put my inserts in the dryer to give them a head start on drying). They have been coming out soft but I don’t worry about the fabric performance being hindered. However, there are two particular types of clothing that they don’t seem to be working on. Honestly, dryer sheets don’t do much better, but my husbands UnderArmour running clothes and his wool socks (oddly enough) are still have a lot of static when they come out. I have not, however, tried one of their suggestions of putting a ball of aluminum foil in with the dryer balls to see if helps any. On the other hand, when those items aren’t in the load, there isn’t an issue. Perhaps the dry, cold air has something to do with it, I’m not sure.
I intend to keep using these with towels, cloth diapers, and definitely my children’s clothing, but may still need to play around with whether or not they work for me and my husband’s clothing. It will still save money between dry time and buying way less dryer sheets in the long run. Another feature I still haven’t tried is that you can scent these balls by applying pure essential oil to have your laundry smell however you like. I am not big on scents, put a nice lavender or peppermint might be nice to try since I do sort of miss the “fresh laundry” scent.
Want a set of your own? They can be purchased here or follow the link below to enter to win a 6 pack of Woolzies Dryer Balls! Giveaway ends on 3/3/14 and winner will have 24 hours to respond. Be sure to Woolzies on Facebook (tell them Domesticating Michelle sent you) for links to other giveaways.
*I was provided with a set of Woolzies Dryer Balls to review. All opinions are my own. Soft by Nature/Woolzies is responsible for prize fulfillment.*
It’s that time of year. Time for the dancing Statue of Liberty’s and Uncle Sam’s on every street corner. Taxes will be due before you know it so why not get ahead of the game this year? We have been using H&R Block for years and they have always been able to walk us through everything and get us a great return, finding credits we didn’t know existed.
Click here to visit H&R Block to complete your federal tax return using their online product for free. State returns are an additional fee.
The best part? No waiting, no chasing after the kids or finding care for them, and you can do it your pj’s.
With two little girls now, it is a little trickier to find matching outfits for holidays and special events without breaking the bank. Enter the sewing machine! My mother had been trying to get me to learn how to sew for years. Two years ago I finally made it my New Year’s resolution to sew a pillowcase dress by the end of the year. I made it in the nick of time and made her a Christmas dress. Since then, I’ve been doing little projects here and there. I decided to make Christmas dresses for the girls this past year and made some matching Valentine’s Day outfits, too. Here are some easy – as in, if I made it, then you can, too if you can turn on your machine and sew in a relatively straight line – tutorials I found around online. 
T-Shirt Dresses I decided to make these dresses based on t-shirt dresses so I wouldn’t have to worry about creating the neckline or sleeves. The babies’ dress is based on this tutorial 10-Minute Onesie Dress by Pretty Prudent. However, since I had two coordinating fabrics I wanted to incorporate into each dress I used the ruffle from this T-Shirt Dress tutorial by Treasures for Tots. For the other dress, I want a tiered dress so I used the same Pretty Prudent tutorial for the top tier, putting it just below the armpit area. Then, I used the Treasures for Tots tutorial without a ruffle for the second tier. I was pretty proud of my first attempts at ruffles. I’d almost recommend using a one size too big for the onesie dress since sewing it eats up some of the length. In addition, I’d make the first tier shorter on the t-shirt dress so you can see the lower tier fabric better if I did this again. For the hair, I made two of my Ribbon Flower bows and wrapped a dollar store headband with ribbon to glue Kelsey’s on to instead of a clip. 
Skirts and Dress I admit I was a bit intimidated to try a skirt for some reason. Let me tell you, this is the easiest thing in the world to make and the fabric choices are endless. I already decided to take a break for St. Paddy’d Day, but I’m already scouting fabric for the next set of skirts to make. It took less than a yard to make both of these and less than a yard of elastic so it was only a few bucks. I followed this Simple Skirt tutorial from You & Mie as directed for Kelsey’s skirt. It came out a touch too long, but at least it still covers her tush when she’s playing and she’s into “ballerina” skirts, as she calls them, so it will be a decent length on her for a while. I followed this Pretty Prudent Pillowcase Baby Dress only, I just folded the arm holes and top stitched instead of using bias tape. I just drew the shape to cut out on the wrong side of one of the pieces of fabric and pinned it, right sides facing, to the other layer to cut it out. I like that it was a more fitted, A-line style dress, but one if the benefits to a wider topped pillowcase dress is that it leaves plenty of room for growth. Both of these options make it pretty easy to layer or pair with any onesie or top you already have. For the hair, I made a headband and a fabric bow with the left over fabric. In general, it’s easy to combine ideas and patterns to get the look you’d like while not spending a lot of money. I think the Simple Skirt would be great for Halloween and dress up costumes, too. Have fun sewing! (In September I ended up making matching skirts with owl print fabric for Aubrey’s 1st birthday party!)
Domesticating Michelle 