You saw a photo of it the day of Everly’s birthday party. We had it out for all the kiddos to play on and enjoy, see:

Basically it is a texture rich, bright and fun play mat. Everly loves to roll around on it and take “rests” on it cause it is soft. It has a mirrored section, crinkly parts, rings, things that jingle and sing and lots of fun shapes and colors to explore.

When I first saw it I thought, “Everly is too big to enjoy this”. I was totally wrong, it is actually her favorite of the three Infantino products we’ve tested out.

Another fun perk for parents is this helps protect your floors! I have white carpets so when Everly is drinking juice out of a sippy cup she sometimes gets drips on the carpet. If I put her and her cup on this play space my carpets are spared and when the play mat gets soiled I can just wash it.

Washing info: “machine washable in cold water- just be sure to remove any removable toys and mirrors first, as they are not machine washable. Air dry.”

After Everly has gone to bed and it’s time to reclaim the living room for adult use I just roll the mat up and slide it under the rocking chair. You can even roll it up with some other toys inside it if you are lazy like me and don’t feel like picking up toys off of it before putting it away.

If you don’t roll the mat up and you venture across it in the dark you might be startled by the noise of the squeaker as you walk over it. I’ve scared myself half to death a few times this way.

All in all we enjoy and get the most use out of the Jumbo Wheel Play Space when compared to the bouncer and the play gym we’ve also tried out. There is something about the simplicity of it that works wonders on Everly. She’s 12 months old too, so this play space will be useful from the newborn stage all the way up to toddler-hood. Long, lasting: my kind of toy.

“I am a member of the Mom Central community and I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central, sponsored by Infantino, and received various products to help facilitate my review.”

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On any day in my diaper stash you’ll find my preferred cloth diapers and some disposable diapers for laziness, emergencies or if N doesn’t feel like using cloth that day (there are some diapers he just hates trying to get on E).

You’ll also find cloth wipes, disposable wipes and cloth diaper liners. This makes my diaper pail usage most unique which is why I was especially eager to partake in pail reviews.

At any given time I am using at least two diaper pails. I need a place for stuff that goes in the trash like disposable wipes and diapers plus I also need a place for my soiled reusable items to accumulate until I have enough to do a small load of diaper laundry. With kids it is very important to have pails and waste baskets with lids to keep curious hands out and smells in. Learned this the hard way.

The low-down on the The Arm & Hammer diaper pail by Munchkin:

This pail uses a bunch and twist concept to keep odor and bacteria in. As the pail lid is pushed closed the inner mechanism twists the bag opening closed and it stays closed until you insert another item and close the lid.

One down side to the bunch and twist concept is the difficulty it makes getting stuff in to the pail. In the above video tossing stuff in the pail looks like a breeze as does one handed lid opening. N and I both had difficulty with these two features.

I found myself having to use two hands to open the pail lid (and wishing there was a foot pedal). I also had a very hard time forcing soiled diapers in to the pail. The liner was just twisted so tightly that I had to really shove each item in.

The top of pail liner is exposed so any mess you haven’t contained (or mess the squeezes out while you are forcing your diaper in the pail) is mess you’ll need to deal with the entire time you are using the particular insert. Kind of gross if you’ve got a diaper that is oozing or particularly messy.

In the case of disposable diapers, rolling the diaper good before inserting in to the pail is important. This will keep the yuck from touching and dirtying the pail liner insert. Since I only got to test out the pail off an on for four weeks I am not totally sure if the stiffness of the pail opening would loosen over time and use.

One of the most obvious distinguishing features of this pail is the use of baking soda to help quell odors, it is a pretty smart and a very simple feature that appears to make a load of difference.

In my Diaper Genie II Elite review I recommend tossing the soiled stuff more frequently to cut down on the stink factor of your diaper pail because the longer waste sits, ferments and decomposes the stinkier it will be. Well, with the Arm & Hammer Diaper Pail by Munchkin this does not ring true.

The baking soda makes a huge difference in absorbing moisture and odor in the Arm & Hammer Diaper Pail by Munchkin. I didn’t notice ANY stink coming from the pail as I inserted other soiled stuff. Nor did I get hit with rancid decaying feces smell when time came to change the pail liner.

Speaking of pail liner changing, I LOVE the fold and snap idea with this pail’s liner changing because you can do it without allowing any of the air inside the liner escape (since the liner opening is already twisted closed). There is no end tying or cutting with this diaper pail either, much easier to change liners out with a kid in the room!

I did also fill this pail with other stinky things (besides wipes and diapers), like in my other pail review. Even with the cat litter, diapers, wipes and various other bathroom waste items this pail didn’t really stink.

What did stink (for this hippy mama) was the wasteful plastic bag design. While the fold and snap design is cool it would be a smart idea to make plastic refills that are similar to EconoGreen Plastics idea so they decompose faster.

While I know it’s odd to be worried about plastic waste if you are using disposable diapers it is still an obvious concern for many. Especially those who use compostable diapers or eco-friendly disposable & compostable diaper liners. How are the diapers supposed to breakdown in the landfill (like they are designed to) if they are bagged in other, not easily decomposing bags?

I did also take a swing at converting the disposable bag system in to a washable system so you can put your cloth in it.

All I did was take some old sheets and sew them into narrow pail liners, leaving the elastic intact and making them cinch-able at the top. Then I wrapped the pail liner around the fold and snap part of empty bag ring (that I cut off a liner) and right through the pail like you would with a plastic bag. When you aren’t using plastic bags you can toss cloth diapers in the Arm & Hammer Diaper Pail by Munchkin to hang out until a load of diapers is necessary.

I don’t recommend putting your cloth diapers in the plastic pail liners that come with the Arm & Hammer Diaper Pail by Munchkin. The lack of airflow inside the plastic bags will cause your diapers to mold and possibly have stink issues. A breathable cloth liner (like an old sheet) and frequent pail liner changes will allow you to forgo the plastic pail liners and use it with your cloth diapers like I did.

“I am a member of the Mom Central community and I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central, sponsored by Diaper Genie, and received a free Diaper Genie diaper pail and a free Munchkin Arm & Hammer diaper pail to facilitate my review.”

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We got the Twist and Fold Gym and the Fold & Go Bouncer. Both are perfect for us because they are especially for parents and babies on the go. Both are easily broken down and can be stored, lugged along on trips or taken anywhere your heart desires.

Here is Everly using the Twist and Fold Gym:

When I opened this up I fell in love! Not only does it look nice and fold away easily but it is much taller than other gyms we’ve tried so it is great for older babies as well as newborns. Everly loves to crawl through the thing right now.

The mat part is quite squishy, which she also loves. She’ll be crawling all through the house like a maniac and they she’ll just come over, lay her head down on the mat portion and take a rest. It is so adorable.

Once you have the product all set up all you have to do to transport it is twist the top mechanism on the gym and all the legs simply fold inward allowing you to load this up in the car or simply put it away while baby sleeps. The collapsing is literally a one handed ordeal too. So easy and quite smart of the company, if you ask me.

The next thing we got was the Fold & Go Bouncer that I was super excited about. Here is Everly checking it out:

Upon opening the bouncer I was surprised at how small it seemed. The fold up design is very cool though. The chair literally folds down so it is completely flat, making it easily transportable.This is especially exciting since I take E along when I go to work.

I did have some trouble squeezing the trigger on the back of the chair to initiate the folding action. Each time I tried it seemed my hand wasn’t strong enough to depress the trigger. Also, getting the straps properly set up so you can buckle your kiddo in was difficult.

Miss Everly wasn’t interested in being buckled in anyway. The one time I did fasten her in to the seat she was so set on getting out that she hung herself over the side of the seat, this scared me half to death. The seat is rated up to 25lbs but If your kiddo is bigger (Everly is only 19lbs) you might need a bigger seat as she seemed too big for the chair (in my opinion). See what I mean:

Not to be overly critical, but there were two other things I noticed that bothered me about this seat. It’s not all that bouncy for a bouncer. I mean my little miss isn’t a small girl and she loves to bounce so when she crawled in the seat and started rocking I expected it to bounce. It really didn’t have that much give in the spring loaded bouncing thing (can’t remember what it’s officially called) and I don’t imagine it bounces much for babies that are smaller and have less weight to put behind their bouncing efforts.

The other thing that was a bummer for me about the seat is the button malfunction we encountered after only about a month of use. Granted, Everly was more impressed with the buttons and she was always pushing them to start up the music or vibrations. The buttons literally just stopped working on day while another baby was sleeping in the seat with it on vibrate. When I went to turn it off the on/ off button and indicator light went off but the darn seat wouldn’t stop vibrating and non of the other buttons were working either. finally I just put the thing in a corner to vibrate the batteries dead.

Aside from the size of the seat, the bounce factor and the button malfunction I thought the product was cool. I really love the fold up and take concept. More bay gear should be easily transportable!

Also, the soothing sounds of the seat and also the toy on the activity gym are pleasant to listen to. The colors are nice to look at and generally speaking these toys were very entertaining for Miss Everly to play with.

“I am a member of the Mom Central community and I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central, sponsored by Infantino, and received various products to help facilitate my review.”

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On any day in my diaper stash you’ll find my preferred cloth diapers, some disposable diapers (that were free samples and what not), cloth wipes and also disposable wipes. This makes my diaper pail usage most unique which is why I was eager to partake in pail reviews.

I need a place for stuff that goes in the trash like disposable wipes and diapers plus I also need a place for my soiled reusable items to accumulate until I have enough to do a small load of diaper laundry. With kids it is very important to have pails and waste baskets with lids to keep curious hands out and smells in.

The low-down on the Diaper Genie II Elite:

I read from their product info that the Diaper Genie II Elite is designed with a “patented AIR-TITE System” that lets you drop diapers in without having to endure the smell of all the old diapers already hanging out in the pail.

Because we cloth diaper shaking the poop off diapers is a regular thing for us, that said we don’t normally have a huge issue with poop stink coming from our diapers since they don’t sit in the pail full of poop. What does stink is the disposable wipes that often have lots of poop on them. Now the urine smell is another story in our house, I’d love to be able to contain that.

So I tried many different ways of using the Diaper Genie II Elite, some of which I don’t recommend. LOL. What? I am a creative, outside the box kind of girl.

The first week I used this pail I only put disposable diapers and wipes in it. While the room didn’t stink of poop I did notice some nasty (almost fermenting meat) smell that kind of knocked you on your butt whenever you opened the pail to toss a new diaper in and especially when you went to change the liner and toss the used diapers. There was maybe 1 poopy diaper in the pail among several peed on diapers.

The “AIR-TITE” system does crank open as the pail lid opens so I suspect this is how the smell escapes. The rest of the time my bathroom was odor free, as long as the pail was closed.

The next week, after realizing I hardly use that many diaper and wipes (the pail is quite deep), I also put scooped cat poop in the pail with the wipes and diapers as well as various other bathroom trash items. I know, this is an odd thing to think up but I was feeling guilty about the plastic use with the Diaper Genie bags.

Normally, we reuse old shopping bags we’ve accumulated over the years for trash pail lining and usually when the pail is full I’ll dump the contents of the smaller grocery bag in to our larger kitchen trash bag and then reuse the grocery bag again (unless it is all gross or something). This reduces the amount of excessively bagged trash we toss out.

This brings me to the one obvious con for this eco minded mama: The wasteful plastic bag design. It would be a smart idea to make plastic refills that are similar to EconoGreen Plastics idea so they decompose faster.

While I know it’s odd to be worried about plastic waste if you are using disposable diapers it is still an obvious concern for many. Especially those who use compostable diapers or eco-friendly disposable & compostable diaper liners. How are the diapers supposed to breakdown in the landfill if they are bagged in other, not easily decomposing bags?

I also felt the Diaper Genie II Elite’s stink factor is possibly increased by the larger capacity of the pail. It measures about 2.5 feet tall which means it takes more diapers to fill up but a plus is that you can remove the waste and start a new bag whenever you feel the need and starting new bags is a great way to cut down on the stink of changing bags out!

“Though the Diaper Genie II Elite can hold 30 small diapers before needing to be emptied, sometimes emptying the pail before it reaches its limit can help to reduce odor as you get the bag out of the pail. Diaper Genie is the only diaper pail that allows you to dispose of fewer diapers without wasting excess refill film.”

The removing of the soiled stuff is a majorly stinky ordeal for sure and the cut, tie and pull to change out bags does take some getting used to. It’s not easy to empty and change the bag with a child in the room and you totally need two hands for the task, this is kind of a problem for me since E is always up in my business or in my arms while I do household chores.

One thing we really liked was the foot pedal to open the pail lid. This is great when you’ve got your hands full of a mess you are trying to contain. Also the ease of putting diaper in the pail (aka the wide opening) is awesome. You can literally drop stuff right in without having to bend over or force stuff down the pail.

Also, the pail’s height is nice because it is taller than most toddlers faces so it doesn’t entice them to try playing in the pail. On the other hand, It’s too tall and doesn’t fit next to the toilet and under the toilet paper holder like we need it to. It’s height can be a benefit or an issue depending on your needs.

Another creative use for the Diaper Genie II Elite and cloth diapering moms is converting the disposable bag system in to a washable system so you can put your cloth in it.

All I did was take some old sheets and sew them into narrow pail liners. Then I plopped the pail liners in around an empty bag ring and right through the pail like you would with a plastic bag. When you aren’t using plastic bags you can toss cloth diapers in the Diaper Genie to hang out until a load of diapers is necessary.

I don’t recommend putting your cloth diapers in the plastic pail liners that come with the Diaper Genie. The lack of airflow inside the plastic bags will cause your diapers to mold and possibly have stink issues. A breathable cloth liner (like an old sheet) and frequent pail liner changes will allow you to forgo the Diaper Genie plastic pail liners and use it with your cloth diapers like I did.

I am a member of the Mom Central community and I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central, sponsored by Diaper Genie, and received a free Diaper Genie diaper pail and a free Munchkin Arm & Hammer diaper pail to facilitate my review.

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Anyway, while I was filling my virtual cart with legwarmers I spotted some decent priced Baltic amber teething necklaces. I’ve been wanting to try the amber teething necklace for a long time now, ever since E was working on getting her first two teeth in.

The idea with the teething necklaces isn’t for babies to chew them, that would be a choking hazard. It idea is for babies to wear them against bare skin so that Succinic Acid from the amber can be released, absorbed in to the skin and can aid in soothing teething pains. Succinic acid, a known anti-inflammatory is also said to be a natural analgesic.

“Baltic amber is not a stone, but a fossilized tree resin.”

Now that E’s teething pain and fussiness has returned I figured why not buy a teething necklace while I am at it? I was shopping at Inspired by Finn by the way, thanks to a friend on twitter who tweeted about the great leg warmer sale they were running.

I got three packages of baby legs and a teething necklace for less than $25.00 thanks to their great prices and a special coupon code. By the way if you are interested in using the coupon code it is for 20% off and it is BLOG

E wore her necklace today to winter guard rehearsal and seemed like she was less fussy, plus she didn’t need Tylenol for the teething pain so that is a win in my book. Anything to reduce the use of OTC meds is great in our house!

So here is the necklace in all it’s glory:

… and the leg warmers I bought.

… and here is teething biscuit covered little Everly in her necklace getting ready for bath time.

Amber jewelry is not just for teething babies, that is the kicker (and I wish I would have known this before I finished placing my order cause now I want a necklace for myself). Amber can be used for any pain relief, for immune strengthening, for restoring energy, maintaining wellness and the benefits just go on and on… Plus the jewelry is just pretty anyway.

Here is the part you are gonna love. Not only am I sharing the 20% off coupon code (BLOG) with you but Inspired by Finn has also generously offered to give away one piece of jewelry, 16 inches or smaller to a lucky winner. All you have to do is leave a relevant comment below to be entered in the contest.

For extra entries you can go back and leave other relevant comments on my other posts, just come back here and say which posts you commented on for the extra entries.

I’ll use a random number generator to draw the winner in about 2 weeks. Winner will be notified by email and also published here on the blog.

There is still time to enter my other two giveaways as well:

1. Baby Ski Banz Giveaway
2. A giveaway for an expectant mom!

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So the litter came home with N one night and we added a bit of it to our current litter. Slowly transitioning your cats to new litter is best. A dramatic change in litter could result in cats rejecting the box all together.

Our cats didn’t seem to mind the litter as we made the transition. This surprised me as the texture is way different than what we normally use. Arm & Hammer Essentials litter is scoopable and Yesterday’s News litter is not.

Here is a look at Yesterday’s News litter:

On one hand Yesterday’s News litter is great because it’s not easily tracked out of the litter box. Our cats have a bad habit of tracking litter everywhere and it is quite annoying. With Yesterday’s News litter we didn’t find our bathroom floor covered in litter. This made N pretty happy.

Yesterday’s News litter is also great for absorbency. We have 4 indoor cats all using one litter box. That is lots of urine and Yesterday’s News litter seems to absorb the best out of all the litters we have ever used. When it gets thoroughly soaked it crumbles and breaks down, this is what it looks like:

The problem is like I said before Yesterday’s News litter isn’t scoopable and for me that makes it pretty pointless. The newspaper pellets don’t sift through a cat litter scooper like scoopable litter does. This means removing the poop from the litter is a pain and you are also scooping out lots of litter that isn’t soiled yet. I hate wasting clean litter!

Also, the fact that the litter breaks down once wet bugs me. I know it is only natural for it to break down but it just seems kind of backwards with regards to scooping feces out of the box. When I tried to scoop poop and wet litter the only thing that sifts through the scooper is wet broken down litter.

The Yesterday’s News litter site says that feces should be removed daily and that litter should be completely changed once a week. I just don’t see how it’s possible to remove feces when the litter isn’t scoopable.

If you scoop your cats litter box and hate throwing out unsoiled litter Yesterday’s News litter is not for you. If you don’t mind leaving feces to accumulate all week until you completely dump the entire box you might like this stuff. I guess I am just a scoopable cat litter kind of woman because this stuff did not impress me…

Have you tried Yesterday’s News litter? Share your two cents below.

No related posts.

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Drum roll please……

Winner has 72 hours to email me to claim the prize!

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The idea of the webcast was that Peter Walsh and several panelists would present organizational tips for the home, for kids and for the classroom while allowing viewers to submit questions via twitter that the panelists would answer.

N isn’t the most organized person in the world so I was stoked to get some organizational tips from the webcast. They presented lots of good info and many good reminders about organization. Here are a few:

TIPS FOR HOME
1) Find the Vision you have for a Space
2) Make Organization a Family Value
3) Use the Right Tools for Great Organization

TIPS FOR ORGANIZING YOUR CHILD
1) Show that you Value Organization
2) Establish Clear Limits and Routines
3) Always ‘Finish the Cycle’ (Complete a Task)

TIPS FOR THE CLASSROOM
1) Establish Clear Routines
2) Involve Kids with Classroom Organization
3) Use Words, Pictures and Color to help Organize

Just before the webcast we received this surprise box of adorable cupcake themed school supplies courtesy of OfficeMax. The school supplies are adorable and were a fun gift, unfortunately we can’t really use them.

I decided it would be fun to host a giveaway here on the blog so I could pass these cute school supplies on to a lucky reader who can put them to good use. So here are the giveaway details: This giveaway is now closed.

Prize: Back-to-school supplies from Scoolio-Von-Hoolio (includes binders, mini notebook, drawstring backsack, notebook, 2 pocket folder, composition books, pencil set and pencil box)

To enter: Leave a comment on this post with your best organizational tip (this is a mandatory step). Once you have commented with your organizational tip you can make the following optional extra entries. For the extra entries be sure to use the form to enter each of your extra entries or they wont count.

• Comment on any of my other posts (besides this one), tell me which one. Unlimited entries.
• Follow me on twitter, leave me your username. 1 extra entry.
• Tweet the giveaway, leave me the link to your tweet. 1 extra entry per day.
• Follow this blog publicly via friend connect, leave me your username. 1 extra entry.
• Follow this blog on facebook, leave me your facebook name. 1 extra entry.
• Use another media sharing tool (stumble, technorati, digg etc), tell me what you did to share. 1 extra entry per sharing tool.

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Eligibility: This contest is open to those with a US mailing address (unless you are willing to pay for shipping costs to ship out of the USA) and will close on August 31st 2009 at midnight.

The winner will be announced here on the blog. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the announcement of the contest winner!

The winner will have 72 hours following the announcement to contact me and claim their winnings. If the winner fails to contact me within the 72 hour period they forfeit winnings and another winner will be selected and posted here on the blog.

Random.org will be used to draw the winner.

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Win the chance to cook alongside acclaimed chef, Ben Ford. Ben has created four signature recipes with DOLE Canned Fruit and wants to share his culinary tips with you and three of your friends at his latest hot restaurant in Los Angeles. Enter your short essay and you could win a beautiful weekend in Los Angeles in June cooking and sharing a feast with Ben Ford!

Now, normally we aren’t canned fruit kind of people but we thought we would give it a try since there were so many creative recipe ideas on the site.

I decided to try out one of Ben Ford’s signature recipes with the canned DOLE tropical fruit I got this week since I am trying to eat better these days.

Lately I have been loving smoothies and frozen fruit blends. They are better for you than a candy bar and they are also a sweet treat right? I tried Ben Ford’s Easy Aloha Smoothie, I wasn’t feeling like having to chop up fruits and do lots of prep work. Do you know how much of a pain it is to cut up a pineapple?

What? I am a lazy pregnant lady who is going to be 7 months pregnant as of this Thursday! Wait, I am 7 months pregnant already? WOW. I guess I’ve just slept right through the whole pregnancy huh? Dang…

Anyway, back to my lazy smoothie making. It is called the “Easy Aloha Smoothie” because all you need is a can of mixed fruit, some yogurt and ice. The can of mixed fruit has a nice variety of different fruits to enjoy and you don’t have to peel, cut or slice anything! It doesn’t get easier than that and it was yummy too!

The most important factor in choosing my favorite recipe was ease and quickness. No pregnant lady wants to be standing in the kitchen forever! So, now I want to know which is your favorite of Ben Ford’s recipes? All you need to do is visit this site and click on the recipe link.

Also, if you do decide to enter the essay contest (which you should) please also post your essay in the comment field for us so we can cheer you on!

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You see they closed their accounts prior to the beginning of February and our electronic bill payment to them (for rent) wasn’t paid since their account is no longer… So we needed to get some proof of our payment being sent and thus returned as a result.

I know it just keeps getting better and better with them huh?

Anyway, we spent like 30 minutes at the bank tracking down some proof about our payment. Then we pushed off to the post office to get our certified letter in the mail to them detailing why they have broken the terms of the lease. We also included our March rent payment in the letter, who knows if they’ll pick this certified letter up…

Then we went by the freecycler’s house to pick up that older vacuum that was offered up the other day. We also got a stack of cute cow plates and bowls from another freecycler for my cow kitchen obsession. Sometimes freecycle is so great!

The real focus of the day was to tour a slew of rental/ lease purchase homes though. We saw 3 homes today 2 rentals and one rental with a lease to own option. N and I fell in love with one of the rentals. Here is a photo of it.

We love it because it is on five acres of wooded land, it has an old country house feel and just seems like it will be a good fit for us. We weren’t able to see the inside of the home today as the owner was away but we did peek in the windows as the owner suggested and looked around the property.

It has some real potential with it’s garden beds, planted bulbs and even some fruit bushes and tress. Deep down we are both hoping it works out as a rental and is something we can maybe buy later down the road.

We are excited about the house but know we’ll just have to see how everything pans out. If it’s meant to be it will be.

Oh and by the way that vacuum we got free today freaking rocks! It looks old and beat up as you can see from the photos but works great.

It is a Filter Queen (model number 937241) and apparently it is a work horse and was/ is a pretty expensive vacuum (you can read more about it here)!

It is over 20 years old and still works great as opposed to our newer Eureka Altima Upright vacuum that was just over a year old and melted itself up. Oh and did I mention it has more suction and better filtering than the Eureka?

We are pretty impressed with the vacuum and can’t believe someone gave it away for free, how fortunate were we? So, now we can have clean carpets again.

We do want to try replacing the hose on it since it’s currently wrapped in duct tape… It still works great just looks a bit ghetto. N was even thinking of trying to donate our broken, crappy Eureka to a vacuum repair place in return for a discount on a new hose for the Filter Queen, barter style. It’s worth a try.

So all in all we had a super productive day and are pleased with all the progress we made. Tomorrow if we get a wild hair we’ll take the blanket from Tater’s bedding set and go compare it to the furnature we liked at Baby Depot to see if it goes. Window shopping could be fun if we have the energy. We also hope to see the inside of the cute country home too, if possible.

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