A few product endorsements...

Thanks Alli and Sarah for this idea...there are so many things we use on a regular basis, many are ideas we've gotten from other families. Maybe these give some ideas to you! Coming soon...a "books on my nightstand" post -- shocking to those who know me well! :) Now in no specific order...

1. Love the Garanimals tees at Wal-Market for Kirkley! Thanks Sarah Beth and Sadie for showing us these! We got lots of these this summer and put little monograms on them -- the coordinating gingham shorts were so great for play clothes. Also handy if you have a wonderful monogramming friend like Selwyn. She's helped stock Kirkley with some cute tees for fall! I'd show but my model is snoozing. The long sleeved tees like this one and leggings are out now in cute colors and dots! I would probably love the ultimate tees at Target with scalloped necks and puff sleeves, but our Target has yet to stock them for fall!
2. The Stride Rite Popsicle Sandals have been great this summer -- thanks, Mandi! They are now $14.89 on Amazon. Ordered another pair for next summer a size bigger. These have also been a summer standard.

3. The Bean Vac Coffee Canister is great for coffee lovers. It advertises for beans, but we keep our grounds in here, and they don't dry out.
4. My KitchenAid Stand Mixer saves oodles of time. I can make a bundt cake in five minutes which is a huge bonus to Kirkley's teachers, Alex's office, and my coworkers. My parents gave me this for our kitchen shower (after I informed my mom that I'm pretty sure this is what mothers get daughters at their kitchen shower). I had a white one first that I wore out a year later making cookies for several weddings. Good to know that you can walk into Williams-Sonoma with all the pieces and walk back out with a cute new butter colored one. It's still up and running!5. Any Fiber One products. If you do Weight Watchers (which we've basically been doing by our own calorie counting), all the fiber takes off points. I love their strawberry yogurt for breakfast -- I stir strawberries and/or blueberries in it. They have great muffin mixes that Kirkley loves, and the oats and chocolate bars are great midday snacks. Just realized their website has recipes too!

6. Member's Mark Wipes are everywhere in our lives -- car doors, kitchen table, changing table, stroller, every diaper bag...love that they pop open and closed. And I love that you get nine packs for $12.88. Now we did not use these right out of the gate with Kirkley. We of course did all of the sensitive, non-everything wipes, but after a few months, these were fine! Try them...I'll take the rest if they're not up to par! And we did switch to the Member's Mark diapers at size 2. While you're at Sam's, their produce is amazing -- we have lived off of their strawberries, blueberries, red grapes, etc. this summer!

7. I second Sarah's recommendation for Baby Wise. No lectures, please -- I know there is literature, I know it's controversial. :) Our child slept through the night by two months and now sleeps 12 hours each night. No exaggeration. 6:30pm-6:30am. And she was never underweight -- always around the 50th percentile. And I'm type A, so I loved a schedule. There are also a lot of interesting educational connections between a good night's sleep and attention. And she sleeps 12 hours each night. :)

8. And for those of you expecting, we have lots of baby favorites: the Angel Monitor, Swaddle Me blankets, and the bottles with drop-ins are the first to come to mind. And another random fact I'm glad I did was lined her bumper with the soft minkee dot fabric which she's snuggled up against ever since she could move. Several blankets in this fabric have been great to have as well. And personalized pacifiers. I think Ruth Ann found these -- a must for babies heading to school. Nothing like walking in to see someone else's pacifier in your child's mouth -- we ordered them that afternoon.

9. Nutri-Grain Blueberry Waffles. Pretty healthy and who knew, a help for teething babies...frozen. Yes, Kirkley eats these right out of the freezer. She went through a phase where we were toasting them, but she's getting a few more teeth and now they're frozen again. By the time she gets a chunk to soften enough to bite it, it's soft enough to chew.

10. Honey Maid Bees are a great kid snack for the snack trap that don't have tons of sugar or sodium like a lot of kid snacks. I never feel bad giving her a few of these!

11. Ice cream cones are another random teething snack. Found this out at a Sunday lunch as we were trying to calm the masses. These kept everyone busy for a good fifteen minutes. Thanks Scarlotte for this idea! Kept us from all being shuffled out the door! At 20 calories, they are more of an activity than an actual snack. We take one outside treat as we watch Daddy mow or enjoy the cooler weather...because they are a total mess. Which also leads me to a dustbuster -- a must once finger foods begin. Ours has the megabattery interchangeable with some of their power tools.

12. Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers -- and really all of the steamed frozen vegetables! But the Steamers have a broccoli and cheese that is so good, Kirkley ate almost the whole bag by herself in one day (minus the stalky parts!). There is also a new potato bag with rosemary and green beans that is fabulous. The Bird's Eye Steamfresh Veggies have single serving packages great to throw in the microwave for her for a quick meal.

13. The Trader Joe's Charles Shaw Blend wines. You can't beat less than $3 for a bottle. I'd put the Cab in a secret wine tasting! And you certainly can't beat buying wine by the case for the same price as one good bottle. We love opening up a bottle to get to dine with for a few nights at dinner. Makes our weeknight meals feel so special! And while you're at Trader Joe's, they have great jars of puttanesca and scallopini sauce that you add to sauteed chicken -- super easy! And really cute cinnamon cookie alphabet letters for kids. Basically, spend some time in this store if you get near one!

14. Our travels have been thoroughly enhanced by our Garmin. I didn't think I'd like this, and I don't usually get into the gadget hype, but this beats the heck out of flipping through pages of printed directions. We breeze around new and old cities to all sorts of destinations we never would have found otherwise! A good husband gift if you're searching.... Did not work so well at the beach -- we need to update it, but every other location has been pretty perfect! This was such a great Christmas present last year from Boppy and GiGi -- we have totally utilized this!

15. And as thoroughly evidenced on this blog, we have gotten a little bit of use out of our camera. We should have bitten the bullet and bought one before Kirkley was born. Instead, we were diligent Americans and put our stimulus check right back into the economy. I think that link is it -- there are lots of Nikon versions. I totally thought this was a splurge, but it has been well worth it. Proven by the endless pictures I subject everyone to. I still need to learn all of the bells and whistles as well as invest in the zoom lens. We got ours at Best Buy but had them match Sam's price. We especially appreciated this more than our video camera as we put together Kirkley's one year video. I still debate on whether I'll do these videos each year. We loved watching it and now she watches it from time to time!

I hope all of these hyperlinks work...Now I want everyone to spill the beans on some of your favorites.... Last week, I put the feedjit live stats on the blog. It's been so fun to see people logging on from everywhere from New Jersey to Michigan, Canada, California, Colorado to Maryland...I've been shocked! Glad I don't have anything too crazy on here other than my random ramblings...like this one! I'd love to hear how you found the blog and see your favorites too! Don't worry that I found out about this stats site from reading a stranger's blog that they had put it on theirs (friend of a friend, but still a stranger to me!). Also don't worry -- doesn't tell me who you are, just where you are from!

This is also my 100th post on the blog! We hope to somehow turn this into somewhat of a scrapbook for our family one day. I have heard that you can upload your blog to make a book -- anyone know how to do this? No idea if silly posts like this will make the cut, but we've so enjoyed sharing these fun memories with our family and friends around the country. At some point I may do some "backblogging" and post some older things -- I hate we didn't start this from the get go! So sorry if you have google reader and get random announcements that Kirkley has arrived! :)