Dunstan Baby DVD winner & new product giveaway – The Potty Watch
By Heather Ledeboer | Category: Mom 4 Life News & Giveaways | Posted Friday, August 31, 2007
Candice is our latest winner for the Dunstan Baby Language DVD set, congratulations Candice! This week we (my mother, mother-in-law and I) canned 200 pounds of peaches and tied that into our giveaway. I hope you will take a moment to see how we chose our winner! (If you get email notification of our new blog entries via email, you will have to click here to view the video). If you were not our lucky winner, visit our site this week to get the Dunstan Baby Language DVD set at 10% off until next week Friday! Please note: in the video I called the Smart Mom Bangle Teething Bracelet a "nursing" bracelet and that is incorrect, it is a bracelet for moms to wear that can also be used for teething, sorry about that confusion!
This week TWO lucky winners will come away with a Potty Watch (yes two of you will win)! This item is a new tool in our house in an effort to FINISH once and for all, the potty training of our FOUR year old son (yikes, ok I feel better now that it is out:)! If you will be coming up on potty training, are in the midst of it now or know someone who is, this is a great product for you to check out. The Potty Watch helps children remember to try to go potty by playing music and lighting up at 30, 60, or 90 minute intervals, as set by their parent. Children just starting their potty training will usually start at 30 minute intervals, and increase as they get better at knowing when they need to go.
How to enter to win: Share your honest feedback. I want to hear your opinion. Post your comment below by clicking on the comments link and answering these three questions for me (you can just number your comments to correspond to the questions below):
1. What do you like best about Mom 4 Life?
2. What could we do to improve or to better meet your needs (on our website or blog)?
3. I am considering a regular blog video post that would be a Q&A style where you get to ask me questions and I answer them (all topics considered). What do you honestly think about this idea and do you have a question for me to consider should I choose to do this?
To be entered, please post your comments by Wednesday the 5th at 3:30 PM PST.
Tell me a story by Heather Ledeboer
By Heather Ledeboer | Category: The Journey of Motherhood | Posted Monday, August 27, 2007
My son really loves stories. As a former elementary school teacher, I love children’s literature and have thus acquired quite a collection of children’s books from my childhood, yard sales and my previous teaching days. As such, reading to Hunter has been part of our daily routine since he was just a baby. However, verbal stories are fairly new to us. The first time I remember "telling" Hunter a story was during a flight that we (the kids and I) took from California to Idaho last year. We had exhausted our book choices and so we turned to telling stories to pass the time. I randomly chose some characters for our story (Hunter, a dog and a dragon named Lollipop) and made up adventures for them for the remainder of our flight.
When we returned to California several days later, Hunter asked my husband to tell him a story with a dog, a dragon named Lollipop and himself as the characters. My husband proceeded to tell him a story and along the way named the "dog" Browning (my husband loves to hunt and thinks this would be a great name for a hunting dog). Fast forward a year later and perhaps you can venture to guess who the main characters are for almost EVERY story requested by our son (Hunter, Browning and Lollipop).
There are a few things to note here. The first is that if you have not already told your "first" story, I highly suggest you give some thought to the names (I mean come on, Lollipop?? I could have done better than that) and characters you chose as they may QUICKLY become lifelong friends. Second, and more important, is how deep of an impact stories can have on our children (and all forms of entertainment really, but we will leave that for another post). Just recently I have discovered that if I tell my son a story about "another child" who made poor choices to illustrate a point about why I don’t want him to do something, Hunter will ask me to repeat the story at least 3-5 times. He seems fascinated to hear the plight of another child and how their poor choices led them to a less than desirable result.
So what is my point in all of this? Really it is just to challenge you to consider the use of story telling as a means of further developing your bond with your child and also as perhaps a creative new tool for illustrating a point or lesson you want them to learn when perhaps old fashioned "explaining" does not seem to be doing the trick. Let me know what you think . . . I would love to hear how you use story telling in your home so that I can get some new ideas and learn from your experiences as well.
(P.S. The photo shown above is of my son and I three years ago on his first birthday reading one of his new birthday presents together–Thanks Sarah P., he still enjoys that book!)
Should Kids Watch What they Eat?
By jennylee | Category: Recipes & Kitchen Tips | Posted Sunday, August 26, 2007
Did you know that over 30% children of today are considered to be overweight? This can lead to an increase in diabetes and other serious health effects later in life.
So how can adults, who deal with their own weight issues help overweight kids lose weight? Unlike adults, don’t focus on counting calories, carbohydrates and fat grams. Instead, provide healthy meals and snacks and encourage regular physical activity. In other words, being a good role model is key to raising a healthy family.
Keep in mind that a pound is equal to about 3500 calories! So if your child is gaining an extra pound a week, he needs to cut his diet back by 3500 calories a week or 500 calories a day so that he doesn’t gain any more weight. So just figure out how much extra weight your child gained in the past year and adjust his diet to compensate for these extra calories. The change might be as simple as changing to non-fat milk, diet soda or a more healthy after school snack.
|
Extra Weight Gained |
Number of Calories to |
|
1 pound |
10 calories/day |
|
15 pounds |
150 calories/day |
|
30 pounds |
300 calories/day |
Jenny Lee
Mom, certified nutrition specialist and inventor of the Bee-Z Snack Shop
www.beezsnackshop.com
Slurp & Burp winner & new product giveaway–Dunstan Baby Language DVD’s
By Heather Ledeboer | Category: Mom 4 Life News & Giveaways | Posted Friday, August 24, 2007
Sarah is our Oh So Lucky winner for the new Slurp & Burp nursing cover! We took you with us to the North Idaho Fair this week to find our winner. 6 of you were finalists, I hope you will take a moment to see how we chose our final winner! (If you get email notification of our new blog entries via email by signing up and you are reading this as an email, you will have to visit our blog to view the video). If you didn’t win, please visit our site this week as we will offer the Slurp & Burp at 10% off until next week Friday (Don’t forget that Mom4Life.com also offers FREE shipping on all US orders).
This week you can win the 2 disk Dunstan Baby Language DVD set. If you are pregnant or have a newborn, you WANT this! If you know some one who is pregnant or has a newborn you want to GIVE them this set!
The Dunstan Baby Language DVD set (as seen on Oprah) teaches you to hear exactly what your baby is communicating. As a parent, you are able to interpret your infant’s sounds and cries – and respond to their needs.
Every newborn communicates from birth to 3 months using 5 distinct sounds, or “words” to express their physical needs. This is regardless of the language their parents speak and is part of nature’s plan – that your baby can tell you what they need from the very beginning.
For example, every baby will say the word “neh” when hungry. The sooner ‘hunger’ is identified the sooner a parent can respond by feeding. Click here to see this language in action!
The system will teach you that your baby’s first communications occur before crying develops. The sooner you recognize the sounds and their meaning the quicker needs will be met. Your baby will become more relaxed, confident and happy – and so will you.
To win (there are two easy steps):
1) Please rate our video by double clicking on the YouTube video screen above (or by clicking here) and then clicking on the star number you want to rate our video (there is an option of up to five stars) in the lower left hand corner.
2) Please post a comment on our blog by clicking on the "comments" link and suggesting a creative way to choose our winner now or in the future. If you want to get an idea of what we have done in the past, click here. I am worried I can’t be creative forever and want your help! (If we use your suggestion in the future we will try to credit you). That is it, how easy is that?! Please note: I use your comment as a way to track who enters our contest and a way to contact you as the winner so if you don’t leave a comment, I don’t have your info to enter you. I would also LOVE for you to share this giveaway with your friends but that is just extra credit this week;). Good luck!
This week’s contest ends Thur the 30th at 10AM PST.
The Mirror
By Heather Ledeboer | Category: Surprize Me! | Posted Monday, August 20, 2007
(Note: I wrote this about 3 1/2 years ago but stumbled upon it again recently and feel it still applies as much today as it did then).
I had a strange thing happen to me the other day. I was in my bathroom, getting ready to go to town. I took one last look in the mirror before walking out. As I walked into the hallway, I noticed my slippers had been left in my husband’s bathroom from the evening before. As I went in to pick them up, I glanced in the mirror. Funny thing was, as I looked into his mirror my reflection seemed to look better than it had in my mirror. Thinking that strange I went back into my bathroom to see—and yes I definitely looked worse in my mirror! It made me start to think about different department stores that I have been in from time to time. I have had the same experience there—certain mirrors seemed to reflect a better looking me than others. Perhaps it is the lighting or the actual mirror itself because I refuse to believe that it is just in my head. But in actuality, regardless of the reason, my reflection stays largely similar—it’s always me!
I get a different perspective when I look at my son, Hunter. In him I see slight variations of my husband–his mouth, his hairline, his charming personality. I can even start to see a glimpse or two of me. I take a lot of pride in my son. Even though he is not able to do that much, he causes an awful lot of love to pour out of my heart. I love that he is a reflection of Trent and I.
Which brings me back to the mirror. What I see when I look in the mirror is probably quite different from what God sees when he looks at me. And although Hunter is a reflection of his father and I, we are all reflections of our father—our Heavenly father. What I need to ask myself is, how accurate of a reflection am I? Do people look at me and say “Oh, God looked a little better in her yesterday?” or do they say; “Now that is what Jesus must look like.”
This is the challenge we all face as parents; to mirror God to our children so that they will look more like him every day. We were after all created in His image—shouldn’t’t we reflect that?
