Darling aluminum water bottles in 4 different styles: 

Memo Pads…

Binders (cutomized front, back and spine)…

Trivets/Large Coasters…

And acrylic rulers…

All designs can be customized in any design on the site.  Click on over to www.TippieToads.com and check out all the fun things!  Still working on new projects so keep checking back, as well!

A final plea..I am trying to grow my fans on Facebook and I am stuck at 92.  I would love to top 100 and more.  Would you please fan Tippie Toads on Facebook?  Thanks so much!

Since the party was a good 30-45 minutes away, I knew the parents would want to come, too.  So, everyone received enough invitations for everyone in their family…just like game tickets.  They were so believable that guests even arrived with their tickets in hand!  These are not only awesome for birthday parties, but tailgates, kids (and adults) sporting events.  We loved them and I was perfectly pleased with QTPie Wrappers.

If you click over to Facebook, you can enter to win a lunchbox of your choice…And if you share it with your friends, you can enter again!  Thanks friends, for all your fabulous support!  New designs and new products are still in the works!

 Contact pennysampler(at)yahoo(dot)com to place a personal order. Or, order via www.writeaway.com and select “Penny Sampler” as your rep. Thank you!

Anyone can record at book…so your children can read over and over and have it read to them by you without having to read it over and over again   Or, for us, we love having this sweet book that Grammy and Big Daddy read to my boys when they don’t live close to us at all.  The boys can open their book and hear their voices anytime of day and they love it.  Of course, Babe, who loves my mom and dad, jokes every time he hears the book, “There they are again!”

Everyone will love this sweet gift…great for Valentine’s Day!  The best part is that you don’t have to stop at one.  There are so many great books to choose from, have all your relatives near and far record a book for you and your little ones to treasure for years to come.

Our kit came with a PLETHORA of templates, plus the option to download more on the Internet.  The templates are covered in numbered squares and each number corellates to a color.  The kids place their colored magnets on the picture according to the numbers and soon they have a masterpiece!  My 6 year-old just loves the project aspect, but my 4 year-old loves the puzzle aspect of it by matching his numbers to colors.  It really is an educational game.

Then, when it is complete, we take the magnets off knowing we can come back to the same template again some day.  I don’t have to worry about the piles of papers and the boys were able to complete a fun project.  We love these…I am all stocked up for future birthday gifts, as well!

Now, identification has to take place.  I have used several different name label/sticker companies in the past and have been pleased with them.  But I have just discovered Name Bubbles.   I first noticed that they were cute, then affordable, then I was really sold when I discovered I could include more information on a sticker than just my child’s name.  I bought a “pack” of stickers, including my customizing them with all three of our phone numbers (home, mommy cell, daddy cell).  I love this feature, as we have been in a scary instance before where my oldest son, gratefully, knew our phone number…but he didn’t know our cell numbers for sure.  The situation could have been completely prevented had he just had our cell number with him.  So, I am thrilled to put the labels with our phone numbers on everything that leaves the house…lunch box, backpack, baseball bat, batting helmet, Nintendo DS and if I have to, I will stick one in their shoe!  This way, my boys can always have our phone numbers handy.  As we learned, even if they know our numbers, sometimes in a scary situation, they can forget. 

Beyond safety, the name tags mark our property.  I have three boys.  While I love to be organized, I have yet to see my organized gene show up “loudly” in either of my boys.  What this means, is lost articles!  My boys are responsible boys, but things sometimes get left if they aren’t reminded to pick up EVERYTHING.

Cute, of course, is a great quality of these labels that will quickly fade from my boys’ priority list, but they are cute.  The labels are dishwasher safe, laundry safe, waterproof, etc etc when used properly.  I can’t say enough about Name Bubbles!  I even ordered some for myself to stick on my camera or on a dish that I take to potlucks.  So many uses and great ways not to lose your things.   Click the link below to check out all the fun packages and assortments you can choose for your kiddos.  School has begun.  Time to label everything you own!

When I contacted Tommie, at Oh My Gluestick, she was wonderful to work with.  I found a card I liked and she worked with me on customizing it and “Voila!!”  Her cards are darling…even beyond the Sock Monkey theme.  The best part was that she sent me the PDF and I had it printed myself.  No worrying about shipping and arriving on time…especially since I was already running late with getting the invitations out. You just order from her Etsy shop and a couple days later, your design is in your inbox.  What a breeze!  It just might have been my easiest invitations, yet.  Not only does she make cute invitations, but all the accessories to go along with a great party…party hats, thank-you notes and more!

More exciting to me is that Oh My Gluestick is based in the Houston, Texas area.  On September 11, 18, and 25th, she will be at Arts in the Park in The Woodlands, Creekside with all her cute things.  If you are local, come out and support her and all the local artists!

Just because I worked hard on my Sock Monkey cake, inspired by Oh My Gluestick, I am sharing it with you here…

The things I make myself do!  I can appreciate a good challenge, but sometimes things are just out of my reach.  This one was borderline, but I feel a sense of accomplishment.  At least it’s identifiable…right?

Today, I have what I thought would be something very simple to find…but it wasn’t.  If you are a mom of a child with ear tubes, swim ear, any ear issue, lend me your ear.  After 2 1/2 years of having tubes in my son’s ears I have become well-aquainted with ear plugs.  I know every doctor has different rules, but our ENT told us that we needed ear plugs post ear tube surgery only for the lake and the ocean.  He only wanted protection from all that dirty water.  Last summer, I spent a fortune at our local drug and grocery stores trying to find the perfect ear plugs that stayed in my son’s ears and didn’t fall out.  By the end of the summer, I still did not have success.  Nothing worked!  

This summer, I found Putty Buddies!  These handy little plugs are made of silicone and mold perfectly to your child’s ear and they aren’t coming out.  Two plugs come in each container, but I even tear each plug in half to get four re-usable plugs out of each container.  Yes, they are re-usable.  The only reason we had multiple plugs used over the past week is due to color preference.  If you gotta wear ear plugs, it is 100% necessary to have a choice in color, don’t you think? 

My 4 year-old son loved these plugs.  I rolled them in a ball and gently pushed them in his ear until they easily molded to his sweet little ear.  They stayed in, he picked his color each time and we were all happy.  Take it from me.  I have been thru almost all choices in children’s ear plugs and these…these are the best!

I bought this portable hook-on chair, not for my home, but for everywhere BUT home. I was disgusted on a regular basis at the high chairs I encountered at restaurants. I knew they weren’t cleaned between uses and I spent too much time wiping high chairs down in restaurants…they should have paid me for my cleaning prowess. Highchairs in restaurants have caked-on food, layers of dried slobber, and who-knows-what-else.  On top of cleanliness, I found that many industrial high chairs weren’t very safe for my babies.  They could slide out, slide through, or even climb out, as the seat belts never seemed to be functioning.  I couldn’t take it anymore! So, the Hippo Chair entered our family.

There are certainly pros and cons to this chair, but the pros outweigh the cons for our purposes. It does take extra hands to put the seat on the table….a set to hold baby and a set to attach the chair. We also don’t take the chair apart and return it to its bag. I just fold it up and throw it in the back of our car so we have it on the road at all times. We sometimes get weird looks as we carry in our own chair to the restaurant, but more often than not, our meals are kindly interrupted by admiring parents asking us where we got our cool chair.

I amcertain I have increased Chicco sales of the Hippo Chair single-handedly.  On top of that, I am no longer squeamish about putting my child in restaurant high chair.  It’s always clean, safe and fits my baby perfectly.  Amen! and Amen!