Categories
Everything Else Food

PackIt Love {giveaway}

I discovered PackIt through a friend a little of a year ago. I won a blog giveaway for their original Personal Cooler. When they heard I was expecting two babies, they graciously also included two of their smaller sized mini coolers too.

I use the Personal Cooler as a lunch bag for myself or as the bag to take Zach & Lucy’s 6 daycare bottles & food in. At 8″ x 10″ x 5″, it’s big enough while still fitting in our {giant} diaper bag along with their cloth diaper wet bags.

The Mini Cooler has become my go to so much that I asked for {& received!} a third as a Christmas gift. I take one every day to bring home my pumped bottles. Three 9oz tall Gerber bottles fit perfectly in the 8″ x 8″ x 3″ bag. I store the bag & bottles in my work mini fridge door through out the day then know my milk will stay cold while running errands & on the drive home in my PackIt. The mini will also hold three daycare bottles & a couple small baby food containers, so when we don’t use another PackIt cooler for daycare, we use two minis. I pack the Packits the night before so I rotate between the different sized bags.

I chatted again recently with PackIt as they just launched a couple new bags. My babies big bottles & ever increasing solids containers for daycare means we’ve started almost outgrowing our smaller PackIts. Just in time, PackIt sent me the Social Cooler. This bag is like my others that its gel lined so the bag itself goes right in the freezer then keeps bottles {or whatever you want} cool for up to 10 hours. But the social cooler is big! It’s a roomie 12″ x 13″ x 5″. Perfect for six bottles, four containers of baby food & room to spare. It’d also be great for a day at the beach or a family picnic lunch.

PackIt
My PackIt freezer shelf, the social cooler: front, back & all ready for daycare.

PackIt is willing to generously offer you, my awesome readers, a PackIt bag of your choice. Do you want a wine bag {or two!} for your BYOB girls’ nights? Or is a double baby bottle bag more your speed right now? Check out the different bags & leave a comment letting me know what you’d choose & why as your giveaway entry.

As a second entry, follow me {@suzstreats} & PackIt {@packitcool} on twitter & tweet something like “Enter to win a @packitcool cooler #giveaway of your choice with @suzstreats http://suzstreats.com/packit-love-giveaway/”. Leave a link to your tweet in another comment, please.

Feel free to also like PackIt on facebook & instagram.

I’ll leave the giveaway open until next Friday May 24th at midnight. I’ll draw a winner using random.org & let the winner know by Memorial Day Monday May 27th. Good luck!

I won three PackIts in a long ago giveaway. I was sent the social cooler for purpose of this review but I was not compensated in any other way. Nor did their generosity sway my honest opinion on their awesome product. 

Categories
Motherhood

Mother’s Day

Husband came home Saturday night after being on a work trip to CA for two weeks. It was the longest we’d spent apart since we met 9 years ago. It was also the longest he’d been away from the babies by far. He missed us & we were very glad to see him too.

As I’d mentioned, I was lucky to have my dad helping out while J was gone. And we were lucky that my mom drove back & forth on the weekends & cooked enough for most weekday meals in between. That also meant they were still in town Sunday.

It was very special to spend my first mother’s day with outside babies with my mom here too. We shared cards in the morning. Jason gave me a new 50mm DSLR lens {yay for actually being able to take pics in my dimly lit den!} & the babies via my MIL gave me a sweet bracelet. Mom, Lucy, Zach & I went to church then picked up Boj’s on the way home. No big cooking for us!

I did make Lucy & Zach purees for the week & heated up a chicken soufflé casserole {recipe post to come} that Mom had put together Sat. Mom & I took Lucy & Zach for a walk around the neighborhood with a dual purpose: a much needed nap for them & getting them out if the house while their Dada & Pops put together a water table & play coupé {birthday gifts for next week}.

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Jason snapped the below photo of my favorite part of the day though.

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Both L & Z have been close to/almost/kinda/maybe putting m & a syllables together for a week or so. But no ‘mama mama’ & never to me. Until Sun evening! I put Zach down to take out dinner out of the even & pull out dinner from the fridge for them. As I walked away he screamed out ‘mama mama!’. I whipped around, scooped him up & cried! My tiny lil guy called me by name, y’all!!

Hope all my mother readers {moms, moms-to-be, grandmas, aunts, pet moms & those praying for motherhood} had a great day!

Categories
Reading

Fever & Labor Day

Fever by Mary Beth Keane is my books clubs’ September pick. But it became available from the library quickly & even more amazing, I found time to make it there to pick it up before my hold expired.

Fever tells the story of Mary Mallon, who you might know as Typhoid Mary. The author does a great job telling Mary’s story. Making us see her as the human, the lady with real feelings & sense of self behind the scary nickname.

Before Fever, I didn’t know that much about typhoid nor the sanitation of NYC in the early 1900s. I also thought all the discussion of the working class was very interesting. I wasn’t familiar with North Brother island & that sick & seriously ill were isolated like they were.

If you’re interested in reading about the person behind the typhoid headlines, read Fever. But don’t wikipedia her first if you want to be surprised. I did & then it took away some of the book for it. I still thought it was very interesting & a good book.

Labor DayLabor Day had been passed down to me when a friend moved. I’m pretty sure it sat untouched on my den floor for a year before about a month ago I snatched it up.

I read the book in under a week while pumping. It wasn’t a can’t-put-it-down thriller, but I liked it none the less. Labor Day takes place over {you guessed it} Labor day weekend in a small town in the northeast. It’s told from the perspective of a coming-of-age boy in regards to how a chance meeting on this weekend changed his life.

It was good. Not great in a over the top super memorable way. But I’m glad I read it.

Categories
Motherhood

A New Definition of Fun

When I think back on the first months of mothering preemies to now there’s no comparison. I think back to where we were once too busy for anything including sleep. Too busy dealing with all the changes, all the challenges, all the hardships, all the life to find but fleeting moments of joy.

Not to say that now isn’t still hard, as it is, but these new challenges, new situations {like solids & adding in formula} I can roll with & they keep me on my toes. But these days are also filled with so many more moments of fun.

I think we’ve reached very fun age. These last months as Lucy & Zach are interacting more & more & sponging everything have been wild to watch. To be there the moments they push toy/walk for the first time. They walk holding our fingers. They open mouth laugh while being tickled & copy cat us making funny faces.

After my mom left last weekend, she was sad saying on the phone that she’d be missing out on the fun my dad & I would have with the babies this week. My dad laughed & said it’s hard to call this fun. {He’s the one who’s picked up handling laundry, dishes & bottle washing while I’m at work these two weeks. And also giving morning snuggles & Zach’s bedtime routine.}

After they hung up, I laughed & said to Dad, this is my version of fun. Playing with a tiny kitchen. Putting balls on a play table. Feeding babies. Making bottles. Washing diapers. Putting Lucy & Zach to bed. It’s now my evening fun. And what choice do I have? As I said, this is my life; I have to call it fun or go a lil crazy.

Hard but Fun
Wrangling two babies while I make bottles is crazy, hard & fun!

So as I juggle holding & hugging two before & after working a full time day job, paying bills {including still fighting with my health ins company & hospital over maternity bills} & making dinners, I can say that not every moment is fun. Trust me, Lucy was the only one really having fun still being awake Sunday night at 1030p! But it was fun that she was blowing raspberries, making kissy fish faces & clapping she was so impressed with herself afterward.

That is my new defition of fun. And I’ll take it.

{Today marks one year since Zach’s water broke which was the catalyst that began my 2 weeks of bed-rest followed by their birth. Be prepared for more sappy posts as I reflect on their first year here & my first year of motherhood.}

Categories
Reading

The Silver Linings Playbook

After getting so much movie buzz, my book club decided to read Matthew Quick’s novel & discuss it for our May meeting. I took advantage of kindle’s $4.99 sale since the weight list at our library was crazy long. This is the first book I’ve bought in a while but it was worth it IMO.

Silver Linings Playbook follows the story of Pat, a guy recovering from mental illness. He’s trying to find his footings after being released from a mental hospital & moving back home with his parents & without his wife. He’s experiencing ‘apart time’ from his wife & doing everything he can to better himself. The story follows along this journey as he’s looking for the silver linings in his life.

I haven’t seen the movie & have heard it’s not as good as the book {most aren’t}. After reading the book, I can’t imagine Mr. Eye Candy Cooper as Pat, but I still want to see the film. I’ve also heard that a big scene that the entire book leads up to discovering is shown in the preview. That’s weird.

I’d recommend Silver Linings Playbook to pretty much anyone. Philly natives & Eagles fans would enjoy it. Dads & sons. People with ties to mental illness. It was a quick read & one I kinda missed reading after I was done.