By Brianna In which Brianna breaks down winter outerwear for snow newbies. Monkey’s daddy is a Marine, and his job moves us around quite a bit. We’re both from New York (state) and used to playing outdoors all year. However, the vast majority of Marines will spend most of their careers stationed in very warm climates, as most of their bases are in the American South, Southern California, or the South Pacific. Today, we live in Michigan. To us the winters we have spent here are hardly different from what we experienced growing up. Wind chill, lake effect, black ice, snow plows are all terms and realities we grew up with. So when it came time to play with our little Monkey in the winter, we knew what she needed, because our parents had swathed us in similar attire. This article is not for people like us. In the military community, we have made friends with people who have never left the South before finding themselves and their children suddenly thrust into the cold arms of a Northern winter (and of course, civilian families might relocate for better jobs, too). It’s hardly Game of Thrones up here, but many states south of Virginia shut down in the face of more than an inch of snow or a day of ice. People from these areas, you know who you are, and I, a native Northerner, am here to help you and your kids through this. I know from experience that a drastically different climate can be a BIG adjustment! My first summer in North Carolina was awful. The air conditioner in our house stopped working, and the humidity gave me a headache that lasted over a week. I thought I’d have to be scraped off the parking lot on my way into the grocery store. Well fear not, my Southern friends, I will not let your children turn into popsicles!
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By Brianna In which Brianna endeavors to acquaint those new to snowy regions with the essential tools for winter wonder enjoyment. This post will contain some affiliate and non-affiliate links, but it's all great. If you make a purchase using an affiliate link, we get money from that sale, which helps keep Busy Nest News going. Thanks! Greetings, snow newbie! If this is your first winter playing in the snow with kiddos, you are in for some fun!
Good news! If you’ve ever brought toys to the beach, you are in luck. Snow isn’t all that different. That is, if it’s the sticky kind of snow. Some snow is very soft, and powdery. That snow is beautiful, but it is difficult to really play with. You need dense, wet snow. How do you know if the snow is good for packing? Try making a simple snowball in your (gloved) hands. If it sticks together and forms a decent ball, it’s ready. By Brianna In which Brianna explains wet bags, their typical manifestations, and what to look for as you accumulate your own fleet of this highly useful piece of gear. This informative article contains a combination of affiliate and non-affiliate links. You need a wet bag.You need a wet bag. I don’t care if you have kids or not, everyone needs a wet bag. If you have a baby, you extra super duper need a fleet of wet bags, but everyone else should have one anyway.
Kids are messy. Babies leak from every place imaginable. I was definitely relieved when I stripped dirty clothes off Monkey and had a wet bag in which to place them. When my wet bag was already back home to be washed, I had to resort to plastic diaper disposal bags to save the interior of our diaper bag. Please, avoid putting wet clothes in plastic bags. The result is incredibly gross, and sometimes went straight to the trash, with no hope of redemption. If you're building a baby registry right now, read this article, and then go add wet bags to your list. Add more than one, or you'll end up like me, throwing out clothes that got gross fast.
By Ariel
This post contains affiliate links. If you buy the featured products using our links, you're helping to keep Busy Nest News running. Thanks! Palermo White Noise Machine
So when it comes to Bean’s sleeping habits we haven’t always been so lucky. True, she sleeps through the night now! But that didn’t happen overnight. It was a struggle.
Living in an apartment in Korea we first had to overcome the hurdle of noisy upstairs neighbors. Elephants all of them! Enter the noise machine. I know. I know! You are supposed to get your child used to sleeping with occasional disturbances. Well it wasn’t happening, so I chose parental sanity over possible sleep problems later on down the line. Do you ever get the feeling that that is all parenting is? Do I deal with this problem now or later? I thought we might be able to retire the noise machine when we moved back to the states. But I forgot how noisy the suburbs are, especially during the summer time. Sprinklers, lawn mowers and fireworks oh my! By the time we made it through Korean apartments and the suburban cacophony Bean was hooked on the noise machine. We have been through several noise machines so far. One stopped working. One came broken. Though I haven’t found the perfect one, I have found the right one for now- the Palermo White Noise Machine. By Brianna This post contains NO affiliate links. If you choose to try these apps, we won't get anything for it, but we'll be really happy you took our advice. We really believe in them, so give it a try and let us know what you think! Glow and EveI could review every period tracking app I’ve ever tried, and maybe I will someday, but today is not that day. Today, I’m going to review the only pair of cycle tracking apps that knocked my proverbial socks off. I say pair, because it’s two sister apps, created by the same company. Glow is the original, intended to help women become pregnant by tracking every fertility metric known to humanity. Eve is Glow’s sassy little sister, meant to help all women track everything to do with their sex life, with very little focus on fertility and more on frequency, pleasure, and period prediction.
By Brianna This post contains affiliate links. If you buy the featured products using our links, you're helping to keep Busy Nest News running. Thanks! Proven Picks for the Littles on Your ListWhen shopping for the holidays, simply walking into a store and hoping to find good ideas for the little in your life can get overwhelming fast! There are so many toys available in early winter, and the malls and stores are packed with people. Likewise, shopping online can get a bit harried, too. You’re being inundated with ads everywhere from your inbox, to your social media account. You can certainly pick the most adorable clothes or toys you come across, but you might be disappointed by how little they get used after the wrapping paper has been discarded.
As you're shopping for presents this year, don’t be afraid of getting toys or books that are a little bit of a reach for your favorite littles. Rather than watch our kids play with everything until January, and then never touch any of it again, we opt for things that we can watch them grow into throughout the year, and hopefully enjoy for another year or two to come. This is a list of toys and products you can expect to put some miles on. Everything is at least useful, and hopefully beautiful as well. Let’s take a look.
By Brianna
This post contains affiliate links. If you buy the product using our links, you're helping to keep Busy Nest News running. Thanks!
BooginHead SippiGrip
When Monkey was a baby, I’d take her for runs and walks with our jogging stroller. She had a favorite teether we had to take with us. But, her flailing little arms would inevitably toss the little toy out of the stroller, and I’d have to backtrack to collect it. Similarly, she had a lot of good times dropping bottles or cups from her highchair. I needed some kind of strap to tether these items to her stroller or highchair. It needed to be long enough to let her use her cup or play with her toy, but short enough that it would still be useable after she inevitably jettisoned the tethered object.
By Ariel
My daughter is an artist, and pen on wall is her medium of choice. If she is asking me for something, it is usually for a pen. “Give me pen?” she plaintively asks. Ten minutes later I am staring at a wall in need of a good magic eraser-ing. Even when I strapped her into her high chair! She somehow used her toddler voodoo and scooched over to the wall, because it was obviously in desperate need of sprucing up. Thanks Bean. I have been on the hunt for creative activities that 1) don’t involve too much damage to property and 2) aren’t susceptible to little chompers. The Bean is not actively teething at the moment, but still feels the needs to chew on everything. One of many options that I came up with was a magnetic drawing board. I remember loving mine as a kid! Plus a magnetic drawing board is easily mobile. This is a huge plus for our family; we seem to constantly be returning from or packing for our next road trip.
By Ariel
I embarked on the parenthood journey full of ideals and goals. But with a husband that works abroad half the year, some things simply were not doable when relying on me, myself, and I to get it all done. The WeeSprout Double Zipper Reusable Food Pouch was one item that made my to-do list a little less daunting. The WeeSprout Double Zipper Reusable Food Pouch has a wide opening that makes filling a cinch – no funnel necessary. The pouches are safe to freeze, which makes batch cooking a possibility. Plus, with both a writing space and see-through window, you can conveniently see the date-produced or content at a glance. The pouches’ double-zip closure seals completely. I still place the pouches in a zip-lock before placing them in the diaper bag because I am overly cautious, but time and time again the pouches prove this is an unnecessary additional step. Not one leak! By Brianna When I was registering for my baby shower, I devoured lists written by other people. I read all of the “ESSENTIALS for Baby” lists, and was just as excited to read the “What you DON’T need to have a baby” lists. Most of the things seemed like common sense, but there were some essentials I’d never heard of. When in doubt, I leaned heavily on the advice of my mother and mother-in-law. Both had more than two children, and their guidance was invaluable. BUT, today I’m reviewing two things they both told me to skip putting on my registry. BasketsFirst up is a general recommendation. Dishwasher baskets. With lids. Both mothers told me I did not need a special dishwasher basket for bottle and sippy cup parts, but both were assuming that I already had a dishwasher basket with a lid. All three homes my husband and I have shared so far have had baskets for flatware, but none of them had any sort of lid to keep things in. If you’re in the same boat, I highly recommend finding a basket that has a lid that snaps tightly into place. Breast pumps, bottles, and sippy cups all have small or lightweight parts that will be as tiny boats in a hurricane once you turn on the dishwasher. Not to mention pacifiers, teethers, and small, plastic toys your child might play with as they grow. I personally was gifted a Munchkin Deluxe Dishwasher Basket, but I would rather have their High Capacity model, as it looks like it would accommodate the parts of our favorite sippy cups much better. But, if you have little clearance between your top rack and the ceiling of the dishwasher, the Deluxe is probably preferable. I give the Deluxe basket four eggs. I haven't tried the high capacity yet, but if I do, I'll update this post with its own allocation.
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AuthorsAriel and Brianna are friends who met while working in a library. Now they collaborate to develop life-enhancing book club experiences. Archives
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