Recently, the folks from Education.com reached out to me to ask if I’d be interested in sharing an exclusive, fun activity that parents can do with their kids. I shared a number bingo activity game from them previously that D just loves! They work with teachers and curriculum developers to create educational activities and other resources for kids. As the days get darker and colder and kids spend more time indoors, I thought it would be a great resource both for our family, and to share.

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Recently, the folks from Education.com reached out to me to ask if I’d be interested in sharing an exclusive, fun learning activity that parents can do with their kids. They work with teachers and curriculum developers to create educational activities and other resources for kids. Given how much big D loves math and loves learning, I thought it would be a great resource both for our family, and to share.

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Not too long ago, a friend of mine told me about a little place in Bloor West Village called West End Mamas. It’s a “dedicated wellness clinic for mothers and mothers-to-be,” and boasts services from prenatal yoga to acupuncture, to family counselling and pelvic floor physiotherapy. And since, you know, I kept peeing myself when I coughed, sneezed, or did a squat, I thought I’d check them out, if only for the physio.

First of all, the location of the clinic is super convenient — right across from Jane subway station. It’s actually above my optometrist’s office! Second, everyone in the space is just so gosh darn friendly. I feel like I walk in and I’m just having a chat with one of my best girlfriends — you know, if I had a best girlfriend. Nothing is off the table with these ladies, and I mean, really, once you’ve had a child, your modesty is pretty much gone anyways. Amirite?!

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Hey guys! I’ve got a fun little giveaway for y’all to participate in, as part of Canada’s 150.

Carter’s/OshKosh and the Toronto Maple Leafs have partnered to launch a FREE Limited Edition Lil’ Leafs Bodysuit to celebrate the Leafs and Canada’s big year. This fun collectors item is available exclusively to Torontonians and families in the GTA until April 30, 2017.  It’s as simple as registering online at Mapleleafs.com/hockeydreams to redeem a FREE bodysuit at supporting GTA Carter’s/OshKosh stores.

The bodysuit is a fun gifting idea to celebrate newborns and hockey fans alike (because of course, if you are a fan…they will be too, right?) It also aligns with both the Leafs and Canada’s Centennial year, so what better way to say Happy Birthday than with Canada’s favourite sport.

I am giving away 5 (FIVE) of these body suits in size 6 months, and 1 (ONE) official Toronto Maple Leafs baseball cap in size one-size-fits-most to some of my lucky readers! All you need to do to enter is follow me on Twitter and leave me a comment with your handle below so I can follow back and verify entries. That’s it! Don’t forget to share this post with friends so they have a chance to win as well. I’ll notify all winners within one week of contest close, and will draw the body suits before the hat. I will use Random.org to select winners. Valid only for Canadians. Contest ends April 30 at 11:59 p.m.

Healthy eating is something that’s incredibly important to me as a mom, and I’m always looking for ways to recreate delicious classics at home with healthier ingredients. I’d been toying with the idea of an air fryer for some time, but wasn’t quite sure it was for me.

When an opportunity to test run the Philips Digital AirFryer came up, I had to satisfy my curiosity, and I’m so glad I did.

I don’t know exactly how the fancy proprietary Rapid Air Technology works, but I do know that the Philips AirFryer fries, bakes, roasts and grills with little to no oil, making it a perfect solution for fast, tasty and healthy meals and snacks. I’ve already used it to make sausages, fried chicken, plantains, and more with amazing results. (Stay tuned for some recipes!) 

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We recently had the opportunity to give the new Air Miles beacon technology a spin and thought it was something we just had to share.

First though, what is beacon technology? Beacons are a type of location-detecting service that can then send notifications to your mobile device with special offers or other items of interest, depending on the program.

The number of Air Miles collectors active on mobile has increased by 31 per cent year over year (2011 – 2014). The program aims to bring more value its collectors with a pilot program currently in-market and being tested in 15 Rexall stores in Toronto and Staples stores in Edmonton and Calgary.

“It’s not about how many offers we display, but getting offers they’ll use into their hands,” says Michael Cohen, director of development for Air Miles. “Location-based offers add that context to relevance.” Continue reading →

The wonderful folks at Green Works recently sent us a basket full of their cleaning products to try and with the string of lovely weather we’ve experienced lately, it’s got us in the spring cleaning mood! Their line of cleaning products contain no harmful chemical fumes and are derived from mostly natural ingredients – important things to keep in mind when you have little ones running around.

Over the last couple weeks we’ve given the full range of items a whirl and here’s what we thought.

Glass and surface cleaner

The Green Works glass cleaner got our windows spic and spam even after a long, dirty winter. Using both indoors and outdoors, our windows seemed clearer than even compared to Windex, considered by many the “gold standard” in window cleaning solutions. There also weren’t any streaks I could notice, again unlike when I’ve used Windex in the past. The smell was also not offensive or nauseating the way traditional ammonia-based window cleaners are.

All purpose cleaner

I used this cleaner to clean the dirt and grime off of our front door. What’s supposed to be red often resembles muddy blood because of all the dirt that blows and sticks to it between cleanings. And while a dirty front door drives my nuts (first impressions are everything!) it’s something I probably only clean about three or four times a year – so there’s a lot of dirt built up. I had to go over the door twice with this cleaner, which isn’t unusual and is actually less than the cleaning solution I used to use. Like the glass cleaner, it had a pleasant and inoffensive smell. Two thumbs up for this one. Continue reading →

From as soon as we found out we were expecting, I knew that I wanted to use cloth diapers for our little one. The environmental impact of disposable diapers combined with their harshness on newborn skin has always put me off the idea of using them as a primary method of diapering.

Which led me to Diaper-eez, a fully stocked and loaded cloth diaper boutique that just happened to be located in our very own Bloor West Village!

While we had decided that a service would be the better way to go for us – we didn’t want the wear and tear on our laundry machines, and the extra costs associated with the increased water usage (since cloth diapers need to be rinsed really well) – I still wanted to have an idea of how cloth diapers worked and what would be involved with them.

The service we decided on offers cotton cloth diapers that are pre-folds, which makes a barrier cover a necessity if you don’t want mess on you or your furniture. So I popped in to Diaper-eez to see what cloth diapering was all about. Continue reading →

When it comes to books on pregnancy, there’s no shortage of options to choose from.

In fact, standing in the parenting aisle of any bookstore is enough to induce anxiety in even the most stalwart of parents-to-be.

Deciding which book(s) to read in your journey to becoming a parent can be an overwhelming task. Not many in our group of friends have had kids yet, so we weren’t able to pick their brains for recos ahead of time.

So, on a whim, I was searching through the rows upon rows of books when I came across ‘Your Pregnancy Week by Week’. It had everything I was looking for in a pregnancy book. Continue reading →

(not our crib)

When it came time to select a crib for little one, husband and I took a very long time in deciding which model we’d like. It’d been months we’ve been hunting and nothing was really standing out to as ‘the one’ for our family.

Then someone mentioned mini cribs to me and suddenly it all made sense. Yes. A mini crib is what we needed for our small family home.

After looking at several models, I fell in love with one particular crib dubbed the ‘Emily’ – which just so happens to be the name we chose if little one turns out to be a girl. It seemed like fate that this crib was meant to join our family! Continue reading →