nmoon's Profile

At our old place we had a door that led from the kitchen to the laundry room/pantry and we painted that door with chalkboard paint. My husband and I used the top portion for reminders and lists and my kids used the lower portion for doodling. We loved it!

I also painted the inner part of one kitchen cabinet door and wrote love notes to my husband on that one. :)

I have a permanent scar under my eye due to getting smacked in the face when I was a kid with a metal pipe by a blindfolded kid searching for a pinata. So yeah, pinatas don't exactly fill me with joy.

But I love the idea of crayons, erasers and other usable items in a pinata rather than cheap plastic toys that will be forgotten and thrown away an hour after the party. But I can see kids being disappointed by a pinata with no candy. Isn't a pinata all about the candy spilling to the ground? (Also, apparently, metal pipes and ER visits.)

Another vote for in the trunk. If you have a pretty looking stroller, like the bugaboo in the picture, then it's less of a problem anyway I would imagine.

What a sweet gift for loved ones on Valentine's Day! I'll definitely be doing this.

I grew up eating at a separate kids table and I came out of that experience feeling strongly that I wanted my family to eat together as a family. The frequency in which a child eats together with their family has been associated as a protective factor for everything from drug use to grades in school to depression. And even with basic things like table manners, I can speak from experience that the only way I ever learned to function at an adult table was through the weekly dinners at my grandmother's table. I love sitting down with my children for meals. Yes, it's probably somewhat harder to clean up after and our nice dining table has some great fork imprints, but it's more than worth it.

Beautiful room! I'd love to know where the rug is from...it's almost exactly what I've been looking for.

Talk to ten different sets of parents and you'll get ten different answers so my advice is to buy what you'll need for the first month or so - diapers and wipes and a place to put the dirty ones, a couple swaddling blankets, carseat, changing pad with something to put it on (we put ours on the bathroom counter) and something for the baby to sleep in be it a crib, moses basket, co-sleeper, whatever your fancy, and maybe a sling (lifesaver for me and many others, totally useless for others). Unlike a lot of parents, I actually was gifted with so much bigger sized clothing and really appreciated the few newborn sized outfits I received. They have to wear something~ when they're seven pounds, right?

We had SO MUCH STUFF for our first baby and I ended up re-selling or giving away most of it (swing, bouncer, big stroller, bumbo seat, loud plastic toys, etc.). Then with our second I bought practically nothing new, but then I discovered he absolutely LOVED swings and so we ended up getting one after he was born. Kids are different. On that note, whatever you can borrow or buy used is probably a good idea because even if you buy, say, a baby bjorn, you and your baby might end up never using it and totally preferring a moby sling or what have you.

Here are things that I found to be pretty generally useless - wipe warmer, bottle warmer, big stroller unless you jog and use a jogging stroller.

I totally agree with this. I grew up in a 1300 sq. ft home with 2 brothers in one room, my parents in a third, and me, our live-in nanny and her infant daughter in a converted dining room. It was lovely and as children we thought we lived in a palace. Although we did have a great backyard, which is the only thing I long for now that I live in a 1300 sq ft., 2 bedroom condo with two kids. Our year old baby still sleeps in our walk-in closet/nursery since, really, all he needs right now is a crib. I don't long for more space, just a small yard. I like that everybody is close, that all our spaces are USED (I never really got the whole living room AND a family room thing...especially when the living room seemed to exist only for "show" and special visitors) and that we are forced to keep our stuff to a minimum. My kids only have toys that they actually play with, anything else gets donated or put away on a closet shelf to be brought out again later.