July 15th, 2010

TILT: Wooden Toys

Things I Love Thursdays is back! This week – wooden toys. Now, the only unfortunate thing is that I am going to tell you all about them and how much I love these, but you can’t really buy them that easily. But, it is easy to buy other wooden toys.

We My husband found these awesome toys along Highway 34 (I think) going from Rocky Mountain National Park to Loveland in Colorado. We were driving along and there was a sign that said Toy Sale and a guy with a table. The hubs was compelled to stop and I am so glad we did. Hubs is a toy collector himself so at first I wasn’t sure if we were stopping for him or for Spencer. Turns out, it was for both. The collector toys were out of our price range; the detail was amazing and it was neat just to look at them. There were also tons of simple toys for children like the mixer and this little car.

While the picture makes it has to tell scale, this little car is about 3 inches long. We handed it to Spencer to see if he liked it and it went straight into his mouth. The toy guy just laughed and said he could have it. The toys are all handmade and treated with a kid-friendly finish.

The last one we got is this car carrier, which is awesome because it doubles as a puzzle. The green, blue and pink cars only fit in the carrier bed one way. I love it. Spencer is too young to figure out the puzzle part, but he loves tipping it over.

Moral of the story : if you find yourself tooling down the highway and see a strange man selling toys, stop! It might be worth it.

June 3rd, 2010

Things I Love Thursday: Benefit Boi-ing

I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in months and I learned the value of make-up pretty early on in my new mom adventure. My doctor translated my breastfeeding struggles as post-partum depression because I would cry when talking about it.  And then I wore make-up and my hair down, spoke about breastfeeding, still voiced frustration and got teary, but magically ppd was not mentioned. Behold the magic power of Boi-ing.

In general, I don’t wear a lot of make-up on a daily basis: light powder or foundation, mascara, eye shadow and clear lip balm. I would use concealer as needed and that is how I found Boi-ing. It came in a set I ordered and it is perfect. It is long lasting and easy to blend. After I had Spencer, I found that it could be applied fairly heavily in the under-eye area and not look cakey. It is a lifesaver when the little guy wakes up all night and I need to look good the next day. The only negative I see to Boi-ing is that it only comes in 3 shades, so it may not work for every one. I use number 2, medium and it works great, but is slightly too dark in the middle of winter when I am pale and pasty.

Disclosure: This post was not sponsored by Benefit, nor did I receive any samples to review. That said, if they wanted to send me stuff, I wouldn’t turn it down. I love most of their product line.

May 20th, 2010

Things I Love Thursdays: Beer Can Cupcakes

I just got a package in the mail from Bake It Pretty and it pretty much was full of the awesome. My plan for Father’s Day is to make cupcakes and I found the absolutely perfect toppers – beer cans! While beer can cupcake toppers would be great for many fathers, these are especially perfect for my husband for he is a huge Pabst Blue Ribbon fan (his grandfather was a Pabst distributer). These include PBR as one of the cans. My husband doesn’t like frosting, so I found a berry flavored icing that you dip the top of the cupcake in. I hope these work out. I’ll post pictures after I make them.

Photo Credit: BakeItPretty.com

Disclosure: I was not compensated in any way for this post. I paid cold hard cash for these and think you should too. Bake It Pretty has no idea this post even exists.