Safety 1st 3-in-1 Elite Air 80 Convertible Car Seat - Giveaway & Review!!!

*** I was provided a car seat to facilitate my review but All opinions expressed here are my own.

We bought a Britax Marathon for Payton when she was ready to move up from her carrier car seat and we loved it.  I continued to use it with my second baby, Emmy.  That is a no no.  Uh oh.  Did you know car seats have an expiration date of 6 years?  Well, since Payton is now 7 that means that the car seat is out of date.  Every car seat should have a manufacturer stamp of date of production so you can figure out if your is too old also.  Some also have them stamped into the plastic. When I was sent this seat to review I was able to see first hand how much a car seat can change in 7 years.  Let me tell you it is a lot! The thing that impressed me the most is how much more full body protection they have.  Safety First states they are positively the safest choice in full body protection. Believe me they are accurate. Look at how Emmy's body is cradled and hugged just like you want it to be in a car seat. Check out those things beside her head. That is air technology to help if you have a side impact collision.  Wow.  Technology is amazing.

Did I mention that this car seat is a 3-in-1 meaning it can be used for when baby is newborn up until they are 80 pounds.   Now, I've had reservations about a car seat like this for a newborn before but let me tell you we took out all the inserts so Emmy could fit in it.  There is plenty of support and contouring for a new born too. It also can recline really far back like a typical carrier style car seat would.  Below is a picture of when it came straight of the box you can see all the additional supports that were included. Let me tell you this car seat is heavy.  Which I like.  You want some weight to car seat to know that is solid built. The size  is comparable to the Britax Classic we had previously so you may have a hard time if you have a compact car. One more feature I want to mention that I love is when your child grows it has a latch at the top center that you can use to adjust so need to rethread the harness.

I could go on and on about this car seat for days.  We love it. 

Emmy's favorite part as you can see below is the dual cup holders.  Of course, that is just a happy extra.  Our #1 concern is how safe our baby will be in case of an accident and this car seat has her as safe as she can be. Hands down. 

 Here is some more specifics of the car seat from the manufacturer: 

· Safety 1^st Elite 80 3-in-1 car seat

The Elite 80 works in rear-facing mode for babies up to 40 pounds, then converts to forward-facing with harness, but features an extended weight range to keep children safely in harness all the way to 80 pounds. In its 3rd mode, the Elite 80 goes beyond the traditional convertible seat to convert into a belt-positioning booster car seat for children up to 100 pounds. Additionally Air Protect + combines the advanced protection of our Air Protect® cushion system with patentedGCell HX™ foam designed with hexagonal shapes for 100% full body production.

Car Seat Safety Tips From JulieVallese, Safety 1^st Consumer Safety Expert.

Importance of Rear Facing

In March of 2011 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated their car seat recommendations advising that children should remain rear facing until the age of two, or until they reach the maximum height and weight requirements allowed by their car seat. According to a study in the Journal of Injury Prevention children under the age of two are 75 percent less likely to die or be severely injured in the event of a car crash if they are rear facing. When a child is rear facing their head, neck and spine are better supported and in the event of an accident, crash forces are distributed over the child’s entire body.

Installation

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, 75% of car seats are installed incorrectly. Every car and car seat has different requirements for the safest installation so before you get started it is important to read both the car seat and car manual.

Typically the center rear seat is the safest place for a car seat, and never install a car seat in the front seat. If your car does not have a latch connector for the middle seat, you can use the middle seat belt to properly secure the base. When installing, make sure the base of the car seat moves no more than an inch from side to side. An easy way to test this is to hold at the belt path.

New parents and grandparents are encouraged to attend a car seat check before the baby is born. However, don’t just rely on the experts. You’re likely going to be taking the car seat out and installing it somewhere else at some point, so make sure you’re comfortable with the process too.

Car Seat Expiration

Never use used or old car seats. Car seats do have an expiration date and it is to understand the risks associated with using an expired or old car seat. The reason for an expiration date is because plastic can warp and materials can fray, which can make car seats less safe to use. Car seat technology and state and federal car seat regulations change. A car seat deemed safe more than six years ago may no longer meet federal testing regulations. Important warning labels may wear out and instruction books may get lost, which can lead to improper use of the car seat.

If you would like to find a car seat check near you can go to safekids.org or seatcheck.org

These car safety tips are brought to you by JulieVallese, Safety 1^st Consumer Safety Expert in honor of Child Passenger Safety Week. I was provided a car seat to facilitate my review but All opinions expressed here are my own.

WINNER!!WINNER!!WINNER!!WINNER!!WINNER!!WINNER!!WINNER!!WINNER!!

WINNER!!WINNER!!WINNER!!WINNER!!WINNER!!WINNER!!WINNER!!WINNER!!

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Emmy's 2nd Birthday!

Isn't she the cutest thing, ever?  I love her so much and can't believe she is two.  Well like three months...ago.  Life is busy!

  

My little cheeseburger in front of her birthday display.

She's so civilized. Lol. She is only two so I thought a smash cake was still appropriate but apparently not.  She wouldn't touch it until we gave her a fork and then fed her sister cake.

Here is her party set up.  I tried to reuse anything I had left over from last year and previous parties.  It was a very simple gathering.

Summer Bucket List 2013

Hopefully we will do most of this on the list.  Ambitious...I know.  With the baby big enough to take out and about I felt it was high time we did some of the sites. So ready or not here we come!

Batman Birthday Party!

Holy Batman, I'm tired.  I've been through 4 parties in one month and I'm sick of parties.  Finally, they are over which is always bitter sweet.   So much planning and then it is over.  Here is our friends Batman party that I planned.  This was the tablescape.

 Here are the chocolate batman suckers....which were a big hit.  I made the sucker holder out of a $2.99 plaque from Hobby Lobby by drilling holes into it that were a tiny bit smaller than the sucker sticks so they would stand up nice and straight.  I then pained the board with black craft paint.  Voila, an instant center piece.

 Personalized water bottles and favor bags.  I strongly suggest printing at your local printing shop if you just have an ok printer.  I sell them in my Etsy shop now.

Here are the Batman personalized water bottle bottles favors.

Personalized water bottle labels with black straws I found at Michaels.

Pop labels that were so cute!  I even made sure to put the "POP" to the outside so when you are taking a drink that is what you see.  I sell them in my Etsy shop now.

Super hero poster I designed in Picmonkey.  Took for.ev.er!  Probably because I did it completely different than the directions this lady so kindly tried to explain but it got done none the less.  Super cheap statement piece.  The more parties I have the more statement pieces I try to have because the little time consuming projects take up SO MUCH TIME! This was super cheap too ($3.50 for an engineer print at Staples).  It's my new go too item for parties. I sell this in my Etsy shop now.

Invite the mom sent via email. Designed it in Picmonkey.  Angela, have I ever told you, "thank you, for introducing the two of us?" 

Girl Scout Door Hanger - For Cookie Sales

My sweet little girl and her Daddy went to sell Girl Scout cookies.  Did I think that they would come back having sold 106 boxes? Uh no. He travels....a lot.  So, I knew I would be the one having to deliver all 106 boxes.  Great.  With my toddler this would surely be fun.  So I tried to have everything orderly so we could be as proficient as possible. One thing I did make that I thought would help our delivery was make these little "we missed you" door hangers. They were easy and simple enough. Last thing I wanted to do was have to do this outing more than once.  But in the end I was over the moon she was happy that she had sold all the boxes, made the multiple sales, and had the interaction with adults to help her speaking abilities. 

Update 2013: These are now available in my Etsy shop. I sell these here on my site. Contact me: mspaytonjones@yahoo.com and I will start your order.

We also made thank you notes that I thought were adorable.  We saw this version of the idea here. Again, with the same theme of proficiency I added a place for the buyer's name and amount owed. I used a thin tip Sharpie to fill it in. I left space on the left side to hole punch so it could be threaded though the ribbon for the boxes that were together. This did not work out. The cards were too bulky for the tied boxes. Thankfully, the thank you note slipped easily between the ribbon.  Orders that had four or more boxes were put into gift bags. The thank you note did get tied to the ribbon and those looked cute.

Baby Feet!

I'm in love with my baby's feet right now!!!

Little Red Riding Hood & The Big Bad Wolf Costume Inspiration

For Halloween this year I'm thinking my six year old needs to be Little Red Riding Hood and her dad needs to be The Big Bad Wolf.  I can't decide on which wolf though.  Since he is 6'3 I'm not sure the granny wolf will fit him and he is very hot natured.  So, I'm sure he would much rather a mask and a cloak he could take off if he got too hot and he would probably be much more comfortable in his jeans and t-shirt. 

Delima....Since I would have to make everything I'm trying to figure out if it would be worth it.  But, if he is in town there is a Father & Daughter Halloween Girl Scout dance where they will have the opportunity to wear these as a pair.  That just sounds weird to me Halloween Father & Daughter dance....is it just me?

Update 2013: I made the Little Red Riding Hood costume last year but didn't take very many pictures but fortunately my daughter wanted to be for two years.  Here are the pictures in her costume.

Rolo Pencil Valentines

Here is what we decided to do for the teachers for Valentine's Day.  I saw these on Pinterest here and I thought they would be easy enough....and they kind of were...just time consuming and the cardstock paper is kind of hard to work with especially when you are trying to get it tight around the rolos.

Right after I took this picture we put them in a bag for my daughter to take to school and low and behold before we could get out the door our dog, Ginger ate one whole pencil including the paper, kiss, string and all.  She was feverishly working on the second one when we caught her.  Needless to say she spent the rest of day OUTSIDE. 

Gotta love a dog.

So only my daughter's most "favorite" teachers got one. 

Pin It

100th Day of School Shirt

In Kindergarten it is a big deal for the 100th day of school.  So of course we had to make a shirt to celebrate this glorious occasion.  I would have showed you what I did but it is pretty self explanatory.  I used this tutorial for the roses (which I thought were kind of too big) but Payton insisted that we put them on....she's fancy like that.

I printed the numbers out of my computer using Microsoft Word and then used them as my pattern.  Yours might be different in size depending on the size of your child/shirt.  I used scrap material, cut out my numbers and pinned them on the shirt.  I SHOULD have used steam a seam and it would have been so much EASIER but I didn't have any and didn't want to go to the store.  I bought this shirt at Target just for this project so all it had to last was for one day.  If you want something more permanent then you should definitely use the steam a seam. 

Overall I was happy with the shabby chic look it had and Payton was happy too.  Happy 100th day of school.  I'm so proud of my "big" girl.

Diapers From Amazon.com

Here are the diapers I have bought so far from Amazon.com.  According to my calculations.....here is how many I would use and how many I have so far.

Diapers

8-10 diapers a day?

9/day x 7 = 63

63/week x 4 = 252/month

Size N

36

Size 1 – Swaddler Sensitive

(8-14 lb)

2-3 months stayed in this weight range

180

180

192

=552

Size 2

(12-18 lb)

3-4 months stayed in this weight range

224

152

248

=624

Size 3

(16-28 lb)

1-2 years stayed in this weight range

Here's what I paid....depending on the coupons used.  I usually used (2) 20% coupons together or I used (1) 20% + $10 coupon and always except for maybe once or twice because I forgot used Amazon mom which saves you an additional 30%.  But, as all good thing must come to an end I tried to use some coupons today to order even more diapers and it wouldn't let me.  Up until now I was able to use expired coupons that dated back until Nov. & Dec. but now the one's expiring even just yesterday 3/31/11 said they were expired.  I thought this might happen since the latest coupons were coming from March magazines and I hadn't heard of any other one's with later dates.  But, I was just too tired to get on my computer and order them last night.  Oh well....it would have only been only one other box of diapers anyways.   Hopefully, Amazon will continue to put out these diaper coupons so I can continue to stock up on diapers.

This is on average what I paid.  Some were smaller boxes but, I didn't move the boxes for fear they would all come tumbling down on my head.  When they arrived in the mail I wrote the original price and price paid on the box with a sharpie for future reference.

Size 1

192 count

Originally $44.79

Paid $19.11

Size 2

248 count

Originally $62.09

Paid : $18.62

Size 3

174 count

Originally: 51.44

Paid: 15.72

Homemade Photo Memory Game

One of my favorite games growing up as a child is memory.  I loved it.  So I decided to make a photo memory game for my daughter for Christmas.  It's very simple and you can do in an afternoon.

You will need scrapbook paper, chip board, mod podge, foam brush, card stock (or copy paper), and some sort of cutting device (I used a paper cutter I already had, but you can use an exacto knife of box cutter to cut your chip board. 

First, you need to cut your chip board.  I cut mine 3x3 but I think the original memory game is 2x2 squares. I cut 20 squares but you can do more or less depending on the age of your child.

Second, you need to cut your scrapbook paper the same size as your chipboard squares. 

Third, print off 3x3 photos on your home printer.

  Fourth, modge podge your scrapbook paper to your chipboard and let dry.

 Fifth, flip over and modge podge your picture on the other side. 

Lastly, I modge podged over the surface of the scrapbook paper and the photo to seal it really good. 

Then, wrap up for Christmas morning.

Fort Gibson, OK Seussical the Musical

Seussical the Musical

Thursday, November 18 at 3:00pm - November 21 at 3:00pm

Fort Gibson High school, 500 south Ross Avenue

This weekend I took my daughter to see Seussical the Musical at Fort Gibson, OK high school.  The cost was $5 a person unless your child sat on your lap.  I was thoroughly impressed. Everything from the students performance, costumes, and stage props were fabulous.  I suggest anyone that lives near by, even Tulsa should take their children to see this musical.  The students worked really hard on this musical and it shows.  It was a little long for my 4 year old daughter so we left at intermission which I think was an hour in.  But, I loved it and I think your children would too.  For $5 a person I think this is a bargain family fun night.  I realize I'm posting this after the performance but they put this on every year and you contact the school next year for the times they will be performing.

Synopsis:

The Cat in the Hat tells the story of Horton, an elephant who discovers a speck of dust containing Whos, including Jojo, a Who child sent off to a butter battling military school for thinking too many "thinks." Horton's attention to the speck of dust and his "loitering" care of Mayzie LaBird's egg has elicited taunting and accusations from the rest of the animal kingdom, except for Gertrude McFuzz, who longs for his attention, and JoJo, whose "thinks" save them all in the end.

Kidelicious.com: $25 in FREE Food!

Kidelicious.com– an online kids’ Food store, that will not “Open” until January 2011, is offering up $25 in FREE food! All they ask is for you to take a short survey here. After doing so, they will email a promotional code valid for $25 worth of free food on your first order at Kidelicious.com! This email may go in your spam box, so make sure to check there (mine didn't). Also, remember that you will not be able to use this until January 2011 (when they open).

Barbie Instant Win Game: Prize Arrived TODAY!

Remember this Barbie Instant Win Game?  Well I got a letter in the mail a couple of months ago saying my prize was delayed but it arrived TODAY!  My daughter always loves when we get packages and ALWAYS asks if it is for her.  Well today was her lucky day because it was for her.  Isn't this adorable.  It's a barbie hard case purse with a barbie bracelet to match.  And you guessed it FREE!

Cinemark Summer Movie Clubhouse: 10 Movies for Only $5!

Looking for some inexpensive ideas for the kids during summer break? This promotion was around last year and I’m glad to see that it’s back! It’s one offer you can’t beat! My daughter and I did this last year and she loved it! It also is great if your not sure if you child is old enough to sit through a whole movie. Luckily mine was....but if she hadn't have been we were only out a $1.

Also, make sure you get there early if you don't buy your tickets in advance, which we didn't and once we didn't get to see our movie because they were sold out. We won't be making that mistake again.

Cinemark Summer Movie Clubhouse is offering 10 movies this summer for only $5! If you purchase tickets at the door it will be $1 but if you buy them in advance, you can get 10 movies for only $5 . There will a be different G or PG rated movies each week!

You get 10 weeks of fun films for the kids with a different movie each weekday morning.

The $5 Series punch cards are limited and are now available only at the theatre box office while supplies last. Admission with a series punch card is limited to one person per card per movie, and valid only at the theatre where purchased.

Click HERE to learn more and find a theater near you!

Disney Movie Rewards: New 10 Point Code!

Login or register here, then enter code DMR! Enjoy your 10 point code!

Rainbow Cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day!

Here is my attempt to make rainbow cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day.  I thought I would try this when I saw it here. 

Instructions:

Prepare your favorite white cake mix, then divide the batter evenly among six small bowls. Following the chart below, dye each bowl of batter a rainbow color.

RAINBOW COLOR DROPS OF FOOD COLORING

Purple 9 red and 6 blue drops

Blue 12 drops

Green 12 drops

Yellow 12 drops

Orange 12 yellow and 4 red drops

Red 18 drops

Line 16 muffin pan wells with baking cups. Evenly distribute the purple batter among the cups, then the blue, and so on, following the order shown. As you go, gently spread each layer of batter with the back of a spoon to cover the color underneath.

Bake the cupcakes according to your recipe directions. Then, decorate however you like.

Can you taste the rainbow?

Tip: If you want even more vibrant colors than my cupcakes, use gel food coloring.  I also would only use 5 colors eliminating the purple.  I think it get too time consuming with six colors and it would help the other colors stand out better if you only used 5.

We will be on vacation on St. Patrick's Day but wouldn't it be fun to make rainbow pancakes. I know.....dear husband if you are reading this that you think I am crazy:)  .....trust me our daughter loves this kind of stuff.

Hallmark: Free Kids Card (Choose From 9 Different Designs)!

Hallmark right now is giving away one FREE card from their kids collection (select from 9 different designs) to help cheer them on!  Wonderful, as a teacher I love anything that gives encouragement to your child.  Click here to find one at your local Hallmark store.

Pampers Gifts to Grow: New 30 Point Code!

Pampers Gifts to Grow 30 point code! Login and enter code GTGTEAMUSA2010 to score 30 points!

Free Book From Scholastic for Online Survey (about Pampers Easy Ups)

Click here and go to bottom right and click on the box "Your opinion counts".