Favorites

Okay, I am joining in on the fun! My good friend April posted about her "favorite" things after reading some of her friends blogs. (her post is here) I read her post, got great ideas, read the links to her friends posts and ended up with awesome new labels for Colin's cups and a fantastic new drink bottle for Colin that stays cool even at the pool!! Awesome! Therefore, I am going to participate, too. I love getting new ideas! So here is some stuff that I am loving right now...

1. City Pools! Let me tell you, things have come a LONG way since I was a kid...almost all the cities around us have awesome community pools complete with water park amenities like beaches, lazy rivers, water slides and splash parks. Now, we do have 7 community pools in my subdivision, so I never even thought about looking at city pools before. My friend Tanya got us started this summer and we are in love. They are super cheap for day passes ($7 or $8 almost everywhere) and kids 3 and under are generally free or next to nothing. We pack picnic lunches and spend our mornings there. Colin LOVES it and it feels like a little vacation. This is the kind of fun that you could only have at an expensive big city amusement park when I was little. I love finding inexpensive things to do with Colin in the heat! WIN!

2. Thermos cup! You all need this cup. With all this time at the pool, I have been having a hard time taking juice for Colin and keeping it cool for longer than 5 minutes. We got this cup a couple of days ago and it is AWESOME. It sat in the sun for more than 2 hours yesterday at the pool and was very hot to the touch when I picked it up. I took a sip for myself and sure enough...the apple juice was still cold! They have a whole collection of these thermos cups and I will absolutely be getting more. I could even bring something like chocolate milk out and about now without worrying about the temps! (and Colin thinks it is awesome that he can open and shut the lid himself)

3. Netflix "Watch Instantly". I have been a member of Netflix for ages. It is pretty dang cheap and something that I don't even think much about anymore. I knew they had some stuff that you could watch instantly on your computer, but I never thought much about it. Well, I figured out a couple of weeks ago that they have a GIANT library of kids stuff available to watch online. Literally hours and hours of choices and you can sort the options by age group! I checked "2-4 years" and let Colin scroll through the whole menu. He LOVES picking out what to watch, they have literally everything under the sun available, and it keeps Colin occupied when I need to actually accomplish something important (like shower!). It is a handy tool to have around when you need to get something done. It has lots more novelty than just turning on the TV, since the options are so varied. And the way they display the movies is great for letting the kids pick their own choice. I think Colin also likes feeling like a big guy sitting at the computer!

I could probably write more, but my computer time is up for the day. :-) Even the simple stuff that you don't think about could be something that a friend never thought of, so this is so much fun to participate in! I am going to try to think of more good stuff to share! Thanks, April!