Earlier this winter, I reviewed some Head & Shoulders shampoo and conditioner. It was great! It left my hair flake-free (something I was battling with the dry winter air) and feeling fresh and clean. The smell of the eucalyptus one wasn’t medicinal at all – it was pleasant, and even tingled a little which was a nice wake-up in my morning shower.

So when BlogHer asked me to review Head & Shoulders’s new Green Apple scented shampoo and conditioner, I was more than happy! I’ve had the same results with this one – not much noticeable in the way of flaking, and my hair looks good.

Unfortunately, the apple scent (which I normally LOVE in any product) didn’t quite hit home for me. In the shower, every time I lather up with the apple shampoo, I have the feeling that “something went wrong with this smell.” I don’t know if it’s my pregnancy, or if I just personally don’t like it, or if it truly smells weird…the conditioner smells less-bad in the shower, but still not good. Once out of the shower everything is fine though, and one day I did happen to catch a whiff of my own hair later on, and had the thought that it smelled lovely and appley.

So you should probably sniff it in the store to see if you think you’d like it, but it definitely resulted in “good hair” for me even if the smell wasn’t my favorite this time.

The shampoo lathers up really nicely which lets you use just a small amount, even with long hair. I usually don’t use conditioner unless my hair feels particularly dry, but for the review period I have been. The conditioner does a good job of helping get tangles out and doesn’t feel too heavy, though every third shower (or so) I felt like I needed to wash with regular shampoo and no conditioner, as if there were some sort of buildup. I’m not sure if that’s my imagination or what, but there it is.

Not a big deal though. I just have the Head & Shoulders shampoo and conditioner, plus one other shampoo in my shower right now.

Now that I’m finished reviewing the apple scent, I’ll switch back to the eucalyptus ones in my shower…I’m missing the smell and the tingly scalp too!

Do you want to be entered for a chance to win a $50 Visa gift card? Let me know what scents make you feel beautiful and fresh in the comments!

Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older.

Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.

You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 1/30 – 2/28 .

Be sure to visit the Promotions & Prizes page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win! And visit the Life Well Lived section on BlogHer.com for more great tips on looking your best.

I was really excited to host my PartyLite party for this review, not just because of the fun-looking goodies in their catalog and the potential to earn free stuff… but because it was a great excuse to spruce up my house, cook some good food, and invite friends to spend the afternoon together. While there definitely is a sales aspect to any home sales party (duh), the social part is still there and it’s still a ton of fun. Heck, I go shopping with my friends at Target or the mall… this is basically the same, but in my comfy house.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves — exploring the catalogues, smelling the samples, and asking questions. The PartyLite Consultant, Sherri Smith, kept everything low-key and engaging. She had everyone introduce themselves and say how they know me (can we say I have a lot of natural parenting friends? Most were from NPNH and LLL, with a few from my squadron’s FRG and a couple neighbors) and ask one question about PartyLite. A lot of great information came out of this little session, and I won’t spoil it all for you (you should do some exploring on your own), but in case you’re wondering – I thought this was cool – they have a line of candles and oils made with essential oils instead of fragrance oils. So no VOCs from those, and I loved 3 out of the 4 of them (the other one has ginger in it which I’m not super-wild about in my food or in my nose).

Oh, see those tickets? Everyone who asked or answered a question got one, and Sherri gave away a few awesome little door prizes at the end.

See? Everyone’s engaged. Even the babies are interested.

Sherri also told us about how she’s kind of a lazy decorator… instead of having lots of decorations for each season, she has these vase-like candle holders that can hold seasonal stuff. And she has ziploc baggies filled with “fillers” for each season/holiday. So all she has to do is dump out her Christmas “fillers” back in their plastic baggie, and dump in some Valentine’s “fillers.” Easy. This sounds great for someone who doesn’t like having a lot of junk around, or military wives like (most of) my friends at the party who move frequently and don’t want to have tons to pack all the time. Switching out your scents for the seasons can also make an impact in the “vibe” of your house for different times of year.

Once Sherri finished telling us about PartyLite, their products, and her story, she finished answering lingering questions and we set about the mingly/explorey/hanging-out-y part of the party.

We all flipped through our catalogs, including (lucky us!) the winter clearance catalog. The Spring catalog launched December 16th, so we got to look at all the new items too.

We had some yummy food, which I completely went overboard on I think… you could definitely just crack open a jar of salsa and a bag of chips.

I had prosciutto-wrapped pineapple, grapes, meat/crackers, pickles, a-freaking-mazing artichoke dip, bacon-wrapped dates, and …

…a new cheese ball I invented for this party. I’ll have to type it up in its own official recipe post soon, but I’ll just tell you now… cream cheese. PartyLite’s pepper jelly, and pecans. Simple. Great. I got some of those gluten-free nut crackers to eat it with, and they were good, but I actually like it better on celery. So delicious! It was so good, in fact, that several people ordered pepper jelly just so they could make more at home.

Sherri talked to everyone, answered more questions, explained things, and took orders…

And we all made our final decisions about what we wanted in our own homes. I really enjoyed the chance to smell all of the samples. There was a page with all the smells listed, and I just went through with a sharpie, smelling each sample and either circling the name/picture or crossing it out with a big X. I ended up with 12 scents circled, which was perfect, because in January there was a 12 DOZEN tea lights for $12 special for the hostess! So I ended up ordering a dozen of each of my favorite scents.

When everyone was wrapping up their orders, sneaking a couple more bacon-wrapped dates, and going home, Sherri told me that my party met the minimum orders required for me getting “hostess benefits” – aka getting deals and free stuff. So I got my tea lights deal, but I also got to pick out lots of goodies for myself. I ordered a wax melt warmer thingy (which has LED bulbs that never have to be replaced!), the 3 essential oil blends I really enjoyed, some red lanterns that were on clearance from Christmas, but which will be great for Valentine’s Day, of course more pepper jelly, and some chai tea mix to try.

Trying to remember what else…ooh some pretty clearance white candle holders that can hold tea lights or tapers, and a matching tray for pillar candles (but it’s also food-safe)… just lots. and lots. and lots. of good stuff. I’m so excited! And all in all, with tax and everything, I only paid about $25 total out of pocket, thanks to hostess benefits!

Our orders should be coming in SOON and I’m looking forward to it. Because it’s a lot of goodies, but also because it’s another excuse to pair up with each of my friends to give them their stuff too.

The PartyLite Simple Pleasures Holiday Sweepstakes is over, but there are always other promotions and events going on, so be sure to contact your consultant to learn more.

And like PartyLite Facebook  to make sure you always know what the hostess and guest deals are each month! I hope you have as much fun hosting or attending a party as we all did!

Still nesting. Intensely. I showed you the start of it in my last pregnancy update… but it’s gotten far more intense.

In this post when I say I “finished” something… I mean enough for me to move on to the next thing. But I think pretty much everything still has “tweaks” in my head I’d like to make. BUT I’m determined to not get hung up on details and become paralyzed by that. So I’m getting to the “good enough” point and then moving on.

I made a list. With a hundred thousand things on it. Big things, not little things.

And I finished decluttering and organizing the office/sewing room. Which has been wonderful as a “staging area” for other organization projects since then. You’ll see.

My P-touch label maker and I made lots of label-babies, and we “decorated” the inside of the newly reorganized/decluttered pantry. Note- the pantry has sliding doors, so the picture on the right is a “split screen” type since I can’t show you the whole thing at once.

See those baskets? I have to say, if you need a bunch of baskets for organizing and you’re not super-picky about them, the Dollar Tree is a GREAT place to look. I had TONS of baskets from there as a teacher, and I’m happy to see that they still have a great selection. And $1 each is much cheaper than Container Store, Target, IKEA, or anywhere else.

Anneliese noticed me organizing things into baskets and decided she needed to be “organized” too (maybe so I wouldn’t “declutter” her). When I came out of the kitchen, she had basket-ed herself!

I decided to move on to the laundry area… what a mess!!!

MUCH better now. And labeled.

Even better with the cabinets closed of course.

As part of the laundry re-vamp, I also went through the “random box” (as my husband calls it) and organized things a bit. Now maybe if we need a random screw or nut or something, we’ll be able to actually find it.

After that, I moved on to the linen closet, under bathroom sinks, and the medicine cabinets.
(Before)

I emptied EVERYTHING into the office so that I could go through it over a day or two, and close the door so Anneliese couldn’t get into it if she was awake.

And after a little bit? Things are looking up. Oh, I labeled all of this too. Under the bathroom sinks and in the medicine cabinets looks pretty awesome too … I seem to have not taken pictures though.

And while I was doing that sort of thing, I figured I’d fix the mess under the kitchen sink too. No “before” but it was a jumbled mess. Now there are only a few things under there, and it’s much simpler.

The next huge project for the “staging area”? the other hall closet – the one that houses the out-of-rotation toys, books, and some other kind of random things like unused picture frames and such.

This isn’t a “before” picture because I had already hauled so much stuff out of the closet… so it’s a “during.” When things were looking up.

And AFTER! Looks pretty great, right? I think so anyway. NOT perfect, but “good enough” and I’m able to move on now.

I haven’t stopped nesting… I’m working on a few things I’ll show you later though. For now, let me share with you some GORGEOUS necklaces made by my sister, Caroline Nelson Art. The second one has interchangeable pendants I can mix and match. Very cool.

And one she didn’t make. Loving my long necklaces!

And weird-shaped belly alert! I feel like with Anneliese I always looked like an inflating/inflated balloon. With Joey, I feel like I have more weird flat spots, lopsidedness, and even… well…just “gut.” I guess when he comes out we’ll find out how much of it was baby/uterus and how much is ME. Oh lordy.

Tandem nursing is going great. Anneliese is still a huge fan of my boobs. I have colostrum now but I’m not sure how much I’m actually making. It is sweet though, not salty any more, and nursing frequency has increased a LOT probably partly because of that and partly because of teething canines.

She doesn’t always nurse for long though. Sometimes it’s just a minute or so and then she’s back to playing or exploring. I think it’s comforting for her to know I’m available for her to “check in” though… and she tends to be VERY confident and independent even in new situations and with new people.

It’s really cool to see the attached/independent (false) dichotomy. People often “diss” extended (er, normal) nursing, babywearing, and other attachment parenting practices, saying it’ll create ninny-pants children who can’t be away from their mothers … but I think just the opposite is true. A secure child is more free to be independent, knowing that her needs will be met and not ignored.

And Anneliese is still “studying” for her big sister role. She asks me to read this book to her a LOT lately. It’s What Baby Needs, and depicts and explains cosleeping, babywearing, breastfeeding, skin-to-skin snuggling, etc. It’s a very sweet book.

Things that also happened in the last 3 weeks?

Midwife appointment – was awesome, uneventful, she showed me her vintage aprons.

OB appointment – met the last doctor at the hospital. People said he’s a big jerk but I thought he was fine. Nothing happened. I declined the glucose tolerance test. He didn’t put up a fight about it.

“for fun” 4D ultrasound. I got to see Joseph! He was snuggling his face into my uterine wall so we didn’t get to see much action, but he’s cute in there. He looks like a baby.

I got bigger and heavier and everything is still “on track” for where I am in this pregnancy.

I ate a ton of cream cheese. And drank a ton of milk.

So I wanted to offer her something with protein in it, but she was turning down all the meat and cheese I’d put on her plate.

So I invented these.

On a whim… and they were just the ticket! The first small batch I made was gone within a few hours. So that night, I had to make a bunch more, which she happily ate throughout the next day.

This face? This is a sweet-potato-drunk face. She’s eating something like her 6th “cookie” in a row.

So here’s how to make these baby-friendly grain-free gluten-free treats.

Sweet Potato Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cooked sweet potatoes, mashed
• 2 eggs
• 3-4 Tbsp almond butter
• Generous sprinkle of cinnamon.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit
2. Combine all ingredients until a smooth thick batter
3. Drop on a parchment-paper-lined cookie sheet
4. Bake 10-12 minutes, then flip
5. Bake an additional 5 minutes
6. Cool on a cooling rack

I normally don’t cool things on cooling racks, but for these, because of the moisture in the sweet potatoes, it’s better if you do, especially if you plan to put them in a container for later. Otherwise the bottoms of the cookies will get a little bit soggy from trapped moisture.

And interestingly enough, when the second batch of “cookies” was gone, she seemed to be “healed” from her little picky-fruit-jag. And she’s been happily eating buttered carrots, peas, roast beef, and other foods again, as usual.

I’m so lucky to have spent another month with this beautiful little lady. I can’t believe I get to help her and support her as she grows, and watch her become the person she was meant to be. What a fantastic job to have!!!

Anneliese has grown to be pretty flexible in her schedule. I try to balance “out” days with “home” days so she can have recovery time and not get burnt out (so far, she does seem to need that… maybe she got the “introvert” gene from her daddy and me). But in general, if we are at home, she’ll have a nap or two during the day, and be in a great mood (teething aside) when she’s awake. If we’re out, she might nap once either in the car, if I walk around babywearing her on my back in the Boba for a long time (often napping for about an hour back there), or when we return home.

She’s cheerful and always aware of her surroundings, and loves interacting with the people around her.

This month, we went to our first “class” at the resource center. This one was all ages, and the kids listened to a story about Penguins, then did a craft. It was simple, not too long, and Anneliese loved it. It was so surreal to see her sitting in a “big girl chair” at the table with the other kids, and guiding her through the little craft but letting her do the whole thing on her own. She watched the other kids and happily participated. I’ve signed her up for lots more workshops/classes this month, and I’m excited to see her reactions and her impressions of the things around her.

Now, she often tries to copy simple tasks and actions that she’s seen me do a million times. She puts her dirty laundry in the hamper, puts toys back on the shelves and books back in their baskets, and gives the dog our “sign language” (not real ASL, but just hand signals I trained Zora with) commands like “sit” and “wait.”

Here, she is playing with a cloth wipe and our wipe solution, trying to figure out how to spray the wipe with the squirt bottle.

Here, she’s trying to put on her shoes. She tries to put on and take off her clothing now, and likes to help pick out what she is going to wear for the day.

Since she ate roughly 100,000 clementines in the past month, I decided to see if she could peel them. She does pretty well with it! If I start a little hole in the peel, she picks off a good amount of it, until she can chow down on the fruit, ripping it from the rest of the peel with her teeth. It’s not the most civilized-looking method, but it works!

Potty success comes and goes with teething and focus, but we’re in an “on” period right now. Anneliese often signs “potty” to me, even if she is too busy to sit on it for very long. Other times, she’ll bring me a potty to put her on. Still, she is a BUSY toddler and even if she knows how to hold her pee, she sometimes gets too excited about playing to worry about it. We’ve had some puddles on the floor this month (and lots in diapers) but have had a lot in the potty too. I still don’t think it’s a great idea to focus on “potty training” until she’s finished teething for a while, and since her canines are cutting now, we probably have at least another month until then… hopefully she’ll get a break before the 2-year molars! I think she will. I hope

Sometimes we have “diaper-free” time, either in underwear (little bloomers that come with most girls’ dresses – a size down from her current size because of no diaper, they work pretty great) or bare-bottomed. And sometimes she pees in her clothes. But she’s happy to help with the laundry when that happens!

She still loves to accessorize, and since she can reach the bottom three hair clips on her ribbons, she often brings me hair clips and pats her head to signal that I should put them in her hair. Sometimes she leaves them in for hours. Other times, she takes them out and asks me to put them back in her hair about 100 times in a row.

One day, she asked me for a hat by patting her head. I picked out this pink hat to match her outfit. She took it off of her head, because obviously I hadn’t gotten the message quite right. She opened the drawer herself, pulled out this plaid hat, and put it on her head. “There. Much better! See mom? THIS is the hat I wanted!” She knows what she wants.

She keeps growing… this picture is from a little bit ago. I weighed her today and she was 22 pounds. Close to the 50th %ile for her age on the WHO weight/age chart. That is huge! For so long she was off-the-charts tiny… either literally off the chart, or around the 3rd %ile. I guess all that good food she’s eating has caught up to her!

The coming month is going to be so busy. Like I mentioned earlier, we have a lot of classes or workshops to go to – plus the regular La Leche League meeting and the Natural Parenting for Non-Hippies meeting. LOTS of opportunities for her to be around other kids – her own age as well as older and younger.

I’m so looking forward to seeing her interactions with the other kids and how she communicates with them. (In this picture, Anneliese is laughing hysterically at Zora, who is outside the glass door, while Ella looks at her like “What’s so funny, you crazy baby??”)

Anneliese is super-cheerful most of the time when she’s heading to bed. She knows she’s tired, and she knows sleep will “cure” her. Often if she is playing, she’ll lie down on the floor for a quick rest, or climb onto the dog’s pillow in the living room, or onto her bed in her own room. If she does that a few times, I know it’s time to wrap things up for a nap or bedtime.

And she talks…and it is so precious…

Sometimes she says “I love you” back to me when I tuck her in for bed, or when I buckle her into her car seat.

The other day I put her to bed and she said “Happy.”
I said, “I’m so happy you’re happy! I love you. Goodnight.”
She smiled and said “nighnigh.”

Almost every night in the past month, she’s slept all night and woken up cheerfully in the morning. It took a LONG time to get to the “waking cheerfully” stage, and I’m so glad it seems to be here. It’s wonderful to hear her talking to herself in happy squeaks and squeals in the morning, instead of frantic crying and panic.

In case I didn’t mention it before, I love this girl so much. And I’m so lucky to have her in my life and to get to be in hers.

Weeks pregnant: 26 weeks 1 day

Weight: 151, fluctuating.

Gain: +16 pounds

Size of the baby: 14 inches or so

Weight: 1.7 pounds

Other pregnancy related crap:

Emotional crap: The decluttering continues. And I mean like nesting FRENZY. I feel like I need to get rid of tons of stuff, and that’s probably not a bad plan. I find myself wanting to CLEAN like DEEP CLEAN ALL THE THINGS, but I can’t do that yet because of ALL THE THINGS in the way. I definitely need to call my cleaningladyfriend for a date soon… she does an amazing job and I can breathe a bit better. But seriously… organizing. Decluttering. It’s crazypants up in here.

Our office/sewing room has been my biggest project this week…

And I have to say I’m making great headway.

Physical crap: Peeing all the time. Reflux in the evenings. There are some itchy dots on my belly that I hope are just irritation from my maternity pants and not PUPPS or something (don’t google image search. Please. It’s awful and mine are NOT like that). My joints are getting all weird and third-trimester-relaxin-y. My pelvis feels like it’s about 3 feet wide by the time I go to bed, and squatting (deep squatting , not like weight lifting squats) makes it feel better and more aligned. I don’t know if it’s pregnancy joint thing or not, but 2 fingers on my left hand feel like they were jammed on a basketball or something… the knuckles are all stiff… I can’t remember jamming it on anything so I’m just blaming the pregnancy for now. Overall I feel great though.

What I want to devour: Milk. Cream cheese. Apples. Peanut butter. That’s about it. Salads are great when I feel like making them.

What makes me want to hurl: Meat. When will I be carnivorous again??

Supplements: Prenatal vitamin, calcium that has a little bit of Vitamin D in it. Vitamin D3, Fish Oil. Now sometimes Papaya enzyme chewables for reflux.

Activity/Training: Same

Birth prep: Watched My Body, My Baby, My Birth. It didn’t really have a lot of continuity and it was obvious the production was very armature but I always like watching/hearing birth stories, so overall I enjoyed it. Love seeing women so empowered in and by their childbirth experiences. I’m so excited for my second one.

I had an OB appointment and a visit from my Midwife, a week apart from each other. Everything is unremarkable which is exactly what we want. Weight gain, blood pressure, uterus growth (I actually measured one week ahead), fetal heartbeat, pee, etc… everything normal.

Baby prep: Got the other sleep gowns in the mail for Joseph, and they are soooo cute.

Ordered two more books for Anneliese. You and Me, and What Baby Needs. Both are great, and Anneliese really enjoyed looking at the pictures in You and Me this morning. She studied each picture carefully, and pointed to the baby and said “baby” in each one. I said, “That’s right, that’s baby Joseph! And this one is Anneliese!” and pointed at the bigger sibling. I know she can’t understand what is really happening, but it doesn’t hurt to talk about it.

Here is Anneliese “studying” the other book I already got her, My New Baby. She loves to look at it in the mornings, and we talk about the pictures.

Tandem nursing / BOOBS:

LOTS of nursing. Because of more teething. Canines are coming. Oh boy. I think I’ve mentioned my “countdown” at nighttime… Normally I count back from 10 and she unlatches around 9 or 8 to roll over to be tucked into bed. Lately, she’s been nursing for the whole countdown and unlatching when I get to 1.

Christmas morning was so busy that we missed our morning snugglenurse… I didn’t even think about it that much, but by the time Anneliese had eaten breakfast, Skyped with her Dada and her Grampa, and opened most of her presents, she had had enough. I thought it was just nap time, but she had other ideas. She ran into my bedroom, crying, and patted the bed signing “milk” frantically.

So of course we had our snugglenurse. I felt so bad for jumping right into Christmas fun without our morning cuddle. I’m glad Anneliese made her needs known though, so that I could meet them. It was a wonderful snuggle and then she took a nice nap.

Other stuff:

12/22 (24 weeks 6 days)

12/26

12/28

I’m going to go drink another glass of milk. And probably 3 glasses of water. And then go to bed. Decluttering is on hold tonight.

I didn’t make PJs for Anneliese last year, but this year I repurposed a nightgown of my own that I haven’t been able to wear in a long time, and won’t be able to either (since it’s not breastfeeding friendly). The fabric is so pretty and soft, and I’m glad Anneliese can enjoy it.

I also cut up a camisole I had in the “for use as fabric” pile (I need to come up with a better storage system for upcycle-able stuff like that than a pile), to use for the sleeves and accents.

She is laughing here, I promise. Look at her cute chubby feet!

It’s not a perfect nightgown by any means (other than straight lines I’m kind of a sloppy seamstress), but it fits and it’s cute.

The nightgown I cut up already had the gathers under the bodice, so the new nightgown is nice and full.

And I made it extra-long because of all the growth-spurting Anneliese has been doing. Hopefully it’ll fit for a couple of months.

Anneliese explored the tree and looked at her presents, then went into her room to look at a book and get ready for bed.

The little flower is hand-sewn and hand-stitched onto the front, and the heart is blanket-stitched on by hand also.

A heart for my heart.

Stop and smell the roses.

It’s pretty compact. See?

And when you open it up, there are slots for 8 mini colored pencils (which I got at Michael’s) or crayons.

The other side is one big pocket for storing coloring pages. I drew my own, scanned them in and printed them 4-to-a-page. If you do a google image search for “coloring pages” though, you’ll find lots of line drawings you can print out the same way. Simple!

The fabric I used is cotton flannel, and I fused together two pieces with Pellon Wonder Under, which is an iron-on fusible web.

I trimmed the short ends of the rectangle with pinking shears, then folded in the sides and ironed firmly, folded the whole thing in half and ironed the center crease.

A line of stitches 1/4” in from each of the longer sides, and I trimmed those sides with my pinking shears too.

After that, 7 more lines of stitching on the crayon/pencil side (evenly spaced of course), and the coloring wallet is ready for filling!

Ready for on-the-go coloring or gift-giving!

Anyway, for this one I wanted it to be sort of theme-free… something that could be pulled out and enjoyed whenever, any time of year, and have enough items in it to “spy” that it wouldn’t get boring quickly.

For the small items, I looked to the craft store, mostly in the scrapbooking section. There were some really cute little fabric plush stickers, which – as long as they are mostly symmetrical – you can stick back-to-back in order to make one non-sticky double-sided item for your I Spy game. So I got two sets each of several of those.

And just pressed the matching shapes together firmly, like this.

Some of them, like the houses, aren’t perfectly symmetrical, but that’s okay as long as most of the sticky pat is. The little chimney sticking up won’t bother anyone.

I found these super-cute sparkly shapes too. They’re hard plastic, like buttons but without the shank, and the adhesive is just a little spot of sticky foam…

…which is quite easy to peel off.

I also already had colorful buttons, dice, mini dominoes, rhinestones in various colors and shapes, and plastic magnetic letters. I was making three boxes at once, so I just made sure each one had a good variety of items.

Then, on a light colored background, I made sure to take a picture of all of the items for each box. This can be used as a checklist of sorts, so that the child will know what to look for, and if you laminate it , they can circle or cross out each item as they find it, with a dry-erase or vis-à-vis marker.

This is Anneliese’s scavenger hunt. I put the J in there for her little brother, so they can share the box later on.

The boxes I got were just clear acrylic with simple lids. I alternated adding rice with adding objects…

(happy little objects!)…

…until all of the objects were in each box, and they were about 2/3 full of rice. You want to be sure to leave enough room for the rice to move freely so the objects can be found! If it’s totally full, it won’t be a very fun game.

Then I used my super-hot hot glue gun to outline the inside of each lid and firmly glue it onto the box. I waited until the glue was completely dry and opaque before moving the boxes, so that no rice would get permanently stuck in the glue or anything like that.

Then, on the bottom of each box, I hot-glued the object “list” (not really a list, but you know), which I had sort of laminated with clear packing tape.

This is one toy I made this year that I don’t think Anneliese got a sneak preview of, so I haven’t seen her play with it yet. I hope she likes it! She might be a little young for it at this point but I think in a couple months it will be perfect.

So I’ve been looking for a nice set of nesting dolls for Anneliese for a while, but most of the ones I find are crazy-ugly OR crazy-expensive. So I took matters into my own hands. I bought an unfinished set of nesting dolls from etsy.com and planned to paint them. Like… six months ago. But it’s finally happened!

I got a set of 7 because I wanted to paint them in rainbow colors, including indigo.

I started out by sketching some designs onto paper, then drawing the ones I liked onto the dolls directly with pencil. I have to be completely honest – most of the designs were either from or inspired by my awesome “day tripper” bag which I’m pretty much in love with. But if you google imgage search folk art you’ll come up with a lot of different simple/bold/adorable designs you could add to your dolls if that’s the style you’re after.

The first thing I painted was their kercheifs, in the rainbow colors. After that, I painted their bodies a lighter version of the same colors (just added some of the color to white).

The next night, I painted their skin and hair. I decided to make them all different because it’s just more interesting and less creepy than having little clone-dolls pop out of each other.

After that, I was free to paint all of the little details. It took a while and some very very tiny paint brushes. But I have to say that I’m very pleased with the results! I haven’t decided yet whether to seal them or not… I bought a clear acrylic spray sealer to use if I do decide to. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea, would it?

Here’s the largest lady:

Mrs. Marmalade:

Yellow, green, and blue:

Indigo and violet.

And to give you an idea of scale for these suckers… my hand. The tiniest one is TINY.

Group picture! The whole rainbow of friends.

I think Anneliese will enjoy them. Hopefully she’ll have wonderful memories of playing with them.