We’ve used it with both kids from birth through toddlerhood, and are still using it with our daughter (almost 2). It is so practical, functional, and affordable for use on the go and at home. Find out more about why we love it and all the great features below. Bonus: We’re hosting a Graco® giveaway here valued at $105!
After two babies we’re up to our elbows in baby gear at the Eby house. We tried so many great products (and a few that we didn’t love). Today I’m sharing my absolute favorite products for baby’s first year strictly based on what worked best for us. These may not end up being your favorites, but they were ours’ and we highly recommend them. Jed will chime in and share his thoughts on a few items as well. This post is not sponsored in any way, and all opinions are our own. It does contain affiliate links, and purchasing through those links costs you nothing but helps support the Bare Feet on the Dashboard blog and family. Our favorite cloth diaper products are not on this list, but you can read more about those here. You can read our ideas on saving money with a baby here.
We live debt free on a tight budget and don’t do debt or credit cards (thanks to Dave Ramsey
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Graco. All opinions are my own and as always I only write about products I would personally recommend to a friend. Thanks so much to Graco for the opportunity to review this jogging stroller and car seat.
Graco‘s latest development in jogging strollers is the super easy to use FastAction Fold Jogger Click Connect. The name is more complicated than operating this stroller, I promise. True to its name, the jogger folds and unfolds in one step in one second. Amazing. If you’ve tried to manhandle your share of bulky strollers, you know this is a big deal.
The snack tray removes completely so you can clean it well. Y’all know those things get NASTY fast and are so hard to clean when you can’t remove them.
When you fold the jogger (in one step, in one second) it automatically locks and stands and stores upright. As you can see it is much less bulky than some competitors and is a great option for families with small cargo spaces or storage issues.
Favorite Features: the double cupholders, smart phone cradle, and reflectors for night time and early morning safety. What can I say, I’m a details kind of girl. Our previous jogging stroller did not have any of these features, and the cupholder and phone thing was an issue for me. If there is an emergency, I don’t want to have to dig through the basket under the stroller to find my phone.
Least Favorite Feature: the air filled tires. They provide a smoother ride than hard tires, but can also go flat requiring more maintenance.
**Thanks to Julie Harding Photography for the use of photos from the Dallas Graco Party.
Recently I had the pleasure of attending a Graco Safety preview party for a brand new car seat, The Graco SnugRide Click Connect 40. At the party we learned a ton about car seat safety and the AAP guidelines, and about this new car seat. I was so excited to receive one of the car seats to review for you. The Click Connect 40 is different from our old Graco SnugRide 30 for a variety of reasons, the biggest being that it can safely hold kids up to 40 pounds and 2 years old in a rear facing position. The SnugRide 30 only goes up to 30 pounds, and has much less leg room. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids stay rear facing until they reach age 2, and the Graco Safety campaign hopes to help parents reach that goal. Will the Click Connect 40 really hold a big toddler comfortably? We’ll find out.
The Click Connect 40 has 8 different seat settings from comlete recline for newborns to sitting up for big toddlers.
For The Bear to try it out we shifted to position 8 and put up the kickplate to protect the car.
The seat comes in 2 colors, Moonstruck and Mena. We received a Moonstruck seat, the more gender neutral of the two. Mena is beautiful, but has lovely pink swirls that aren’t little boy approved. You can see a glimpse of the Mena design above, modeled by our demo doll from the Graco Safety Party.
Here is the car seat set up for a newborn. It looks so squishy and padded, even more than the newborn pad I had to by when the Bear was new. I can’t wait to put Mini Bear in the seat in the spring!
The newborn pad snaps out easily, and the seat quickly adjusted to fit our tall toddler. Really, it took about 2 seconds..
We installed it in the car using our latch system. It seemed odd that the base hung off the edge of the seat by several inches, but that could just be our Honda Pilot. It still seemed secure. Please excuse my messy car. True Life: I’m a Blogger.
The major downfall of rear facing car seats is the loss of leg room in the front seat. This is a small price to pay for our kids to be 5x safer than front facing.
Does the Bear fit comfortably? Yes, he does. At 16 months old he is weighs about 30 pounds and is about 31 inches tall (it is difficult to get an accurate measurement on a wiggly toddler).
I’ve written about swaddling before, and how it worked wonders for Fisher’s sleep habits. By the time he was about 11 weeks old he could fight his way out of every swaddle blanket and velcro swaddle we could find. I was visiting a semi-local cloth diaper shop (our closest one at 30 minutes away), The Nappy Shoppe, when I spied the Woombie. I asked an employee about the product and she raved about it. I purchased an original Woombie in the orange “paprika” color in the Big Baby size (14-19 lbs) for about $27. It was wonderful. The original Woombie zips right up the front and swaddles baby in a comfy cotton sleep sack that even our little Houdini couldn’t escape.
We loved the Woombie so much that I wrote to the company and asked to do a review of the Convertible Woombie. They kindly sent us a Convertible Woombie to try, and we love it even more. It is light enough for Dallas weather, but adds a layer of light warmth for our sweet boy.
We used it with his arms tucked in until he started rolling on his sides in the crib. To help him sleep safely we unsnapped the arm holes and released his little arms to freedom. We were nervous that transitioning to arms out sleeping would be difficult, but it really wasn’t. He self soothes by sucking on his little fingers and naps like a champ.
Why do we love it so much? It is easy to use, you just zip it up. If your babe falls asleep you can even get him/her in without waking them up. Amazing. They can’t fight their way out of it, and the soft cocoon soothes their startle reflexes and helps them sleep longer and better.
Woombie has a ton of great products, for babes from 3 pounds and up. Next on my shopping list are the Ultra Sleeper, the Eco Baby Donut, and the brand new Mod’Sleeper. The only negatives I’ve found with Woombie products are the prices. As a frugal girl and consignment/garage sale addict I have trouble shelling out close to $30 bucks for a baby item. I know, I’m cheap. However, when you find a product that really is above and beyond the competition, it is worth the money. Obviously I think Woombie products are worth it, or I wouldn’t be sharing them with you.
Woombies are available online at the Woombie website, Amazon, lots of mom and pop baby stores, and right now on Zulily for only $17.99 instead of the normal $27.99. Woohoo! Just search “Woombie” on Zulily and all the options left will pop up. I’m thinking about stocking up for baby showers and future wee ones.
**All opinions are strictly my own. I am in no way affiliated with the Woombie company, and was not compensated for my opinions other than being given a product to review.
I am so blessed. We have lived in Dallas for less than three years, and are already surrounded by an amazing community of friends. Six of our friends recently threw one seriously festive baby shower for Baby Bun and me. They are a creative bunch, and the shower had so many unique touches. They handmade name tag corsages from paper and felt for everyone to wear.
The party took place at the home of our friends the Ballards. They had only moved in one month before, and then were robbed right after buying the house. I was pretty impressed by how moved in they were. I have a tendency to live out of boxes for way too long. The girls used bright, fun colors to decorate, and served a buffet of breakfast burritos. Yum.
The tables were decorated with fresh greenery, nests of burlap and moss, and blown out brown eggs with “baby” written on them. It was so different from the typical baby shower pink or blue, and I LOVED it.
See those brightly colored beads in the vases? They keep plants moist without the mess of water, apparently. Very cool, and festive.
For dessert the girls served homemade pralines and mini cupcakes in lemon and chocolate. I tried to use restraint and failed miserably.
Each guest was asked to share a favorite family tradition to give us ideas of new traditions to start with our little family. The girls put them all together on a metal ring and sent me home with a massive stack of ideas.
There were three round tables set up outside, and we had a beautiful Texas morning. Each table was decorated with a straw wreath, moss, the burlap and eggs (like inside), and vases filled with individual flowers.
Inside there was a mimosa bar set up, with water and plain orange juice available as well.
I am so thankful that so many friends and family came and showered us with gifts. We are so truly blessed.
My sweet mama came into town for the shower, and Betsy (one of the hostesses) made her a special corsage with her grandma name (Dede). My sister in law came up with Dede as an easy name for my niece to call her, as her non-grandma names are Deborah and Debbie.
Here are four of the six hostesses: Morgan, Whitney, Allison, and Betsy (Asia and Ellen are not shown). I’m the rotund one in the middle, of course. I am so thankful to these girls for throwing an amazing shower for me and going to the trouble to get seriously creative. I felt really special. I showed you a bit of my Arkansas shower earlier, and I promise to show more of that one soon. Some amazing friends from work threw me a lunch shower as well, but I’ve got to get the photos from one of them. Once again, we feel so incredibly blessed.
Even though I’ve lived far away for the last 6 years, my sweet friends from home threw me a baby shower this past weekend. Jed was on spring break, so we headed to Little Rock on Thursday for a little extra quality time with my family and friends. We stayed with my parents as usual, but this time there were 7 dogs at the house as well as 7 people. It was a bit crowded, to say the least. I’ll post more pics of Dogapalooza ’11 later, but for now you’ll have to be entertained with Julie’s (one of the hostesses) pictures from the shower. Crystal, another hostess, hand painted the letters shown above for the nursery. I am in love with them. I can’t wait to hang them (or more likely make Jed hang them) on the wall above the crib. So cute!
Here I am, with my giant belly. This child is growing like crazy and moving like a fly girl on “In Living Color.” Does anyone remember that show? I wanted to be a fly girl so bad.
Check out that spread, y’all. My friends worked so hard and made lots of delicious food for us. We had an incredible brunch of creme brulee french toast, fresh fruit, 2 different quiches, croissants, and brownies, and 2 different cakes. The cakes were beautifully decorated to match the paintings that Crystal created for the nursery. I’ll have pics of both later. Julie created the diaper cake in the middle, which is now decorating the nursery.
Trisha, my mom’s best friend, and her daughter Sarah have known me since Sarah and I were 4 years old. Now she is the mama of sweet Maya, and I’m pregnant with my first. I love that we are still great friends after 27 years.
Marci, Julie, and Crystal put so much hard work into this shower, and I am so grateful for them. They are dear friends that I’ve known forever. Julie and I met very young playing in my neighborhood, then went to junior high and senior high school together. We’ve been roommates in the past and had a great friendship across the miles for a long time. Marci and I met in junior high youth group and became friends and partners in crime soon after that. Crystal and I met in college and were finishing each other’s sentences after a week. I love these girls and they and their families are some of my favorite people in the world. They are all mamas already, and have given me so much great advice. They really get me and it is so important to have people like that in my life. I miss living near them and hope to again someday.
