Category: toddlers


Jul
2013

Family Travel: Sharing a Hotel Room with Babies {Without Losing Your Mind}

categories: family, frugal, toddlers, travel
If you’ve traveled with small children, you know it can be a challenge.  Sharing a hotel room with small people who go to bed early can end with parents exiled to bathrooms and balconies.  Not fun.  I’m a traveler with a gypsy soul, and plan to continue seeing the world with my two wee ones in tow.  We’ve discovered that it is possible to share a hotel room with our small people without losing our minds.  The Bear goes to bed at 7 and turns into a grump if he stays up late, so we try to honor bed time no matter where we are.  Here’s how we do it.

 I apologize for the crappy pictures.  Hopefully you can still get the idea.  You will need a Pack ‘n Play , two blankets, thumb tacks, and the room’s clock radio.  We build a hotel tent around our pack-n-play.  On one ill-fated occasion we used the hotel “crib” at a super nice resort that shall remain nameless.  It resembled something found in an orphanage in Kazakhstan.  Horrible.  We went out the next day and bought a cheap pack-n-play and then donated it to a ministry in the area when we left.  It would have cost $50 to fly with our travel crib from home each way ($100 total) and the cheap-o crib cost $40.  Awesome.

Set up your pack-n-play in the corner of the room.  Plug in your clock radio and set it to a non-station playing only white noise.  Turn it up and place it under the pack-n-play.  Tack your blankets to the ceiling making a tent.  Rock that wee one to sleep and place them in their lovely mini room.  Continue to go about your business in your room, even enjoying your tv or computer on a low volume.  White noise is miraculous, my friends.  Some folks use a wifi monitor and head to the hotel lobby or pool, but that is up to you and your level of comfort.  I go back and forth, but it really depends on the hotel.  We’ve used the hotel tent method in many different venues, and it always works.  We are not co-sleepers, so our kiddos are used to sleeping in their own space.  We use a Twilight Turtle with our older child so the dark isn’t scary.  It may take a few tries to get your child used to the Hotel Tent, but it will be well worth it when you aren’t trapped with your spouse on a bathroom floor.  Your child gets the sleep they need to enjoy the trip and you don’t have to watch a movie in the bathtub.  Everybody wins.  
What are your secrets to traveling with kids?  


Jun
2013

Five Easy Ways to Entertain Toddlers in the Summer

categories: cloth diaper, frugal, giveaway, toddlers

Summer is officially here and our regular week day events during the school year have slowed down or stopped completely until September and we are constantly looking for ways to keep the Bear entertained.  Today I’m breaking down my favorite toddler entertaining ideas for you that are all free or super cheap ways to beat the heat and keep that kiddo happy.

#1 Fill up a Kiddie Pool in your yard.  We actually have 2, one from Amazon and one from a consignment sale and he LOVES them.  He will splash and play for hours in both of them.  Give a toddler a hose and a few buckets and he will be happy all day.  At the end of the day we take his buckets and water the plants and trees with whatever is left in the pools, so nothing goes to waste.
#2 Visit you neighborhood pool.  Our city has 5 neighborhood pools and membership is super cheap ($60 for the whole family for all 5 pools all summer).  We visit a different pool every few days and swim our hearts out.  The Bear has a great little Puddlejumper life jacket and is already jumping off the wall into the water.  We love it and he always eats and sleeps well after a big swim.  As a former pool rat (shout out to my Leawood pool peeps) there is no better summer getaway than the neighborhood pool.  We use cloth swim diapers in both our backyard and our neighborhood pool.  You can read all about swim diapers here and shop for them here.
#3 Go to Story Time at the Library. Air conditioning + free = awesome.  Our local library has story times for every age group as well as one for the whole family.  We signed up for the toddler class and are so excited to have an air conditioned, fun, educational, and FREE place to get out of the sun all summer long.
#4 Find a free Splash Park in your area.  We are so lucky to have several free splash parks near our house and will be spending lots of time there this summer when the playground equipment is too hot to touch. Check out your city’s Parks and Recreation website to find splash parks in your area.  They typically have several water elements and a soft pad underneath for kids to run on barefoot.
#5 Mall walk and play at the indoor playground.  Several of our local malls have great indoor, air conditioned play spaces perfect for toddlers.  We pack up the fam and a picnic lunch and head to the mall in the morning to mall walk like champs getting a little exercise for mama and then hit the mall play ground to get a work out for the Bear.  Everybody wins and nobody sweats.
How do you entertain yourself and/or your kids in the summer?

Mar
2013

The Neighborhood Geese are NOT Our Friends

categories: toddlers
The Bear and I love to walk down the creek to see all the ducks, geese, and turtles.  Sometimes we feed them, sometimes we just watch.  The other day Bear decided to chase them.  It did not end well.  I had to fight off a goose who nipped Bear’s jeans, which is what’s going on at the end of the video.  What I didn’t know was that Jed pulled up in the car after work and was watching the whole thing go down.  He was pretty entertained.  We now steer clear of the geese.  They are mean and loud and most definitely not our friends.  


Mar
2013

Frugal Friday: Cheap Toddler Entertainment

categories: cloth diaper, frugal, toddlers
On a recent grocery store trip I accidentally purchased the wrong kind of dried beans.  I was going for kidney but came home with pinto.  I meant to return them but kept forgetting.  Best $2 I ever accidentally spent.  I didn’t get the red beans and rice dish I was craving, but I did create a fresh way to entertain Bear.
We took half the bag of beans and poured them into Bear’s sand pail and got out the rest of his sand toys as well as a few plastic cups.  Every afternoon we go outside and sift, pour, and dump the beans til his little heart is content.
He LOVES them.  I love them because they are super easy to scoop back into the bucket and there is no harm done if a few end up in the grass.  All that scooping and sifting is great for his motor skill development, and keeps him completely entertained.
I’ve seen lots of sensory trays on Pinterest and have wanted to make one for a long time.  Instead we have a cheap sensory bucket.  Yay for cheap entertainment!
How do you keep your kids or yourself entertained on the cheap?

Feb
2013

5 Things We’ve Learned From Cloth Diapering (Almost) 2 Years In

categories: baby, cloth diaper, toddlers

We are now almost 2 years into this little cloth diaper experiment.  I’ve learned so much and am still picking up new info every week.  I’ll probably get the whole thing totally mastered by the time Mini Bear potty trains.  Today I’m sharing with you the top five things I’ve learned from our first 20+ months of using cloth.

1. Diapers We Love:
If you read our about Great Cloth Diaper Trials you know that we’ve tried and tested 11 different kinds of cloth diapers.  We are now up to 14.  Out of control.  Not all of the brands we tried worked for us, but we do have a few that we absolutely love and we are always looking to try more.  Our all time favorite brand is Softbums.  We’re obsessed and they make up the bulk of our diaper stash.  We also love the Bumgenius 4.0 and Freetime.  We use our Bumgenius Elemental, but the drying time takes it from a love to a like.  I love Apple Cheeks diapers, but Jed is not as big of a fan.  I loved the 1 size two AC we had so hard the elastic is now busted.  Anyone want to fix it for me?  We love our Bummis swim diaper, and our Bunzuke bandana diaper is still in the rotation as well.  That Bunzuke is so cute and hard to find I will never give it up.  The rest we’ve sold.  Which brings me to #2.

2. The Cloth Diaper World:
Did you know there is a whole underground world of cloth diaper people out there?  We DO exist.  There are Buy/Sell/Trade groups and fan pages on Facebook for every major brand.  There are local cloth diaper swaps.  There are forums where you can learn everything you every wanted to know about every diaper on the market.  I’ve sold all of our used cloth diapers we didn’t love because they work really well for other people.  I’ve bought used diapers from people who didn’t like our favorite brands.  There are cloth diaper meet ups and mom groups in most major cities.  The cloth diaper world is amazing, and I love being part of it.  Before we started this experiment, I looked to blogs to learn everything I could.  That’s why I now post about what I’ve learned to share with you.


3. The Laundry:
The cloth diaper laundry is no longer intimidating.  You can read about our original simple cloth diaper laundry routine here.  We just switched to Rockin Green detergent because of a hard water issue at the new house.  Our new routine is one cold wash, one hot wash, extra rinse.  We use 1 TBSP of Rockin Green in both cycles.  That’s it.  Then we hang the dipes up to dry and dry the pods and inserts on low.  We now have the routine down pretty well and do a load every other day and never run out, even giving the diapers overnight to dry.

4. Over Night Cloth Solutions:
We struggled with this for a LONG time.  Bear is a super heavy wetter and I thought we would never find the right fix.  Bear would literally explode an over night disposable diaper, but we couldn’t find a cloth solution that worked either.  Finally after begging for help from Twitter and Facebook friends as well as in cloth diaper forums, and visiting my two local shops, we have found a solution that works for our super heavy wetter.  We use a waterproof cover (Rumparooz and Tiny Tush), two Grovia bamboo prefolds with one of them folded in half towards the front, two microfiber inserts (one in half towards the front and one flat on top of everything else), and two fleece liners covering the microfiber.  It makes the fluffiest booty you’ve ever seen, but it works.

5. Cloth Diapering Really is Easy, Cheap, and Doable
It’s true.  Maybe not for everyone, but it is true for me.  I had many doubters when I first started talking about cloth, but thankfully I’m stubborn enough to prove them wrong.  If you are interested in using cloth diapers, do your research and go for it.  Don’t buy all one brand though, because that brand might not work for your babe.  There are a few specific things that have made it easier on me as we have gone on.  Our diaper sprayer is magnificent.  We bought the Bumgenius diaper sprayer and have it attached to the toilet in one of our bathrooms.  We keep our diaper pail beside it and after the dipes get sprayed they go straight into the potty.  Totally easy.  We use a simple Ikea pail with a lid.  The other thing that makes it easier is having a bigger stash.  We wash every other day and let them dry overnight, and still have enough to make it through.  It just makes my life better if I’m not doing laundry every day, and is totally worth the investment.  You can do this.  If you want to.  You will save around $2000 per kid and thousands of disposable diapers from the landfill (which don’t biodegrade for over 500 years!).  I believe it’s worth it.

Do you use cloth diapers?  If so, what’s one thing you’ve learned from cloth diapering?

 


Jan
2013

Family Travel: Hiking the Continental Divide at Cottonwood Pass

categories: colorado, family, toddlers, travel
I am in love with Colorado in the summer.

Hiking is one of my favorite things in life.  Walking around in beautiful places makes my heart so happy.

We were so blessed to travel for 2 months this past year and experience so much beauty.  While we were staying and working at Trail West in Buena Vista, Colorado, we hiked Cottonwood Pass three times with our whole camp group.  It is a super easy hike for families.

We hiked with babies and kids of all ages as well as adults with all kinds of health problems and an 84 year old grandmother.  She loved it.

The hike doesn’t take long but you get a fantastic payout at the top.  There is a 360 degree view of the Collegiate Peaks and Taylor Reservoir.  The pass is open in the summer, and you can find more about closings and see tons of pictures and videos here.  The trailhead is about 19 miles west of Buena Vista and the pass is used as a route from BV to Crested Butte.  The pass was used in the USA Procycling Challenge, so Jed felt like Andy Schleck when he rode his bike down the mountain.

   For kids under 3 I would highly recommend hiking with an Ergobaby carrier or some other type of backpack type carrier.  Bear was obviously too little to do it on his own, and we saw many a preschool get a bit tired and whiny on the way up.  It’s just how they roll.  The hike is quick and easy, but you do climb to 12,600 feet so you will feel it.

No matter how warm it is at the bottom of the mountain, bring lots of layers for yourself and your kiddos.  We learned that lesson the hard way on another hike with the Bear.  I did not win Mom of the Year in 2012, and I blame that hike among many, many other things.  You can read more about our adventures hiking with a toddler here.

Have you taken your whole family hiking?  Share any tips or what holds you back in the comments section below.
Follow Becca’s board Family Travel on Pinterest.


Jan
2013

Summer Flashback: On the Road from Buena Vista to Vail

categories: colorado, family, toddlers, travel

As a hazy shade of winter makes me sleepy and cold temperatures keep us indoors, I think wistfully back to our summer adventure. Here are a few instagram pics from one leg of the trip.

As
Sweet sleeping baby
A bike race through the pass
Not the Tour de France, but fun to watch all the same.
Downtown Leadville, Colorado
A lovely alpine lake

Our next adventure will be adding a new member to the family.
What is your next adventure?


Jan
2013

Best of Bare Feet on the Dashboard: Travel Edition

categories: best of bare feet on the dashboard, toddlers, travel
Oh the places we’ve been…
In celebration of three years of blogging I’m sharing some of my favorite posts with you this week.  Today’s edition is all about travel.  We’ve traveled abroad, traveled in the states, traveled as a couple, traveled with an infant, and most recently traveled with our toddler.  Here are my favorite travel related posts of the last three years.  
 The Ancient Mayan City of Tulum
Our Top 8 Frugal Family Travel Tips
Hiking with Toddlers
Playa del Carmen – Our Mexican Beach Adventure
Navarre Beach, Florida, Post Oil Spill
Taking Your Own Travel Photos 
Without Hiring Pros or Harassing Strangers
A Rustic Bachelorette Weekend in Arkansas
Babymoon in Glen Rose, Texas
Looking back through these posts made me nostalgic and realize I still have a ton of travel adventures to share.  Thanks for reading Bare Feet on the Dashboard and sharing my journeys.
What’s your all time favorite travel destination? 


Dec
2012

Daddy and the Four Wheeler

categories: family, texas, toddlers, travel

 Jed was so excited to take the Bear on his first four wheeler ride when we visited the ranch over Thanksgiving.  Don’t worry, he was just planning on circling the driveway.  The Bear was not equally excited, and you can see below how things played out.  He started out a little nervous.

 Then he progressed to uncomfortable and tried to escape.  Then the whole situation escalated into a full scale meltdown.  Needless to say, the Bear’s first four wheeler ride will come sometime in the future.


Dec
2012

Toddlers and Tractors

categories: family, texas, toddlers, travel

 The Bear’s obsession of the moment is all things farm.  When we were invited to the Goertz’s ranch for Thanksgiving, he was in heaven.  Not only were there big tractors, cows, horses, and 4-wheelers, there was also a pint sized tractor perfect for him.  He spent hours on this thing.

He also loved watching his big cousins, Preston, Parker, and Noah, do fun big kid stuff.  You know, like drive full sized gators around.  

Look at the pure concentration on Preston’s face.  This kid is going to be an awesome driver by the time he turns 16.  

Now I just need to find one of these mini tractors for our backyard.  Craigslist is calling…