I know that people are buying Christmas gifts at this time of year, so I thought I’d give you my take on a few products we have around our house that we love.  I’m starting out with some of my favorite Boon products.

We bought the Frog Pod maybe a year ago after all of our mesh bags with suctions cups had fallen of the wall, yet again.  (Those bags always fell off the wall.)  There are 3 different ways of attaching the Frog Pod to your shower wall.  You can use screws, the adhesive strips that are included, or the included suction cups.  The suction cups didn’t work for us, and you can’t put as much stuff in or on the Frog, so we ended up using the adhesive strips.  It has been great!  You can store LOTS of toys in the large body of the Frog, which also serves as a scoop, for scooping all the toys out of the tub.  You can also store soaps, shampoos, and bubble bath on top of the Frog.  We really like it, and even though it’s a little expensive, it’s worth it, I think.

The Squirt is another great Boon product that I love.  It’s a baby spoon, and here’s the way it works.  Fill the handle with baby food of your choice, (chunky stuff doesn’t really work well),  screw on the spoon which has a little hole in it, and squirt food into the spoon.  It also comes with a little cover for the spoon tip to keep it clean and to keep it from spilling out on the go.  I really loved this spoon for dining out, or away from home.  I warmed the baby food up at home before putting it into the spoon. Then, I would pack it into one of the insulated baby bottle pockets in my diaper bag to keep it warm.  Then when we got to the restaurant I could whip it out and feed my baby very easily.  It never spilled in my bag and I even tried to squeeze the handle with the cover on to see if I could make it leak.  I think it would take quite a bit of pressure to cause a leak though, because I couldn’t get ‘er to blow! It comes in pink too!

The Flo is probably my least favorite, but I do still like it.  My husband however, is not that fond of it.  Our old soft spout cover was pretty gross looking, and I got a really good deal on the Flo, because it was open box.  I like that it protects little heads from hitting the spout, and I like the water fall effect.  It’s also a bubble bath dispenser, but not intended for storage of bubble bath.  In other words, don’t fill the thing up with a ton of bubble bath, only enough for one bath.  My husband doesn’t like that if you turn the water up full blast – like you normally would – the water fall effect becomes the “douse my bathroom” effect.  The water can spray out pretty far over the side of the bathtub, really.

I would recommend any of these products as a Christmas gift, or buying for yourself. I’d love to hear about any other Boon products you love, too!

Making your own baby food saves money! So if you’re short on money, but not on time, then go for it! I made some large purchases in the beginning, but you may already have everything you need to get started.  Let me tell you how I did it.


I purchased this food processor, food steamer, baby food trays, and organic fruits and vegetables, and a baby food book.  If I did it all over again, I think I would probably buy this book as I wasn’t very impressed with the one I got.  And I might even try this cool kit.

It’s pretty painless to do.  I would just wash my fruits or veggies, cut them up into chunks, and throw them in the steamer.  Baby carrots don’t have to be cut at all, so they’re super easy.  The steamer I bought came with a divider bowl so you can steam two different things at once.  Most fruits and veggies steam in under twenty minutes, so after you’re done steaming, pop them into the food processor and give ‘em a whirl.  I saved a little of the steaming water to add into the food processor to get that really smooth and creamy texture.  After you get it right, then you can put it into the ice trays and freeze.  After the cubes were frozen solid, I liked to pop them into plastic baggies, or another container so I could freeze some more.  You can either plan ahead and get what you need out of the freezer to thaw, or soak the baggie in warm water to thaw.

Another trick I learned when I didn’t have time to make applesauce was to buy the big jar of unsweetened applesauce instead of the little baby jars. It’s much cheaper.  And when it comes to baby yogurt, mix up your own! The baby yogurt that is prepackaged is more expensive and it has added sugar in it.  I just buy a big container of plain organic yogurt and mix whatever pureed fruit I want in about equal parts.

So, go for it! Now you know how to do it, and it’s not that hard at all! But, if just can’t find the time to make your own baby food, then check out my previous posts about buying baby food here and here.

Grandma and Grandad made it to our house with a couple of different flavors of HAPPYBABY. So far the little guy has tried Sweeter Potatoes + Purer Pear and Grrreat Greens + Easy Going Greens. He has loved it all. Grreat Greens is an intro to spinach and the ingredients are: organic pears, organic spinach, organic mango, DHA algal oil. It smells really fruity. I served it warm once and at room temperature the next time. He seemed to enjoy it better at room temp. I snuck a little taste and wondered if that was how I should start preparing the spinach for the rest of the family!

I was also happily surprised that HAPPYBABY is only about .31 cents per ounce. Not that bad compared to most of the other frozen organic baby food I looked at, which was around .50 cents per ounce.

Now my only problem is that I can’t buy it here. Guess Grandma and Grandad are going to be loadin’ up for us every time they make a trip to Super Target.

My little guy just started eating baby food about a month ago. This is my second child, so we’ve done the baby food thing before. I made all of the baby food with our first child. I had more time then, and we tend to like the healthiest options we can find. We live in a small town so the only organic foods I can get here for baby food are apples, potatoes, some greens, bananas, peas, broccoli, some berries, and carrots. Not much. So I started buying some of the jarred organic baby foods – Earth’s Best and Gerber are the ones available – in flavors I couldn’t make.

I would still like to make the baby food this time around, but I just really don’t see it happening. I do have a couple of free hours in the afternoon and in the evenings when they’re both asleep, but I’d really like to do some reading or something else besides making baby food. So I’ve been buying the jarred organic baby food exclusively this time.

So one day this week I started looking around for better quality organic baby food than what I’ve been buying. Doing a little research online, I found out about frozen baby food, which is much healthier than the jarred stuff. It’s fresher, more flavorful, better nutrients, etc. Most of the brands I found are available at Whole Foods and some other grocery stores that are nowhere near our little town. One brand I found – Happy Baby is available at Super Target – also quite a drive, but it is closer. The Happy Baby cereals are available at Amazon. I only found one that would ship straight to your front door – Jack’s Harvest. Now that is a great option for me!

I can’t find out a lot in the way of pricing, but from what I can find, it looks like I pay about 19 cents per ounce for the organic jarred baby food and it’s around 50 cents per ounce for the frozen organic baby food. There’s always a price to pay for the good stuff, but in my opinion it’s worth it. I’ve yet to try some of this stuff, but as soon as Grandma and Grandad make a trip to the big city, I’m going to get them to pick up some Happy Baby varieties at Target for us. I’d still like to try Jack’s Harvest too.

Here are a few of the other brands I’ve found that you can look for when you’re out and about. There were some others, but the flavors were just a little too strange for me. I’d love to hear back from some of you if you’ve purchased the frozen organic baby food. Let me know about other brands, and your own personal – or your baby’s – opinion of what you’ve tried!

http://www.nicecubesbaby.com/

http://www.tastybaby.com/