Giveaway: Instant Canteen!

What could be a more perfect giveaway item for the summer than one of my Instant Canteens?

They're the hands-free way to stay hydrated -- an Instant Canteen ensures you'll never set your water bottle down and forget it ever again! They're great for any outing, whether you're going to the zoo or beach or hiking trail... or just the playground down the block, which is where mine goes the most. And you can enter to win this Peacock Swirl canteen for free right here!

(I sell these for $10 in my shop if you love the idea but don't like this one -- I have oodles of different fabric designs and strap colors.)


So, how can you win the Peacock Swirl canteen? There are two ways:

+ 1. Comment here listing your favorite item from my store -- www.huggermugger.etsy.com -- and either your email or blog address so I can contact you if you win.

+ 2. Post about this on your own blog. Leave a comment here with a link to your blog post, plus either your email or blog address so I can contact you if you win.


This means you can be entered twice!

Giveaway ends the morning of Friday, July 10th when I draw the winner, announce who it is here, and contact them to get their mailing address. Good luck!

Adieu, Adieu, We're Going to the Zoo!

I'm finally getting a chance to post about our zoo trip! Things have been crazy here -- we took off for Boston for a couple days to help my brother and his wife pack up their moving van 'cause they're deserting us, sniff sniff sniff. Between packing for the trip and then unpacking and doing laundry, I have had few minutes to call my own. But right now, both my little ones are napping, so maybe I can get this written and posted.

Dano loves the zoo. We took him to this same one three times last year, and he remembered it pretty well. We walked through their rain forest exhibit first, where Dano loved the birds and was leery of the monkeys, but thought their ocelot was awesome. Here's a shot of his favorite way to check out the animals: crouch as close as possible to the glass/fence.
After that, we lunched at one of their many picnic areas, where Dano ate his sandwich as fast as he could "so the ants can't have it," then roamed around, climbing on rocks, while I fed Mercy and myself.

Usually she loves the stroller and conks out in it, but this time she was at The Zoo! She wanted to see the animals! She had to ride in the sling so she could see! In fact, she refused to have her head inside the sling pretty much the whole time -- she had to peek around it to see everything.


Okay, I've got a recipe, a book review, and shop news I've been wanting to post for over a week now. And a giveaway! I plan to get that rolling tomorrow, then do the rest next week. Adieu!

Picnic Time!

Michele of This Decorated Life featured one of my canteens on her blog today! Their post was all about picnic items. Just so happens the kids and I had a picnic at the zoo today. (Pics of that tomorrow, I hope.)

Here's my latest Instant Canteen, just in time for the 4th of July. I love those bright stars!

"Knuffle Bunny Too" by Mo Willems

In case you haven't guessed, I'll tell you: I love children's books. I love re-reading old favorites, I love finding new favorites... and I even love that my kids and I have different favorites.

My hubby picked the books for Dano at the library this week because I was busy feeding Mercy. He found a winner this week: Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity by Mo Willems. (It's a sequel to Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, which we haven't read yet, but will definitely seek out on our weekly Saturday pilgrimage to the library.)

This book rocks! Dano says it's "a particular funny book," and he is soooo right. The drawings are awesome -- it looks like Willems takes black-and-white photos and draws cartoon characters on them, and they're sort of story-boarded like a comic strip or cartoon, with multiple pictures on a page.

It tells the tale of a little girl who takes her special stuffed Knuffle Bunny to school, only to discover another girl has the Very Same Bunny. To make a short story shorter, the two bunnies get swapped accidentally, and there's a delightfully noir-ish Knuffle Bunny Exchange in the middle of the night that involves dialog like, "We have your bunny!"

Honestly, this book makes me giggle more than Dano :-)

This Cosy Life's 7 Days of Giveaways

My friend Julie of This Cosy Life is doing a full week of giveaways, starting today! All you have to do to enter is become a fan of her Facebook page. Visit her blog here to read all about it. Today she's giving away one $10 gift certificate for her Etsy shop. She's been adding a bunch of supercute new items lately, from hand-dyed yarn to little teether dolls like this one, and some of them are sure to be prizes. So what are you waiting for?

"The Cinder-Eyed Cats" by Eric Rohmann

I picked this book off the library shelf because of its intriguing, poetic title. I opened it because of its alluring front cover. I checked it out for Dano because its simple, dreamlike story was so unlike the realistic books about trucks and trains he favors, and I wanted to see if he'd like this too. Stretching his imagination is always a good thing.

Turns out, he does like it! Which means I've gotten to read it over and over this week :-) I love the simple story of a boy sailing off to a dreamy island and cavorting the night away with the five cinder-eyed cats and a host of ocean creatures. The text is as poetic as the title, beginning with free verse, then rhyming later on. My favorite line is: "Cats like velvet shadows move." I love the alliteration and assonance of the Vs and As, and anyone who's ever been friendly with cats knows that's just how they do move.

The Cinder-Eyed Cats combines simple, poetic text with soft paintings and a story that will delight children and parents alike. Or at least, it delights my children and me :-)

Dancing in the Moonlight Treasury

Aren't trees lucky? They get to dance in the moonlight whenever they want. See?