Well hello, its me again. So soon ya'll may come to expect me to be a consistent blogger, haha. I was inspired last night as I was ordering Anthony's father day presents. I found out about this Chimney Charcoal Starter thing a few months ago from Preston Perry so I knew it was something I wanted to get for Anthony. I just never bit the bullet and as father's day is approaching and seeing influencers share their gift guides it reminded me to order his present and I knew immediately I would be ordering a Chimney Charcoal Starter. There I am ordering this cool contraption thing and I had the thought to share on my IG stories with you all in case you never heard of it either and that's how my thought process came to putting together a quick gift guide with presents Anthony has truly enjoyed. I will still share each of the items in my stories so be sure to head there to see them "in person," I will be sure to have a highlight saved in case you run across this post after the 24 hours.

With social distancing happening across the country, those honey to do lists are able to finally get completed. This jig helps hide screws to give woodworking a more "professional" look so to speak and with getting the mini you aren't having to fork out an investment. Obviously it doesn't work as fast as the K5 would BUT if you never used a Kreg jig to begin with, you wouldn't know the difference. It's a great stepping stone to taking your woodworking up a notch without the major pricetag. 

If anything was a must have item, it is definitely this speaker. I bought this during Christmas for Anthony and it is the most used item I have ever bought him. He uses it in the shower, while out in the garage, when we had friends over, at the beach, etc. It's a pricer item compared to the others I am sharing but it is worth it. 

I tried buying Anthony one of those sunrise clocks after our old school one broke but he was not impressed so when I saw the Echo Dot had a version with a digital clock on it I knew we had to have it. I love how we can easily see the clock without having to ask Alexa what time it is but we can also ask her to set his alarm without getting up and fiddling with it (we are so spoiled, I know). And I enjoy that she can play my podcasts for me as I am fixing my bed in the mornings or can play music for us at night while playing video games and hanging out.

This is the gift I am getting him this year, I told him about it when I first heard of it and he thought it was neat as well so it won't be a total surprise but I know he will enjoy having a faster way to light the charcoal and also using less chemicals. I don't know about ya'll but I have always been skeptical about lighter fluid and glad there is a device that allows you to bypass that. Along with this I also got him a cover for his barbeque pit as we recently bought him a new one since we gave away his old one when we sold our last house. I wanted to be sure we took better care of this pit compared to the other so this is the one I ordered in case you are in need of one as well.

We swear by Yeti after we purchased our first one almost two years ago. I have only had one other brand of tumblers so I don't have much comparison however it was that big of a difference I don't want to try others. My ice stays as ice overnight so my water in the morning is still cold. We even took our Yeti tumbler to the beach and left it in the car so we would have fresh cold water once we were heading home and the ice was still in there. We have been sharing the one Yeti but I am not great at sharing so we got Anthony his own and he loves it. It's great for keeping his water cold overnight as well but also his mix drinks cold without completely watering it down allowing him to sip on it over time.

And in case you are more DIY savy or just prefer more personal gift giving, I created this frame for Anthony for his first Father's Day and he loved it. We now have it apart of Sophia's gallery wall in her room but it was made with him in mind. This would look great on daddy's nightstand or at his office. You can find my tutorial here.

Now personally I love blogs when bloggers share their life before handing me links to buy stuff or getting to their tutorial for whatever. It helps build a "relationship" so to speak but I have heard that others do not enjoy the story time before content and just prefer getting to the point. I'm curious to know which are you?

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I have arrived to the thought that my blogging will remain inconsistent as I only want to blog when I am inspired (this thought has actually been simmering for over a year). This will allow me to post quality material and in hopes that it will be more helpful to you all. If you do enjoy day to day tips/tricks and in the life, I post pretty regularly on Instagram stories.

This was Sophia's favorite one as a baby. She would get so excited when I would use an over dramatic voice "Wheeeeeeeere's SPOT?" and as we progressed through the book, she loved lifting the flaps and discovering what animal was hiding. The thing I loved about this book was the positional words that was used, "Is he behind the door?" "Is he in the closet?" "He's under the rug." It created an easy, natural and fun way to introduce elements in the English language that she will need later on. Reading in general exposes children to so much more than literacy though but that is a post for another day. Just trust me it is never too early OR too late to start reading aloud with your children.

Sophia loved the dramatics of the alphabet falling out the tree and the full moon. She also enjoyed all the alphabet at the back of the book and asking what each one is, we would often start singing the ABC song as we pointed to each one. Bubba has now also started flipping to the back and pointing at specific letters or matching the letter from his alphabet puzzle to the back of the book. Such a great rhyming book for early alphabet introduction.

For this book, there is a very specific one you need to get for it to be great in my opinion and that is the Slide and Find version. Interactive books like this and the flip to look and touch and feel engage babies and toddlers to explore these books on their own. Sophia loved being able to control the slides and Bubba is completely obsessed with this book. He went from knowing one color to knowing around 9 maybe more in two days. TWO days. I did not have to do any extra activities with him, he has flashcards but he mainly used those to sort by color but being able to name each color I give all the credit to this book. Truly shows in the early years we don't need fancy lesson plans or themed activities, just let them play and read them quality books! He also memorized the book and I have a sweet video of him "reading" it to me. I plan to also record him to create a "audiobook" and what a treasure it will be to hear his sweet baby voice once he is a grown man and possibly having his own babies.

I read an article once by a speech therapist saying the beginning stages of learning to speak is learning animal sounds. Those sounds are the building blocks and Sophia was not much of a talker at this time. She grunted and pointed. I knew she could talk if she really wanted to because her ability to understand everything we said was amazing and we would get snippets when she was in the mood (which was very rare). Although Sophia still waited to talk on her own timeline, as she has done with everything else so far, we still highly recommend this book because it is so full of giggles and laughter making sounds with your children and you still get to set up those building blocks for speaking later on.

A very classic book. Sophia enjoys the metamorphosis part when the butterfly comes out at the end of the book. I enjoy the early exposure to counting and the days of the week. Bubba enjoys the "holes" in the books for each food item the caterpillar ate (told ya'll interactive books for young toddlers and babies is where it is at, they love exploring with their hands)

Again with young toddlers and babies exploring with their hands. I do not have a specific book recommendation other then having one touch-and-feel book on hand is great for them to explore different textures. Sophia had this one and loved touching the scarecrow (burlap) whereas Bubba had this one and the scratchy (sandpaper) pig was a favorite.

And that my friends is our family's top 5 book recommendations for your baby's own library. I still highly recommend reading as many books as possible so take advantage of your local library! If you need new book ideas, I love referencing the Read-Aloud Revival's A Year of Picture Books list as well as Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt (mentioned above).

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• Does not require special bags, you can use regular kitchen bags, cloth pail liners or their Ubbi bags. We started off using regular trash bags but once we started cloth diapering, I started using this liner but now we use the Ubbi bags.
• Made with steel which keeps the smell contained inside the pail.
• There is a little turn lock so you can prevent your toddler playing with dirty diapers (if you know, you know).

Cons

• While the Ubbi could work for cloth diapering, it isn't the most efficient considering the size of cloth diapers vs disposal diapers. I was cloth diapering two at one time and could maybe fit half a day to a days worth before needing to switch out the liner (I washed my diapers every 2-3 days) which left a bag of dirty diapers sitting on the floor in my laundry room.
• The steel construction does prevent smells from seeping through until you have to open it to put a diaper in, then you get a huge whiff of stank but I found this to be the case no matter what pail you use. I was just happy the smell wasn't constant by seeping out and I hold my breath whenever putting a dirty diaper in the pail.
• Is not hands free, have to touch the lock to unlock and have to pull back the top to open to place a diaper in and pull back to close.

Dekor Plus Pail

• Hands-free (as long as it's unlocked).
• Also has a little turn lock to prevent a curious toddler from exploring dirty diapers.
• Their specific bagging system makes it to where you only use the amount of bag you need which reduces waste and most economically efficient for disposal diapers.
• Fits a cloth pail liner, we used this one. Before our current cloth diaper pail, we preferred this one over the Ubbi for cloth since it could fit more diapers.

Cons

• The smell of dirty poop diapers seeps out even when its closed.

Our Current Dirty Diaper Setup

To start off, you do not need more then one diaper pail and honestly a diaper pail is NOT necessary at all for disposable diapers. For about the first 19 months of changing diapers, we did not have any pails in our house. Poop diapers went into a plastic grocery bag and straight to the dumpster in the garage while pee diapers went in a little bathroom trash can we had next to the changing table. I did not want to commit to a pail that had to have specific bags purchased. By the time Bubba was born, I heard about Ubbi and it's ability to fit standard kitchen bags so I used our monetary gifts we received for Bubba and bit the bullet. The Dekor Plus was bought shortly after starting to cloth diaper. The plan was to use Ubbi for disposables since it didn't fit many cloth diapers and to use Dekor Plus for cloth diapering. This worked great for a few months but the smell of the cloth diapers was really gross and made our room smell. After some digging and research, I found that cloth diapers need airflow in order to not start smelling. Which leads to our setup now:

Dekor Plus is in Bubbas room and is used only for pee diapers (disposable) and we use their specialty bags because it is easier to change out and more economical. This pail is only kept around because we already had it but also doesn't hurt that we have more pee diapers throughout the day so having it contained here instead of using our kitchen trash for pee diapers keeps the smell at bay.

Ubbi is in the garage and is used for poop diapers (disposable), we use their bags as well as we found it was more economical than a kitchen trash bag due to the size of the pail versus size of bag (lots of wasted bag space). This pail is great for retaining the smell besides when you open it, which is why it became our designated poop pail. We have it in the garage because when you do open it, the smell lingers for a bit.

For cloth diapers, we use a standard kitchen trash can that has a swing lid (similar) which provides sufficient airflow and there is never a smell from our cloth diapers anymore (we rinse off all poop in the toilet before placing in the pail). We now use this cloth liner as the other one has a ripped seam and I am not a seamstress. I love that this liner has a snap closure so if you go longer between washes and need to use another liner, you can close this one off to prevent littles from playing with dirty diapers. I wash every 2-3 days and this liner fits all my diapers for one load.

Final thoughts, unless you live in an apartment I wouldn't classify a diaper pail as a necessity to add to your registry if your planning to use disposable diapers. Walking them to the garbage bin in your garage or wherever you store your large bin doesn't take any extra effort especially if you are like I was in not wanting to worry about buying specialty bags. Just use those plastic grocery bags (I always doubled up bags for poop to try to contain the smell a bit more). If you plan to cloth diaper, don't waste money on these name brand pails - buy a standard kitchen trash can that allows airflow such as one with a swing lid or no lid at all. I know it seems like the smell will linger in the air but it won't with cloth. Trying to keep the smell in, creates a smell. Trust me. If you are having a smell regardless on your cloth that may be a washing routine issue in which case I would refer you to Fluff Love University.

Do you have a diaper pail? If so, which one did you use? Do you use cloth diapers or disposables or somewhere in between like us?

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