Meredith LeVande's Monkey Monkey Music CD- What Are the Odds: Review & Giveaway!

It was bound to happen that Potato was/is going to be a music connoisseur. DH can name the song, artist, and/or CD title, of any given music he hears. I was amazed at this and I am on a mission to stump him lol.

Meredith starting playing during college and she preferred to sing about children and their struggles to find out just who they were on the inside. She ended up taking the traditional children's songs and making them her own. It was a hit!

We try and make it a point to turn off the tv and turn on some form of music. Potato's new favorite CD is by Meredith LeVande.

I was very impressed when I say she wrote all of her songs. You can't say that about many artists these days. Meredith was a Parenting magazine "pick" and has been heard on Sirius Satellite Radio. Her music is very child appropriate and I am not ashamed to say that both my husband and I have danced alongside Potato.

"What are the odds?" is actually out and available on Amazon.com. It's so worth the money to watch your baby find their inner groove!

Giveaway Rules
Please leave me a comment letting me know when you have completed each task. To save yourself some time you only have to leave one comment for each task.

1. You must be a follower to my blog and if you are leave me a comment telling me you are!
2. Follow andPotatoMakes3 on Twitter
3. Tweet about this giveaway at least an hour apart. (This will count for 2 entries)
   
4. Tell me which song you like the best "Chinatown" or "Jump High" (This will count for 3 entries)
5. Blog about my wonderfully perfect giveaway! (This will count for 10 entries)
   

This giveaway will end on September 6, 2010 at 10:00 pm Central time. Potato or Random.org will select the winner. I will contact you by email (please post with comments if it is not on your profile!) You will have 48 hours to respond before a new winner is picked Good luck!

I would like to send a special thank you to Elizabeth Waldman Frazier, at Waldamania, for sending me for providing the review and giveaway items! I was not compensated in any other way and the statements within this post are of my own and honest opinions.

Its a Elmo, Melmo, Mo....painting!

We all know how obsessed Potato is with his Elmo; so you can just imagine how excited I was to receive an email with the start of a masterpiece.

Remember when I mentioned that the family has talent well this is just a little proof about DH's mom.

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Stage 5

I can't wait to hang it on Potato's wall. Although I do realize that Elmo will cause trouble when Potato does not want to leave his room.

Walking with Potato!

Our dear friend Joey created this masterpiece. I have watched it a million times and cried each time. It's amazing how fast our babies grow and I love that my friends want to help me capture all these special moments.

No tonsils, no uvula, and some sinus fixin..

DH went under the knife on Wednesday, so for memories sake I am going to dedicate a post to him and his hopefully improved life.

He has had sleep apnea for an unknown amount of years and therefore always felt very tired, unmotivated, and chronically sick. It's amazing how the lack of sleep......lack of REM sleep...can make one very miserable.

About the same time we put Potato in day-care DH started getting sick. His sinuses would act up and he would be miserable for 2-3 weeks. Doctors would give him antibiotics and he would get better. Then not even a few days later he would get sick again. This was such a vicious cycle and because his first doctor did not care enough DH was given antibiotics so often it caused him to get colitis. Sucked!

Well after speaking with our sister-n-law's mother she directed us to DH's new and soon to be God sent ENT. (Small world...the ENT was actually the niece of DH's back surgeon.) She stopped giving him medicine and got to the root of the problem. Dr. Eldridge found out that he had such a bad deviated septum that he had one nostril completely blocked and unable to pass air. The other nostril had a huge bone spur about to punch through the skin. Gross I know!

Dr Eldridge sent DH to a couple of sleep studies to determine whether or not he had sleep apnea. He had/has it. They tried to use the C-PAP machine to see if he would be able to sleep better. The machine made it feel like he could not breathe. I have heard the machine described as this...Imagine yourself riding down the interstate at 90 mph with your head out the window. I guess I would not be able to breathe with that much air blowing in my face. It is suppose to force you to breathe through your nose and well he had too much blockage in both nostrils for that to work.

So Wednesday the 25th she commenced fixing my poor hubby. She had to remove his uvula(throat bobber) because it was so long it was going down his throat. Pretty disturbing! Dr Eldridge also removed some of his soft pallet and his tonsils. The surgery did not take to long but of course I paced the waiting room like a mad woman. DH made me pinky promise that I would not cry....I did not cry...but there were a lot of anxiety attacks. Thankfully DH's mother was there to keep me calm.

We had a great day nurse but the night nurse almost got an ass chewin from me. She was horrible and I can't wait to fill out the little survey on her. Anyway we went home Thursday morning and I am being a great nurse! I am sleep deprived but if it gets my honey better I will survive. I love him so much and he is long over due some physical peace.

Now on the road to recovery. I hope he enjoys his 3 weeks of peace!

Big Boy Undies

Only because it was too darlin to not share! He is so determined to do everything on his own.

EcoMom Review & Giveaway!-Winner!

Potato would like to announce that our winner for the EcoMom Giveaway is......

Yay! Heather @ The Tree Huggin Momma. Just in case you didn't know she IS a tree hugger and well her blog is SOOOO green! Please go stop by and drop her a line of congrats! You may just feel the urge to follow her green blog. I am!

Summer Fest Videos

I took a bunch of pictures but I also crammed in as many videos as possible! I hope you enjoy them.

Please feel free to subscribe to our families videos.

Build and Grow-Bug Box

Whoa this post is over a week due so don't throw any stones. It's been very hectic in our household.

It's so hard to remember what happened last weekend. So much! Build and Grow was a lot of fun......for the boys. The Mommy's on the other hand needed more sleep. We were troopers though and did not complain. We are not allowed to complain, right?

Kelon and Pomatoe(according to Kelon), are really becoming great friends! It's so sweet to watch them share and teach each other new things even though some of the habits they learn from one another are not the greatest.

The build was a Bug Box. Simply.Perfect! It was so easy to build so of course Fumy and I had to correct many of our OWN mistakes lol. Thank God the boys will be the architects of the family. Potato was very intense in making sure each nail was tapped. Pretty hilarious to watch actually.

They share very well!

They are so different from one another.

Don't worry he did not hit his thumb with a hammer. He does not particularly like the goggles.

I had to though!

Very serious!

Mommy Troopers

Bug Box Builder Extraordinaire!

Silly boys!

We had to ride the tractor before we left.

Overall everyone had a blast and as always Potato gets better and better with his hand-eye coordination. I am very proud of Potato.

After our build Fumy decided to meet us at the Summer Fest. Part II!

Summer Fest Part II

Kelon did join us for the second part of our Summer Fest Party! Just in case you missed the first Summer Fest.

Fumy, Kelon's Mommy, woke up Kelon from his nap and headed to meet us downtown for some fun in the sun. I had to beg/nag her to get her butt down there because I knew she wouldn't want him to miss out. I am just a little persistent.

They had so much fun running from one end of the slip and slide to the other. Every time they fell they laughed harder. Even with a bitten tongue and a little blood there was nothing but smiles from these little men.

The Mommies decided it was time to move on to another activity. This proved to be a very hard task that had two little boys running from their mommies and tears from the Potato. I did not think he would have so much fun in the fun jump. Hmph!

We moved to the kiddie pools so that Kelon could swim and play in the sand. After being traumatized I figured they deserved some oucecream. I mean I have to spoil them a little right?!

We had a blast and so did they and after another hour or so I had to head home. Potato was in desperate need of a bath and I needed a bath something fierce. Mommy be stinkin!

Show me some of your fun in the sun pictures!

EcoMom Giveaway-Very Low Entries!

Hey guys I want to make sure that everyone jumps on this giveaway. It has a very low entry level so you may just win some incredible snacks! Organic snacks! Potato absolutely loved them and I am already making another order for some so please don't miss out!

The Paper Mama Photo Challenge-Orange

I love to share photos of my loved ones and well Potato and Monkey are probably two of the most important little men in my life. I love them so much. I feel the need to show you how much they also love each other and no matter how much they fight over a toy they still love one another.

This photo was from last Halloween and we were playing at the local pumpkin patch.


The Rules:

You must submit a photo of your children centered somehow around the theme for the week. This week's theme is orange, check out my submission!

Summer Fest Part I

Who new that just a little over three hours of fun would be cause for a two part blog? Well now that I am sitting down and going through all of the pictures I realize that there are too many to precious moments to leave out! So I won't cheat you! ;-)

One of my friends, a fellow co-worker, has a sister that puts on events in our local area. I was all to happy to find out that this past Saturday they were holding an event just for the little ones. The First Annual Summer Fest to benefit the Free World Foundation. This end of the summer
extravaganza proved to be just what a Potato needed in our current 107 degree weather.

There were water slides, sprinklers, a dunking booth, fun jumps, shopping booths, sand boxes, kiddie pools, food, drinks, and COOKIES AND CREAM ice cream! Oh and not to mention the famous Wayne Toups along with several other bands played kid friendly music the entire time.

I really wasn't expecting much when I drove up since it was not packed and I was able to get a parking spot in the very front even though I had to pay 5 dollars. The things a mother will do for convenience. I pulled out the stroller with both the video and regular camera ready to capture sweet memories. It was flippin' hot that day and Potato had just fallen asleep in his car seat, of course! I pulled him out and when he heard the music I felt him dancing in my arms. He was wide awake and ready to play. I outfitted him in his couture Elmo shirt and swim trunks so he was styling.

When we walked through the gates my jaw dropped. There were dozens for kiddie pools filled to the brim with sand and sand toys. We have been fail parents and haven't taken him to the beach yet so sand was a new experience. Potato was not sure of it and I could tell because I was trying
to put him down in the pool of it and his knees bent. I found it adorable and hard at the same time to hold him and explain that sand was safe. I took off my flip flops and jumped in...still holding my 30+ lb child in the air...and squished my toes around. I felt his legs drop so I knew he
approved. I was really way to excited to watch him play and enjoy himself so I of course threw sand in his lap.

After digging sand out of all of the unmentionables we hit the water and boy was that the icing on the cake! Potato is a little fish it was all the better that my friend (co-worker mentioned before) brought her three boys that joined in the fun.

After a couple hours, a hot dog, and a few powerades, Potato's friends had to leave. He was sad and so was I but we knew that we had our buddies Kelon and Fumy coming to play or did he? Please stay tuned for the conclusion of our day in the sun.

Wordless Wednesday: Splash

He loves diving in the pool. Mommy loves her little fish!

I heart your Blog!-Award!

I want to thank my friend Kim @ Chubby Cheeks Thinks for the sweet bloggy love! Please make sure and check out her fantastic giveaways and of course her beautiful Riley and Emma! Kim has been a key person in my blogging experience. Thanks girl!


I would like to pass the bloggy award off too: Gina @ The Ish Blog (cause I loves me some Ish), Mrs E @ Baby Bits (two of the most adorably gorgeous babies ever), Sara @ Unofficial Mom (best Pie ever!), and one of my newest friends Joy @ Joy's Laughter. Please make sure to go and check out their blogs. I promise you will NOT be sorry!