As You KNOW, I… ahem…. Austin is a HUGE Yo Gabba Gabba fan. And even though he is 3 now, he still loves the whole gang. And we’re SO excited that Yo Gabba Gabba LIVE! is making its way back to the North Charleston Coliseum this year with Get The Sillies Out! Press release states “The sillies are crazy little creatures that live inside of us and need
to be shaken out! DJ Lance Rock and everyone’s favorite cast of colorful characters are calling all fans in North
Charleston to get ready to jump, shake and shimmy them out…” How exciting is that?!?!

We’ve been to Yo Gabba Gabba LIVE! for 2 straight years and have had a BALL each year! Check out this post from last year (2012) when we met them backstage! Okay, so he wasn’t too happy about MEETING them, but he LOVEDDDD the show! It is NONSTOP full of action, dancing, music, and singing. We’ve been to a lot of shows, and Yo Gabba Gabba LIVE! is by FAR the best ones we’ve ever been to.

And according to the press release, “Yo Gabba Gabba! LIVE! is touring in support of their first national beverage launch, a new line of toys, a new line of kids sportswear and a DVD/ CD collectors edition.” I’m super excited!

Have YOU ever been to a Yo Gabba Gabba LIVE! show?! Want to go to the one on February 17th at the North Charleston Coliseum!? Enter below for your chance to Get The Sillies out with us!

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Now that the holiday season is coming to a close, it’s been really neat to see the traditions that I have brought along from my childhood, things I remember that my parents did, and new traditions that Austin & I are starting.

One of my favorite stories to tell is when I was little I left cookies, milk, and carrots out for Santa & his reindeer. Some little girl was trying to tell me that Santa wasn’t real and I INSISTED he was because we didn’t peel the carrots and the carrots were half eaten by the morning and NO HUMAN would eat the carrots unpeeled…

This year Austin & I had our own tree, live of of course, that I put up myself, and we decorated it until it got a little heavy one on side and my friend came to adjust it a bit… Didn’t really help and it’s a bit front heavy, but it worked. We got up bright and early Christmas morning and opened presents, and Daddy was there to talk about our Nativity set and see what Santa brought. Austin finally didn’t cry this year on Santa’s lap. And we used our Smart Balance Kids Milk for Santa to enjoy when he brought all of Austin’s goodies Christmas Eve night!

Smart Balance Kids is tasty for kids & Santa too! & Rudolph loves unpeeled carrots, he doesn’t mind one single bit!

Pickles & Paisleys is giving you one more chance this year to win a voucher of a carton of Smart Balance Kids milk to enjoy with your kids {or Ol’ Saint Nick if he’s still hanging around…}. Just enter below!!!

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I received product/compensation for review. All opinions are my own and truthful. Austin & I love Smart Balance Kids & stand behind anything and everything on Pickles & Paisleys.

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Last month Austin & I introduced you to the fabulous NEW Smart Balance Kids milk, and we are still in L.O.V.E. Austin continues to call it his “cow milk”, it’s a staple in the refrigerator and thanks to all the fantastic nutrients, will continue to be so! He just turned 3, & like I mentioned before, the Kids Milk formula is made for kids 2 & up, so he will be sipping on it for as long as he likes, in a sippy cup or in his big boy cups! Either way, I’m confident to know he’s getting all the Calcium, Vitamin C, D, & E, and more that his little body needs. & don’t forget our favorite part:

Other great ways to get those vital nutrients in? Sneak them in with some yummy dinner time favorites. I remember my sister in law used to do this with my nieces, blend up veggies and mix it in with their food, and they were none the wiser! Anywho, I headed over to the Smart Balance Kids’ recipe section and selected the Macaroni & Cheese With Carrots recipe. Smart Balance Kids quotes “Lots of kids turn up their noses at carrots. But no one can say no to this scrumptious and healthier mac & cheese!” Truth be told, Austin eats whole carrots like candy, but I thought this would be a super fun one to make nonetheless!

First you start out with THE most important ingredient, Smart Balance Kids milk of COURSE! You can find it in the milk section (duh…) at Harris Teeter with the other Smart Balance branded products! {CLICK HERE! For COUPONS!}

I’ll let you check out the OFFICIAL Smart Balance Kids Macaroni & Cheese with Carrots recipe on their website, just click HERE!
They say to grate your carrots in a food processor and I totally recommend it. I didn’t have one, my mom didn’t have one… we just used a cheese grater. So our pieces of carrots are pretty big lol and totally obvious. I’m thinking the POINT of this recipe is to HIDE the carrots from your kids, but oh wells ;) Maybe next time!!!!

into….

Guess what? Smart Balance Kids and Pickles & Paisleys is giving 3 of y’all another chance to win a carton of Smart Balance Kids milk for yourselves! Sara, Heather, and Stephanie were our lucky winners from last month, and I can’t WAIT to see who is up this month!

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I received product/compensation for review. All opinions are my own and truthful. Austin & I love Smart Balance Kids & stand behind anything and everything on Pickles & Paisleys.

Thanks so much for subscribing! I would love for you to come by and comment or share Macaroni & Cheese Smart Balance Style with your friends! Ya know, if ya love me ;)

Thanks so much for subscribing! I would love for you to come by and comment or share Austin’s 3!!! with your friends! Ya know, if ya love me ;)

For anyone who knows my little boy, they know he’s super particular and even more unpredictable. So when I tagged all his closest buddies on Facebook the day before Halloween, I was pretty sure the results would be close to unanimous.

But once it was time to suit up Austin exceeded my expectations and not only wore his super tacky Lightning McQueen Cars costume, he also adorned his super hero mask AND cape. And when you ask him what he was for Halloween he will yell “SUPER LIGHNTING MCQUEEN!!!!”

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If you haven’t heard already, the very popular brand Smart Balance, which brings you some rocking products like BUTTER yumm, has introduced Smart Balance Kids, a milk for toddlers and kids. It’s a great way to transition kids from breast milk or formula to cow’s milk. There are a handful of formula’s, one for age’s 12-24 months, one for ages 2 & up, and a chocolate variety for the latter.I have to admit, I’ve never been a HUGE milk fan, with much dismay from my mother who LOVES dairy. I was a little nervous of how Austin would take to it, and thankfully, he has taken after his Grandma and loves to drink milk morning, night, and all the hours in between! I hope that our extended breastfeeding had a little to do with it, or maybe he has just the insatiable appetite of his father.

Since I’m not a milk buff, I don’t know a ton about it. Raw milk. Whole Milk. Skim Milk. But I have heard a lot of buzz about growth hormones and additives in milk. I knew that growth hormones was something to steer clear of. The “experts” say they’re okay, but the critics all insist otherwise, and the articles I have read make me want to stay away.

Thankfully the new Smart Balance Kids milk is FREE of ALL growth hormones!

What else is so great about Smart Balance Kids?

The Transitions Whole Milk for Toddlers ages 12-24 is formulated to transition toddlers from breastmilk or formula to milk and packed full of awesome nutrients such as DHA/EPA Omega-3s to support brain and heart health, calcium and Vitamin D to support strong bones, Prebiotics to support normal digestion, and Iron for healthy growth and development!

The Smart Balance Kids milk, which Austin has been chugging the last two days, is formulated for kids 2 and up. It contains some of the same nutrients as the whole milk. It is a reduced fat milk at 2% and contains the same DHA/EPA Omega-3s to support brain and heart health as its sister whole milk. It has calcium and double the Vitamin D to support strong bones. The Smart Balance Kids milk also contains Antioxidant Vitamins C & E to help keep the immune system strong! Let’s face it, that’s a must when these little kiddos start preschool and sharing those swing sets!

You can learn more about all the nutrients and growth hormone FREE milks, download COUPONS, and pick out some amazing recipes (macaroni and cheese with CARROTS anyone?!) on the easy to navigate, totally comprehensive Smart Balance Kids website!

So how does Austin like the Smart Balance Kids Reduced Fat Milk?

You can pick up Smart Balance Kids for your Little One at your local Harris Teeter! And great news, I am giving 3 of you a chance to try it out FOR FREE with a voucher from Smart Balance Kids! This go towards any 3 of the Smart Balance Kids products!

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Austin’s first trip to the dentist was mostly a success! I guess we can say it was all a success since we LEFT with smiles… And yes, I know… He’s almost 3 and it’s his first visit… Let me explain and make all my excuses really quickly… Austin used to be the most chill baby on the face of the Earth. Would let you do ANYTHING to him. Then he got RSV. Now he won’t let you come near him to do anything. Brushing his teeth is like, well, pulling teeth. So I put of taking him to the dentist because I knew it would be a disaster. I’m sure we all have our Horrible Mother trophy & this is mine. My kid’s first dental appointment was 3 months before his 3rd birthday.

Moving on.

I made his appointment at Coastal Kids Dental. I’ve been by there before. It looks pretty, they have orthodontics (so, by the hundreds of thousands of dollars I know MY parents have spent on my teeth, I’m sure I should go ahead and start looking for for Austin, so 2 birds, 1 stone), and the website is set up nicely (hello computer geek).

The sent me the new patient forms online, and my appointment confirmation via text. Of course I got there right at my appointment time, not a little early because I am always late (once upon a time I used to be early to things….) and there was a little mix up with my insurance (NOT Coastal’s fault!) but the wonderful receptionist & insurance people at the dentists’ office figured it out and we were back in no time. Austin had the best time playing on this touch screen game.

When they took us back, a hygienist asked me a few questions about Austin’s brushing habits, drinking habits (juice & milk people, not beer & whiskey), and I did mention Foofa. She brushed his teeth and told me I should be brushing his tongue, which I didn’t know.

The dentist came in and checked out his teeth and talked to me too. She said they looked great and he didn’t have any cavities. I explained to her as well that he still had the pacifier, but we were in a bit of a stressful home life situation and he only used it when he went to sleep, and she said it was fine. She noticed he did have a little overbite though, but she wasn’t going to push me to take it away, it wasn’t worth it. I told her I was prepared for that overbite long before he was conceived anyways. My mom has one, I had one, and my parents spent thousands and thousands of dollars on orthodontics to fix allllll kinds of stuff. So she said fair enough! He got a ball and a Goofy sticker, a new tooth brush and tooth paste and we were out of there!

He did cry and scream “I want my mommy!!!” (while I was holding him, by the way…) the entire time they looked in his mouth and said “let’s get out of this place” while we waited in between the hygienist and the dentist, but all in all it was a good visit. The staff was amazing and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I was so beyond thankful that I didn’t get any pressure about the pacifier because Austin has been so beyond stressed out lately, you could hold a gun to my head and I wouldn’t take that thing away. Between the new house, my working 3 12 hour shifts a week, sometimes going to the babysitter’s house, sometimes going to grandma’s, going to Daddy’s every other weekend…. Foofa at bedtime is his constant and if I have to pay for a retainer when he’s 8, oh wells. He can just blog when he’s 27 about doing it to his kid. ;)

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Oh hi. It’s been 3 1/2 months… My bad! Work has kept me busy. Austin keeps me busier. And a new house & kitten to top it all off has pretty much kept me from the computer at ALL TIME. But this week I’m getting internet at the new house so I really really really want to get back to the ol’ Pickles & Paisleys.

There are lots of new developments, like I mentioned before. But I will save those for later. For now, just be rest assured, we’re still doing a lot of the same stuff. I’m loving this boy with all my heart, and he’s growing a TON! & we drive and sleep. A lot apparently.

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Yesterday I was working and Austin was napping. He came out of the room after an hour or two and climbed up in my lap. We always have post-nap snuggles. Next thing I knew, he was very still and very quiet.

I got a few sleeping baby boy snuggles. I NEVER EVER get them anymore. When is the last time he’s just fallen asleep in my lap?! I don’t know either.

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Yaaaaay I got a new job!

I am going to be working front desk at an AMAZING urgent care center here in Charleston. I got my scrubs today & a kick-ace zip up fleece that I want to wear all the time.

It wasn’t the one I was posting about last week {breastfeeding peer counselor position for WIC}. They still haven’t gotten back to me about it, and my heart sinks every time the phone rings because I think it could be them offering a dream job to me. But I keep reminding myself that THIS IS my dream job. It happened quickly, it has great benefits, it’s something I’ve done before and LOVED and it’s, get this, 3 12 hour shifts a week. I have FOUR DAYS OFF with Austin. We can still go to the water park and have so much time together. I can still do my work for AppleCheeks!

So yaaaay for me! I took a good year off from LIFE after the whole split, and it’s totes time to get back in the saddle. Get a job, save up some money {Splittin’ the tax return with the baby daddy! HOLLA!}, get my own place, and be ME again! Maybe I’ll score a boyfriend to make me some food once in a while too ;)))

New Job Paperwork

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