Looking for new toys for your tot? Look no further than Oompa for classy, unique toys.

My favorite? This beautiful wooden kitchen set. My 18-month old would love it! You can win this or your favorite toy over at I Never Grew Up. Hurry! You only have until the 17th.

I’ve followed Ambrosia Girl for a while. I keep coming back to see her next tutorial or to be inspired by her designs.

Now she has a paper line on Etsy. There’s some great stuff there–very classy and unique. Take a look for yourself, then enter a giveaway at Simple Blueprint to win something from the shop. Good luck!

Head on over to A Room Somewhere for another giveaway. This time it’s for little ones. I think my little girl would look adorable in these giraffe loafers.

Win a great fall cardigan over at A Room Somewhere.

My Etsy store is up running. Go check out my hair clips for girls, feathers clips, and mini hand bound notebooks. I’ll continue adding new products as I can. While you’re there, take a look at some of my other Etsy favorites.

Word of the Day:
higgledy-piggledy
\hig-ul-dee-PIG-ul-dee\
adverb

: in a confused, disordered, or random manner

We really have no idea where “higgledy-piggledy” came from, but we do know it’s a perfect example of English speakers’ fondness for reduplication; that is, for forming new words by repetition of a base word with just a slight change of sound. In this case, the “base” word might actually be the second term, which is loosely reminiscent of “pig” and calls to mind the possible association of pigs with disorderliness. (Nathaniel Hawthorne, at least, noted a connection: “pigs, on a march, do not subject themselves to any leader among themselves, but pass on, higgledy-piggledy, without regard to age or sex.”) We also know that the word has been around since before 1600; it appeared as a translation of an Italian word in a 1598 Italian-English dictionary. According to that dictionary, the Italian term could also be translated as “pell-mell” or “helter-skelter” — two other examples of reduplication.

Courtesy of Merriam-Webster Online.

“Her kiss was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”
— Nicole Krauss

Krauss lovingly describes the characters in her book so well that they become living people. After reading History of Love, I want to eat sandwiches and gherkins with Leo Gursky. I want to build a boat with Bird and wait for it to start raining. I care for them; I want to see their dreams fulfilled. This book makes me laugh aloud. It makes me cry. It makes me see things a little differently. Most of all, it makes me cherish the people in my life.

The morning we left the hospital with our newborn baby I was so happy to take a hot shower and finally wear real clothes, even if they were maternity clothes. I got ready, pulled back my clean hair, and even put makeup on. I was feeling pretty good, until my husband took one look at me and said, “You still look pregnant.”

I sure love him, even when he says the wrong thing.

Word of the Day:
bird-dog
\BURD-dog\
verb

1 : to watch closely
2 : to seek out : follow, detect

People began using “bird-dog” as a verb meaning “to closely watch someone or something” or “to doggedly seek out someone or something” in the early 20th century. Both meanings reflect skills likely to be possessed by a well-trained bird dog. By the 1940s, “bird-dogging” was being used specifically as a term for stealing someone else’s date. And, not long after that, it began to be used for the scouting out of customers or prospective talent. The noun “bird dog” is also used as a name for the date stealers and scouts who do the bird-dogging.

Courtesy of Merriam-Webster Online.

You know the expression “don’t cry over spilled milk?” Well, it’s happened to me.

After buying groceries once, I was in a rush to put everything away. I grabbed a bag from the counter and the unopened jug of milk toppled to the kitchen floor. It burst open like a water balloon, gushing milk everywhere. My husband and I frantically reached for dishrags, towels, napkins…anything we could find to mop up the mess (a gallon is a lot of milk when it’s poured out all over your kitchen floor). The whole time we were laughing and slipping and soaking our socks with milk. I laughed so hard I had tears running down my cheeks.

So the next time you’re in a hurry to put the groceries away, take a little extra care with your milk so you won’t have to cry over it too.

Image courtesy of www.peterbreuer.de on Flickr