Oh, Blogspot...

I've missed you.
I've been terribly busy...sewing, Christmas, Butters, Logan, b&b. There never seems to be enough time over the holidays to get everything done. I am sewing my Christmas gifts up until the last minute - Butters is getting his one-year molars so it is impossible to get anything done unless he is napping. This, however, is his new favorite activity:


Emptying the dishwasher keeps him occupied for up to an hour. He drags everything all over the house, chews the spoons, stacks the tupperware...and I let him. Whatever floats his boat.
I have developed a few new products for b&b including a matching Mama lap blanket and some tag sensory blankets. SUPER cute. This has kept me super busy. (sidenote - My Super Sweet Sixteen is on the TV and these brats are absolutely amazing)
Lastly, I think Williams Sonoma should do baby registries. Who needs toys when there are wooden spoons and pots and pans? There you go WS - a free million dollar idea. :)

Giveaways and CoolMomPicks.com

Wow - sooooo much b&b happenings!
One - Heather of the EO has an Andrew Collection giveaway going - make sure you enter! I absolutely adore her blog about sobriety, mommyhood and all things philosophical.
Two - Susan at DivineSecretsOfADomesticDiva has yet ANOTHER giveaway going for the Abby Collection newborn set - an amazing holiday gift for the eco-Mama to be! Again, go enter it! I love her blog - she doesn't mince words about motherhood. :)
Three - We had an awesome spot in the Cool Mom Picks (for less) email yesterday...and I'll give you the coupon code (Ooo-la-la). Use cmp25 for 25% off your purchase through December 16th.
Four - We've extended our free logo onesie deal through the 20th - receive a totally FREE b&b logo organic onesie with any purchase over $50! Just specify size and color (natural, pink and blue available) in the notes space of your order.
Five - Come see me tomorrow at UberBaby! This event runs from 10-6 and will be so much fun! Tim Mahoney will be there playing, Grace Wood will be doing photography. This adorable shopping area reminds me of Miami...heart it.
Phew.

Tiny Green Bubble Interview

I'm super stoked about this interview that was published this morning! I always wake up and google butters&beans to see what the media is saying (if they are saying anything). Recognition from such a great "green" website is absolutely awesome.

Switching pace - Butters needs to sleep. He is up for a bottle still at least three times during the night, and one of those times is always a one hour romping rendezvous with his toys. He is 11 months old, and therefore I've gone almost a year without a full nights sleep. I am taking suggestions, and am at the point that I will try just about anything. The list below is what we have already tried:
-Ferber Method
-super dark room
-turning the temp down (and up)
-white noise
-swaddling
-going down to one nap during the day
-limiting his two daytime naps to one hour each
-stuffing him with as much food as possible
-letting him stay up till 9:00pm
-baby-led schedule
-mama-led schedule
If you have any other suggestions, PLEASE email me at annevans@buttersandbeans.com. I'd do just about anything for more than four hours of straight sleep.

Infants=Scavengers

Babies are scavengers.
Apparently I had forgotten this in the 10 years that have passed between my two children.
Butters finds anything and everything on the floor - often this is little tiny pieces of fabric at my house, but he is not picky. Pebbles, stale puffs, crumbs, leaves...the stuff he finds in the carpet makes me feel like I don't clean my house, even though I vacuum almost every day. We have hit the point where I need eyes in the back of my head. My oldest was actually completely convinced that Nana had eyes in the back of her head. My mom would tell him when he was a toddler that she had eyes behind her hair in the back of her head. He, being a toddler, was convinced. He would try to move the hair on the back of her head to see them, but she would always seem to move away in time so he couldn't quite prove her wrong. Nana would be in the kitchen with her back to him, and it would often go like this:
"Nana, can you see me with the eyes behind your hair?"
"Yes, I can!"
"Can you close them please?"
This normally involved him doing something naughty.
Remembering this today made me really look forward to Butters being a toddler, but also made me miss the special interactions that I had with my now 11-year-old when he was little. People always say to treasure it while you have it...but I don't think you can truly understand why until you don't have it anymore. I guess it never really hit me until recently that I'll never have that with him again. Now, he prefers playing video games, talking on the phone to his friends and planning his next moves with his Yu-Gi-Oh deck. Don't misunderstand - he tells me when he has problems at school, and uses me as a sounding board when he needs to problem solve. But...it's different.

"Pigs in a Blanket" Facebook Giveaway!

Who doesn't love baby feet? I absolutely love this...make SURE you have *liked* our Facebook page and entered this giveaway! Here's the deets: go to our Facebook page, post the cutest picture you have of baby feet, and whoever has the most comments on their picture by November 25th at 9pm wins a travel blankie, bib and pant or dress of their choice! Make sure your friends are commenting and not just liking your picture! Direct all of your friends to our Facebook page by tagging our page (put the @ symbol in front of buttersandbeans) and telling your friends to *like* our page and comment!

Two pieces of b&b news...

First, the wonderful Ali Kaplan wrote up a great little ditty of an article about us in today's Pioneer Press! We so much appreciate her support!



Second, Butters has found a new favorite play place - the bathroom. Specifically, the bathroom next to the toilet. This skeeves me a bit for obvious reasons. He loves to unroll the toilet paper and attempt to flush the toilet. Yesterday, he managed to pull what looked like a snotty tissue out of the garbage and put it in his mouth...

Halloween

Halloween is always interesting...kids hopped up on sugar, dressed up as either scary little goblins or pretty little princesses. We always go to my Mother's house for Halloween because she lives in a neighborhood where there are a lot of kids and all of the houses celebrate, which means lots of candy for the little ones. My oldest loves it. He's 11, and loves being as scary as possible. My nephew on the other hand (he's 3), ran and screamed as soon as the first kids came to the door and had to go home. It was Butter's first Halloween - he was a dinosaur...



Also make sure you check out the Emmy Collection, on sale now at buttersandbeans.com!

Minnmoms.com

So thankful to Ali Kaplan for the great writeup on Minnmoms today, and to Keena Marxhausen with Hope Photography for the great pic!

It's Tuesday...I like you.

"Give him tuna...it's a great source of protein!"
I wish the Doctor would have been around to clean up THAT diaper.
On the bebe side, we're working on new foods. With only six teeth (yes, six, and yes, it looks funny) there isn't much he can chew so we're limited. He eats a lot of pasta, loves carrots, apples and strawberries...and then we throw in some sweet potatoes, bananas, puffs, o's, yogurt melts and chicken here and there. I've even peeled and diced grapes. We're going to try eggs tonight (bracing for another up-the-back-out-the-sides-on-the-floor-diaper).
b&b side - search engine stuff, PR stuff, inventory stuff...nothing all that interesting, so I'll spare you all. We are looking forward to an amazing holiday season!
On the "me" side, I'm in love with this blogger - read her blog, Facebook her, Twitter her...
http://www.extraordinary-ordinary.com/

Advertising

So this is kind of fun...we're working on advertising now. Now that the site is live, we can move forward. Forward motion is good; progress is good.



photos by teryn glenn photography

Love my little Elliot!

And yes, his eyes really are THAT blue - they are not Photoshopped! The new b&b pattern is pretty cute too... :)

Where have we been?

We have been busy creating the site and creating beautiful baby organics. Today is October 1 - and I am such a deadline-driven person it absolutely kills me that we are running behind. Realizing that not everyone runs on "Ann time" has been difficult...and "Ann time" can mean either super-speed or turtle-speed. I've been back and forth between the two for the last three weeks or so. There has been a lot of hurry up and wait...
The little ones in my house have distracted me quite a bit - and they are always the priority. Jax started crawling (or scooting, rather) about two weeks ago and seems to get from one side of the room to the other at the blink of an eye. We hit the point where all of the low-sitting breakables and possible ouchie things had to be moved up higher. His favorite things to do are to climb under the coffee table, seek out any and all cords and play climb mount Mommy. That said, there is pretty much no more working while he's awake (as I write this he is on the bottom shelf of the coffee table near my feet - see picture). He's been a little clingy as well, and anyone that knows me knows that I have a very hard time letting him fuss for more than 30 seconds before I give in and pick him up. That all said, naptime has been reserved for cutting fabric and working on copy for the website...things that need immediate attention to move forward.
So, we still have a bit of work to do on the site - writing some copy and dealing with some technical coding. I'm hoping this will be done within the next week or so. I have also designed a couple more super cute pant sets that need to be photographed...that should be done mid-next week.
Perfection takes time - I'd rather have a site that I am perfectly happy with, than a site that I am constantly re-evaluating in my head.