My bags are packed and I am off to St. Louis for the Build-A-Bear blogger event.  I will be away for 3 days and 2 nights.  I am a little sad to be leaving my little guy (I haven’t been away from him for more than 1 night).  However, I am really excited to hang out with my blogging buddies and learn more about this wonderful company.  I will also love having a hotel room to myself for a couple of days.

If you need anything feel free to email and I will answer all my messages when I return (on my husband’s and my  5Th anniversary).

I have installed a Winner’s Page under the “Giveaways” tab.  Click on “Winners” and it will bring you to AMI’s monthly list of giveaway winners.  I decided to announce winners this way so check the page often to see if you are a lucky winner.  I will still send winner’s an email confirming that they are the giveaway winner.  Winners have 48 hours to respond to the initial email before a new winner will be chosen.  (Boy, I used the word “winner” a lot in that paragraph!)

Don’t forget to enter all of our current giveaways including the

Tassimo T20 by Bosch Giveaway

you will love this single serve coffee maker.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Father’s Day.  Thank you again for visiting A Mom’s Impression!

I am a participant in the 2010 Summer Blog Tour hosted by The Work at Home Woman and Living My MoMent.

Welcome to A Mom’s Impression! My name is Kathy and I am the founder of AMI. I am a first time mom to a beautiful baby boy a who turned 1 in April. I am the wife of an amazing man who I have been happily married to for 5 years. I write about my life as a new mom and about amazing products for the family. We have a lot of giveaways and I recently have been blogging about family recipes that I have tried out on my husbands (I call them Kathy surprises). I created this blog to keep in touch with my family members who live across the country. I have met amazing men and women while blogging and would love to get to know you as well. Thank you for taking the time to visit A Mom’s Impression, take a look around and enter some of my giveaways.

I have met some amazing people when I began blogging.  While I have never actually met these friends in person, we have enjoyed getting to know each other through various forums and social media outlets. A few months ago I joined the Double Duty Divas.  The Double Duty Divas is a blog network that has teamed up with some of the best review blogs on the Internet.  The Divas have grown to over 100 members making it very attractive to companies looking to promote products to a large audience.

I  would love for you to “Meet the Divas!“  Take a look at some of these wonderful blogs and subscribe via email!

• Cool Baby Kid
• Experimental Mommy
• Just a mom’s take on things…
• The Bragging Mommy
• A Mom’s Impression
• Simply Being Mommy
• The Art of Being Mom
• Real Moms Real Views
• A Nut in a Nutshell
• The B Keeps Us Honest
• Moody Mama Says
• Stuff Parents Need
• Simply Stacie
• Katie’s Nesting Spot
• Simply Living On a Budget
• Mama’s Money Savers
• Out of the Notebook and Into the Blog
• “Deal”icious Mom
• Hyperactive Lu
• Sweet Posh Baby
• Keeper of the Cheerios
• Champagne Living
• Before the Baby Wakes
• Little People Wealth
• The 24/7 Mom
• Lipstick to Crayons

Win It:

Enter to win a $20 Amazon gift card by “Meeting the Divas.”   Visit and subscribe to a Diva site (above) and comment back here telling me what you like about the site.  Leave a separate comment for each site.  Twenty-six (26) maximum entries per person.  U.S. Residents Only.  Giveaway ends 6/22/10.

I love taking my family on vacations.  With a little one it can get complicated when planning your summer vacations.  After all, my little guy is only a year old and traveling with him can get a little scary.  Luckily, TJ seems to love to travel.  Here are some of our fun family vacations activities we take every year. Twitter Mom’s is asking mom bloggers everywhere to post about their family vacation activities.  You can learn more here.

1. We travel to Idaho every winter and summer to be with our family.  If you plan on taking a long trip like this one be sure to pack some baby friendly activities for the plane ride.  We try to fly during TJ’s normal sleeping time to make it easier on our fellow travelers.  We also take a lot of snacks!
2. We go to the “beach”.  Well really it is Lake Michigan, but the water is what keeps kids entertained for hours at a time.  Get some sunscreen and enjoy yourself.
3. We take weekend trips to the amusement parks.  We are fortunate enough to have several family friendly parks here in Indiana and close surrounding states.  I haven’t taken our little guy there yet, but my family has taken my nieces and nephews and had a blast.
4. My family likes to camp.  When I was a kid we would take a weekend and hike up into a camping spot and pitch our tents and spend the night.  This is a great family activity that doesn’t require a lot cash (once you have the camping supplies).
5. I love to go on family picnics.  It may not be as flashy as an amusement park, or as adventurous as camping, but packing a light lunch and heading out to the park with my family is one of my highlights of the summer.  A day trip is a great way to get out and about and stay active.

Here is TJ in his Porta Crib (A must when you travel with an infant or toddler).  We were visiting our family out in Idaho.  He loved to travel and he loved his little bed.

I wrote this blog post while participating in the Williamsburg Tourism and TwitterMoms blogging program for a chance to get a $50 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

Fun Family Vacation Activities

Visit Williamsburg

Don’t forget to enter our Giveaways ending at midnight May 10:

Sodastream Review and Giveaway

The Juppy Baby Walker Review and Giveaway

Ouchies Jr. Review and Giveaway

I hope you all enjoyed your Mother’s Day, I know I did.  We went out to our annual brunch and ate a lot of food.  BJ loved feeding his cousins  his cheerios (they playfully obliged).  We came home and relaxed and then I took BJ on a wagon ride up and down our street while daddy mowed the yard.  It was a perfect day!

BJ is doing wonderfully. He just had his first year doctor’s appointment and he is a very healthy boy.  He is now completely off of formula and we are working on eating more table food so that he is no longer on baby food.  This process is difficult and frustrating for mommy because BJ doesn’t like to eat table food (unless you are giving him cheerios).  He apparently hates cheese which is baffling me because I love cheese.  He picks up the food and throws it on the floor. Our dog, Eli, is loving this new chapter in BJ’s life, he is the ultimate clean up crew!

BJ is taking steps.  He is slow and steady often just standing for a few minutes and then deciding he would rather crawl.  With all his movement I have realized that BJ is no longer a baby, he is a toddler.  With this realization come a name change here on A Mom’s Impression.  BJ (Baby J)’s name is going to be updated to TJ (Toddler J).  From now on I will be referring to my son as TJ.

A Mom’s Impression has enjoyed a huge growth in readers last month.  I am very honored that so many people are visiting my site and leaving comments.  We have some awsome reviews and giveaways coming this month including products from Guidecraft, Little Tikes, Pediped,  The First Years, and many more.  Thank you for visiting and please check back often.

I am participating in 5 Minutes For Mom’s 2010 Ultimate Blog Party.  Click on the banner above to learn more about the Ultimate Blog Party.

Welcome to A Mom’s Impression! My name is Kathy and I am the founder of AMI. I am a first time mom to a beautiful baby boy about to turn 1 on the 24th. I am the wife of an amazing man who I have been happily married to for 5 years (in June). I write about my life as a new mom and about amazing products for the family. We have a lot of giveaways and I recently have been blogging about family recipes that I have tried out on my husbands (I call them Kathy surprises). I created this blog to keep in touch with my family members who live across the country. I have met amazing men and women while blogging and would love to get to know you as well. Thank you for taking the time to visit A Mom’s Impression, take a look around and enter some of my giveaways.

BJ and I on his first Halloween.  He wore his costume for exactly 10 minutes and then he wanted it off!

So… what do you all think about my re-designed site?  There was some glitches along the way and I quickly figured out that I had no idea what I was doing.  After hours of trying to figure out how to change a color I hired a great designer (and fellow blogger) Stefanie from La De Da Designs to put my vision into reality.  I can’t tell you how helpful Stefanie is when she is doing a design.  She kept tweaking things around so that it looked exactly how I had envisioned in my head.  She took my site and created a brand new button that I think is adorable.  She is quick and helpful and her rates are extremely reasonable, so if you are in the market for a new web design, or blog services and want the best, check out La De Da Designs.

So what do you all think?  I have a couple of more little changes here and there but for the most part here is the new design.  I hope that navigating through the site is much more user friendly than before.  Come frequently and visit, I have a lot of great things coming up that I would love to share with you now…. but I gotta keep you coming!

I didn’t receive any free services from La De Da Designs for writing this, I just loved my experience with Stefanie and wanted to promote her buisiness.

As a kindergarten teacher in a public school we feel the pinch with funding everywhere we turn.  Unfortunately ,it seems like the people the current flux in eduction funding is hurting the most is our children.  I am constantly trying to find ways to supplement instruction in my classroom using the smallest monetary resources that I can.  There are great programs out there like DonorsChoose.org that help teachers out there find funding for projects they are working on in their classrooms.  But what kind of help is there for the parents of the kids who need to send in supplies, and buy clothing, and pay textbook fees for their school aged children? As public school budgets get smaller, out-of-pocket fees for public education are getting larger.

LIVE! with Regis and Kelly are expecting Anderson Cooper to stop by (filling in for Regis) this Friday morning. Anderson is covering the current flux in education funding and wants us to help him get advice, secrets, tips to families that need it most!! In anticipation of his arrival we need all you thrifty Mom’s, Dad’s Grandmas and Grandpas to put your heads together for Elementary School children across America! What are some of the ways you maintain your budget and still send your little ones fully equipped for school!? What are some training strategies, and lessons you’ve instilled about respect, honesty and safety?

BJ had his follow-up doctor’s appointment a week ago to check on his weight gain and gross motor skill development.  Since the last time I posted about his doctor’s concerns, BJ has started to pull up and cruise around the table as well as bending down and picking up objects.  The doctor was pleased with his progress.  He has gained a half of a pound since his 9-month checkup and the doctor seemed okay about that.  What was concerning was the fact that BJ has been throwing up about twice a week after eating.  The doctor sent my husband and BJ down to the imaging center to take an inside look at BJ’s stomach to be sure that there wasn’t anything we needed to be concerned about.  They took pictures and didn’t see anything that would be causing BJ to throw up.  They concluded that BJ’s gag reflex isn’t fully developed yet and he will outgrow this throwing up in a few months.

I have been very cautious with over-feeding BJ because he seems to gag more when he is full, and this week he didn’t throw up at all!  That is until today.  It seems like just when I am starting to not worry about the little guy he gives me something to worry about.  I wasn’t around today when he threw up (I was at the gym trying to work off those last few pregnancy pounds), so I had to rely on my husband’s expertise that he overfed him.

The doctor said that the eczema on BJ’s face had gotten so bad that it is now infected.  He prescribed some cream that has been working great for the past week.  The downside of this magical cream is the price tag.  We have insurance (decent insurance) and we still had to pay $80.00 for this small tube of cream!  What exactly are my insurance premiums going towards if I still have to pay $80 on a generic prescription?  To make matters worse I accidentally left his cream on his nightstand after applying it one night and my dog Eli got into it (he has an obsession with steroid cream, this isn’t the first, or second, tube of prescription cream that he has eaten in his lifetime) and now it comes out the sides as well as the top.  Luckily BJ’s face is looking so much better that he doesn’t need it.

I can’t believe how much doctors appointments scare me these days.  Every time he goes we come back with something else we need to worry about with him.  I guess worrying about him will last my lifetime!