The gorgeous Jools Oliver, who is expecting her third child with husband Jamie Oliver, has been busy decorating her nursery with some beautiful artwork.

One of Jools’s favorite purchases is a selection of prints from BelleandBoo.com. She described the enchanting prints as her “favourite find of the year!” The two illustrations that Jools bought were ‘Found’ and ‘Walk With Me.’

 
Belle and Boo’s illustrations are so charming and sweet. I love them! There isn’t enough stuff this innocent and adorable! Honestly, just check out their website! Bunnies, birds and everything wonderful!

Do yourself a favor and pick up one of these fabulous hannas while they are still on sale. Even on sale, Hanna Andersson clothes aren’t cheap, but they wash and wear so wonderfully and are the things you will always reach for when dressing your little ones. I bought a dress similar to this one last year for my daughter and it made for such easy dressing in the mornings and was what my daughter always wanted to wear. So…when I saw that this (very similarly fashioned one) was on sale for $29 I just couldn’t resist. They are regularly $37.50. I bought one in blossoming pink and one in budding green.

Trust me…they are a good investment. I love this particular dress as it is girly and sweet without being frou frou, it is soft and comfy, and it can be worn for almost any occasion.

Introducing the new “tween” Dora The Explorer!

The beloved explorer has traded in her sneakers for fashionable ballet slippers and added more ribbons, flowers and jewelry. She has also replaced her bowl-cut with long flowing hair. (That’s a big improvement if you ask me…regardless of her age!)

Mattel claims that while she looks older (she is supposed to be about 10), she’s not wearing any makeup.

The new Dora has caused parents to go into an uproar! The new Dora has being called a “streetwalker” and a poor example for kids. Some critics contested that Dora’s new super-slim body image fell into the stereotypical, Barbie-like dolls that are criticized for body-image issues.

Nickelodeon and Mattel have been busy doing some major damage control! They immediately explained that it was a big misconception and reassured parents that the old Dora was not being scrapped. Instead the new interactive tween doll was being created for kids between the ages of 5- to 8-year-olds.

The new Tween Dora hits shelves in the fall of 2009.

I don’t see what the big deal is! The new Dora is very cute! The dolls that parents should really be concerned about are those hideous Bratz dolls….I find those to be completely disgusting.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics recently commissioned a report to determine which children’s bath products were contaminated with cancer causing chemicals formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane.

The report’s findings are outlined in this Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ article. A list of the products tested can be found here.

You aren’t likely to see the chemicals formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane listed on the labels of baby bath products, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

More than half of children’s bath soaps, shampoos, lotions, and other personal care products tested by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (CSC) were found to contain 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde.

Both of the chemicals are considered probable carcinogens by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Because they are not intentionally added by manufacturers, there is no requirement that product labels list the chemicals when they are present.

There are also no federal restrictions on allowable levels of the chemicals in body care products, but several other countries do not allow the chemicals at ANY level!

The European Union has banned 1,4-dioxane from cosmetic products. And formaldehyde is not allowed in cosmetics sold in Japan and Sweden.

“Manufacturers could easily remove these toxic byproducts, but they are not required to do so under federal cosmetics safety standards,” Sonya Lunder, MPH, of CSC and the Environmental Working Group told WebMD.

Sonya Lunder says there is no simple way for parents to tell if the baby bath products they are purchasing contain the chemical byproducts. In an earlier test, CSC found that many products labeled “natural” or “organic” contained 1,4-dioxane.

“The main thing parents can do is use fewer body care products on their children or look for those products with fewer ingredients,” she said. “Labels that say ‘gentle’ or ‘pure’ or even ‘organic’ don’t really tell you much.”

Astonishingly, 61% of the 48 baby and child personal care products tested had both chemicals!

According to the report:

Seventeen out of 28 products tested (61%) were found to contain both formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane.
Twenty-three out of 28 products (82%) contained formaldehyde, and 32 of 48 products (67%) contained 1,4-dioxane.
*Baby Magic “Soft Baby Scent” Lotion contained the highest levels of formaldehyde found in the testing. Two samples of the lotion contained 570 and 610 parts per million (ppm) of the chemical. The report noted that a formaldehyde level above 500 ppm would require a warning label in Europe.

*Several samples of “American Girl” shower products, sold by Bath & Body Works, contained the highest levels of 1,4-dioxane found in the test.

*Best-selling products found to contain both chemical contaminants included Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, Sesame Street Bubble Bath, Grins & Giggles Milk & Honey Baby Wash and Huggies Naturally Refreshing Cucumber & Green Tea Baby Wash.

Check out this fantastic website for detailed information on safe, non-toxic products for your children and yourself! It is fascinating to learn about all the safer alternatives that are available!

After some research, it seems that this company comes out on top as the absolute least toxic! Their website had an amazing tidbit that I feel absolutely terrible for not knowing already…Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo is not tear-free, it has a numbing agent so babies do not feel the irritation. Yuck!

The following e-mail was forwarded to me, and though I cannot personally verify it, I thought that it was worth sharing just in case…

Yesterday, my youngest daughter, Halle , who is 4, was rushed to the emergency room by her father for being severely lethargic and incoherent. He was called to her school by the school secretary for being ‘very VERY sick.’He told me that when he arrived, Halle was barely sitting in the chair. She couldn’t hold her own head up and when he looked into her eyes, she couldn’t focus them. He immediately scooped her up and rushed her to the ER, and then called me. When we got there, they ran blood test after blood test and did x-rays, every test imaginable. Her white blood cell count was normal, nothing was out of the ordinary. The ER doctor told us that he had done everything that he could do so he was sending her to Saint Francis for further tests. Right when we were leaving in the ambulance, her teacher came to the ER and, after questioning Halle’s classmates, we found out that she had licked hand sanitizer off her hand. Hand sanitizer, of all things. But it makes sense. These days they have all kinds of different scents and when you have a curious child, they are going to put all kinds of things into their mouths. When we arrived at Saint Francis, we told the ER doctor there to check her blood alcohol level, and yes we did get weird looks, but they did it. The results showed her blood alcohol level was .85!, six hours after we first took her. There’s no telling what it would have been if we would have requested it at the first ER. Since then, her school and a few surrounding schools have taken this out of the classrooms of all the lower grade classes, but what’s to stop middle and high schoolers from ingesting the stuff? After doing research on the Internet, we have found out that it only takes 3 squirts of the stuff to be fatal in a toddler. For her blood alcohol level to be so high was to compare someone her size to drinking something 120 proof. So please PLEASE don’t disregard this because I don’t ever want anyone else to go through what my family and I have gone through. Please send this to everyone you know who has children or are going to be having children. It doesn’t matter what age.

Verification of this can be found here. 

A similar mishap was reported in Minneapolis, where 2-year-old Sydney Moe ate some of the hand sanitizer gel her mother kept by the sink and was rushed to the emergency room with a blood alcohol concentration of .10 percent — legally drunk, by the statutes in most states. She, too, recovered quickly, but the Minnesota Poison Control Center warned that the high alcohol content of hand sanitizers and other common household products such as mouthwash and perfumes can pose a serious health threat to small children and should be kept out of their reach except under parental supervision. Some hand sanitizers contain isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol instead of ethyl alcohol, making them even more dangerous to ingest.

…just seemed like an important reminder to be very careful.

Very interesting article on how feminism ruins lives.

Excellent article in The Huffington Post about vaccinations.

Prepare to be shocked! This takes Once Upon A Potty to a whole new level!

At first I thought that this couldn’t be real….but it is! It is a Japanese potty-training video promoting a curious potty-training product!

(In the above pic to promote World Breastfeeding Week Lucy Lawless is pictured breastfeeding her then three-month-old son Judah)

More than 58,000 people reportedly are protesting Facebook’s decision to remove images of women breastfeeding from the social networking site.

The controversy actually began in the summer of 2007 when Kelli Roman’s Facebook profile photo of her nursing her infant daughter disappeared. There was no explanation as to why the photo was deleted from her page and Facebook never responded to her inquiries asking why it was removed.

Kelli started a Facebook group — Hey Facebook, Breastfeeding is Not Obscene. Within the group’s page is a collection of photos — many of which were the ones that had been removed from the users’ profile pages. But even though these photos haven’t been removed, Facebook still hasn’t changed its policy.

The group is not relenting and has organized a virtual “nurse-in” on Facebook on December 27th. They’re asking members to change their profile photo for the day, to a picture of a nursing child, and to add the sentence, “Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!” to their status message.

“We need to take our bodies back,” said mother and protester Stephanie Muir. “Whether there’s a nipple exposed or not, female breasts, specifically in the context of breast-feeding, should not be considered obscene.”

Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said the site removes photos only when the entire breast is shown.

“These policies are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users, including the many children who use the site,” said Barry Schnitt.

What do you think? And will you participate in the “nurse-in?”

Tonight is quite the night of television! First the most magical reindeer of all at 8/7C on CBS and then new mom Alessandra Ambrosio, 27, and friends will be strutting their stuff at The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show! Yikes! (Alessandra welcomed daughter Anja just three months ago!)

Though nothing compares to Rudolph, be careful of the Abominable Snowman if you will be viewing with little ones. I was TERRIFIED of the Abominable Snowman when I was little! It airs very early, but chances are that it will inspire many more nightmares than the scantily clad girls in The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show…which airs much later on CBS at 10/9C! ;) And PLEASE DVR it! All the obnoxious commercials ruin it!

Have a wonderful evening!