Muffin Tin Monday + Giveaway!

Well, I totally skipped a week - we did colors of the rainbow instead of blue/ purple for Muffin Tin Monday, oops. Our tin was so pretty and fun that we'll probably just do the same again next week! I had Lucy help plan what to put in the tin, choosing one item for each color. We had cherry tomatoes, carrots, yellow pepper, broccoli, frozen blueberries, and grapes with sides of ranch for dipping. The peppers were new for us and Lucy said they were her favorite item in the tin! We had macaroni for lunch and put the tin in the middle of the table for everyone to share. See those adorable little cups? They are Dippy Cups, an awesome new find!

Dippy Cups are little silicone cups perfect for ketchup, ranch, BBQ sauce, yogurt, and more. They are a perfect small size and we've been using them constantly since receiving them for review. See, I even took picture of a few meals: (Yes, I'm a well trained Muffin Tin Mom, lol.)

The great thing about these is that they are super easy to clean up. They don't have ridges like the silicone cupcake liners do, so food doesn't stick inside them. I'd highly recommend any mom with young kids have a set of these on hand! It also saves me from hearing the "my cheese is touching my ketchup" complaints. Dippy Cups were invented by a mom (of course!), and you can purchase them directly from their website. They come in a package of 6 bright rainbow colors.

I also have one package to give away. Leave a comment on this post letting me know why you think you would love Dippy Cups. You can leave extra comments for:

- following my blog,

- being an email subscriber, and

- blogging about the giveaway (linking back here and to the Dippy Cup website).

I'll close the giveaway next week Monday, April 5 at midnight. Thanks for stopping by!

(There is still time to join the Bake and Take Day fun here!)

*Giveaway closed. Congrats Susan!*

Kissaluvs Hybrid One Size Review

After my series of cloth diaper reviews, a friend suggested that I try a Kissaluvs Hybrid One Size diaper. I had never heard of these before but they looked interesting and Kissaluvs let me try one! I'm going to go back and add this to the post on fitteds and prefolds too so the newborn reviews are all in one place.

Esther has been using this diaper at 12-13 lbs now. It fits her nicely and I can see it fitting for a long time. Its basically like a fitted diaper without snaps and generously sized so that it has a large range of fit. It can be folded down for smaller babies, but it fits Esther without needing to do that. I tried it on Julia and it fit her too. (23lbs, 2 1/2 years old) Its a bit hard to get a snappi to grab on to this diaper so I felt like it might not stay on Julia right. It stays on Esther just fine though since she's not too mobile.

I like that the soaker is sewn in across the back - no searching for it in the laundry. Its nice and absorbent, but still pretty trim. I fold the soaker part under so that there is plenty of absorbency right where its needed. The elastic fits well at the legs and seems to hold in poop well. This is a good sturdy diaper that we'll get lots of use out of. It comes in cute colors too. Thanks Kissaluvs!

Bake and Take Day

I'm definitely not an expert bread baker yet but we had fun with Bake and Take Day! I first made a batch of zucchini bread and took some to a friend who needed a smile. I had big plans for making my whole wheat bread and taking it to a neighbor while still warm, but it took 4 hours to rise and was ready at 10pm. I'm not sure what happened other than I didn't use fresh ground wheat this time and I'm still a novice. The bread was delicious though. I asked Lucy and Julia who we should take the bread to and they chose our sweet neighbor Katy. She and her husband have a little two year old boy that my girls enjoy playing with. Both my zucchini bread and whole wheat bread recipe make two loaves so they are perfect for sharing. I think we'll be Baking and Taking more often!

I've been using the bread recipe from A Beginners Guide To Baking Bread by Marilyn Moll. Its got lots of helpful tips for getting started with bread baking. I'm excited to try some of the variations like bread sticks, cinnamon bread, herb bread and more. Mmmmm! Two lucky participants will each win a copy of this book. To be considered for this giveaway you need to enter your name and email address here at The Urban Homemaker. While you're there, take a look around at all of the other great products they offer. I'm tempted to invest in more of her cookbooks soon.

Laura at Heavenly Homemakers is offering a giveaway as well. What To Do With Your Kids In The Kitchen is a fun little ebook with simple recipes to create with and for your kids. I got to preview this ebook and we are definitely going to try some of the recipes. To enter this giveaway, simply participate in Bake and Take Day by blogging about your adventures and linking up at the bottom of this post.

Did you participate in Bake and Take Day? What did you bake? Who did you take it to? Write up a post on your blog and link up. Please remember to link directly to your post about Bake and Take Day rather than your entire blog. I'll leave Mr Linky open for a week so that you have time to get your blog posts up. Winners will be announced next Saturday, April 3rd. Thanks for joining the fun!

The giveaways are now closed. No one entered the giveaway for the ebook by participating, so there isn't a winner. Courtney and Tanya each won a Bread Baking book and have been contacted for their addresses.

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Swagbucks

Have you ever heard of Swagbucks? Its a search engine website that rewards you with swagbucks for searching. You can use your swagbucks in their store to buy gift cards to Amazon, Target, Paypal and more. They offer other prizes besides the gift cards too. All you have to do is sign up for an account and start searching. You will randomly be rewarded with swagbucks - its always fun to see them show up. I'm usually leery of things like this, but I've been using Swagbucks for several months now and have gotten several Amazon gift cards. If you want to give it a try, click on my button below and I will get Swagbucks for the referral too. Join the fun; you'll even start off with 30 free swagbucks!