The Traveling Toddler {Sponsor Highlight and Early Extra Entries!}

I believe I have mentioned the fact that our family will soon be heading south to Brazil. It's going to be quite an adventure, and our first traveling  experience with a toddler! I have arranged a couple of reviews and giveaways surrounding this trip.

One wonderful sponsor of this event is CSN Stores. CSN Stores has 200 + stores offering -you name it- from cloth diapers, to anything you might need in the kitchen, or any room in the house for that matter. Do you love the modern style? One of CSN's stores, ALL MODERN offers all kinds of trendy stuff for every place and occasion, including the oh so popular Eames lounge chair!

You may wonder what this may have to do with a traveling toddler....WELL, this particular toddler weighs just over 20 pounds, is not yet walking (but is *very* close), and LOVES to be carried! I've enjoyed our wrap style carrier, but now that our little one is much bigger and more active, I've been realizing that a soft structured carrier is in order, especially since we'll be doing lots of walking around in Brazil!

A friend of mine has an ERGO Carrier, which she let me try while we shopped at a consignment sale the other day. It was a great experience. I was so pleased with how well Lydia did in it. She was as happy as a lark in spite of the fact that she had missed her usual nap time.

Did you know that CSN Stores carries a great variety of baby carriers? Here's a sampling of just a few! Can you figure out what they are?

Can you look around my site and guess which one CSN Stores is going to be offering to GIVE AWAY in honor of our trip abroad? Which one will I be testing out on the trip and posting a review for afterward?

EXTRA EARLY ENTRIES

If you can identify 4 of the 6 baby carriers pictured above by browsing the baby carriers at CSN Stores and leave me a comment with your answers you can earn 5 extra entries into the March ERGObaby carrier giveaway!

Leave me another comment with a link to the baby carrier that CSN Stores carries that you'd most like to try and earn 5 more extra entries into the March ERGObaby carrier giveaway!

This is not a paid post. The opinions expressed are entirely my own. This is the second of a series of two posts including a link to CSN Stores that will enable me to offer you an exciting giveaway in March!

More Than This Monday: To be a Tree...

I've posted this poem before. I'm very slow to post my poems, as they come from my heart and are something that I don't feel like is always appropriate to make public, but I feel compelled to share this one again. It's something come back to again and again. We must abide, rest, remain, stay, be - IN Christ. Striving in our own strength may produce some "results," but only that which is the very life of Christ flowing through us will produce real, lasting fruit. It is my heart's desire to let Him live and flow through me. What sweet surrender to just yield and trust Him, and experience being what we were created to be...

I Just Want to be a Tree

I just want to be a tree.
But not just any tree, you see.
Bearing fruit in its season
with roots that go deep.
This is the tree I want to be.

For the fowl of the air
It's a cozy space.
For the victim fled
It's a hiding place.
And the weary lean
on its solid base.

On a scorching day
it's a shady spot
To the hungry it offers
the fruit it has wrought

For the weary mind
it's a peaceful scene
that calms the soul
with beauty serene.

With all of this,
there is so much more
that a simple tree
was created for.

It absorbs pollutants
that in the air abound
And breathes out clean air
to all that surround
It does all this
without a sound.

Without labor or strife
it lives its life
But from where does
the power proceed?

From beneath the earth
where the seed gave birth,
deep under the ground
a quiet stream is found.

There it firmly stands,
Raising its hands
Pointing to the sky
to God on high.

He is the source of the
light shining down
His life the cool stream
running under ground.

His life within and His
life poured out,
keep the abiding tree safe
from every drought.

Through every gust
The tree steadily trusts
Swaying, not breaking
Bent but not crushed.

And so the tree
not in words, but in deed
Points toward the One
who created the seed,
for all His glory to see.

And so my friend, I hope you see
Why I just want to be a tree.

Inspired by:

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he mediates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers."~Psalm 1:1-3


"...They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting from the Lord." Isaiah 61:3


"Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the Lord's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed." Isaiah 55:13

"I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener...Remain in me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me..." John 15:1-2

*Image courtesy of The Graphics Fairy!

Wool Dryer Balls from the Willow Store {Review and Giveaway!}

You may remember my review of the Willow Store's Sprout Change reversible hybrid reusable diaper a couple of months ago! Well, as wonderful as it is, cloth diapers are not all the Willow Store has to offer.

Willow Store offers organic kitchen cloth, known as "forever cloth," reusable bags, feminine care products, and natural laundry products and more! Today It's my honor to review for you Willow Store's wool dryer balls! 

These wool dryer balls are natural wool felted, and handmade right here in the USA! These dryer balls last for many years and are effective in reducing drying time for all laundry, and naturally softening clothing.

If you use cloth diapers like me, especially in the winter when it is too cold to hang laundry outside (for me anyway), I appreciate anything that can help me keep the electric bill down by reducing the drying time especially of absorbent loads of towels or cloth diapers.

I have enjoyed having this set of three wool dryer balls. They are extremely soft and are very light. Therefore they do not make loud thumping sounds in the dryer! As a matter of fact, I can't hear them at all. This is wonderful for me because the dryer is normally a nice soothing background noise when my daughter is sleeping, but dryer balls can make enough thump to wake her up or keep her from sleeping. 

I had also been having a problem with a lot of static this winter, especially with my cloth diapers after pulling them out of the dryer. I kept shocking my little one! I have not had that problem at all since I started using these dryer balls! They really help reduce static electricity!

Aside from their functional use, these balls are the perfect size for my toddler's little hands (about the size of a tennis ball). She *loves* balls, and these are super soft and easy for her to throw! She loves playing with them between loads! Not only that, but she's become my little helper with the laundry. She helps me put things in, close the door (her favorite part), turn the knob, and then press the button and watch it go. Now we've added the step of her putting the dryer balls into the dryer each time. That one she can *truly* do by herself and makes her feel super proud!

I definitely recommend Willow Store's wool dryer balls!

 ***Giveaway!***

Willow Store is offering one very blessed reader their very own set of wool dryer balls!

Here's how to enter:

Go to the Willow Store  website and come back here and leave a comment telling me something you learned or which product you'd most like to try.

(Leave a separate comment for each entry. Include your email address if it is not easily accessible through your blogger profile.You do not have to have a blogger profile to enter, as long as you leave a valid e-mail address.)  

Additional Entries: 

Subscribe to The Willow Store Newsletter!  (right side of home page)

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Grab my new button!

Blog about this giveaway.

Tweet about this giveaway using @TheWillowStore and @cheapnchoosy. (Up to 3 times daily)

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Link this post up to any Giveaway Linky and just leave me a comment with the link! (3 entries per linky entered!)

Share about this giveaway in whatever social media venue or forum you wish.  As long as you can provide a link to it, it counts!

Comment on one of my non-giveaway posts. (One entry per post commented on.)

 This giveaway is open to everyone everywhere until March 4, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. EST. The winner will be chosen using a random number generator. I will email the winner, who will have 48 hours to respond. If winner does not respond within 48 hours, another winner will be chosen. I will post the winner when the selection has been made and confirmed by the recipient.

This is not a paid post. The opinions expressed are completely my own! I received the product reviewed free of charge.  You can see my full disclosure here.