Gaia Organics Shampoo & Body Wash Review

I confess that I still use baby shampoo and body wash on my kids. Their skin is sensitive, so I don't like using soaps with any bad chemicals in them.

Gaia Organics Shampoo and Body Wash is for kids and babies. It's a perfect product for my 2 sons!

It's a tear free formula that can be used to gently cleanse your child's delicate skin and hair. It's perfect for kiddos that have a dry scalp. My boys both had baby eczema on their scalp when they were itty bitty.

It's says it's for babies on the bottle, but on Amazon it says it's for kids. Thankfully my kids do not care what it says. They'll use whatever I give them to clean themselves.

Cost: 

It's $24.99 and on sale for $17.96. I think that's a pretty good cost considering it's organic and all natural. I've priced out similar shampoos, that were way more in cost. Gaia Organics Shampoo and Body Wash doesn't skimp on the amount. They fill it to the rim in their 16 ounce container.

All Natural, Organic Ingredients: 

• Distilled Water
• Lavender
• Organic Olive
• Organic Safflower
• Organic Sunflower
• Organic Coconut
• Poly Glucoside
• Natural Beet Powder
• Xanthan Gum
• Aloe Vera
• Citric Acid

*SLS-Free, Paraben-Free, Free of Petrochemicals and Other Harmful Preservatives and Additives.

Lavender:

I have to say I'm not the biggest fan of the scent lavender. When I was pregnant with Mica I got a stretch cream that had lavender in it, and it was a scent that didn't agree with me. The lavender in Gaia Organics Shampoo and Body Wash is relatively light. I can smell it, but it's not overpowering. 

Lavender is known to be soothing and calming before bedtime.

PDF Book:

The company sends a PDF book on caring for children, which I thought was a great!  

What My Kids Thought: 

Both Mica and Isaak used Gaia Organics Shampoo and Body Wash. It does foam up, but not a ton (because it's free of harmful chemicals). They happened to like it.

Are you careful about what you use on your skin?

 Disclaimer: Gaia Organics sent me this product free in exchange for a review.

Random Tid Bits

1. I totally believe that when babies give a parent a cue for being ready for something, they should take it.
   
   
   •For instance if a baby starts throwing their binki out of their crib, take it away.
   
   
   •When a kid starts to climb out of their crib, then they might be ready for a toddler bed.
   
   
   •When a baby smacks their lips they may be ready to start eating baby food.
   
   
   •If a toddler knows when they wet their pants they may be ready for potty training.
   
   Babies can't talk. I always tried watching their cues for things. Did I miss their communication sometimes? Of course. If you have kids did you try and watch for your babies cues? Yes my kids aren't babies. I just feel like it's the start of communication from child to parent.


2. Daddy gets on me often for calling all girls "Lady". Even with little girls I say, "She's such a cute little lady". Daddy's like, "'Lady?' That's an insult to be called a 'Lady' when you're not old."
   
   Do you think it's an insult to be called a certain something? *Besides a cuss word? 
   
   I guess I'm used to being called a ton of things. I've always had nicknames since I was a little girl. Being a teacher I'm called, "Mrs Apel", "Apes", "Ape Dog", "Miss", "Mrs", and "Mam". Since I'm a college instructor, I just don't care if they have nicknames for me. Being a Mom I'm called, "Mom", and "Mommy". Being a wife I'm called, "Alissa". Being a daughter I'm called, "Liss", "Lissy", "Lissy Ann", "Alissa", and my off the wall nickname "Elsie".


3. School is so close to starting. I don't have to work as hard this year because I converted a ton of files from QuarkXPress to InDesign last year. It's the time of year where paper is used a lot. I printed all my syllabi already. Every year when it's a major printing time, a printer breaks. This time it's the staplers. They have internal staplers, and I can't get either of them to work. It seems like when you really need something it's broken. 


4. I've had 2 students tell me that they're pregnant since school got out. No matter what races through my mind I always say, "Congrats!" In this day and age it's hard being pregnant at their age. I don't think they need to hear a lecture from everyone they run across.


5. Both boys have decided that their sheets on their beds are worthless. They try to sleep on top of it. A Mother's pet peeve. What's a pet peeve that you have?

Random Tid Bits

1. My cousin had a baby girl, another cousin's wife is due anytime (she hasn't found out the sex of her baby) and my sister is due anytime with a boy. It's baby central around here. We have a small family, so cousins count in the scheme of things. I know some people that do not even know how many cousins they have. When you have a small family, cousins are seen during every major holiday.
   
   Do you have a big, or a small family?


2. The boys are busy doing extra things this week.
   
   Isaak is in an after school club for 4 weeks on Tuesdays called Garden Club.
   
   Mica's in an after school club on Wednesdays for 4 weeks called Edible Math. Anything that involves food, Mica is all about.
   
   Mica tried out for the Talent Show. He wanted to box with another kid. I said, "Ummmm...No!" I mentioned that he could do a reading. He's a great reader! When he looked down about that I said, "You could do Jiu-Jitsu. He tried that. He counted to 40 in Japanese, and did blocks, kicking, and punching. When he practiced he counted pretty fast, and wasn't loud enough. I kept prepping him. He's still young, so I can't expect him to be the best presenter. I don't know how he did. If he makes it great, if he doesn't oh well. At least he tried.
   
   Then there is the Science Fair during school on Friday. Mica's did a study on water evaporation. Isaak filled a balloon up with gas using vinegar and baking soda. If you missed that, you can see it here.


3. The boys aren't on our diet, but they do have things that we have. I don't know that it's really a diet. It's more just eating healthier. They never complain about steamed greens. Daddy can't believe they just gobble Kale and Callard Greens down. Did you know that greens are better to eat steamed? I didn't. Now I do. There is an article here.


4. I'm writing this on Thursday. Tomorrow I'll be sleepish. I have to stay at work most of the night. We have a thing every year called Portfolio Review Night. The school gets about 13 pros, and the students take their portfolios around to get reviewed. Some students get jobs out of the night. I have to help schedule the students after 2 reviews, and show them where to go. It sucks when an interviewer doesn't show up! Then I have to reschedule a lot. Plus it sets such a bad example. Then I help gather students to get their pictures taken between their portfolio reviews. The photos are for a graduation slide. Since most of them are dressed up, we get photos of them. I teach the next day, and I'm always sleepy the day after working all day and most of the night.


5. Isaak's getting his pictures taken Friday night. Little man will be 6 on May 19!

Drop Box

A sad story.

Baby WOD Toys Review

I was really excited to learn about WOD Toys at My Journey With Candida Blog. I was even more excited to win some of their toys!

WOD Toys carries light weight exercise equipment. Kids can exercise right along with Mommy and Daddy.

I won the Baby WOD set. My nephew Emerson is getting this set! I was so excited to get his toys in the mail. I know he can use them for his Physical Therapy he goes to twice a week. I'm excited to see how these toys will work for babies with special needs. I'm sure I'll post about them again after Christmas.

His brother Elijah got to help me wrap the gift. First he had to try them out.

His favorite is the Baby Barbell. I think it's pretty cute to!

We were having fun throwing around the Baby Med Ball. The second toy, the Baby Kettle will be the easiest for Emerson to hold onto.

This set was originally $45.95 and on sale for $39.95. These are for ages 0+.

Like WOD Toys: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.


Disclaimer: The opinions on the post are my personal take on the product. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. I am not compensated to provide my opinion except for receiving the products themselves to test out. WOD Toys  provided to me a free product to help with this review.

Packing to Go Nowhere Again

Isaak likes to pack! He started packing when he was really little. You can see him with all his hats and a couple bags stuffed full of toys here. I have empty boxes for Isaak to stuff full of whatever he wants.

The other evening when I went to go pick up Isaak from Grandma and Grandpa's; I found a box by his bag. Inside was a stuffed dog.

This morning I found this box in our living room:

The contents inside look like this:

Fake plastic chips, fake plastic babies, fake beads, a plastic Easter egg, "MikerDonalds" money, a fake credit card and a little set of penguins made by Schleich.

Girls VS Boys

Some people have asked me if we will try having a girl? The answer is, NOPE. We're done. Two little beings is a lot to take care of. I know if we would have had more, we would have found a way and we would have loved them just the same as we do our boys. We decided that with the crazy economy, our bad luck with having sick babies, what seems like a full house, and busy lives that we were done.

There was one time I wished I had a girl. I thought for some reason, Mica was for sure a girl. I had all sister's, Grandma Spiehs had all sisters and Daddy had a sister. I just thought it was in our genes to have a girl. Our girl name was Savannah Claire. I still love the name.

I realized awhile ago that boys can at times be similar to girls. They are very different to.


Here are the similarities:

•Mica loved playing with Fisher Price The Little People. Really they are just small versions of dolls. They all have names that I remember. They have movies and books with these characters in them.

We have 3 Sarah Lynn's and 3 Eddie's with his Frog Freddie.

•Isaak carries around a small bowlful of these babies:

I collected them after my cousin's baby show in March. Isaak keeps them in a blue bowl and just walks around with them. Sometimes he lines them up on the coffee table, sometimes he transfers them to a small case he has and other times we step on them. It hurts just like stepping on Lego's. One day while at work, I found one of these babies in my coat pocket. Isaak had tried taking one out of the house. I put it on the front desk at work. A student that happens to have my name had picked it up and claimed the baby as her own. Where did it end up? In her paint water of course. :) A floating baby:

•Isaak loves stuffed animals. He likes them just as much as I liked my dolls when I was his age.

•Mica in particular loves to play dress up! Sure it's not fancy lace gloves and purses like when I was his age. Instead it's a super hero, a pirate, a doctor, Santa Claus and every week he claims Sunday as Sheriff Sunday.

•This last Saturday both Isaak and Mica sat down and watched The Sound of Music with me. No complaints. Mica just rolled his eyes when I wouldn't stop singing along. LOL

Source

They sat through that musical better than a football game. Sorry Daddy!

They are all boy in other ways:

• Everyday there is rough play.
• Sound effects take over most conversations. 
• Balls are thrown throughout the house. Nope, we never made a rule not to throw a ball inside. Possibly a mistake. Nothing has gotten broken yet.
• They love to camp.
• They love to jump.
• Isaak loves cars.
• Mica loves Transformers.
• They both love to build.

Nothing is ever dull at our house. I love my boys! 

Happy 30th Birthday Aunt Terra!

We went to Aunt Terra's to celebrate her 30th birthday! I'm 5 years older then Terra and Aunt Angela's 2 years older then me. Now you know how old we are. 

I brought Terra a few baby samples ecomom sent me. Then I brought over massage cream and our mutual friend Jodie brought over a massage chair. We gave her special treatment right in her own living room. I had already given her a few gifts a few weeks ago.

I made a homemade carrot cake. Terra LOVES carrot cake. It took 4 EVER just because I hand grated all the carrots. Aunt Angela asked why I didn't just use a food processor? Answer: I didn't think about it. Silly me! I used it to chop up the pecans! Everyone loved the cake! :)  I kept the pecans separated for those that don't like nuts.

The boy's had fun!

Here's Mica with my cousin Stacy's son Alex.

Here's Isaak with Alex.

Here's baby Alex:

Emerson would cooperate with photo's today. Here he is yawing and with Grandma Spiehs and Alex screaming {It's so hard getting photo's of 2 babies! One is almost always blurry!}:

We had fun! Except for the fact that Isaak took one of the samples from ecomom and flung it up in the air scratching my eye! It hurts! I keep tearing out of it! I actually put a wad of tissue on my eye and put the boy's pirate patch over it. Isaak scratched my eye once before, but the first time was worse. Then I should have gotten it treated. This kind of stuff always happens on a weekend. I look like a ridiculous pirate!