A Company Review, Part One. {Prestige Toys}

If you have read either of my blogs, you know that I'm a fan of sharing about my customer service experiences. Especially when it comes to children's products. Most of time, these posts are filled with complaints about poor service, products, customer handling, etc. But to be fair, I like to toot the horns of the companies that do a good job, too!! :) It's just as important to be told you're doing a great job, as it is to be told that things aren't working out. This is such a day. :)

I had to phone Carters and Prestige Toys about a month ago because one of Snowdrop's favorite toys had broken. It's this pink giraffe that plays Brahm's Lullaby. It's my favorite lullaby and definitely a go-to when it comes to humming for my babies. We play Giraffey for Snowdrop when we're putting her down for bed. ANYWAYS, so I grabbed her after a nap one day only to discover that the pull part had broken and exposed the insides, which to me looked "jimmied". I mean, that's the only way I could describe it. Definitely not the way I thought the inside of a baby toy should look. And Thank God Snowdrop was okay and there was nothing to choke on.

This is Giraffey.

Snowdrop fell instantly in love so she had to come home with us from Target one day.

And then she broke. {Please excuse my alien hand.}

And I'm sorry but has that cord been "jimmied"?

Wouldn't you believe it, I place a call to Carters and.... SOMEONE PICKS UP THE PHONE. I stuttered over my words, then apologized and thanked her for picking up the phone. She laughed that she hears that all the time! Even PBK (my favorite company for customer service dealings) has an automated system to patch you to the right person. I was impressed. So I told her our problem and she informed me that she'd need to transfer me to the company that makes the toys.

I was a little irritated by this passing around (just the idea of it) but they were really fast at the transfer and helpful and nice. So that made up completely for needing to phone another company myself when the transfer didn't go through. No biggie. I can do that. I had to leave a message but they got back to me that same day.

Prestige Toys. A very nice older lady {well at least she sounded pretty old!} was very helpful. She listened to my story and asked me to send the toy back. Aw. I was a little sad. I remembered the day I bought this toy with Snowdrop in the store. {And then remembered how I had to buy another one a little down the road when we thought we lost her. I found it at a discount store. And then I found the original one like a week later. Haha.?}

Anyways, so she sent me a postage-paid envelope in which to send the toy back. A+ service right there!

So Long, Giraffey. It's been fun.

Off to the Big Apple!

So I sent the toy back with a handwritten note-card of thanks for her help. I know someone of the older generation, certainly a "New York City Woman" would appreciate the formality, sincerity, and old-world fancy of a handwritten note.

And off Giraffey went on an adventure to the Big Apple, sadly never to return. You, however, will have to come back tomorrow to see what she sent me... and to check out The Giveaway I've been promising.

Allergies & Home Improvement Stuff

Allergies, allergies... Snowdrop's blood-work came back as positive for peanut allergy AND for a milk allergy! I guess it was a good idea to get her tested after all. ;) But I was right about the peanuts! OK so now we've been going through all the food items in our house that contain peanuts, or might contain peanuts, or was manufactured in a facility that also has peanuts, etc. I'm trying to get everything together in one spot. We don't want to throw everything out ~ that would be wasteful. At the same time, we're being SUPER diligent that our Little Peanut Lady, as she's come to be known around here, doesn't get any contact with that stuff. So we're eating off our peanut products as fast as we can, confining consumption of these products to our kitchen. Sometimes Snowdrop stands at the closed gate and looks in so sad eyed. Poor thing.

I'll be going grocery shopping this week and I'll definitely be reading every label, thrice.
{Thrice.} We took a look at cereals just to see and I can't remember if we found one cereal that didn't have peanut product in it! I know this is going to take a lot of getting used to. My mother-in-law is such a wonderful person. She has already outlawed peanuts in shells from the house {I think she secretly is pleased she won't have to pick up shell pieces from her floors! And I'm okay with that!} I know she has already cleaned their house twice since we found out ~ there will be nary a trace of peanut there. It's such a relief to know that I don't need to worry {which of course I will anyways...} about when we go over there. Obviously we'll always have our Epi-Pen on us in case of an emergency. My mother seemed a bit "burdened" by the fact that they'll need to avoid peanut stuff when we're in town... she's just going to need to get used to that.

I'll try to remember to bring my camera when I go to the store. It would be fun to post pictures of what I ended up being able to buy... and maybe of what I couldn't buy. I don't know. Would that be interesting to anyone? :) It's certainly going to be a change; Hubby thinks we'll end up spending more money. I'm not so sure. I know we'll be eating healthier because more processed foods are exposed to nuts than fresh foods and more "whole" foods. {This is from what I can tell. If anyone has information to contradict that, I would love to know! :)} So the silver lining, in my eyes, is that we'll be able to eat a little healthier and that will be very good for us.

So about the milk allergy. She always spat up as a baby ~ but that was never considered something abnormal, I mean, babies spit up right? So we never thought she'd be allergic to milk. She DOES have bad eczema but I never thought (neither did the the doctor) that it was allergy related. Anyways, so the doctor recommended we try a one week elimination of dairy products. So cheese, butter {ha, I don't feed them butter!}, yogurt, etc. Anything dairy related, except of course her actual drinking milk. This is to see if there is any effect on the eczema.

When we cut out peanut related products we noticed an immediate decrease in her eczema so I think cutting out most of her dairy intake will too. We just started that portion of it, I'll post about it again.

In Home Improvement News, we are adding open shelves into my kitchen. I'm very excited about this, and if I get my way we'll be adding them tonight! {Fingers crossed!} I'll post Before and After pictures of that. Our Dynex brand memory card reader is working out really well, in fact, it's actually less work to set up than the Handycam stuff. Score! That thing breaking was a blessing in disguise. :)

I guess that's it for now. Thanks to all of you who have linked up to Project365! Sometimes it's not easy remembering to take a picture every day! And it's great when others acknowledge my work, and share their work with me! So thanks! I sure do appreciate it! :)

Seen & Heard Saturday ~ February 5, 2011

Welcome to Seen & Heard Saturday, the place where we (I?) share funny, cute, or even strange things that have happened this week! Sort of like a quote book! It's mainly just another way to remind and inspire us to write down all those funny {or cute, or thoughtful, etc} things that our kids say and do. Pictures are welcome but not obligatory! Please grab my button for your post and link up!

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Seen & Heard Saturday ~ February 5, 2011

Let's just say that the Purple Bug has bit. And it has bit HARD. Purple shirt, purple pants, purple shoes, purple socks, purple crayon, purple toothbrush, purple blanket, purple sticker, purple EVERYTHING! PURPLE!!!! Magnolia wore the purple outfit in the picture below for

THREE DAYS. I don't know what caused this obsession. I guess just being a girl? :)

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Junie has been dancing and singing all over the place. She makes up these little songs and ditties. It's so sweet and her voice is so soft.

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Both girls are itching to go ice skating. Favorite pretend games as of late include putting wipes on the bottom of their feet and going "Ite Kating".

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"Oh, Phooey!" ~ Magnolia's newest form of expressing her dislike for something. Sometimes she says "Oh Nuts!" but we're trying to break her of that habit.

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"...Jesus, God, and the Hole." ~ Junie

"The Hole? Like the Holy Spirit?" ~ Hubby

"Yeah." ~ Junie

{I guess they must be on some sort of nickname agreement?}

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"Mommy? You put on bah-yay moo-sic (ballet music) now please? I need to have my singing lesson." ~ Junie

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Project365 ~ 25 to 35

Project365 ~ Days 25 to 35

{snowdrop has a peanut allergy.}

{before i got a big haircut}

I forgot to take a picture on Day 27. Boo.

{fancy lunch: tuna salad with extra capers in tomato halves and artichokes}

{snowdrop discovers her shadow}

{my coat button. i love this picture.}

{magnolia helping peel onions for dinner}

{the ice storm.}

{my little bunny}

{first ever frame grab from a video ~ juniper}

{our valentine banner}

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Link up your Project365 pictures below! Thanks for sharing! :)

I am linking to:

Bathroom Pictures, probably some other stuff too

These are definitely NOT the best pictures of our bathroom. Whatever. I am not a professional. I had taken these before our camera thing broke. Well, we got a memory card reader for super cheap from an electronics store (thankyouverymuch to my sister's friend who had a discount!) so now I am uploading them. YAY! So to refresh your memory:

I really do like the transformation even though it's a little on the pink side. Yay! And for the record, it's still not put together. I'm still trying to figure out where to put everything so it doesn't look cluttered... and I decided to get rid of the medicine cabinet. I sort of think it's supposed to be recessed (? in the wall ?) and not hanging on the wall. So... anyways, so we took it down to paint and I really like how open the counter area feels now without it. So, buh-bye medicine cabinet. I'm going to try to get Hubby to make room in the wall opposite the door for the medicine cabinet. We'll see if that will ever happen. :)

Ice Storm 2011. I thought it would be snowing all night? It's like super quiet outside and very still. Maybe that's a bad thing? I don't know. I hope not! It's pretty clear though, right now. So yeah, it rained/froze for a few hours tonight but that's about it so far. I'm sure the roads are terrible. Our trees look beautiful in the moonlight, I wish I could capture how it looks. It's just too dark outside. I plan on getting bundled up tomorrow and taking a walk around the block to get some pictures of the ice.

We're still waiting for the test results for the peanut allergy. I've been pretty much just nervous, not a wreck, just nervous since Saturday. I really hope the doctor's office isn't closed tomorrow and that we can get the results. The suspense is seriously killer!

I made a chicken in the crockpot tonight and then made broth which is pretty much why I'm up right now. See the broth needed another six hours to cook but that meant I'd have to get up at 6am to turn it off (since it had pretty much been on since 1pm this afternoon...) and that didn't seem like any fun (and a risk for overheating) so I decided to turn it off and put it in the fridge and then start cooking again in the AM. However, the crockpot bowl thingy is hot as he.ll and so I had to wait a while for it to cool down. Did I need to tell you all that? No. Did it buy me another minute or so while waiting for the broth to cool down? You bet! :)

I hope my husband lets me sleep in tomorrow. His work is called off.

I just checked the radar, the storm is in fact on the way but surprising nothing is overhead right now. Just like I said. Weatherman! what do I need him for? Oh, but it is on the way...

I'm going to bed. ZZZZZzzzzzz