Thursday, December 31, 2015

LAST DAY for my vitafusion™ FiberWell Fit $100 giveaway!

Happy New Year's Eve!

I'm just reminding you that it's your last chance to enter my sponsored giveaway for a $100 Visa gift card.


I had the opportunity to review vitafusion™ FiberWell™ Fit gummies and learn how convenient they are (a) to take on the go and (b) to ensure you get that extra boost of fiber in your day.

Go leave an easy comment on the giveaway post, and you can be entered to win some cool cash!

Thursday, December 24, 2015

And so a baby grows

For Christmas Eve, I've given myself a gift:
I finally collected all the random clips
of baby Karsten from 8 months in June
to the present at 14 months.

Watch and be amazed at such accomplishments as
  • Clapping
  • Squealing
  • Rolling
  • Standing
  • Peekaboo
  • Babbling
  • Speed-crawling
  • Dart fetching
  • And many more amazing feats!


In other words, all the totally usual baby stuff!
But it's greatly entertaining me,
and, I hope, the grandparents.


Merry Christmas Eve!


Sunday, December 20, 2015

Last-minute homemade holiday gifts for kids

Need a few Christmas-is-almost-here gifts for little ones? Here's a selection of options you crafty wizzes (et al.) can whip up on the quick. Bonus points that they'll be handmade with love (also speed!).


Some require sewing skills, some do not, and some require no crafting abilities whatsoever! Hooray!

Simply click on the title for a link to the full tutorial. (Some of the ones toward the end don't have their own tutorial if they're really easy to figure out!)

Hobo Mama wants you to know she's a professional blogger! Look at how professional she's being!

Make your own baby leg warmers

All you need are appropriately festive or fashionably forward adult knee socks! You might already have some (I've repurposed ones that had worn through on the sole before), or you can easily find some cheap and bright ones at any clothing store. The sewing is seriously minimal, so you could even do this by hand if needed.



Sew an easy superhero cape

Superkids will love a shiny, shimmery cape to race around in, saving the world! This design's reversible, so you can grab two colors they'll love.


Thursday, December 17, 2015

Building our own Christmas tree

Hobo Mama wants you to know she's a professional blogger! Look at how professional she's being!

Mikko picked out a Lego Christmas tree
when we were at the Mini Maker Faire.


Fluffy branches, festive ornaments,
and brightly wrapped packages ahoy!

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Nikolaus boots afilled!

Sankt Nikolaus hat uns besucht! 
We put our Nikolausstiefel outside the door, 
and check out what happened.

You can read more about our annual Nikolaustag celebrations here.



Apparently the boys were good — who knew!



Whoa!



Someone filled our boots!



Mikko was disappointed that he didn't get a stick. 
He really wanted a stick.



Digging in.



Monday, December 7, 2015

A tale of two kitties: Our bodies are what they are

Hobo Mama wants you to know she's a professional blogger! Look at how professional she's being!


I really, really had to convince myself not to make the title any worse of a pun by spelling it "tail." You're welcome.

I want to talk with you today about my cats — one fat, one skinny — and what that means. I think it's illustrative of what body composition is like for humans as well as felines.

We adopted our kitties from a rescue. They're purported to be Maine Coons (no idea if there's a mix of something else in there), which are a large and hearty American cat breed. They're not genetically sisters and are a year apart in age, but they were raised together, so we adopted them as a bonded pair.

The big one has the broad, strong frame of a typical Maine Coon, but then she's added quite a bit o' bulk to it. Her sister is petite, very small for her breed, and so thin you can feel her spine clearly when you pet her.


I think you can see the size difference. The little, darker one is so fluffy, it's hard to eyeball how skinny she is underneath all the fur. You can see the larger one hanging off the top of the scratcher.

This is the small kitty on the same scratcher, for comparison.

They both get the same food and the same exercise opportunities. I find this fascinating.

There's a current, overwhelming tendency for any talk of overweight to blame the (human) person for being fat. There's an overt messaging that being fat is a moral failing, an inability to curb decadent gluttony or "get off the couch once in awhile." It is so culturally ingrained that most fat people believe this themselves, even if they have personal evidence that it's not true.

I think my cats could help us shed some light on this one.