Boba Organic Carrier review

Stinky is a mama's boy.  Pure and simple.  Mama can't be more than arm's reach away most of the time without the little guy being sad.  Super sad.  And mama doesn't like when babies cry, especially when there's an "easy" fix to the problem!  (You might call him spoiled.  I call him...well, okay, I told him today that he's spoiled.)

Stinky likes to be held.  A lot.  It's an inconvenience to him when I do things like, oh you know, make dinner.  Or use a public restroom.  Or brush my teeth.  SO many people have told me he wants to be held because I hold him.  The truth is, I don't mind!  The problem is that Stinky weighs 28 pounds.  28 is a LOT of pounds to hold in my arms 12 hours a day.  It's a little inconvenient cook or clean or do most anything with a toddler in my arms!

Enter, Boba!

Boba recently sent me an Organic Carrier to review.  I was so excited, I couldn't WAIT to open the box!  I'd heard so many good things, and so many people had told me that Boba was the only carrier they would ever recommend.  Surely it couldn't be that good, right?

The truth is, we have another carrier, a Mei Tai, that Stinky loves.  When he sees it, he comes running.  Literally running.  I hoped that Stinky would be as excited about the Boba as I was when it came out of the box.  Perhaps it wasn't my best idea ever to just pick him up and toss him onto my back in a new carriers, but I did just that.  And he fought, and he cried, and then he settled in and was happy as could be!

Yes, I cook in sweatpants.  No, my kitchen isn't always clean.  It's not even always as clean as this picture!  But that baby, snuggled up on my back?  As long as he's touching mama, he's almost always this happy!  Once he settled into the Boba, everything was smooth sailing.

I carried Stinky in the Boba for 8 hours about a week after I received it!  We went to a Renaissance Festival and he was my traveling buddy.  (Strollers are SO inconvenient at events like this.  I wish I'd had a Boba with the other 2!)  You can see he was content to ride around piggy-back style all morning.  He could peek over my shoulder or look beside me.  He loved it!

Then we made the "mistake" of eating lunch.  Stinky was no longer content to ride on my back.  His belly was full and he really wanted to snuggle up on mama's belly for a rest!  For the next few hours, I carried him on the front.

It took a long time with all the noise and activity all around him, but he finally cozied down into the Boba and fell asleep, right there in the middle of the festival!  Stinky is NOT the kind of kid that falls asleep if there's ANYTHING going on around him, so it was amazing!

As you can see, the Boba has gotten some good use.  What you can't see is what I think of it!  So here you go:

• The Boba is VERY comfortable.
• The Boba is very easy to adjust.
• I LOVE the colors!
• The hood makes Stinky really mad, even if he was already asleep.
• Stinky is comfy in the Boba, and he now gets excited about it.  If I have it around my waist and he's not in it yet, he tugs at it and says, "Up" until I pick him up.
• Stinky isn't a lover of the foot straps.  This is one feature I was most excited about.  They make him mad.  He can't kick his feet when he's using them.
• Boba suggests, when putting baby on your back, that you put a strap on one shoulder and kind of "lace" the baby through the strap.  This doesn't work for me.  Stinky lays on my back and holds onto my shoulders while I place the straps. 
• Did I mention the Boba is comfortable?  I love the padding in the straps!
• I want a clip for my keys.
• I just saw that Boba now has adorable Boba packs that attach right to baby carriers or strollers or can be carried messenger bag style!  I SO want one of those for my Boba carrier!

Overall, I LOVE the Boba!  It's become my go-to carrier because of the ease and convenience.  Stinky enjoys it, which makes me a happy mama!  It's so soft and comfy for both of us!  Boba has a new 3G Carrier that looks so amazing.  I would highly, HIGHLY recommend the Boba Baby Carrier to anyone looking for a carrier!  Thank you, Boba, for making such a great product!

I was given this product at no cost to me in order to facilitate a review.  I was not compensated in any other way.  All opinions are my own.

Pirate Weekend at the Renaissance Festival!

Some of you have asked to see pictures from the Renaissance Festival.  It makes me giggle a little, thinking that you'd care to see the pictures, but I'd love to share them!  Be prepared, though...there are quite a few!  I'll just share my favorites.  If you ever have a chance to visit the Ohio Renaissance Festival, I highly recommend it.

 Little Lou was jumping up and down with excitement as we waited for the gates to open!

We save our nickels and dimes each year so that we can attend.  We don't pay extra for rides and we don't typically buy souvenirs.  We buy lunch at the festival, but the kids usually share one or two meals.

 The tables were full, so we ate picnic style this year.  It was even more fun!

Bugs was trying to open his water bottle.  That's hard work!

The Queen and her court graced us with their presence while we dined! 

We do take along some $1 bills to tip the "players."  The kids love putting dollars in the buckets after the shows!

This weekend was Pirate Weekend, which thrilled Bugsy.  He adores the Pirate Show!

Pirates were everywhere around the festival! 

In fact, when we first arrived one of the pirates stopped The Hubby and invited us to the pirate show.  He marked the spot on our map and told  us if we had any questions we should look for a pirate because, "As you know, pirates know everything...except for where to find the treasure!"

Little Lou's favorite is the Mudde Show.  

This year we sat in the 9th row.  "It was an 8 row show."  We were SO close to being muddy!

Mama's favorite is the Swordsmen.  They do the same basic show every year (all the different shows stay pretty similar from year to year) but I love the banter between the Swordsmen!

And what would a Renaissance Festival be without a good joust?  We've always gone to the "full armor joust" before, but this year we went to the "gaming joust."  They did some little games to test their accuracy, and then they jousted.

On the first run, Lady Jessica was nearly de-horsed!  The second run left Lady Jessica on the ground and Sir Robin the victor!  We've never seen someone de-horsed before.  I felt bad for her and hoped she wasn't injured too badly.  She was in enough pain that she didn't continue, but she did walk away.

There were several other fun parts to the day.  It's such a busy, fun day!  We don't stop from the minute the gates open until we leave in the evening.  It doesn't make our kids tired, though, or so they say...

 Less than 5 minutes into the ride.  

She just dozed off and on.

No sleep in the car, but he'd had about a 20 minute snooze earlier in the afternoon.

We love our time each year, and trust it'll get even more fun as the kids grow!  Here are a few more pictures of some of the more fun moments:

My happy munchkins.  This was the first (and best) of a series of 8 shots of them.

 By far the most kid-geared show of the day.  We thought it was really cheesy and not very entertaining...the kids loved it!

 The Bug, choosing his weapon

 The obligatory "giant knight" picture!  They've grown since last year:

We enjoyed our time immensely!  We basked in a lovely family day together.  

We're already making plans for next year!  What a great annual memory!

God's hand: God's plan

Our plans got "rained out" last weekend. 

Don't you hate it when that happens?  I sure do.  You know, you've got everything planned out and scheduled and then something happens.  Sometimes it's literal rain, sometimes it's more figurative.  Our lives have been full of rain the last couple years.  Full.  Last weekend, it was more of a figurative rain, with the threat of literal rain.

We took the weekend "off."  We have everything planned.  Friday night, The Hubby raced home after his test and jumped in the car.  We headed off to Ohio for a busy family-and-fun-packed weekend.  We arrived at his parents' house at about 8pm and finally wrestled the kids into bed sometime around 10.  We stayed up another hour or so, but hit the sack pretty early in anticipation of the day ahead.  We had a morning 1st birthday party to attend as well as a late afternoon wedding.  Sunday would bring our annual trip to the Ohio Renaissance Festival.  The weekend was packed!  

Stinky woke up in the middle of the night vomiting.  Bugsy quickly followed suit.  We were repacked and back on the road home by 10am.  The weekend did not go as planned, but there were some definite blessings mixed in with all the turmoil, including a very poignant sermon about hope in 911 moments.  We certainly needed to hear that!

Fast-forward a week.  We'd decided that we'd still attend the Ohio Renaissance Festival, as it's our family tradition and we all love to go.  We talked about going as soon as there was a nice weekend free.  We watched the weather and this weekend looked even more perfect than last weekend!  Once again, we loaded up the suitcases, the car, the pillows, the kids, set up the kennel, and called a sitter for the dog.  The Hubby raced home after his test and jumped in the car.  We headed off to Ohio for a busy family-and-fun-packed weekend.  It felt a little like deja-vu!  This weekend went off without a hitch.  It was perfect.  It was beautiful.  

And God's hand was in it from the very beginning. 

You see, last weekend, our weekend was so jam-packed with fun and family that we couldn't find a single minute to squeeze in an always valuable visit with our good friends from college days.  We don't get to see them often enough, but no matter how long it is between visits it just feels natural, right.  This weekend, though, we had plenty of time.  During the week we'd talked and made a rough plan--a late dinner Friday night and a Sunday morning church worship date.  

There's something you need to know about our friends.  They are ALWAYS there just when we need them.  Always.  Over the past year, especially, when we've gotten difficult news or needed a shoulder to cry on, we've already had plans, in advance, to spend time with them.  Before we have even known we would need support, it was already scheduled.  You can't tell me God's not in that.

So we went to Ohio this weekend.  We had a lovely dinner on Friday night at Chick-Fil-A.  We were entertained by some a couple of crazy kids that kept insisting on calling our friends "mom and dad."  We talked about life.  We talked about the deep down, raw emotions.  That's the kind of friends these are.  We spent our Saturday enjoying our little family at the Ohio Renaissance Festival.  We had a great time!  The kids were fabulous.  The weather was gorgeous!  The day was perfect.  We talked about next year.  And then it was today.  Sunday.  We attended our morning worship date and enjoyed it.  The music was nice, the speakers were great.

We were invited to join our friends and the morning speaker for lunch at a national steak chain.  The conversation was such a blessing.  We were so honored to have lunch with a couple who are missionaries to Tanzania with Children of Promise.  They were so uplifting and encouraging.  They offered us words of hope and joy.  They promised to pray for us and keep tabs on us.  They became members of our extended family.

Had our original plans worked out the way we'd planned them, we wouldn't have met this couple today.  We wouldn't have had the joy of spending time with our good friends this weekend.  We wouldn't have felt the love and kindness that we did today.  God had a hand in this.

~~~~~~~

It's like that, isn't it?  We make plans.  We make big plans.  And then we get all upset when they don't work out.  We're disappointed and discouraged when everything isn't "perfect."  We forgot that we can't see the "big picture," that we don't know everything, and that we aren't really in charge after all.  We get so wrapped up in our own scheming that we forget to ask God what He has in mind.  We get so set in our plans that we forget they might not be perfect plans.

You know what the Bible says, though?

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11

We need to let go.  We need to ask God to be in control of our lives.  We need to ask Him what to do, every step of the way.  And sometimes, when we least expect it, God might just change our plans...on purpose...so that He can carry out His plans.

Because God is good.  All the time.