Kinderkitchen Products for Budding Chefs

Knowing that a lot of my readers have young children (or grandchildren!) I am so very excited to share these products with you. We really like all of the Kuhn Rikon Kinderkitchen products that we have tried and I think you will too!! These are great kitchen utensils for children to safely use to do real food prep.

I was first introduced to these several weeks ago when a friend sent a couple items to us. I was charmed by their quirkiness and impressed with the quality and set out to learn more about the company.
Kuhn Rikon kindly sent us three additional items and their usefulness and charm has won all our hearts. Even Paul likes the children kitchen tools, which is rare for him to like anything designed for children.

I want to clearly state that these items would not be in our home, let alone featured on my blog, if I didn't think they were an excellent, quality item that offer a useful function.

Both of my boys love helping in the kitchen and Paul and I both strongly encourage them to assist us, using our real kitchen tools.
They also love to pretend cook in their own little kitchen and hate play kid utensils and prefer to use "the real thing." And because they are accustomed to helping us in the kitchen they are well aware of all the kitchen utensils and feel free to help themselves to items from the drawer. I have always struggled with this balance - I don't like my utensils traveling all over the house, some of them are too dangerous to be played with unsupervised, yet I want to encourage imaginative play mixed with reality.

This product has solved that problem - the kitchen items are real tools that can be used to prepare real dishes, but they are also safe for children to play with. They are recommended for ages 4 and up but of the 5 we have only 1 is not appropriate for them to use unsupervised at their ages of 23 months and 3 years.

I don't have a picture of each Kinderkitchen product that we own so I have included an Amazon link so you can see the item. While Amazon is fairly competitive on their prices I would encourage you to shop around for the best price if you want to purchase these for your family.

Crocodile Jaws - These are sturdy tongs and while the intended use is to transfer items from a serving dish to ones plate my boys prefer to use it to transfer food from their plate to their mouth. I need to buy a second one of these as it's one of the most popular item! This is well made, appealing to kids and easy to use

Mouse Measuring Cups - These are just darling and I love having them on display. They are also now my favorite measuring cups for dry stuff.
I didn't find them very easy for the boys to use with wet ingredients in them, but it was just fine with dry ingredients. I also love that each size is a different color as it makes it easier for Judah to grab the correct scoop.

Duck Snippers - This is the only tool we don't leave in the boys play kitchen for them to play with at will. They aren't sharp scissors but they have the ability to cut things that I may not want cut. The beak of the duck is a sheath for the scissors.

Cockatiel Whisk - The Cockatiel whisk is cute, but to me it is just a whisk. I neither love it nor hate it. It hangs in their Pottery Barn kitchen and I like the look of it hanging there but if I had to pick my least favorite item this would be it.

Dog Knife - The dog knife is every ones favorite. If you only pick one item to buy, this is it! This is a child safe knife, in a super fun design. The ears of the dog serve as a guard to keep your fingers from slipping down the knife. Both boys can use this safely without supervision - with no risk of them cutting themselves and yet fully able to cut softer items, such as the strawberries as pictured above. Judah sat and cut .5 lb of strawberries for me the other day - it was truly a huge help!

If you're looking for cooking utensils for your children or a cool birthday or Christmas gift for someone elses child I would highly recommend these products!!

Double Stroller Review

After Wesley was born the ladies at church hosted a baby shower for us and the group gift was this double stroller. Paul and I spent some time researching double strollers and testing them out in the store - it was important to find one with high enough handles for Paul to comfortably push and one with plenty of storage space.

This Tandem stroller met the bill and beyond. We have had this stroller for over a year now and still love it.



Highlights:
*The seats can be positioned in 4 different positions. I LOVE this feature so much. 99% of the time I keep the boys facing each other. They chatter to each other, make faces at each other and entertain themselves (and me!). But anytime they get ornery and start picking on each other I flip one of them around so they can't look at each other. When they are facing each other their feet are all over each other as there isn't a lot of space for them to both be facing the same way, for some reason my boys don't mind this.
It also comes with an infant car seat bar that you can put on and then just put the car seat on top of.

*There is lots of storage space! There are two deep cup holders and a key holder built into the handle bar. The key holder is quite spacious and can hold my keys and phone and cash. The basket underneath the stroller is as long as the stroller frame. It is easily assessable from the back (where the handle bar is) and from the front end, but it is a little more challenging to get anything that ends up in the middle of the stroller basket - which really isn't a big deal since it is a perfect spot for things like shopping bags or beach towels that aren't immediately needed.

*It folds up easily and compactly - or at least I think so. We have an Aztec and it fits very easily in the back of our vehicle with plenty of room to spare. The seats need to be taken off each time you fold the stroller up, but they snap off and on quite easily that it really isn't a big deal.

*Because it is long, and not wide, it easily fits anywhere. There have been a few situations where the length of it has required us to back it up in a tight situation rather than be able to turn it around, but it pushes quite easily and fits almost everywhere.

*The seats recline for the kids to nap - not that my kids nap in public. But if my kids DID sleep in public the seats do recline quite nicely and it's a nice feature. And the shade covers cover up quite a bit - all but their toes get covered.



The Not So Great:
*It is a bit on the heavy side. I quickly checked out a few other double strollers and their weights ranged from 34-45lbs. This one is 53lbs! In the early days after I had given birth it was HARD to pick this up and put it in the back of our car. It's definitely not a lightweight stroller and takes some effort to move. But on the bright side, you can count it as an arm workout when you load/unload it - right?!!?

*The wheels seem cheap. The wheels snap into place and while we haven't really had issues with them, they just seem cheap and like they could have been better constructed.

*The seats are lined with a felt type fabric and it seems like a really hot/sweaty fabric to have on a stroller behind their heads and necks. There is a neck pillow that comes with it made of the same fabric and I removed it since they were just sweating with it in place.

*There is a safety bar that snaps into place in front of them (the seats have a 5 point harness) - if you mindlessly snap the safety bar in place it is VERY EASY to pinch your finger. And it would be easy for little ones fingers to be pinched too.

I have put off reviewing this stroller as I wanted to see how much I liked it after we'd had it for awhile - and after one year of use I can honestly say that I am very pleased with our choice and grateful for this gift!! I would highly recommend this stroller to anyone else looking for a double stroller.

Baby Carrier Review

This is the baby sling I have. I absolutely LOVE it!! There are three reasons why I can't live without this item.
1. When we go out to stores I carry him around in this and people leave us alone! Judah avoids all the sick and germy people that seem to be drawn to babies. It just looks like I am carrying a giant purse in front of me =)
2. He can nurse in it. It keeps me well covered and it frees up BOTH hands!!
3. When he just wants to cuddle and I just want to get things done I can carry him around in this and we both get what we want!!

Now handwashing is fun

Bath and Body Works hand soap is THE best handsoap to use if you're washing your hands all day long!! When I went out to pick up his diapers yesterday we made a quick stop at the local B&BW just to stock up on some soap.

Well, it was to of been a quick stop.

I had to sit and smell every option there was. And then smell them all a second time. I ended up getting two Cotton Blossom and one Tropical Passionfruit. SO good!! It smells marvelous and keeps my hands moist!

Their soap is worth the money.