Jacob meets Ema the Elephant

My son has had an elephant obsession for months now.  At Christmas, we bought him a Dumbo stuffed elephant.  He spent months watching some obscure elephant movie on Netflix, and he knows the sounds and sign language for elephant (he has Down syndrome and is non-verbal).  When I had the opportunity, to get a free Ema the Elephant Plus Toy from Baby First, I jumped. 

Worst case scenario, it'd end up in a pile with the rest of the stuffed animals he and his big sister don't play with. But I was shocked when they actually started fighting over the toy.  

I had expected a 5 or 6 inch stuffed animal, but this one was closer to a foot in size, with a cute, round stomach and soft, snugly stuffing.  Jake grabbed the toy, hugged it and wouldn't let go of it for hours.  When he did get distracted and left it on the carpet, his big sister grabbed the toy and began playing with it.  It finally got to the point where I had to dig up the old Dumbo doll so that each child would have an elephant of their own, though Ema the Elephant was the proffered toy.

I saw nothing wrong with the toy elephant, in fact, I thought he was well stitched together, and it helped that I'd heard Baby First TV, so it was a brand I trusted.  

Needless to say, Ema the Elephant was a good choice for Jacob.   There will be no hiding him away any time soon!

Preparing for Another Mystery Game Party

We are due to test another mystery game party here soon. We've had several people express interest, and others who have participated in our mystery parties who have asked to play again.

That means we must prepare a place to hold a party: our home.

My husband, the sweet man that he is, decided to surprise me with a dishwasher and new counters over Memorial Day weekend.  Of course, it rained the entire weekend.  Of course.

When all was said and done, my carpets were completely trashed.  Luckily, I'd ordered some new carpet stain remover (Greenwald carpet and stain remover) which is a necessity with cream carpets and four kids.  It came in the mail over the weekend and I got to work on my carpets couple of days ago.  All I can say was WOW.  I've  done nearly everything to keep my carpets clean.

Professional cleaner: back to dingy within a couple of weeks.

Iron & Amonia: How I didn't die I'll never know.

Purchased a Steam Cleaner:  Meh.

And several other types of cleaners: scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, SCRUB. Result: iffy.


Greenwald's was pretty stinking awesome.  I was taking out strawberry stains that my 4 year-old had smashed into the carpet, the mud and dirt on the stairs from working over the weekend, and even a stain from a chocolate protein shake the very same 4-year-old dumped in the middle of the living room when I wasn't looking.

The only thing I had issue with was the spray bottle, which the sprayer kept coming off the bottle mid-spray.  But that's a 1.00 fix at the local dollar store.  You're paying for the cleaner and that stuff was top notch. Even my husband commented on how well it worked.

So tomorrow, I've got a date with my stairs to finish what I started.  Who knew I'd be so excited to be on my hands and knees scrubbing!

It is, after all, time to have another party!