Tommee Tippee Review & Giveaway

Having seen great reviews and giveaways on other blogs, I was eager to try the Tommee Tippee brand of products. When given an opportunity, through TwitterMoms, to participate in a product review, I jumped at the chance.

Ever tried Tommee Tippee products yourself? They are top rated in the UK.

"Tommee Tippee, from the UK-based Mayborn Group Limited, the #1 brand of infant and toddler feeding products in Great Britain, is loved by parents and children alike and is one of the top brands of infant products and accessories in the global market. Tommee Tippee has received numerous brand accolades in Great Britain, including top ranks in the prestigious Mother and Baby Gold Awards – a head-to-head assessment of competitive products voted on by moms themselves. The Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature line of baby bottles has been chosen as Great Britain’s best baby bottle by The Mother and Baby Gold Awards."

As a mom of three (soon to be 4!), and a former nanny, I have tried many, many brands of bottles and sippy cups throughout the years. Most are adequate, some very good, but many so called leak-proof cups either leak when put up the the toddler chewing, dropping, shaking, throwing test; or, are simply a pain in the rear to disassemble & clean.

I was sent a set of the Tommee Tippee Explora Sippy Cups to test. Here's my take on them:

These cups are not only cute, but they perform well and are easy to use. Hooray for a product that delivers as promised! Both my 2 year old and 5 year old tested them out. (Yes, my 5 year old is a little mature for a sippy cup but I indulged her for a while). The cups hold 12 ounces of liquid, plenty for a thirsty, active toddler. They are easy to grip with a rubbery outer ribbing, but easily fit in a cup holder. They are a cinch to snap apart, plop in the dishwasher, and snap back together. They don't leak and they have an attached spout cover to help keep out the germs. I think they are just dandy for making any hardworking, busy mommy's life a little easier. Microwave, dishwasher and freezer-safe, plus BPA- and Phthalate-free. They definitely get two thumbs up from me!

More specifics about the cups I tested:
Recommended ages: 6 months+

Sippy Cups:
Designed to take children from first sips to grown-up drinking by easing transitions along the way.
Advance-flo™ valve created by a physicist requires same amount of suction as a bottle or breast – easy drinking = easier transition.
Spill- and leak-proof.
Progressively staged with a specific grip and spout for every age and stage.

I plan to get plenty of miles out of these cups and can't wait to try the Tommee Tippee Closer To Nature bottles and pacifiers with our newest addition.

For more information on Tommee Tippee and its products, please visit www.tommeetippee.com, or find us on Twitter @TommeeTippee_NA and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tommeetippeenorthamerica.

Giveaway: One lucky reader will win a set of Explora Cups!
Here's how to enter:

First entry, visit Tommee Tippee and tell me one product that you would like to try. This is mandatory before other entries will be counted.

For extra entries:

Subscribe to my feed 

Add my button to your blog or add me to your blog roll 

Follow my blog publicly in google

Tweet this giveaway link (please leave a link to your tweet in your comment, 1 per day)

Be sure to leave a comment for each entry and a valid email address. Open to U.S. and Canada only. Winner will be chosen by random integer selection. The winner will have 48 hours to claim the prize or a new winner will be chosen. Contest will close on August 6, 2010 at 12:00 AM EST. Good Luck!!!

**I received one set of Explora cups for the purpose of a product review for this post. The opinions contained herein are my own based on my personal experience.**

A Thousand Words Thursday

For more Thousand Words Thursday stop by Cheaper Than Therapy

Wordless Wednesday

The other night I went in to kiss my daughter goodnight and turn off her night light before I went to bed myself. This is what I found...sleeping beauty snoozing away, slumped over with her feet on the floor, lol.

Hey Mom, Got an Endless To Do List? A Guest Post By Lynn Banis

I was having lunch a few Fridays ago with a Mom friend. We were chatting about the personal and family activities for the upcoming week and she suddenly began to complain about her never ending To Do List. She said that she looks the list over every morning and targets the things she is going to do that day. At the end of the day she rolls what is left over to the next day's list. Consequently, she never gets the list cleaned up. Sound familiar?

I asked her to pick out the things she was going to do on Monday. Then I asked her to look at her Friday list and assign a priority of 1, 2 or 3 to each item with 1 being the highest priority. Then we looked at the 3s. I asked her if they really needed to be done - by her anyway. She said they really weren't very important but wanted to keep they because they were easy to do and she could knock them off in one day. I asked how long they had been on her list and she replied "Oh, some have been there for months." We talked about that and she decided that since she had not done them she could give them to someone else to do or just forget them. It turned out that she delegated two items, moved one to a 2 and crossed out the rest. Progress!

Next we looked at the 2s. She reviewed her list to make sure they were all 2s and found one she could cross out. Then we skipped to the 1s. She had a few on this list and felt they all needed to be completed within the next two weeks. I asked her to set target dates for completion next to each. Then she broke each into task steps and assigned them to a day leaving time for unscheduled issues and a little time to work on some 2s. We did the same with the 2s only spread them over a month. When we were done she created an updated list for Monday.

She called me that Sunday night as she was getting ready for the Monday routine and said she really felt relieved and excited about trying her new process. She will revisit her list each day as she had always done and will make adjustments as necessary but will try to be more realistic about how long things take and how far out she needs to schedule them.

It has been two weeks and she just called to say that it was working and working well. She thinks she is out from under her sense of overwhelm and has a plan she can work. Of course, unexpected tasks will show up but she now feels she can handle them and she knows how to get out of the minutia and into the important stuff. She even revamped the family calendar by prioritizing the activities each person does.

You are probably thinking that you have far too much on your plate for this to work for you. Just give it a try. Figure out what you don't have to do, what you can do 80% or 90% and then go after the big stuff. Stay away from the minutia - it eats your time up. Try it - what do you have to lose except a long list that goes on forever.

Lynn Banis, PhD, MCC

The High Performance Coach

Read more posts from the Hey Mom Series here, here and here. Moms work hard and deserve encouragement! Please share this post with other Moms you know.

Lynn is a Master Certified Coach with years of experiences helping moms through tough situations. She would love to answer your questions on a weekly basis. What are you struggling with? What questions do you have about getting through the day? Leave her a few comments with your questions and concerns and she will be happy to write about them in future posts. To find out more about Lynn and how she can help you live your passion, visit her at: www.discoverypointcoaching.com/blog

Quotable Sunday - Friends

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. ~Albert Schweitzer

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand. ~Emily Kimbrough

Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow. ~Swedish Proverb

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down. ~Arnold Glasow

Your friend is that man who knows all about you, and still likes you. ~Elbert Hubbard

Friends are family you choose for yourself. ~Author Unknown

The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart. ~Elisabeth Foley

A friend is the only person you will let into the house when you are Turning Out Drawers. ~Pam Brown

Constant use will not wear ragged the fabric of friendship. ~Dorothy Parker

A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails. ~Donna Roberts

Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer. ~Author Unknown

A friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out. ~Grace Pulpit

Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same. ~Flavia Weedn, Forever, © Flavia.com

Sometimes our hearts get tangled
And our souls a little off-kilter
Friends and family can set us right
And help guide us back to the light.
~Sera Christann

The best kind of friend is the one you could sit on a porch with, never saying a word, and walk away feeling like that was the best conversation you've had. ~Author Unknown

The language of friendship is not words but meanings. ~Henry David Thoreau

A true friend is one who thinks you are a good egg even if you are half-cracked. ~Author Unknown

A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. ~Lois Wyse

There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul. ~Edith Wharton

For More Quotable Fun visit LT at A Day With Two.

Aloha Friday

Aloha friends! It's that time again already...where did the week go? I'm 36 weeks pregnant today...and tired, and feeling like Large Marge! Off to an OB check up this AM so I'll keep it short and sweet ;)

My question this week: If you have kids, did you give them family names or just choose names you liked? If you don't have kids, how was your own name chosen?

Thanks for visiting today! Your comments make my day :) Be sure to stop by An Island Life for more Aloha Friday fun!