Here’s the common situation: A super smart friend, let’s call her Julie, who always has easy cooking shortcuts when I go to her house, posted a question on Facebook asking about family dinner ideas. I remember that I loved at least five of the ideas Julie’s friends shared in the comments, but now I can’t remember a single one of them. This was four weeks ago so where is that Facebook thread again? Although the site can reconnect me with my 7th grade boyfriend, it doesn’t allow my to search my own posts.

If only I could search Julie’s page for “Parmesan”.  Or Lisa T’s page for “book club”. Or Kim’s page for “restaurant”. And now I can, with Diggity.

Both a website and an app, Diggity digs through your own instances of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It’s currently in beta, so it might not be perfect.

But here’s the magic: if you know what you were looking for was from a certain person or maybe one of three or four people — this is how mom’s brains work, right? it was totally, definitely, probably someone from Book Club who posted a discount code for a hotel in Santa Cruz — you can filter the search by person, or even by page, meaning a group or a brand that you follow.

This screenshot shows how I could track down that post about life-changing nursing sweatshirts that I know came from Ain’t Know Mom Jeans. Found it!

And one more thing. For more memorable moments, you can create “Shoeboxes”, which are curated buckets of the content you want to come back to or keep forever. For example, “Baby’s First Year” could be made of posts from your profile, your baby’s other parent, and anyone else who is likely to be sharing content you want to save in that Shoebox.

Say you’re Kim Kardashian. You could create a fabulous Shoebox of “Crap the media said about me while I was pregnant.”

Which of these two uses is more compelling to you: 1) searching for reference info you wanted to remember OR 2) safekeeping special social media content?

This is sort of advertise-y, but I love sending cards with my kids’ pictures on them. I’ve used Treat.com to send sympathy cards, birthday cards, and thank you cards throughout the year. I’m simply a huge procrastinator when it comes to getting something in the mail, but somehow ordering online helps me get it done. True, my signature is not on there in ink, but the card gets sent, and that’s a win.

Case in point: There is currently a Hallmark card on my coffee table, half-written to my childhood friend whose father passed away. It’s been there for three weeks. I couldn’t find the words to finish and I’m going to see her at his memorial this weekend before the card goes out.

On a happier note: After my parents take us on a vacation, I usually send them a thank you card made from a photo taken on the vacation.

Mother’s Day is almost here.

Whether you’re looking for a card for your mom, grandmother, sisters, or in-laws, you can have have 100% control of the content. They have 450+ Mother’s Day designs to choose from, ranging from funny to sentimental.  Add your own pictures and text to make them your style.

(25% off all Mother’s Day orders by using the code TREATMOM25 before midnight on April 30. )

If all the top parenting experts were your best friends and available in that “call me anytime” way via skype, then your middle-of-the-night feedings might start to look a little bit like KidsintheHouse.com. Worried that you’re holding your baby too much? A top pediatrician will reassure you.

Have questions about if you’re producing enough breastmilk, the right age to potty train, or the secret to making mommy friends? You’ve come to the right place. Kids in the House has created a repository of 8,000 one-minute parenting videos about any topic you could want to know about from hundreds of real parents as well as the pros. Wow, right? And they’re just getting started. Videos are arranged by age of child and you can create your own playlist of favorites to watch now or save for later.

Three videos I liked for rookie moms (coincidentally by pretty blond women):

Bonding with other moms

Finding the right sleep training method for your family

First foods

Whitney and I were completely thrilled and honored to participate in this ambitious project in their Santa Monica studio. The team at Kids in the House prettied us up with makeup and false eyelashes before asking us questions about subjects we wanted to discuss like adjusting to motherhood, making dinner every freaking night, and easy outings with a baby in tow. And after that, we met our friend Asha for a huge lunch then rode a roller coaster before flying home. It was a ton of fun.

We are very pleased with how our own (twenty!) videos turned out and plan to share them over the next few months. In the meantime, I’d love to know your burning parenting questions and whether Kids in the House is a useful addition to your parenting toolkit.

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We received no compensation for our participation in this project. We did get to keep the snazzy new headshots on our site as well as the eyelashes (which fell off).

If my closet could magically fill itself with well-fitted (pressed!) clothes that suited my shape and whims without me ever having to set foot into an apparel store, I would be a very happy girl. I hate shopping; I like having cute stuff but not all the picking and sore feet that goes along with it.

I also want all new clothes. Following about eight years of gaining and losing 50 pounds in the name of building my family, I feel like I deserve it. (Money, we will speak of you another day. A girl is allowed to want things.) Realistically, I want to prune out the clothes that don’t suit me and strategically purchase classic pieces I will love. But what? So that’s my dilemma.

Step One: Speed-pinning. I was trying to follow Shana’s method for discovering my personal style by speed-pinning everything I like from any source, but I lost patience and interest around Step Two. (If you have time, you should totally try her process!) I wound up with a board stuffed full of “what I think looks cool” without regard for price or practicality.

So, yeah, it’s a lot more dresses than I wear in real life but it certainly shows a pattern. Ha ha. Patterns.

While creating a visual inspiration board of clothing I like did not make Zooey Deschanel appear on my doorstep with a bag of stuff to try on, the exercise was worthwhile. Here’s how my style Pinterest board has helped me:

1. Remembering what I like. With my style board around, I can be inspired by friends and strangers and not forget those fleeting thoughts. I have a place to save my ideas like “I love these red shoes” or “Must wear more A-line dresses” (this is where Whitney would like to me make a note to self about a brown cardigan that is more current than Y2K. Ha, I love that sweater!). Simply creating a board is the first step toward figuring out what I’d like to add to my wardrobe. I can “me too” with a click of the mouse by repinning my well-dressed friends.
2. Speed up my real life shopping. Shortly after this exercise, I walked into a shop with Whitney and invited the sales person to understand my fashion hopes and dreams and make them come true by flashing my Pinterest iPhone app in her face. Immediately, she could look past my Old Navy jeans and see the kinds of things I really like. She brought me cute stuff while I sat there snacking in the fitting room. Pretty easy and successful. Score.
3. Remove pain from my husband’s holiday shopping. My excellent husband hates shopping so much he makes me look like I love it. But armed with a link to my board, he, too, was able to look around and see what I’m coveting without having to take my girlfriends into a store. Nevermind, he said he didn’t even look at it.

And here’s where I still feel stuck: I work from home, occasionally going to in person meetings and conferences, and ideally on a date with my husband once a week. Yet, I keep pinning 40s-inspired frocks as if I work in a Los Angeles graphic design studio. It’s both too cold and too casual to wear such dresses on a daily basis in my current life. So here’s the challenge I’m now issuing myself: What do I want to wear at 10 am on a Tuesday?

Do I need a separate board for this? A 10 AM Tuesday Pinterest board? What do you normally wear at 10 on a Tuesday? Will you share it with me on Pinterest?

As I documented last year, I am a bit obsessed with family holiday cards. (See the ones I actually sent out in 2011.) I love receiving them, so I feel obligated to send them.

This isn’t an obligation I resent, actually. I look forward to selecting them and mailing them out. I realize MANY people dread it, and maybe resent the task, the expense, or the whole tradition. I hear that.

Now onto the trendy card ogling.

Although there are so many lovely designs on TinyPrints, Paper Culture, Minted, and other modern greeting card websites, note that Hallmark now offers the same service with designs that are just as cute. (I saw a preview of them at a blogging conference, and I was impressed.) Now you have four sites to suck up the rest of your evening.

I shopped on Minted for a while because they make it really easy. You upload your photo and then you can quickly see all their layouts with your photo in place. Ultimately, however, I chose this one from TinyPrints.

This was not the only card that I noticed making use of a washi-tape look. I’ll venture to say you’ll see colorful, printed tape a few times in your mailbox this year. (What is washi tape?)

One tempting style that I noticed in several places is the Year in Review approach.

“happy highlights” from tiny prints

“iconic year” from tiny prints

 The traditional long, typed year-end letter has been turned upside down with some clever typeface treatments. You no longer need to come up with a paragraph about each family member. Just a few key metrics, and you’ll have your own personalized infographic to send across the country.

“year in a nutshell” on minted

“family year in review” on minted

What do you think?

If you want to jump on this trend, but are coming up short on facts to share about your family because you did not adopt a dog or change jobs this year, I’ve brainstormed a few ideas for you, some more relevant than others depending on the age of your child(ren):

• Number of full nights of sleep
• Longest nap on record
• Number of bottles washed/diapers changed
• Number of baby teeth erupted
• Number of date nights the new parents have had
• Hours logged at park or playground
• Greatest consecutive number of steps taken
• Number of airline flights survived by parents
• Boxes of Mac + Cheese prepared
• Teeth lost/tooth fairy visits

Is this too much work? Are you overwhelmed? Does sending cards make you happy or bum you out?

note: we are affiliates of tiny prints and minted and shop there ourselves.

Buying holiday outfits for my kids is not a tradition I’ve embraced so far in my parenting career. Well, not totally true. I do buy holiday jammies every year. What I mean is a fancy party dress with patent leather shoes or a little man-style outfit that is specially selected for holiday parties. When I have considered this tradition, I always think, “The kids can wear what they already have — the nicest version.”

Buying dress shoes for a boy who just wants to wear his “sprinting shoes” every other day of the year seems like a terrible waste.

This year, I’m stepping it up a half-notch. Tea Collection sent me a code to share with you guys (ROOKIEMOMS15) and a couple of days after that, I received their catalog in the mail. I liked the dresses for girls, and they’re not fancy at all. They’re festive, but mostly still made out of t-shirt material. They could be worn to school or to the park, meaning they’ll get more wear than just Thanksgiving Dinner and my dad’s synagogue’s Hanukkah Party.

I passed the catalog around in the car today and let my sister, my brother, and Scarlett all vote on their three favorite dresses. These were the finalists.

Tea Collection Swedish Lark Tiered Dress	Tea Collection Juniper Wrap Dress
Tea Collection Flower and Berry Smocked Dress	Tea Collection Akvarell Party Bubble Dress

I just ordered the one in the upper right. I know it doesn’t have a tulle skirt or a bow of any kind, but I think it will get more use than one that does. I could tell Scarlett liked it the most.

What do you think? Is it important to you to have a special dress-up outfit for your child for the holidays? How fancy must it be?

If you like my strategy, feel free to use code ROOKIEMOMS15 (until 11/20) as I did to save 15% at Tea Collection. They have boys clothes, too. Dress-up clothes for boys at Carters.com also look pretty good and reusable, while several fancier dresses for girls at Children’s Place are less than $30.

Fellow rookie parents, I discovered a website for teaching kids about money and I wanted to share. Wait, don’t click away just yet. I realize how boring that sounds (“Teaching about money.” Blech). But really, I could argue that teaching your children about money is one of the most important things you’ll do as a parent.

Now it sounds a little more interesting. And scary.

I found this site and fell in love with the direct approach to dealing with all kinds of money matters in a way a child can understand. They provide a milestone map to guide parents on the path to helping our kids develop a healthy relationship with money, all boiled down to 20 things your kid needs to know. And, no, ignoring money entirely like my family did doesn’t cut it.

click to enlarge

The list format — oh, how I love a good list! — takes some of the mystery and drama out of the money conversation. Though it does not tell me how to answer when Holden asks, “So, how much are you selling the old house for?” a question that I’m just not comfortable having him discuss on the playground (although perfect strangers could look it up online), it does provide financial goals and related real world activities for kids age three and up.

For example, preschoolers should learn that toys that cost money and begin to identify coins. Easy. But knowing that two big lessons I need to teach my kids are

> You may have to wait before you can buy something you want

and

> There’s a difference between the things you want and the things you need

is really helpful. If you’re too busy to click around, here’s a cheat sheet of the tips for each age.

What do you do to help your children become money-wise? Is there anything you wish your parents did differently when it comes to money?

Related posts:

• On introducing allowance – Find out the lengths we go to in my house with our first kid. Why do I think all bets are off by the time kid number three needs money?
• Allowance, taxes, potty training (from planet money) – Innovative suggestions: 100% health tax for buying candy, educational matching, and the dress code subsidy. That is soo geeky, perfect for me and my fam!
• Teaching our kids about money (from babycenter) – The one where Whitney shares her new ideas from a chat we attended by the authors of The Financially Intelligent Parent.

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I wasn’t compensated in any way for this review. I was very impressed and I hope you like it too. Images from moneyasyougrow.org.

Sometimes Heather and I worry that we are making assumptions about our readers’ lifestyles that aren’t true. We assume everyone lives in a place like we live, where you can walk to a dry cleaner, corner markets, and to some pretty great destinations if you are willing to push a stroller for 15 or 20 minutes.

I’m guessing she thinks my location is better than hers (we live 1.6 miles apart), but this morning as my family and I had breakfast in Heather’s ‘hood, we were saying that they scored a pretty great location. And, according to WalkScore.com, her house is actually more walkable than ours.

Check out the site. It might make you appreciate some close by businesses you never thought to frequent. Or perhaps you’ll consider walking some places you usually drive.

I recently received an invitation to become a founding member of thredUP kids and want to share the link with you guys.

Heather and I are big proponents of the adult clothing swap, and have brought kids clothes to our swaps, but never had enough focus on kids to organize that piece of it. At our swaps, it’s usually just a big pile of hand-me-downs that the women who are moms can go through when they are done outfitting themselves. So I was intrigued when thredUp, an online facilitator of clothing swaps announced they are launching a kids channel.

thredUP kids is a new site that combines aspects of Netflix, eBay, and even StubHub to allow you to exchange your kids clothing online, swapping with strangers.  The website, launching in just a few weeks, aims to make clothing your child easier.  Sign-up here for a chance to swap your first box for free (a $20 value.):

Here’s how the thredUP kids “community” works:

1) Sorta like Netflix, thredUP members browse and choose boxes of clothes they’d like to receive. For example, a box of snow clothes for a 2 year old, or maybe just an assortment for a 12-month old.

2) Similar to eBay, you build and upload virtual boxes of clothes (10 + items/box) that are available for selection. No pictures, no detailed descriptions, just a simple overview of a box of gently worn items (e.g. “Size 3T, Boys, Pants & Jeans, Gap, Target & Old Navy).

3) Then like StubHub, thredUP enables and manages exchanges. The website facilitates exact matches and ensures quality.They don’t take possession of the clothing, as thredUP is strictly peer-to-peer. You’ll pay online for the swap and they send you empty boxes to ship off your items.  Zero trips to the post office.

You can also set up circles of friends with whom you want to swap – in case the stranger thing is not for you.

Note: thredUP also allows parents to just sell or buy on the site, as they recognize not everyone is a swapper.

I personally have access to several excellent second-hand children’s stores where I save tons of money buying gently used clothes.  If you don’t, perhaps you will be an avid user of thredUp.  What do you think of the idea?

Hey you. Have you heard about bTrendie? Shhh, not so loud.

bTrendie was launched by a group of parents who love great sales but hate generic, mass-produced clothes that all look the same.

Don’t know what I mean? I was at a birthday party last weekend in which my sons had the same shirts as 4 of the other boys. FOUR!

They host sales on high-end clothes, accessories, and gear so you can pay Target prices and get better quality — more unique — stuff. They typically feature a few products at a time, and when they’re gone, they’re gone.

To get you started, they’re featuring Olive Juice Clothing on Monday through Wed – at 50% off. Totally cute and totally affordable. Trust me, I’m cheap.

The site is free to use. The only trick is that you need an invitation, like a secret handshake for parents in the know. Register with bTrendie.com and you’ll be notified of the sales and deals you care about.

If you register via our affiliate link by January 31, you will be entered to win a relaxing rookie mom spa package, specially designed for those who are either sleep deprived or time impoverished, from do not disturb.

The kit includes some natural lotions, potions, and booties you can heat up in the microwave. The winner will be chosen among folks who register using our invitation link and notified by bTrendie.

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Final words: As we said above, bTrendie is an affiliate of Rookie Moms so if you join on our link, we get a little something. AND right now, if you refer a friend and they make a purchase, you get $10 credit on your next purchase. Just make sure they don’t buy what you buy, because AWKWARD!

We marketers often talk about “trusted brands.” Everyone wants to be a trusted brand so that consumers will buy from them for the rest of their lives, adopting whatever new product the brand launches.

Each consumer is unique and we formulate our own reactions, some emotional and some logical, to the product choices we face every day. For example, I cannot tell you why a Ford is not on the list of car brands I would shop from. It’s just not a brand I identify with. I am a Honda/VW girl, and one day, if budget allows, perhaps I will own a Volvo.

Of course, the second my baby started eating real food, I faced a whole new set of brand choices that probably subconciously translate in my head to “What kind of mom am I?” Am I an organic-only mom? Do I buy Earth’s Best or Gerber? Do I use Johnson’s baby shampoo? Do I use Pampers wipes or just paper towels that I wet with warm thermos water that I keep on the changing table (that one lasted about two days).

To me, some large companies, like Proctor and Gamble, Kraft, and Quaker are places I mostly associate with where people get jobs after business school. This means I never lose sight of their motives – profitability. Surely they would tell me their motives are customer satisfaction and product excellence, but I think I’m going to be tough to convince.

We have to trust these brands, however, because modern life requires that we move fast, work at a desk, answer 50 emails every day and watch American Idol twice a week. We can’t make 100% of our food and baby care products ourselves. But what’s in this stuff?

A new website – GoodGuide.com – is one place to start. If you are choosing between brands A and B, search there to see which has better ratings in terms of contents of the product AND ethics of the company. And, there’s an iPhone app so you can get the info while you’re actually making your decision at the shelf.

What products did you start questioning when you became a parent?

Stephanie did it. She set out to make 365 (gluten free!) meals with her crock part in 2008 for her New Year’s Resolution. Dang. And I thought I liked lists and challenges.

I asked her for her favorite favorites of the year and this is what she told me:

I don’t really have favorites, but here are a few that went over really well with readers, and a few that are just neat, “I didn’t know you could do that with a crockpot!”

• Autumn Sausage Casserole
• Pasta Fagioli
• Super easy crock pot lasagna
• John McCain’s ribs
• Jamaican pumpkin soup
• Tamales
• Yogurt (wow! in a crock pot?!)
• Glycerin soap with molds (ok, I guess its not all food)

But if you need more ideas of what to do with your crock pot, go check out crockpot365.blogspot.com. It’s complete with photos, steps, and true stories of how the meal experiment went over.

Related Rookie Mom activity: # 377 Declare Crock Pot Night (see, I just thought once a week was enough)

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Updated October 20, 2009. Great news! Stephanie’s new book Make it Fast, Cook it Slow is now available! I hope to review it soon.