Little Lamb Kidz Halo Tshirts Review

I am honored to get to review the new Halo shirt from Little Lamb Kidz.  First, a little background about Little Lamb Kidz (I would never provide a product review without also providing company background):

What happens when a child is first exposed to children of other faiths? Without proper guidance, confusion and conflict can set in. Little Lamb Properties, LLC and its New Spiritual Child Development™ program provides an avenue to introduce your child to the existence of other faiths in ways that foster respect and understanding. Scripture and beliefs unique to any one religion are left at the door. One way this is accomplished is through a series of fun-loving media characters of multiple faiths that behave and interact like children – they laugh, they live and they love their pals without prejudice or fear.

The goal of Little Lamb Properties is relatively simple in concept, yet at the same time, quite powerful. They aspire to reach all children, of all faiths and backgrounds, and help them develop strong spiritual roots which will guide them and ground them for years to come.

This is something that is near & dear to my heart.  As a Roman Catholic woman, I was blessed to be able to attend Catholic school through grade school, high school & college!  I will never forget one of my favorite classes in high school, it was on world religions.  Now, it may seem strange that our Catholic high school was educating us on other religions, but education and awareness is something that is necessary to learn how to be understanding.  As part of the class, I got to do research on Confucianism and it not only strengthened my faith but helped me understand truly how universal some of our Catholic teachings are. To this day, I have been strengthened in my faith due to being able to converse with those from different faiths.

In college I participated in a fundraiser for a very special charity called SmileTrain.  Here is a bit of information from the press release provided to me from Little Lamb Kidz:

Cleft lip and cleft palate are the most common birth defects of the head and face for children worldwide. Children with cleft lip/palate suffer from multiple health issues including difficulty breathing and eating, ear infections, hearing loss, speech and language delays and dental problems. Multiple surgeries and long-term follow-up care are often necessary. There are currently millions of children throughout the world who simply can not afford to have their cleft lip/palate medically treated. In developing countries, a child with unrepaired cleft lip/palate is not allowed to attend school or a job. They are looked down upon by their community and live a life of isolation and shame.

The company Little Lamb Kidz has started The Halo clothing line to support SmileTrain.  I received a tshirt to review and it really is pretty adorable for my little boy!  The logo glows in the dark which is a fun extra feature and great for getting kids to enjoy their clothes.  The shirt is preshrunk so the size when I pulled it out of the package was accurate to how it would be after I washed it for my little guy.  The quality is great, the screen printing will last through many washes & wears!  I did receive a 3T, so it is a little big for Jack these days but as a tshirt it should be perfect for next summer!

Details on how this tshirt supports SmileTrain: 10% of the sales of this shirt go to SmileTrain, to help provide cleft lip/palate surgeries to children in third world countries.  At under $19.95 for an adult shirt and under $14.95 for a children shirt, that results in a minimum of $1.49 going to SmileTrain for each shirt sold!  You can order them here.

Disclaimer: I was contacted by a PR rep from Orca Communications Unlimited, LLC on behalf of Little Lamb Kidz.  I received a child's tshirt, press release & image included above to facilitate my review.  I have not been compensated in any other way for this post, and my thoughts expressed above are completely my own.

Shorty!

If you've met me before, you're well aware of the fact that I'm petite.  I guess you could say that "petite" is an understatement as I'm 4'11.5".  I've had many peers ask me throughout the years if I had to have restrictions on my drivers license or if I was legally considered a "midget."

Of course, being petite has always caused clothing shopping to be extremely difficult.  Petite clothing are made for someone under 5'4" and being over 4 inches shorter means that I even have to get petite clothing hemmed!  I have spent most of my life searching for a brand of clothing that offered pants or dresses that fit!  After all of my searching, I know that I can get jeans/pants at Old Navy in their petite sizes that fit in waist & length... as long as I can stay in the same size.  I was up one more size post-baby but needed clothes to go back to work and I needed those pants hemmed.  My long-term goal is to buy a sewing machine and learn how to do some basic alterations (a.k.a. hemming), but I'm holding off on buying clothes for myself these days so I will hold off on the purchase of a sewing machine as well.

I'm definitely not complaining, but just thought I'd share some observations on how just a few inches can affect your perspective.  Other things you may or may not know about being short are:

• Every car we purchase must have an adjustable drivers seat.
• In airplanes and many office chairs that do not have adjustable height, my feet don't touch the ground.  This often results in my legs/feet falling asleep in any meeting longer than an hour.
• When my son wiggles while I'm holding him, I can barely hold on to him.  He is well aware of this fact and uses it to his advantage.  (Note: he does not wiggle as much with Matt because he knows Matt can hold on to him.)

Fabric Softening After Baby!

One of the things I've missed since having Jack, is fabric softener.  (I know, its a silly thing to miss!)  We never started using it after he was born and used "free & clear" detergent.  His skin is so sensitive that if you just rub him the wrong way (literally) he gets all red!  Also since we've started using cloth diapers, softener will negatively affect the absorbency of the diapers.  This is also true for bath towels, I never used fabric softener for these.

From the scientific side of things, fabric softeners are usually made up of surfactants, or "surface active agents," that get transferred to clothing/fabric in the washer or dryer (depending on the form).  These surfactants actually form a layer of hydrophobic particles that result in feeling soft against your skin.  There are a lot of different types of surfactants out there, but the ones used for softeners should have a low toxicology profile and cause no dermal sensitization.  This is usually hard to do for babies, young children or people with allergies/sensitive skin.  You can find a lot more information on the web just through a Google search.

I just saw this blog post on how to make wool dryer balls over at the Bummis blog.  The article includes how they help soften clothes.  I can't wait to make some to see if they actually work!