I am without a doubt a HUGE Kolcraft fan! While I was pregnant I used the Sealy Sweet Pea 2 in 1 pillow and I still use it to sleep with, I nurse Justin on it, and even as I type this I have him propped up sitting beside me on it! Every night, Justin sleeps in their new Preferred Position™ 2-In-1 Bassinet & Incline Sleeper right beside my bed! Jaxon also had his fair share of Kolcraft products such as one of their walkers and their Jeep play yard. We’ve also had our share of strollers, jogging, umbrella and now we can add the Contours Optima Tandem stroller to our Kolcraft collection!!!

Justin's Evenflo car seat fits great on the infant car seat attachment.

Having a little baby and a toddler going through the terrible 2′s…a double stroller was necessary! I knew I wanted a tandem, and to be able to put Justin’s car seat on it and Jaxon still have plenty of room up front as well as not be too huge and fold up nicely. The Contours Optima Tandem was everything I was looking for! I also love the many different options of how you can have the seats facing, away from each other, towards each other, both forwards, both backwards!!

Here are all the features:

• Lightweight aluminum frame – only 36.8 lbs
• Six different seating options: children can both face parent, face each other, face forward, back to back, front seat only (& large storage in the back), or use with an infant car seat
• Height-adjustable canopies, with peek-in windows, can be raised or lowered: min. 23″ to max. 27″ so your baby is always covered
• Infant car seat attachment fits most car seat brands. Additional infant car seat attachment is sold separately
• Extra large storage basket
  

  Jaxon sitting in the Contours Optima Tandem stroller...sometimes he don't like it, and sometimes he's fine with it!

• Accommodates one or two infants/children
• Independent reclining seats, child cup holders & sun-rider canopies
• Steering is a breeze with two 8″ front single swivel wheels and 10″ rear never-flat wheels
• Four cupholders, 2 for parents and 2 for children
• Infant head rest
• Easy-trigger fold
• Convenient Free-Stand™ allows the stroller to stand upright when folded
• Height adjustable 5-point safety harness & padded infant head rest sleeves for comfort
• One-year manufacturer warranty

One of the many positions to put the seats! I love all the options!

My only problem with it is that to fold it up, you have to take off the infant car seat attachment and turn the front seat around to face the back…it takes some time and is kinda frustrating, but it’s not a huge deal breaker lol. We use this to go over to my Dad’s house, or to get the kids off the bus when it’s nice out.

Putting the stroller together was not too horrible, I had it together in about 20minutes…most of that was getting Jaxon to stop messing with stuff and hiding it from me haha. He did let me put him in it as soon as it was fully put together and got mad at me when I made him get out!!

The Contours Optima Tandem stroller is available at multiple online stores such as BabiesRUs.com for $289.99, BuyBuyBaby.com for $299.99, Diapers.com or $299.99 and many more!

I’m so happy to have this added to our Kolcraft collection and can’t wait until Justin is old enough for the WonderBug Activity center!!!!

Scrappy isn’t necessarily “old” he’s almost 3, but in dog years that’s what…21? Not exactly young, but not ancient either. We didn’t get Scrappy until he was about a year old and he was house trained but that was it, no basic commands or anything. We’ve started with the most basic, sit. Now, with Justin’s surprise PICU stay, it’s thrown our training off a little, but we’re still working on it.

I posted about shopping for dog treats last week, and we’ve been training a little, so far Scrappy’s favorite treat is Milo’s Kitchen Jerky, he prefers the Beef but will eat the Chicken too.

Scrapping getting a Milo's Kitchen Chicken Jerky for sitting.

Snuffles the pug puppy is stubborn…I tried to train him and all he did was go and lay down on Jeffery.

Snuffles laying on Jeffery instead of listening to me.

He’s still a puppy and is going to take a LOT more training. Like I said, I was gone for a few days in the hospital so I need to get back into being more persistent with training. I plan to use the Milk-Bone® healthy treats for Snuffles due to the weight issues pugs have, I’ve given him some to see if he likes them and he does, so that will be no problem once he stops being so stubborn!

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. #CBias All opinions are my own and not influenced by anything or anyone.

About a month or so before Christmas, I got myself a gift…a pug puppy I named Snuffles With a new puppy, comes training! I’ve given him enough time to get used to the house and us before we start really training him.  I will also be doing basic obedience training of our other dog, Scrappy (our toy poodle). The time has come, so I had to go shopping for dog treats for positive reinforcement.

I went to WalMart in search of some yummy dog treats for my pups. I was on a mission to buy Milk-Bone® Treats, Lean Pup-Peroni Treats and Milo’s Kitchen Treats. The dog treat section of WalMart was crazy big and had so many options of flavors and treat size and sizes of packages!

Dog Treat Section of WalMart

Since pugs have a tendency to get overweight real quick, the Lean Pup-Peroni was something I was really happy to get, so we can keep his weight under control as he gets older. There was a few varieties of Pup-Peroni, their original flavors and then the Lean Beef Flavor, which is what I ended up getting for Snuffles.

Pup-Peroni Flavor Varieties

I also found the Milo’s Kitchen area and was shocked at how many flavors there were and how the names sounded like delicacies for dogs! Flavors like Chicken Meatball, Beef Jerky, Chicken Jerky and Beef Sausage Slices! We ended up buying a package of Beef Sausage Slices, Chicken Jerky and Beef Jerky (yes, I bought 3 packs because I couldn’t decide on just one!)

Jeffery helped me pick out some Milo's Kitchen treats for the pups

Then we went to the Milk-Bone® area to pick up a few more treats…a good variety is nice, change it up once in awhile for the pups. Milk-Bone® had so many treats to choose from, a lot of different sizes, flavors, shapes and types (like the Healthy Favorites and Essentials Plus as well as their original treats) I couldn’t help but buy a box of Milk-Bone® Crunchy Original treats with real bone marrow, since both my pups are small, these are the perfect size for them. I also couldn’t pass up getting a box of their Healthy Favorites (again, because we have to be careful how much Snuffles eats so he don’t get overweight) which has vegetables, one has carrots and one has sweet potatoes as well as rolled oats & flaxseed and real meat (there are chicken and beef varieties). Also on select boxes of Milk-Bone® treats you can find a coupon to purchase Pup-Peroni and Milo’s Kitchen treats, although I didn’t find any coupons on any packs in the WalMart I visited, they do exist!

Some of the Milk-Bone® selection.

The Crunchy treats I bought for Snuffles and Scrappy.

The Healthy Favorites flavor I chose for Snuffles so he don't get too fat!

I think we got plenty of treats to last us at least a little, 6 packs/boxes of treats! I think my 2 pups are going to enjoy their training, especially with the great flavors I chose!

My cart with all the dog treats I chose

I have already started the training, and hope to be able to share some results with you next week! Be sure to check out my entire shopping experience on Google+.

Be sure to join the Twitter Party on Thursday January 12, 2012 at 12:00 CST by following along #ILoveMyK9.

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. #CBias All opinions are my own and not influenced by anything or anyone.