The temperature is dropping quickly here in Idaho. Yesterday in was 19 degrees and we “enjoyed” our first snowfall. By “enjoy” I mean we are all so excited to wake up to the white stuff–it’s so beautiful!–and then Greta wants to go build a snowman so we spend 30 minutes digging out all the snow clothes and layering it on and then she only plays outside 5 minutes because it is freezing! And it is. I don’t blame her. I like being inside, sipping hot cider and cuddled up with a blanket when it snows, personally. We have a long winter ahead of us and although Greta-the-great is usually gung ho when it comes to playing outside through the other seasons–sun up to sun down!–I dare say she takes after me when it comes to being cold–I can barely tolerate it.
In preparation for the winter ahead, I restarted our Kiwi Crate subscription–an activity box delivered to your door full of hands-on art projects, science, games, imaginative play, recipes and then some. We had it for a few months when Faye was first born and Greta absolutely loved doing the activities that came in the crate. I loved that it kept her busy and happy while my hands were tied up with a new baby. Each month there is a new theme–gardening, dinosaurs, space was a hit!–this month it was a medieval theme. I could see Greta’s eyes light up as soon as she opened the box and there was an illustration of a castle.
We had some of her cousins over and they had the castle put together within a couple minutes and then for the next hour, added every sticker that came with it and all the flags and then came the different voices for the characters–my favorite part.
I have never received a crate that Greta didn’t pour over for an extended period of time. They are all so engaging and it was nice to see that Greta was equally as interested in playing with the castle as her boy cousins were. Which meant, my sister and I could sit back and just catch up.
Greta requested the castle stay in her room, so we cleared a spot on her bookcase for it. I am not sure Santa can top the cardboard castle come Christmas.
The crate would make such a great holiday gift for friends or family with kids. Kiwi Crate plans start at just $16.95 and you can add materials for extra siblings for just $9.99/month with free shipping on ALL subscriptions! They have generously offered our readers 30% off on your first month subscription with code CLJ30. (Note: Promotional code excludes sibling add-ons.) You can even shop for individual arts and crafts and even party favors on the website–I think it would be so great for the kids’ table at Thanksgiving!Â
How are you making it through winter? (If you say move to Florida–I hope you have a spare room. ;)
 This post is sponsored by Kiwi Crate.Â
Your response to all of this is good. Your blog will be so much better for it. I had stopped reading long ago because of the above statements. I’ll always remember young house love as being a class act and so respectable for not accepting freebies. Good luck-
My issue with sponsored posts (well, I have two of them) is that these compaines are saturating the market. I have seen Blue Apron on every. single. blog. I read. The craft box. The water thing. It makes me NOT want to order their stuff just to show these companies how tiresome and lazy it is to bombard readers with their stuff all at the same time. For the Love of God–enough. My second issue is bloggers hawking things that they would NEVER pay for themselves. I have a very hard time believing that all of the bloggers pimping out Blue Apron would use that product regularly, on their own dime. That should be your litmus test. Take the first Blue Apron freebie (which you are also probably paid to write about in addition the the product). Then actually buy it continually for next year on your own dime. If you aren’t going to do that, why should I? One DIY blogger that I have read for years has been on four sponsored trips in the past three months.Resorts, NYC, everywhere. Would she actually pay out of her own pocket to spend three nights at an expensive resort and pay for all the top-end meals and activities? No way. Then why should I? It is the height of arrogance to try and sell people something that you don’t have a specific plan of buying for yourself in the future. I’m glad you have a new policy on this. I think this whole sponsorship thing is killing blogs. I may check in on the blogs I read once-a week. A year ago, I checked in daily.
I agree 100% with everything Anna said. I still read all the blogs with sponsor posts (even if I read 4 in a row that are hawking the same thing) but I usually skip these posts. (Well, I did read one of the 1,000 about Blue Apron, and I must say, what an enormous waste of money. Just get a cookbook, people.) I’d love for everyone to adopt the same attitude towards sponsored posts that Young House Love (RIP) had, but I understand you gotta make the money in order to keep the blog going.
Sort of surprised to see some of the comments above. I don’t like the sponsored posts either but I get it. You have a family to take care of. But it definitely would be nice to see more decor posts – I love how your visions come together. I also understand that you don’t necessarily have something new decor-wise to post every day so again, the sponsored posts don’t make smoke come out of my ears like they seem to do to some others. Actually, I think you do the sponsored posts pretty well – I get more irritated with them over at Bower Power! And she just did a Kiwi Crate post as well which seemed less authentic than yours. I hope my comment encourages you a bit after some of the comments above.
I feel like everyone has just copied the previous comments and jumped on the bandwagon of grizzling!! We don’t pay you to read your blog. I’m surprised readers can be so demanding of just an average family writing about their life and home. I get that you want to please your readers as the blog is like a job for you… but just know that not everyone is all up in arms about the fact that you get freebies.
My goodness everyone! Why is it so easy to point that negative finger? I love a good design blog just as much as anyone else. But Chris and Julia are not just a design blog…..they are a family so it is only natural they also promote ‘family’ things ie. kids stuff, dinner parties, etc. They are passing along their thoughts and opinions on things that some of us may not have heard about. And if they get paid for it…..score for them! Who wouldn’t mind a few freebies here and there. It would be worse if they got all this free stuff and never mentioned or provided their opinions on it. And as for the Soma water comment about making their guests wait to take pictures…come on. Their friends and family all know that this blog is part of who they are and it is only natural that some of that falls into their personal time. Those pictures probably only took a matter of minutes compared to the hours spend enjoying each others company. It is a shame how so many bloggers are now having to defend their actions when they have done nothing wrong. Julia and Chris……you are doing fabulous!