pregnancy

Favorite Gender Reveal Ideas

Guest blog from Cheryl Seidel of RegistryFinder.com

Gender reveals were virtually unheard of ten years ago, but today, they’re everywhere! Many couples are choosing to host gender reveal parties, while others are opting for a gender reveal photo shoot. Photo announcements on Facebook or Instagram are also popular ways to announce your baby’s gender. Pinterest is overflowing with great gender reveal ideas, but we’ve selected some of our favorites to share with you!

Use Confetti!

Photo Credit: Kara’s Party Ideas

Confetti is included at many celebrations, so we think it’s a great way to celebrate your new little one! The balloon pop has become a very popular gender reveal recently. If you want to get all of your guests in on the action, fill lots of balloons with confetti and hang them from the ceiling. Instruct your guests to simultaneously pop their balloons! An alternative to the confetti filled balloon is the pull string piñata or box, also filled with pink or blue confetti.

Get Messy!

Photo Credits: Macon Photography (L) and Triplet Living (R)

These are especially fun if you don’t already know your baby’s gender. Give your guests silly string (or if you’re feeling really adventurous!) squirt guns filled with paint. Stand with your honey, close your eyes, count to three, and prepare for the deluge. When you open your eyes, you’ll know whether it’s a boy or a girl.

Embellish Your Ultrasound Picture

Photo Credits: Charlotte and Rae (L) and Thrift Mom (R)

We love this sweet, but simple idea- embellish your ultrasound picture with boy or girl accessories.

Share a Sweet Treat!

Photo Credits: 8- Love To Be In The Kitchen | 9- Dessert Now Dinner Later | 10- TwoTwentyOne | 11- The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle

Like I mentioned earlier, the cake seems to have started the gender reveal phenomenon! But what about gender reveal cupcakes, cake pops, cookies, or Oreos? Have your guests bite into their treat all together- everyone will love joining in the reveal!

Include Older Siblings…

Photo credits: 12- Life Your Way | 13- Beth Lee Photography | 14- Erica Joyce Photography | 15- Simple Suburbia

What’s cuter than mom and dad revealing their baby’s gender? Siblings doing it! We love all of these cute ideas to get older siblings involved and excited for their new baby!

About Cheryl Seidel:

Seidel is a sought after etiquette expert and regular contributor for The Huffington Post and author of the popular Ask Cheryl blog. She helps advise readers with handy tips on how much to spend, when gift giving is appropriate and other would-have-loved-to-know-that-when moments in gift giving, She is also the creator and founder of www.RegistryFinder.com, an intuitive search engine that helps gift givers quickly and easily find online registries for weddings, baby showers, graduations and more. Seidel has 22 years of business experience, with concentrations in new product development and consumer advertising and promotion.

Mama Boxes

by Gugu Guru Leave a Comment

We actually learned about Mama Boxes through one of our favorite bloggers, Heather Wilson Tomoyasu of US Japan Fam, who happens to be pregnant with twin girls. Anybody that knows Gugu Guru knows that we are all about discovering new products that are right for your lifestyle (not someone else’s). Mama Boxes are a great way to find out about pregnancy-related products that you may not have heard of before but that may just be perfect for you. Each box is filled with pregnancy goodies that are trimester specific. The boxes contain sample- AND full-size products for expecting moms to discover, try and fall in love with.

We received the three trimester bundle to share with some of our pregnant mommies and we were thrilled to see the variety of products ranging from skincare to prenatal vitamins to healthy snacks. This is a terrific gift for an expecting mama. (Time to drop a hint!)

Our first trimester box included products great for boosting your overall prenatal health at this critical time of your baby’s development and also addressing some of the downsides that can occur early in your pregnancy (e.g., nausea, morning sickness, constipation).

As seen here: Preggie Pop, Credible Cravings, Manitoba Harvest Hemp Hearts, Frolic, Promise Prenatal, Prenatal Oxylent, Sibu and Slather Lemon Vanilla Bean Scrub.

In our second trimester box, we found more tasty (yet healthy) snacks to satisfy your pregnancy cravings along with some wonderful products including some that will aid and relieve your stretching belly.

As seen here: Beanfields Chips, Hello Fresh, Mommi, XO Mints, Ziaja, Breeze Bar, Dream Belly Butter, Mun, Weleda, and Everyday Happy.

Lastly, our third trimester box was overflowing with “you’re in the homestretch” goodness. In your final trimester, you need to keep caring for yourself, of course, but also start thinking about caring for the baby who’s going to be making his/her appearance very soon. This box was filled with perks for mom AND baby.

As seen here: Pampers, Ziaja, Goddess Garden, Dapple, Now For Mothers, MomIn, Doctor Kracker, S.A.C., Babies ‘R’ Us, Erba Organics, Johnson & Johnson, Lansinoh and KINeSYS.

The products inside the Mama Boxes are updated from time-to-time based on customer feedback, but here are just some of the brands you may see:

Four Pregnancy Snacks That Fill You Up, Not Out

by Gugu Guru Leave a Comment

There you are looking all adorably pregnant on the outside, and your body is working as hard as a mountain climber on the inside. Seriously! You can’t see its efforts, though no doubt on most days you feel it. Making itty bitty bones, vital organs, blood, and cute little toes are no easy task, so you must nourish your bod with all the necessary nutrients and this means eating “clean” and healthy. Oh, and not to mention, doing all of this while you possibly juggle a career or take care of your other children, and tending to all of the other responsibilities and directions that life pulls you in.

Here are four go to snacks for busy gals that choose health for themselves because they know how that translates into healthy babes, and a fitter post-pregnancy experience.

1. Nuts and seeds –With fiber, protein, and healthy fats, these powerhouses will fill you up. Best choices are walnuts, almonds, cashew (which is actually a seed), pumpkin seeds, and chia seeds. Add them to salads, blend them in smoothies, or just have them plain. The nut butter versions are good to spread on apples and gluten-free crackers and Barney Butter has the most delish varieties!

Aim for organic and raw nuts and seeds when possible for nutrient retention. I have seen many a person actually gain weight by eating too much of this good thing! Because of the fat content, they are super high in calories, so pre portioned packages are great because if you are anything like me, it it’s out, it may get gobbled up quickly.
2. Hummus has gone all worldly on us! With different blends such as edamame, roasted red pepper, jalapeño, and black bean, there is sure to be a combo that suits a mom-to-be’s “hankerin” for a tasty snack. Like our nut friends, they are high fiber and protein, but lower in fat. Slice a cucumber and use that instead of crackers for a healthier and lower carb snack.

This travels really well too, and Wild Garden Traditional Hummus comes in cute little travel packages that make it SO easy to say no to other less healthy options!

3. Avocado. Period. Yup…just as is…well, with a knife of course. These fruits are loaded with folic acid, which is crucial to the development of your healthy baby.

With heart-friendly fat, fiber, protein, and so many vitamins and minerals, you will be loving yourself and your baby in the yummiest of ways! Sure you can add them to a smoothie, a salad, or spread them on whole grain toast, but because they travel very well, you can just eat as is. I’ve taken them on airplanes before with a plastic knife all ready to just peel and eat. You can put what you don’t finish in a zip-loc. Voila!
4. Re -think your popcorn! Let’s face it…sometimes life calls for crunchy and salty…pregnant or not! Presto makes a great line of very affordable hot air and microwave poppers.

Once popped, spray your popcorn with a little olive oil, or coconut oil, add a dash of salt. Or, to kick it up a notch, add freshly chopped parsley (loaded with calcium) or sprinkle on your favorite seasonings like paprika or cumin. Get creative and enjoy because popcorn is actually a good source of fiber and it’s gluten free. Score!

About Jeanine Finelli
Jeanine Finelli is a Certified Health Coach, Speaker and Author of the Love Yourself to Health series. She received her Health Coach Certification from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in NYC (where she was born and bred) in 2008, and has had the honor of learning from the best of the best, including Dr. Mehmet Oz, Dr. Andrew Weil, David Wolf, Joshua Rosenthal, Walter Willet and many more.

5 Things You Need to Know About Gugu Guru

by Gugu Guru Leave a Comment

The team at Gugu Guru is constantly updating and improving our site to serve our users. If you have a question or recommendation, please don’t hesitate to email us at hello [at] guguguru [dot] com. We read every email we receive and will reply.

Here are five very important things we want you to know about Gugu Guru:

1. We NEVER accept payment from brands to be recommended.

All of Gugu Guru’s recommendations are 100% organic and based on data from industry experts and other moms like you. In fact, we are so new that many brands haven’t even heard of Gugu Guru (yet). So rest assured while you build your registry that brands cannot pay to be recommended and that is our promise to you.

2. Get new product recommendations from within Registry Manager.

Access your Registry Manager at any time by logging in and clicking “My Registry”. Not entirely pleased with your recommendations or want to change the answers to some questions? Just click “Back to questions”.

3. We’re adding new products all the time but that shouldn’t stop you from adding what you want.

Something else you want to add from Amazon or another website? No problem! Just click the “Add A Product To My Registry” link within the registry builder and our team will add it to your registry.

4. Help is just a click away!

We’re here to help! Just send your registry to a Gugu Guru expert before publishing it. One of our baby registry experts will review your registry with your style and lifestyle profile and provide feedback, as well as answer any questions you may have.

5. Use our Must Have and Nice to Have buttons to indicate what you really need.

Gugu Guru gives you the choice to indicate to gift givers which gifts you really need versus the ones you’d just like to have. When gift givers come to your public registry, they’ll also be able to sort the items by your Must Haves and Nice to Haves, helping them shop by increasing the chances that you’ll get all the items you really need.

Considered Casual

by Gugu Guru Leave a Comment

This week’s look actually came about after speaking to moms about their style and showing them the super casual side of our style spectrum (Comfort Is King) and then our middle of the road style that is a perfect balance of glam and practicality (Chic And On The Go). So many moms saw these looks and said that their style is somewhere in between because they’re casual but a bit more chic… a bit more “thoughtful” or considered. Thus Considered Casual was born.

Considered Casual at its core is still a very comfortable approach but tends to be presented as a more layered and textured look. While Comfort Is King may use more neutral tones and everyday basic pieces, Considered Casual is not afraid of colors or patterns.

Even though the style is a notch up on our style spectrum, Considered Casual is still a relaxed approach. Mommy model Amanda is very comfortable in this super soft tank and graphic boho-inspired pants.

For this look, we love a sling – a baby carrier that can definitely make a fashion statement. Here Amanda is rocking the Joovy BabaSling.

There are so many great things about this sling (like the easy quick release buckle that will not wake up a sleeping baby!) but the feature we love the most on the Joovy BabaSling is the extra padded shoulder pad that ensures comfort for mom, even while baby grows and gets heavier. It’s 100% machine washable; important for this style, which still relies heavily on practicality.

Photo credits: Sinnerman Photography
Styling: Carly Horen Walko of Thirty Something Fashion
Hair & Makeup: Elisabeth Kaiser

The 6 Best Pregnancy Beauty Essentials

by Gugu Guru Leave a Comment

Pampering yourself while preggers is a non-negotiable. If there was ever a time to treat yourself to some beauty indulgences, it’s definitely during that hormonal roller coaster called pregnancy. Acquiring the elusive pregnancy glow is easier with a little help from some beauty essentials–all safe and luxurious, of course. Here, our pick for the 6 top pregnancy beauty essentials.

1. Butter London Nail Lacquer in Yummy Mummy ($15)
Regular manicures during pregnancy are a must. When you head to the salon, bring this universally flattering taupe-y shade from fashion forward nail brand Butter London. It has the power to make nails look effortlessly chic against every skin tone look. Mums-to-be will love the name as well as the consciously made 3-free formula.

2. Solano Supersolano 3500 Lite Professional Hair Dryer ($190)
It’s amazing how much better you can feel after a good blow-out. While we highly recommend treating yourself to as many salon blowouts as possible, we know realistically that getting out of the house becomes harder and harder when you’re with child. Invest in this cult favorite, pro-loved hair dryer in a new lightweight model and doing your own ‘do will be easier than ever.

3. Juice Beauty Lash Defining Mascara ($19)
The trick to looking wide awake even when every muscle in your body wants to go back to sleep, is applying mascara to the base of the lashes. It’s a little trick our makeup artist friends taught us when we had our first child. As with all of your beauty choices, make sure the formulas are clean with no scary chemicals. All products from Juice Beauty contain worry-free, organic ingredients.

4. Mama Mio Tummy Rub Stretch Mark Oil ($38)
Your belly does some serious stretching during those nine months. Give it some relief by gently rubbing this heaven-sent elixir of nourishing oils to stave off the itchies as well as help keep stretch marks at bay.

5. Aden + Anais Mum and Bub Skin Care Extra Gentle Lotion ($15.95)
Who wants dry, cracked skin during pregnancy? Not us. Be smart and use a product that is free of phytoestrogens, parabens and any other potentially icky ingredient. This ultra-gentle lotion from cult favorite baby brand Aden + Anais is a gorgeous essential to any bathroom.

6. EOS Lip Balm Smooth Sphere in Blueberry Acai ($6.49)
There’s so much to love about these cool looking orbs of lip balm. The scent is subtle yet yummy and you’ll never lose it at the bottom of your purse. The ingredients are all-natural–no petroleum here!

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