Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Huggies. As always, all opinions are my own.

Nothing can really prepare you for that magical day when your baby arrives home for the very first time and all of a sudden you’ve truly become a family. You’ve spent months dreaming about this day and making sure every single detail is in order. The nesting stage seems to have put you in overdrive when it comes to making sure that everything your baby will need to feel welcomed, safe and loved is all set.

While there are many essentials our bebesitos need as soon as they are born, the reality is that all they truly desire is to be nurtured and cared by you and papá. To be able to fully be there and present for your little one at all times during those critical first weeks of birth, mamá needs to take care of herself and make sure that once you arrive home you have what you need to be comfortable and rested so you can focus on bonding with your child.

Aside from making sure the nursery is fully equipped to welcome baby, make sure you also prepare your home to meet your immediate needs in this new stage of life. Prepare yourself for a few weeks of new emotions, feelings, sensations and a different pace in your life from what you’ve been used to.

Taking some time beforehand to have a few things around the house taken care of prior to baby’s arrival and checking out other details on Huggies Latino’s Respuestas para Mamá, will make the transition smoother for you. Here are six ideas you might not have considered yet, but that can be very useful:

1. Batch cook a few meals to keep in the freezer and heat up to serve a meal at anytime. It’s essential you’re feeding yourself well, especially if you’re nursing your baby.

2. Have plenty of water at hand. Invest in a filter or make sure to have a refillable water bottle to just keep at your side at all times. Hydration is key as you recover from labor and get back into a sleeping routine.

3. Get a notebook and pen, or a good app on your smartphone, to keep a diary of your baby’s feedings, bowel movements and sleep. This is all essential information that your pediatrician will ask you during your visits and the more detailed information you have, the more useful it is.

4. Keep a digital camera or smartphone close to you at all times because these precious first moments only happen once.

5. In advance of baby’s arrival, find an online site that delivers the baby essentials you will need to replenish on a constant basis, such as Huggies Little Snugglers Diapers, Huggies Natural Care Wipes and formula, if needed. Create an account so that you can quickly access it to have your basics shipped to you immediately. Most don’t charge shipping costs and arrive quickly to your doorstep.

6. Create a playlist of your favorite nursery rhymes and soothing white noise to help baby calm down and ease into sleep.

These first days and weeks are the most intense, yet the most memorable and important for your baby’s development. You will definitely be focused on him, but don’t forget to take care of yourself so you can truly enjoy these moments.

Photo credit: Gabi Menashe on Flickr

Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, I’ve received product samples and compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

One of the things I want to make sure my two kids understand is that there are lots of children who are not as fortunate as they are — especially this time of year when the words “I want” become part of their daily lexicon.

That’s why we adopted a family through my daughter’s school and why I always ask them to help me go through their toys to pick the ones they no longer use to give to our next-door neighbor who works with local families in need.

This year, however, giving to those less fortunate than us, has gotten even easier thanks to Walmart’s campaign known as Fill the Truck. Working in conjunction with the Salvation Army, Walmart has put out cardboard boxes in the shape of trucks like the one you see in the photo above and all you have to do is purchase a toy or a coat for a child in need and drop it off in there. The Salvation Army will then be in charge of distributing the donated items to local kids in need. Some Walmart stores will also have a special event the next two weekends where volunteers will work together to fill the actual trucks with the donated toys.

I think that the best part about this program is that it really can’t get any easier to donate. Think about it, all you have to do is buy one or two toys while you’re shopping at Walmart and then just drop them off in one of the cardboard boxes by the entrance.

We love celebrating Latino and bicultural families every single day, so we’re thrilled to partner with Johnson & Johnson and Univision in their quest to find “La Familia de Hoy” — a modern, authentic and active family that represents a los hispanos and shares our passions.

The three familias that are in the voting stage to become “La Familia de Hoy” and spokes family for Johnson & Johnson in 2014 are:

Los Olivera

Los Jiménez

Los López

To learn more about these bellas familias and to cast your own vote, head on over now to Univision.com and just select one. It will literally take you seconds because you don’t need to register your email or any other steps. Once you vote, you also receive a selection of coupons for discounts on Johnson & Johnson Healthy Essentials products. Go here to vote now. The winning family will be revealed Dec. 21 on Sábado Gigante.

Bilingual Twitter Party!

We’ve joined a fabulous group of Latina bloggers and Latina Bloggers Connect (disclosure: I own this company) to celebrate “La Familia de Hoy” with a bilingual Twitter party and we really hope you can join us! If you’ve never attended a Twitter party, this is a perfect chance to dive into one!

Date: Thursday, December 5th

Time: 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET

Where: On Twitter with the hashtag #LaFamiliaDeHoy. You can use this link  for easy access starting now: http://twubs.com/LaFamiliadeHoy

Co-Hosts:

@eileenccampos  @elianatardio @mcontemporanea @sassymamainla

@smashbravoteam  @spanglishbaby

Moderators: @lbconnect @laflowers (me!!)

Sponsor: Johnson & Johnson

Prizes:

100 gift card for FIVE winners!

To be eligible to win, you must join the party and participate during the hour with an original tweet (RT’s not eligible) using the #LaFamiliaDeHoy hashtag. Five winners will be selected at random from all eligible tweets and announced throughout the hour. For full Terms and Conditions click here.

Pre-Party Prizes! RSVP and help us spread the word and WIN!

We want this fiesta to start right now, so we have a $25 gift card for four winners. To enter the #LaFamiliadeHoy pre-party giveaway all you have to do is RSVP with your Twitter handle via the Rafflecopter widget below and send out a tweet inviting your friends to join us.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

It’s been almost a month since we celebrated Día de Muertos at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, but my husband finally got around to editing this video and I wanted to share it with all of you!

My girl and I got dressed up and had some fun taking pictures from inside our Toyota Prius V while my husband drove us to the famed Mexican-style celebration of Day of the Dead in Los Angeles.

The video really does show you how colorful, traditional and beautiful the celebration is represented here, and what a perfect time it is to immerse our kids in culture. Hope you enjoy it!

My kids enjoyed doing these gratitude cards so much, that I figured they would love working on another craft for Thanksgiving that would be all about being thankful.

This time around, I asked them to help me put together a gratitude alphabet in Spanish. There are different ways to do something like this, but we went the sketchbook route where each letter gets its own page with a corresponding image on the opposite one.

I particularly wanted to do this activity with my 4-year-old son who is learning all his letters in English at school because I want him to learn them in Spanish as well.

The idea for this project is to ask your kids to come up with things they’re grateful for that start with each letter of the alphabet. Some of them can be easier than others, but with a little help, we were able to get through the entire ABC’s in Spanish.

The best part of this activity is its simplicity and the fact that you’ll need few materials to make it a reality — but a lot of creativity on the part of your kids.

Although we did some drawings, we also got a bunch of stickers in the scrapbooking section of my local Walmart and we cut some images out of magazines as well to make the whole project a bit more diverse. As you can see in the pictures, I also used brown paper to wrap both covers of the sketchbook so that we could decorate them and include the title: ABC de Gratitud (or gratitude alphabet).

My son liked the finished product so much — especially the page with the letter B which stands for Bomberos because he’s obsessed with firefighters — that now he likes to carry it around everywhere he goes! A great and fun way to teach kids gratitude and their ABC’s in Spanish, don’t you think?

Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, I’ve received product samples and compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Huggies. As always, all opinions are my own.

As soon as the first trimester uneasiness starts to subside, most new moms start to focus their attention on getting ready for the arrival of their baby. A highlight of all that expectation is preparing the nursery and setting up the baby registry. For moms like me that have family and friends spread out all over the country and even internationally, it’s important to have a well-curated list online that allows anyone to be part of the gift-giving to welcome in the little one, and that also meets the needs of new parents entering this stage in their life.

The first time you go through the process of selecting new baby essentials for your registry can be incredibly overwhelming. We worry about safety, price, durability, ratings, comfort, and so many other things. Now there are great tools like Huggies Respuestas de Mamá and the very useful Guía Bienvenida a tu Bebé that provide lists and endless information to help new moms. It’s also wise to spend some time researching and polling your friends for recommendations on the pricier and most-used items like your baby’s crib, car seat and stroller. Besides those three essentials, here are 10 more that all new moms should include in their baby registry list.

1. Diapers and wipes

Of course you know you’ll need diapers, but you probably still don’t realize exactly how many diapers a tiny person feeding on milk can go through in a day. Huggies Little Snugglers and Huggies Natural Care Wipes are essential to stock up on, especially for newborn babies.

2. Onesies

This sounds a bit obvious and you might think that you’ll probably be gifted so many of these that there’s no point to get more. Trust me on this one — you can never have enough onesies. Put on your registry many options from sizes 0 months-1 year. Infants are messy by nature and you’ll be glad to always have a new and fresh onesie in his dresser and diaper bag to grab at a moment’s notice.

3. Swaddle blankets

These are a life-saver. Babies sleep so much better when they are wrapped snug and tight. Stock up on these for the first months and make sure to get the appropriate thickness and fabric for your climate when your baby is born.

4. Diaper bag

This item will become an essential part of your personality and style for a while. The best diaper bags are a bit pricey, but most are worth it. You want a bag that’s durable, easy to clean, that has many easy to reach compartments to keep things organized, and one that both you and your husband will feel comfortable carrying around.

5. Baby swing or bouncy seat

Want a few minutes to yourself to grab breakfast or even attempt to shower? Get a baby swing or a bouncy seat! Babies love the constant motion and laying them in one of these is very soothing to them. Swings may take up a lot of space, but you will not regret it.

6. A set of baby bottles

Even if you plan to breastfeed your baby, you should have a set of baby bottles to use at any time.

7. Baby sling or carrier

There’s no doubt that babies need to be as close to you as possible, and nothing calms them down more than being next to you. However, mom also needs to get things done and use her hands. Make sure you have a few slings and/or carriers and find the most comfortable one for both you and baby.

8. Baby monitor

Nowadays, these come with so much range in technology that you’ll have to select based on your needs. You might consider choosing one with video so you won’t have to open baby’s door to check on her once you’ve finally put her down to sleep!

9. Diaper pail

At first they look like just a fancy trash can, but the reality is that diaper pails are made to keep both the sight and odors of your baby’s multiple daily dirty diapers far away. You’ll want one.

10. Glider or rocking chair

This one you’ll have to test out for yourself before you add it to your registry. It might be a pricey gift for one person, but perfect for a group gift. Make sure the chair is comfortable for you to sit in while holding a few pounds for a while and that the movement is effortless.

Photo credit: Lisa Rosario on Flickr

Disclosure: This post is Sponsored by Anthem Blue Cross.

One of the things I adore about my life in social media, both as the co-founder of SpanglishBaby and the founder of Latina Bloggers Connect, is the opportunity to work on campaigns that allow me to go beyond my normal comfort zone. Although the topic of raising bilingual and bicultural kids is always front and center on this blog, we often get a bit personal where it comes to the real issues affecting families and women in particular. One of those issues, especially in the current media environment, is our health.

I decided to lend my voice and story to the Real Health campaign because I think about the what health means to me on a daily basis. Not only from a place of reflection by giving thanks for my and my family’s health every day, but also based on the decisions I make or don’t. For me, having real health means I must think of health in holistic terms. Being healthy comes with feeling healthy in mind, body and soul and being conscious of putting myself first. Yes, much easier said than done, especially when life hits you in the face.

Life did hit me in the face a few months after my girl was born and the recession affected my house. No matter how much I was trying to remain holistically healthy, the fact was that we couldn’t even afford health insurance and that was the scariest feeling of all. I had a newborn that needed constant visits to the pediatrician, so we had to sacrifice everything we had just to keep our healthcare coverage because we were borderline for qualifying for California’s Healthy Families program.

Before my daughter was born, not having health insurance didn’t stress me out as much. Now, it’s our priority and there’s no way I would go without it. This was reinforced for me this summer when my mom came down with an extremely rare tumor that had to be operated on immediately and had to be done at the best cancer hospital in the nation. If she didn’t have the insurance she had, there’s no way we could have paid the $30,000 deposit required just to get her an appointment to be assessed. The total bill came out to over $150,000 and now, in her mid-60s, she’s almost depleted her lifetime maximum. That is scary.

Here’s the first installment of my health story.

You can visit the Real Health website or Facebook page for other stories from real women like me that answer the question “What does health care mean to you?”

If there’s one thing that can get my family of three on the verge of a serious disagreement it is the music we listen to. My husband goes from heavy rock to cool indie. I love my Latin indie pop and rock, as well as some salsa, cumbia and merengüe for those lift-me-up moments. Camila is totally getting into top of the charts pop music, like what’s played on Disney Radio. And I have to admit I’ll sing-a-long with her on a good Taylor Swift or Teen Beach Movie song. Yes, ¡se te pegan!

So I figured that since we’ve been going places a lot with our Prius V and it’s so easy to stream my Spotify playlists when I connect my iPhone via the ToyotaEntune app, that I should create a playlist of songs that would be more geared to Camila’s tastes, yet my husband and I could agree on as well. Turns out we’re also very picky about the type of music for kids we like. Much more indie than traditional, for sure.

Here’s a peek at how we’ve been dealing with entertainment on the road.

Here’s the playlist that’s currently on rotation in our Toyota Prius V and it’s public so you can easily subscribe to it and add it to your Spotify playlists. It includes 30 tunes from many of our SpanglishBaby Finds favorites like Music with Sara, Moona Luna, Mister G, Lucky Díaz, José Luis Orozco, Habla Blah Blah, Nathalia, Dan Zanes and so many more!

So, what did you think? You like? Let me know if there’s any that would fit the vibe and I’ll gladly add it.

Oh, and here’s a little extra treat para las mujeres — my playlist called Mujeres con Soul. Enjoy

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post in collaboration with Latina Bloggers Connect and WGBH.

Just in time for Halloween, PBS Kids is premiering the first ever Curious George Halloween special called “A Halloween Boo Fest” Monday, Oct. 28. We got an advance copy and my kids and I sat down to watch this super cute movie starring Jorge el Curioso and we had so much fun!

The movie is all about the legendary No Noggin, a spooky scarecrow who is known to kick the hats of the heads of trick-o-treaters every Halloween. But is this a folk tale or a true story? That’s what Curious George will attempt to find out.

Santiago was a just a tiny bit scared during certain parts of the movie, but not enough to not want to watch it two times in a row. At 7 years old, I thought Vanessa wouldn’t be that interested, but she loves Jorge el Curioso, so she really enjoyed it.

Before I let my kids watch the movie a second time, I decided to take advantage of the movie’s theme to talk to them a bit about legends, folk tales and fables. And I did that while we made these super cute Scarecrow Cookies in honor of No Noggin.

These cookies were not only fun for my kids to make, but they were so easy that even my 4-year-old was able to help, which made him real happy! All you need for these Espantapajaros cookies is:

• Sugar cookies (face)
• White frosting
• Wafers (hat)
• Bran cereal (hair)
• Chocolate chips (eyes)
• Corn candy (nos)
• Chocolate sprinkles (mouth)

It took us no time to make a dozen cookies that the kids shared with their best friend and also their babysitter. They were so happy of their accomplishment. Hopefully, they also understood what I tried to to teach them about fables and folktales. Now that we’ve talked a bit about the topic, I’m going to be on the lookout for some books in folktales in Spanish to reinforce what we discussed.

All in all, we had a great movie night! By the way, along with the movie, a bilingual book called Curious George va a una fiesta de disfraces, we also got some fun activities you can download for your kids to enjoy too:

Spanish: http://to.pbs.org/19Ls6UU ; http://to.pbs.org/194FvX7

English: http://to.pbs.org/16KfblE ; http://to.pbs.org/GZwiGD

And don’t miss the premiere of A Halloween Boo Fest on Oct. 28 on PBS Kids.

We didn’t have to travel too far last weekend to find a farm in the Valley that hosts one of the most fun fall harvest adventures: a huge corn maze! Forneris Farms is not only well known for its fabulous and huge pumpkins, but also because every year they carve out a wild corn field of over 4 acres of twists and turns that takes close to an hour to get through.

After checking out the corn maze online, we decided we had to go walk through it. Menos mal that my husband can actually read a map because I would have had to call someone to get us out of there.

To motivate you to walk through it all, they have set up along the way ten “cornundrums” or silly riddles that you must figure out the answer for. If you find ten, you can enter to win a prize. Looking for these cornundrums kept Camila super motivated and she beamed every time she would figure one out.

Not only was my husband able to know precisely at what point of the maze we where based on the map we had, but he also shot this cool video of the fun. Check out Camila coming out of the maze bummed we couldn’t find all the cornundrums: “¡Estaba muy dificil!”