The fabulous mamas behind the fun line of rock star mama t-shirts at LTDChix.com want to extend a special discount to all Savvy Housewife readers who entered the recent t-shirt giveaway. For 15% off your order at checkout just click through this post. It’s a holiday week, so you might as well kill a little time at the office doing some shopping.

 Here’s the lowdown on additional Savvy Housewife discounts.

Summer is here which means school is out and family vacations are in (although with the price of gas, some families won’t be traveling too far from home.) Do you need to find a babysitter for your kids or a pet sitter to check on your resident Fido while you’re out of town? Save 10% off registration at SitterCity.com using code BLONDEMOM at checkout. Scroll down to view and click on the banner ad at the bottom of SavvyHousewife. SitterCity offers a four-step screening process, free access to background checks, comprehensive profiles on the sitters in their database, and a ZIP code based search engine that also allows you to narrow your search to nanny, doula, mother’s helper, or babysitter.

TruKid is offering Savvy Housewife readers 20% off online purchases of $25 or more now through September 13 using the code blonde at checkout.

July 4th will be here before you know it. Savvy Housewife has pulled together the best Web guide to guarantee your holiday will be festive, stress free, and fun.

Throwing a backyard bash? Here are some links to get you inspired:

Send out invites via Pingg.com, a new online event management and invitation site featuring stylish, swanky invites (no corny clip art here)

Recipes, craft ideas, printables, and how to videos from Family Fun magazine.

Fireworks art project from ParentsConnect (great for kids age 3 and up)

Martha’s July 4th how-tos.

Patriotic Party Menu from Kraft Foods.

This red, white, and blue ice cream cake from Epicurious looks absolutely divine.

Festive Starfruit Cocktail Garnishes and Fun 4th Of July Cocktails from Hostess Blog.

These glory dishtowels from Crate and Barrel would be a lovely hostess gift.

Now that you’re set on food and drink, you need something to wear. At some point you outgrow your mother’s whim to deck you out like Old Glory for the 4th, but it’s still a great excuse to shop.

These twirly tutus from Etsy seller Zoes Couture Boutiqe are perfect for your little Miss Firecracker.

Patriotic Posies hair clips from Etsy seller Cute And Sweet are just that

I love this fun and funky capri set from CWD Kids.

A hippy dippy tie-dyed t-shirt is great for boys too cool to dress like Uncle Sam.

This crab crate navy T-shirt is also a good color scheme for boys reticent to deck out for the 4th.

These star espadrilles for girls are on sale at CWD Kids and make me long to be little.

Baby sister would make a splash in this patriotic bikini and at what other point in a girl’s life will she look stunning in stripes?

This smocked bandana print top from Old Navy screams summer, not Yankee Doodle Dandy.

An understated red and navy striped button down for Dad will carry him through cool summer evenings.

Don’t forget the classic navy sundress (like this one from J Crew).

Heather C., who commented, “Yeah, we’re hitting the mid-west: Tulsa, OKC, Amarillo, Roswell. Should be a hoot,” is the winner of the TripFLIX DVD. Congrats to Heather and thanks to everyone for entering!

Road trip!

Looking for a fun way to learn more about some of this country’s top travel destinations for families without even leaving the comfort of your own home?

TripFLIX is a unique and award-winning interactive family travel DVD developed by mom and dad team Dave and Ilana Bittner after a long road trip to the beach with their son, Scotty.

Designed to help families choose a unique vacation destination, the DVD also entertain kids in the car (personally I don’t know how we survived family roadtrips when I was a child without a DVD player in our family mobile). This interactive DVD features 25 of the coolest kid-friendly places to travel in the United States. TripFLIX has more than 2 hours of content, including interactive quiz segments, funny banter from the teen hosts who serve as travel guides, and little known factoids about destinations such as Coney Island and Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.

TripFLIX is available for purchase at Amazon.com and retails for $19.99. Visit the official TripFlix website at www.tripflix.com.

Thanks to Team Mom for the opportunity to review this DVD. My oldest daughter is 6 and is fascinated with learning more about cities across the country.

Want to win your own copy of this 120-minute DVD? Just leave a comment at this post and let me know if you and your family are hitting the road (or skies) this summer and what city(ies) you are visiting. I’ll draw a winner’s name at random from all eligible comments left by midnight Tuesday,  June 31. Thanks and good luck!

There is one bright spot in the drudgery surrounding the neverending laundering of tiny My Little Pony and Barbie cotton undies and the hubby’s work pants and shirts.

It’s the rack. Racks, actually.

Don’t worry, I haven’t gone all soft on you. I still despise doing laundry and Mount Clean But Wrinkled Clothing taunts me daily.

Years ago my mother gave me two large vintage wooden clothes drying racks and when my girls were both babies I loved to hang out their tiny cotton print sundresses and infant gowns and cotton pjs on the racks and set them in the hot summer sun to dry lickety split. Today I still dry a lot of things in the summer, although Hello Kitty has replaced soft Carters prints. One of my nicer hand washable work skirts and blouses and our bathing suits from this weekend are hanging on the rack on our back patio today. Our clothes smell wonderfully fresh and infused with sunshine, with the bonus of saving a few pennies (the clothes dryer is the second biggest energy hog of the household, according to this article on the California Energy Commission’s website.)

Hey, I may hate ironing, but I don’t mind the rack.

Here are some resources on the Web with more information about wooden drying racks:

Amish handcrafted racks from Amish Home Place

Wooden drying rack from Stacks and Stacks

Let It All Hang Out

Reclaimed Wood Drying Rack From Green Feet

12 Laundry Tips for Maximum Energy Savings from Care2

Do you ever line dry clothes? What kind of set up do you have? For vintage drying racks like mine, try eBay, garage, and estate sales.

Renee, who commented “I love the gator clips!” is the winner. Congrats Renee and thanks to everyone for entering.

Savvy Housewife is hosting a giveaway for two free products of the winner’s choice from the Oopsie Dazie website.

Oopsie Dazie specializes in unique and trendy hair clips in a wide variety of ribbon choices. The store motto is “Clips so cute you’ll buy outfits to match!” so you know this is a girl friendly website (speaking as a mother to two little girls who were accessorizing in the womb.) Oopsie Dazie also features headwraps and cute flower headbands. Savvy Housewife was sent two flower headbands and her oldest daughter fell in love with the deep purple headband with a sparkley diamond rhinestone in the center of the flower.

Oopsie Dazie also features hair accessories for women, which makes Savvy Housewife very happy as no one should be denied cute hair accessories! The fabric-covered button ponies are only $3 (the smaller child-size ponies are two for $3) and fabric headbands are also available.

My girls have very different hair texture. My youngest daughter has down to her waist curly hair and my oldest daughter has shoulder length straight fine hair. It’s difficult to get them to pull their hair back at all so the cuter the hair accessory the better. Oopsie Dazie’s prices are reasonable, and they offer free shipping to mailing addresses in the U.S. and Canada.

Savvy Housewife is sponsoring a giveaway for two fabulously cute hair accessories from Oopsie Dazie! Simply visit Oopsie Dazie.com and come back and leave a comment on this post with your favorite product. I’ll draw a random winner from all eligible comments left by midnight Saturday, June 28.

Summer is here which means school is out and family vacations are in (although with the price of gas, some families won’t be traveling too far from home.) Do you need to find a babysitter for your kids or a pet sitter to check on your resident Fido while you’re out of town? Save 10% off registration at SitterCity.com using code BLONDEMOM at checkout. Scroll down to view and click on the banner ad at the bottom of SavvyHousewife. SitterCity offers a four-step screening process, free access to background checks, comprehensive profiles on the sitters in their database, and a ZIP code based search engine that also allows you to narrow your search to nanny, doula, mother’s helper, or babysitter.

TruKid is offering Savvy Housewife readers 20% off online purchases of $25 or more now through September 13 using the code blonde at checkout.

Click here to read more about the new photography book, America at Home, and to see your own virtual cover online. If you order America at Home from the website, they will throw in the cover for free (it normally costs $7.95)

From the London premiere May 13.

I finally went to see Sex and the City Monday night and loved it (more about that at my other blog.)

Here are a few fun links Savvy Housewife found:

Read the scoop on the decor behind the movie set and the blue wall color in Carrie’s revamped East end apartment post-Big big breakup.

Apartment Therapy has an interesting post about the color traditional “HBO green” in SATC.

The July issue of Traditional Home magazine has a feature of the movie set decor as well. Hat tip, Apartment Therapy.

Here’s a link to a fun Vogue Diaries video of Sarah Jessica Parker and Chris Noth doing a NYC (but of course) photo shoot for the June issue.

Product placement is serious business in SATC. Vanity Fair had a roundup.

Real Simple featured some fun Cosmo recipes. Amy and I had pear Cosmos Monday at dinner and they were fabulous.

The Cosmopolitan was made popular by SATC, but actually has its origins in South Beach, Miami.

Finally, feeling a little sassy? These cocktail napkins from Martini Art are hilarious.

Savvy Dad made this for dinner tonight and it was delicious. The recipe was courtesy of Allrecipes.com, but Savvy Dad likes to customize recipes, and he added chicken. Our girls, ages 3 and 6, will actually eat plain spinach salad, so we prepared theirs plain with just a little ranch dressing for our oldest, and a little green goddess dressing (which we’ve nicknamed mermaid dressing) for our 3-year-old. No fancy salads for them, thank you very much, but at least they are getting their greens, as my mama would say.

Ingredients

1 tbsp. butter

3/4 cup almonds, blanched and slivered

1 pound spinach, rinsed and torn into bite-size pieces (We used prepared Publix brand bag spinach.)

1 cup dried cranberries

2 tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

1 tbsp. poppy seeds

1/2 cup white sugar

2 tsp. minced onion

1/4 tsp. paprika

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Directions

In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Cook and stir almonds in butter until lightly toasted. Remove from heat and let cool.

In a large bowl, combine the spinach with the toasted almonds and cranberries.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sugar, onion, paprika, white wine vinegar, cider vinegar, and vegetable oil. Toss with spinach just before serving.

TruKid, a wonderful natural and organic hair and skin care line for kids with fun names like Silly Shampoo and Dancing Detangler, sent me several of their products to try on my girls, ages 3 and 6.

Made from natural ingredients and essential oils, TruKid products are safe, non-toxic and paraben, SLS, and phthalate free. The line includes sunscreen, soaps, moisturizers, face and body wash, shampoos, lip balms, and even an on-the-go “Hero Stick” to help heal cuts and boo boos.

The girls and I love the Silly Shampoo, Cool Conditioner, and Dancing Detangler, which retail for $10. All three products have a very light citrus scent which reminded me of grapefruit. Another hit at our house was the Spiffy Spearmint Lip Balm. We took the Sunny Days SPF 30 face stick to the pool and it was a great alternative to the lotions I try to lather on two reluctant and squirmy little girls who are anxious to jump in the water. The Healthy Habits Hair Care Travel Set or the Healthy Habits Travel Set (both retail for $16) are great gift ideas.

TruKid is offering Savvy Housewife readers 20% off online purchases of $25 or more now through September 13. Just use the code blonde at checkout.

Study results published in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, concluded that parents who want to reduce their infants’ exposure to phthalates–man-made chemicals used during the manufacturing process of lubricants, cosmetics and plastic products including children’s toys — should limit use of infant lotions and powders. Phthalates have been linked to reproductive problems. Read an AP article on MSNBC about the study.

Stimey, who commented “My favorite is the minivan one because that is actually my life. Literally.” is the winner of the LTDChix.com t-shirt. Congratulations and thanks to everyone for entering!

Take one former account executive and one former CPA and corporate financial analyst who traded in their careers for the biggest job of all, motherhood, and you have the inspiration behind LTDChix.com t-shirts.

These cute, comical t-shirts are perfect for soccer practice, feeling up produce at the grocery (I do love a good, firm avocado), or just any day you want to poke fun at your rock star mommy existence, which for me is practically every waking minute.

From the LTDChix.com website, here’s an excerpt of how it all began…

In the summer of 2005, our two families were spending the day together at the beach. Late that afternoon, as we wrestled to get seven rambunctious kids back into the truck, we…laughed at the insanity of it all. Kids were fighting, sand was all over the place, wet bathing suits were soaking into the seats, someone had lost a flip-flop and two boogie boards were sticking out the back window. We had to laugh…instead of pounding our foreheads into the car until we passed out.

What had happened to that idyllic dream of being the perfect mom with the perfect kids and the perfect life?

We came to a few conclusions that day. First: this was it. We were Living the Dream. Being a Mom really is tough sometimes, we’re faced fairly often with some pretty insane and chaotic situations, and WE LOVE IT! We wouldn’t trade it for the world!

…We decided then and there that we should come up with a line of T-shirts that relate to all the moms out there – shirts that really express what we all experience on a daily basis.

Co-founders Cindi Schmitzer and Nina Frye came up with the slightly sarcastic theme – “Living The Dream“ – and with the help of illustrator Steven Anderson created their signature mom who looks happily frazzled lugging laundry, driving her minivan, or pushing a shopping cart.

Help the LTD Chix moms introduce a new dad line. The winner receives a free t-shirt featuring their design and recognition on the LTDChix site. Written descriptions, as well as drawings, are welcome. The contest is open until July 12. Submit ideas to info {at} ltdchix(.)com

Savvy Housewife is giving away a LTD Chix t-shirt! Visit the LTD Chix website and come back and leave a comment here telling which of their fun t-shirt designs is your favorite. For two chances, leave a comment here and blog about this contest; be sure to leave the link in the comments. A random winner will be chosen from all eligible comments (U.S. and Canadian addresses only) left by midnight Saturday, June 21.