Cloth Diapering-My thoughts after a year

Five years ago, when I was pregnant with Kylee, I never would have thought I'd be using cloth diapers on one of my kids.  I likely would have laughed in your face if you told me I would love it, and I'd sometimes sit on the internet looking at the different patterns and colors.  I'd laugh even harder if you told me I will do my best to match a diaper to a shirt or dress if we are going out.  But that is where I am today.  A little over a year ago, a friend loaned me a few diapers to try out.  Another friend found out, and then sent me a few that she no longer used, and yet another friend sold me a bunch for really really cheap.  After a couple weeks, I was hooked!  I was planning when I could buy some more to increase my supply.  I found a great deal online from a mom who sold me a few Bum Genius 3.0's, a swimmer diaper, and a few covers for a pretty reasonable price.  It was great!  When tax season came in February, we had a budgeted amount of our return that I was allowed to spend on diapers and other diaper supplies.  I remember the woman working that day commented to Nick how I looked like a kid in a candy store.  Never did I dream I'd get so excited about buying diapers!  So many colors!  Bright, pastels, prints!  It was great!  I think I left the store with somewhere between 15-20 diapers, a FuzziBunz wetbag, and some Eco Sprout detergent (which is only half gone and I've had it for nearly five months!). 

I thought cloth diapering would have been much more difficult than it actually is.  It's not that hard to have to rinse, wash, and dry them.  Well, Nick's job is to rinse them.  I love not having to run out and buy diapers ever coupld of weeks.  What I really love is I don't have to use little bloomers when Adleigh wears a dress!  Cloth diapers are so cute and colorful!  It's cute when they stick out under her skirts and dresses.  I can't say the same for Pampers or Huggies!  When it's a little cooler, I can even pair them with Babylegs!  (If you aren't familiar, check them out!  They are so cute!

I have learned there are certain types of diapers I love, some I like, and others I don't like at all.  Even though they are the most cost effective, I do not like prefolds.  I thought they were more of a pain.  We've used fitteds with covers at night for the past year.  I like them at night, but they are too bulky for during the day.  I think a little fluff is cute, but my girl is little!  She looks a little ridiculous when it gets too "fluffy!"

Our favorites and what we use the most are FuzziBunz one size diapers and BumGenius 4.0's with snaps.  I was so glad when BumGenius came out with snaps because Adleigh can remove the diapers that velcro pretty easily.  I really like Rumparooz one size diapers with snaps, but they are a little more expensive then FuzziBunz or BumGenius, so we only have one right now.  Maybe we'll have more at some point.

These are two fo our FuzziBunz.  See, fun colors!

These are three of our BumGenius 4.0's-colorful and prints!

Happy Heiny's are cute, and there are some adorable prints, but they don't fit Adleigh as well.  They fit great in the waist, but are a little loose in the legs.  Maybe this brand will fit baby #4 better. 

WAHM diapers-This is one of our favorites because we LOVE the Bears at our house.  Made by a mom, but just as good as my other diapers!

 Cloth diapers are easy to dry outside, and the sun helps bleach them naturally.  I've gotten rid of some stains putting them outside.

One happy girl!  She loves her cloth too!

Nice and comfy for sleeping...and makes for much cuter pictures too!

Dear Non-Pregnant Person

Let me preface this by saying this is all in good fun.  The very first time I posted it on facebook, a couple people got their undies in a bunch over it.  It's just a fun reminder that pregnant women shouldn't be stripped of all privacy.  Just because they are pregnant doesn't mean you can ask personal questions about conception, feeding, delivery, or even touch them without permission. 

And before I actually post, I think we actually forgot to announce here that baby #4 is due on Christmas Day(hopefully will NOT be born ON Christmas).  We are very excited about the final addition to our family.  Yes, final.  I am done.

Without further ado:

Disclaimer: While all of these things are true for some pregnant woman at some point or another, they aren't necessarily true for ALL people (although they are for me!), but I DID NOT WRITE THIS. I am merely reposting it, and while much of it is true, it is in good fun.






Dear Non-Pregnant Person,



I hope you find these guidelines helpful in your interactions with pregnant women as failing to follow them may result in serious physical harm. If you are thinking, surely she doesn't mean me- then you should probably read this twice.



1) The appropriate response to a couple telling you they are having a baby is 'Congratulations!' with enthusiasm. Any other response makes you an ass.



2) Through the wonders of science, we now know that babies are made ONLY by the mother and father- not grandparents. Unless the baby is in your uterus or you are the man that helped put it there, you may not ever use the phrase 'my baby'.



3) On the same note, unless you made the baby as defined in 2, the pregnancy, birth and raising of the child are not about you. You do not have input. No one wants to hear your opinion unless they ask for it. The same goes for the name of the baby.



4) The body of a pregnant woman should be treated the same as any other body. You would not randomly touch someone's stomach if they were not pregnant, nor would you inquire into the condition of their uterus, cervix or how they plan to use their breasts. Pregnancy does not remove all traces of privacy from a woman.



5) Likewise, no woman wants to hear comments on her weight- ever. A pregnant woman does not find it flattering that you think she is about is pop, must be having twins, looks swollen or has gained weight in her face. Telling her she looks too small only makes her worry that she is somehow starving her baby. Making such comments invite her to critique your physical appearance, and you may not act offended. The only acceptable comment on appearance is 'You look fabulous!'.



6) By the time we are 20-30 years old, most of us have picked up on the fact that the summer is hot. We are hot every summer when we are not pregnant. We don't need you to point out that we will be miserably hot before the baby comes.



7) There is a reason that tickets to L&D are not yet sold on Ticketmaster. Childbirth is actually not a public event. It may sound crazy, but some women really do not relish the idea of their mother, MIL (Mother-in-Law) or a host of other family members seeing their bare butt and genitals. Also, some people simply feel like the birth of their child is a private and emotional moment to be shared only by the parents. Like everything else in life, unless you receive an invitation, you are NOT invited. This includes doctor appointments, ultrasounds, labor, delivery, the hospital and the parents home. You do not decide if you will be there for the birth or if you will move in with the new parents to 'help out'. If your assistance is desired, rest assured that you will be asked for it.



8. If you did not receive an invitation to the ultrasound, amnio, hospital, L&D, home then you were not invited. You do not get to trump the mother's call on this one. Don't think you are doing us a favor by just showing up to "help out". If your assistance is needed, it will be requested.



9) If you are asked to help after the birth, this means you should clean up the house, help with cooking meals, and generally stay out of the way. Holding the baby more than the parents, interfering with breastfeeding and sleeping schedules and making a woman who is still leaking fluid from multiple locations lift a finger in housework is not helping.



10) The only people entitled to time with the baby are the parents. Whether they choose to have you at the hospital for the birth or ask for you to wait three weeks to visit, appreciate that you are being given the privilege of seeing their child. Complaining or showing disappointment only encourages the parents to include you less. I hope this helps- it sure makes us feel better.



Signed, All Pregnant Women

What season is it?

Our weather has been so crazy around here.  We've had some pretty amazing days in the upper 60's and lower 70's, which is pretty much perfect in my opinion.  But then it got really hot!  It was over 90 degrees a couple days last week!  I underestimated the heat.  I took my kids to the park for a walk, and by the end of our walk we were all bright red and exhausted.  I immediately brought them all home and put them in a cool bath and just let them play like it was a swimming pool for a while.  Our air conditioning decided not to work for a couple of days.  We replaced our furnace filter and all was fine after that!  Now, less than a week later, it's back in the 50's and lower 60's.  Some are complaining.  I'm not complaining about these temps.  It's spring!  These are the temps we should have in the spring.  I do complain about the drastic changes because they keep making us sick!  Everytime, we seem to get sick, and poor little Adleigh is getting it the worst.  I feel so awful for her. 

We had a fabulous Easter.   We enjoyed an amazing Easter service at church celebrating the Ressurection of Christ, then came home, did an Easter egg hunt for the kids, then had lunch at our house with Nick's mom and his brother.  I'm looking forward to the summer, minus the hot temperatures!  We have lots of "field trips" planned with Moms group, and I'm so excited!  Splash Valley, the zoo, a farm, the splash pad, a cook-out at someone's house, possibly the Explorastion Station, etc.  I can't wait!

Not much else going on, so here are a couple of Easter pictures of the kids.

Seriously cute

I don't really have a whole lot to blog about.  It's been a busy month, but a fun one.  I just don't feel like I've got a lot to say.  The month started with our church's 2nd Annual Spring Spree.  Moms Group did well, and we will be able to cover our summer child care costs, praise the Lord!  I bought a couple baked goods from our own table when my kiddos got hungry, but other than that I didn't spend much money. I got Adleigh the most adorable little sweater at my friend Christine's table.  Oh my word, I wanted it right when I saw it, but I didn't have any much cash on me.  it wasn't till the end of the day and the sweater was still sitting there (an act of God showing Adleigh was meant to have it, I'm sure, because it was too cute to sit there all day) that I realized I had my checkbook with me!  Thank You, Jesus!  I had to put off putting it on Adleigh for a couple of weeks because she needed a white shirt to go underneath, but I finally got one.  Picture quality isn't great, and Adleigh wasn't being extremely cooperative, but the shirt is adorable on my cute baby girl.

You can check out other items on Christine's etsy site.

Seriously, go check it out.  Her stuff is SO stinking ADORABLE!



Lots of other happenings, like my cousin's bachelorette party in Chicago, Nick turning 30, I finally joined the masses and got a smartphone, Easter this weekend, and my cousin's wedding in Michigan in less than two weeks!  Yay!  I really don't have a ton to say (shocking, I know), but I did want to show off my sweet baby girl in this adorable shirt and hopefully get Christine a few new customers! 

Wow!  It's been over a month and a half since I last blogged here.  I bet no one even noticed because I sure didn't!!  Other than using this blop to go to other blogs, I sort of just forgot about updating it. There really hasn't been much going on here.  Kids are growing like weeds.  They like to pretend their dogs.  And what does that mean?  It means we're to the stage where I will no longer be able to pass pants down to another child because they are all getting holes in the knees!

April is a busy month for us.  Yesterday we had our annual Spring Spree at church.  Moms group made out great at our bake sale.  The turn-out was better this year, probably due to nicer weather, but we still have a ways to go with advertising.  We have gotten some good ideas to do more advertising next year. 

This week we celebrate Nick's 30th birthday!  He's catching up to me!!  Haha.  We're having a party on Sunday for him. 

The following week my cousin and some of her friends are coming to Chicago for her bachelorette party.  I'm really excited to be able to be a part of it.  One of the perks of living near Chicago. 

The following week is Easter!  I'm so excited for Easter.  It's such a great story, and I'm so thankful that God gave us his son to die for us, and even more amazing, that he rose again.  Praise the Lord for that great gift!  He didn't have to do anything for us, but he paid the ultimate price.  I'm really excited for the music at church Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.  There are some great, powerful messages! 

The next week is Chelsea's wedding!  While I'm never thrilled about the drive to Michigan, it's always great to see family.

Well, like I said, not much has been going on, but a lot coming up!

Hosanna!

Did you know Hosanna means save me now? I learned that at choir practice on Wednesday night. I thought it was another praise term...like awesome, holy, etc. Can you imagine being in the crowds the first Palm Sunday? Imagine standing in the streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jesus on coming down the street, knowing without a shadow of a doubt in your heart that he was the Messiah, no matter what other said, shouting to him "Hosanna! Save me now!" Those people knew Jesus was the Messiah. They knew he was there to save them, to save us! We have their experiences in the Bible to tell us Jesus is the Son of God, our Messiah. They had prophecies, but they KNEW it was him. Learning the meaning of the word made me look at the story and songs with Hosanna so differently. I know I'll be singing them differently as well!  Praise the Lord I can say He HAS saved me!

My husband rocks!

My husband is AWESOME. Seriously, he is so amazing. We have this little problem. Whenever he wants to surprise me with something, I call him and ask him to pick it up without knowing he was planning to to surprise me. Well, yesterday he finally succeeded. Oh my word. GOOD surprise! He was later than usual coming home from work, so when he called, I asked where he was and why he was so late. He said he had to stop for a couple emergency vehicles. I didn't think anything more of it. We live near two hospitals, so there are always emergency vehicles it seems. When he got home, he said he had a surprise for me. He had a walmart bag but I really just assumed he used it for something else till I saw what was in it. He got me a laptop!!! It's a Toshiba. He was going to buy a purple one, but they were all out, so we call the two closest stores, and they were out as well. No biggie. He tried to get the one I wanted, but the fact he still thought about it and got me one was so sweet and so awesome. You know, we have our days that aren't so great but in the end, he's pretty wonderful. We're not perfect, we're perfect for each other. I'm trying to adjust to typing on a laptop now. For the past five and a half years, I have used nothing but an ergonomic keyboard, so going to something that's not is weird! I also keep hitting the mouse pad with my thumbs as I type. If there are random letters mixed in with words, that's why. I tried to proofread. I love it though. I love that he was so thoughtful.


I love tax season!  This wouldn't have been possible otherwise.  =)

Blizzard 2011

We got our blizzard.  It only dropped about 11 inches on us.  In some spots it looks like it hardly snowed, but the drifts certainly make up for it.  We have a drift in our driveway that is at least four feet.  I'm sure the kids can't wait for quiet time to be over so they can go out and play in it with daddy, who's employers closed down for the first time in 13 years!  We are thrilled to have him home!

Drift out the side door

This is our side door

Apartment across the street.  I'm sure the people in the lower left apartment can't wait for some of that snow to be gone.

It's almost time....

Bears vs. Packers showdown

GO BEARS!



Soccer Mom

It's official.  I've had the minivan, now I have a soccer player.  I am officially a soccer mom.  Kylee had her first soccer game last week.  To be honest, I know next to nothing about soccer.  I know that only the goalie can touch the ball with his hands.  I know that they have to kick the ball into the goal of the opposite team.  That's about it.  Turns out, it doesn't matter all that much for a team of four and five year olds!  They have their goalies and then just run.  They all chase the ball and try to kick it.  It is seriously one of the cutest things I've ever seen.  I'm glad my kids get the opportunity to participate in a team sport as early as four years old, and through the church which makes it even better.  It makes me excited for Elijah to be able to play next year.  He says he's not going to.  He wants to play football with the Bears.  We'll see....  I also can't wait to get her back into gymnastics this spring, and try Elijah out in karate.  It's exciting to see how they like different things.



A Budget Family

We've always said we were on a budget.  I suppose I should put the word budget in quotes.  We've tried and tried and never followed very strictly.  Our budget consisted of paying the bills and whatever else was free for all.  Things just went from bad to worse financially and we finally hit our rock bottom and found a budget that works.  I've always hated budget meetings.  I dreaded even looking at the budget.  Now I look at it every single night.  Some things come out of the bank account, some things come out of envelopes.  I'm not sure if anyone else out there has at least 20 envelopes in there system, but we do!  I'm adding one more after today too.  We've finally found something that works for us, and we've stuck to it, and found we have had a little more money than we realized because we've been so diligent. 

The only problem with our first month is I didn't take into consideration when I find a really good deal on something we need or something we've been looking for.  We're going to start miscellaneous envelope for things like this.  We only have on set of sheets for our bed.  I have to wash them immediately when I take them off so we can put them right back on.  Today, Target had 700 thread count sheets for 75% off!  Fifteen dollars for sheets that were originally sixty dollars!  I also found a shopping cart for my kids for $7.48, also 75% off.  We've been looking for a cart like this for a long time but refused to pay thirty bucks for a toy.  Thankfully, when we did our budget, we estimated extremely low on Nick's tips, so the money was there.  If we weren't budgeting, I might have spent money we didn't have.  If we weren't budgeting, I wouldn't have known that we are further ahead on funding envelopes this month than we anticipated.

I used to HATE budgeting with a passion.  Everytime my husband said the word budget, I could feel myself making a face.  Now, as much as I hate to admit this, I look forward to looking at it each night, and I enjoy putting the cash from tips into each envelope.  I love knowing exactly where our money is going.  I don't have to look at my bank statement at the end of this month and wonder where all of our money went.  I can look through our budget and envelopes and know that we paid our bills for the month, funded all of our envelopes, and one of those is even a Christmas envelope so we're prepared when it's time for that next year!  This was one of the most important things on my goals for the year, and so far, January is looking good.  I hope the rest of the year is just as good.

This one has nothing to do with the budget, but it's just cute.  She was sick (ear infection but didn't know yet), and she was snuggled up watching Dora. 

The new shopping cart

Is this not the cutest thing ever?  Pretty sure I have the cutest kids on the planet.

Is it really 2011?

I didn't realize how long it'd been since I wrote anything!  There really isn't much going on.  Christmas was great.  We stayed home rather than traveling to Michigan this year.  I missed my Michigan family so much.  I love our family parties, and I always feel like I'm missing out when we aren't there, but I know we have to be fair and stay here and have holidays with my in-laws too.  My family is just so huge, and there is something about being around my aunts, uncles and cousins and my kids experiencing the traditions I experienced growing up.  It's still so weird to me that Nick's family is so small, but I've realized that is more the norm.  I don't think most people have family reunions that consist of 100+ people, and that was just my dads siblings and their significant others, all the cousins, and their significant others, their kids (and their significant others), and even two of the great-grandkids now have kids!  While I don't ever want to move back to Michigan, sometimes it'd be nice to be close to everyone.  I just miss them when I'm not there.

New Years Eve/my birthday came and went without much partying.  My husband attempted to plan a surprise party, but eveyrone always has plans on New Years Eve.  It didn't matter because I ended up sick on my birthday anyway.  Not that fun to spend half your birthday in bed with the room spinning like your on one of those crazy rides at the fair.  Blech.

Now we're into the new year trying to get into a new groove.  My daycare kids, Joshua and Sylvia are back after a week and a half off, Nick has been back to work for a week after being off since Christmas Eve, and next week all of our normal activies will be back in full swing.  We've got some goals for the year, but I hesitate to share them all because some are more personal than others.  One is to tighten up our budget and stick to it.  We've had a budget for a long time.  But we didn't stick to it like we should.  I know we're only 9 days into January, but so far, we're doing pretty well.  Nick comes home from Monicals and we go down the budget and start putting his tip money in appropriate envelopes, see what has to be paid from the checking account, and we are even ahead of what we thought on some things.  It's really a great feeling.

Now I have some cleaning up to do, and I need to make Nick's lunch for work tomorrow, but I'll leave you with pictures of my three favorite kids from Christmas!

Another goal I have is to read 6 non-fiction books a year, not including my moms group or Sunday school books.  I used to read a lot.  Now when I have down time, I watch TV.  I want to read more, I want to learn more.  I want my kids to see me read.