Camping in the Living Room

Last night, Ray and Emmy decided to sleep on the floor of the living room, like they were camping. Ray even turned our living room into a giant tent using sheets, chairs, and clothespins. Emmy got out her sleeping bag, and a few pillows and blankets later, the campsite was ready.




Ready for bed! Enjoy sleeping on the floor, while I am back enjoying a nice, comfy king-size bed all to myself. ;)

Cloth Diaper Update

Since I posted the picture of our cloth diapers on the clothesline yesterday for Wordless Wednesday, I thought that it would be a good time to do an update as well. It has been about a month since we first started, and we are still trying to works out the kinks - it hasn't been easy!

I think that a big part of the transition for me is that I am used to disposables and have been using them for the past 3 1/2 years. And cloth diapers are WAY different. I didn't worry too much if my kid was in a wet diaper for a while - I would change it when I had a minute, no big deal. Car rides and trips to the park - I would just change the diaper when we got home. With the cloth diapers, I need to be a lot more diligent about changing the diaper on a regular schedule, because sitting in a wet cloth diaper all the way home will result in leaks, wet pants, and a wet carseat.

I also had some trouble finding a good diaper cover. I tried 3 different brands before finding a good one. In my opinion, the first two brands I tried, Swaddlebees and Bummis did not work very well. The cover would be completely soaked almost immediately after the diaper got wet. My friend Kelli at Gohn Crazy recommended Thirsties covers, and I tried them next - and I LOVE them! I can't say enough good things about them. Since I started using the Thirsties covers, leaks and wet pants are a lot less common around here, and it has made this transistion a bit easier.

I don't mind the extra laundry. It really isn't that much. I am used to laundry being an almost every day project anyway, so an extra load every 2-3 days is not a big deal. And I LOVE using my clothesline for drying them, and I plan to start drying a lot more of my clothes out there too. Can't beat that fresh air/sunshine smell in the clean laundry!

I do still have some disposibles. And I have used one here or there for convenience (long car rides and once when I didn't have any clean diapers), but I am using cloth about 95% of the time, including naps and overnight. I am hoping that over the next couple of months I will get more and more used to this, and I won't even need my emergency stash of disposables.

One good thing is that I have definitely noticed a big difference in how much trash we are throwing out. Previously, I would just toss all wet diapers into our kitchen trash can. Now that we are using cloth, I think that we have about 1/2 bag less of trash every week. It may not sound like much, but that's 2 bags a month, 24 less bags a year of trash we are producing, which I think is awesome.

Anyway, it is still a work in progress, and I still am learning a lot about this process, but I am so happy that we have switched. By the way, anyone looking at switching to cloth check out Baby Cotton Bottoms - they sell the Thirsties covers, as well as many others, and they have a flat shipping rate of $5.00 per order, which is awesome. I will update again in a few months, after we are hopefully totally used to our new diapers!

WW - All my Diapers Hanging in a Row

Random Meme

I was tagged a while back by Dana at Just Talk for this meme - and I have been a slacker but I finally have a minute to do it. Since I did the 100 things meme not too long ago, I am struggling to come up with 6 random things about me, but here we go....


The rules are:
* Link to the person that tagged you.
* Post the rules on your blog.
* Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
* Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
* Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

1.) I dislike air conditioning. Which is stupid when you live in the South like me, since June - September are unbearably hot outside. It is already getting warm here, and my husband is complaining that it is hot in the house, but I REFUSE to turn the air on yet. It will be on nonstop for the next 6 months, so why start now?

2.) One of the jobs I held in high school was at Afterthoughts (later bought out by Claire's) as an "ear piercing professional". Funny how reading a pamphlet and practicing with piercing gun on a stuffed animal a few times at the age of 16 qualifies me as a professional. But it did, and I pierced hundreds of ears over the next year or so, including my own about 12 times.

3.) My very first job ever was detasseling corn. I was 13. It SUCKED. Among other things, there were lots of gross bugs, which would crawl inside your clothes. YUCK.

4.) I participated in cheerleading (both competitive and sideline) my senior year of high school despite the fact that most of my friends made fun of me because cheerleading was considered dorky at my small school. I LOVED it, and wish I had done it all 4 years of high school.

5.) I can sort of play the piano. I took lessons for years, and we now have a big keyboard that I rarely play due to lack of free time. But I still enjoy playing once and a while, even if I am not very good.

6.) I speak a little French. I took 3 years in high school and 1 semester in college, but that didn't amount to very much. I went to France for 2 weeks after I graduated and learned that in Paris most people (at least in the places we went) speak English as their second language, so why try??

OK, there you have it. 6 random things about me. I am not very happy with them, since they are not very exciting, but the meme is done nonetheless. I am not tagging anyone, because just about everyone has already done this one, but go ahead and consider yoursellf tagged if you have not yet. :)

Farm Party

Over the weekend, we attended a birthday party at a farm for our friends' daughter's 1st birthday. It was a beautiful morning, and we all had a good time, and of course I have lots of pictures to share.



Pooky, in pursuit of a big tractor














He loved riding the pony.



















Emmy was scared of the pony.


















Pook watching the ducks
















Pooky and the birthday girl, enjoying some cake












All of us!









Happy Monday!

Weekend Poop Story

Like a lot of mommies out there, I know a lot about poop, and I am definitely not afraid to talk about it. For the past 3 days, Pook has had the grossest, neon orange poops I have ever seen. It wasn't that I was worried about it, it was just a bit unusual. And he really hadn't eaten anything unusual that would be causing such a strange color.

Then I opened the fridge and found the culprit:

Pooky is now cut off from Orange Mango Juicy Juice.

Ugly Shoes

I remember one of the first times I saw someone wearing Crocs. He was an older gentleman, heavyset and wearing plaid shorts, a brightly colored t-shirt, and neon pink Crocs. We were out to dinner, some place like Applebees, and I could not stop staring at this guy's shoes. Because I thought that he looked ridiculous. One, because Crocs are not generally considered attractive footwear, and two, a man wearing bright pink plastic shoes is funny to me. I thought maybe he was very color blind? Or maybe he had grabbed his wife's beach shoes by mistake? Either way, I found this picture and it reminds me a bit of that guy I saw....
After that day, I started seeing people wearing these funny shoes all the time, and I swore that I would never wear them. Or my kids would never wear them. I didn't care if they were supposedly comfortable. I would NOT buy them. If you happen to love these shoes, I am not trying to be mean - I just find them to be funny looking.
Well..... Emmy and I were in Target this week looking at the shoes, because I wanted to find some sort of flip flop that she could wear outside while playing in the sprinkler, since our grass is kinda poky. And I ended up buying these....



And she loves them. I still think they are ugly. But for $6.99 they will make fine sprinkler shoes. Don't expect to see us out in public with them though! ;)