Food For the First Week of June (With a graphic of my motto)

Oops! I intended to post this earlier in the week, but forgot. It has been one of those weeks.

Food for the first week in June:
Monday: black bean burritos, with rice and a side salad
Tuesday: Turkey, avocado and cream cheese pita pockets with sprouts
Wednesday: grilled chicken, polenta and a side salad
Thursday: Orzo spinach salad with grilled chicken (recipe to follow soon)
Friday: Chicken Enchiladas (This was the original plan, now with the week I have had I am thinking take out or something that does not involve me cooking.)
Saturday: Grilled salmon, wild rice, strawberry with gorgonzola and tasty pecan salad

Office/Craft Room Re-do

So I took a little blogging hiatus after my two week stint of blogging daily. It has been nice, but I am exciting to be posting again.

Old Living Room

Now an office/craft space...the doors were eventually painted.

The new space as I moved all of the clutter into it with no organizational system.


A few weeks ago I posted about my office/craft space and the lack of closed storage. Well yesterday and today I re-organized, re-arranged and basically revamped my office. Check out the before and after photos below. My office used to be our old living room. We never used it and it was fairly inexpensive to convert the space to something else by adding a wall and French Doors.

The view from entering the space



Well this week my hubby picked me up this table off of Craigslist originally from Pier 1. It is an actual craft table. I love that it is pretty much counter height and that I can use it solely for scrapbooking and cardmaking. Now I won’t have to clear off my desk and move the keyboard to the side. I have plenty of space right there. My kids love that it has two stools, perfect for them to sit at and color if mommy is on the computer.

My New Craft Table



So after getting the fabulous craft table I had a dilemma of how to organize the room. I need as much storage as I can get. I used to have a sofa in here, but it was pretty cramped with the addition of the new table. I decided to take the sofa out and re-arrange the space with the bookcases all together on one wall, the desk moved to the right a little bit and the craft table against the window so I can look out as I scrap. It was difficult to figure out a layout that worked. Originally, I thought I wanted the craft table in the center. While that would be nice, it just wouldn’t work in the space that I have with the other furniture that I need. Unfortunately, I also decided to store my sewing stuff in a closet in another room. I really just don’t have the space for it.

The revamped bookcases with no closed storage, but boxes make it look neater, more orderly.

It feels fabulous to be organized (as I am pregnant and very much nesting). My amazing hubby insisted that we go to Target yesterday and get some much needed closed storage for the bookcases. I didn’t really want to spend any more money than what we had spent on the craft table. Well he wouldn’t take no for an answer and insisted that I get some storage and do it right. This is the outcome. As you can see, there is a big difference from the before and after. I already had a few storage components, but nothing that was unified and not enough. Now I won’t have any excuses to be unorganized. Fortunately, Target had the brown containers on clearance, along with some of the blue cubes. They matched what I already had perfectly. I just love it when that happens.

Room view from the corner


Overall, I am thrilled with the space and I can’t wait to have some time to scrapbook and make some cards in it. It has been a while in the making and I am so thankful to my wonderful husband for making it happen. Now it is onto creating some unique artwork and a ribbon board for my revamped space. This along with a bazillion other projects I have on my plate before this third baby arrives. 

Jen D.

Apple Cheeks Diaper Starter Kit Give Away

Apple Cheeks diaper is giving one lucky reader of Your Mama Reviews a starter set of their diapers. Now I have not tried these myself, but they look like a wonderful pocket diaper with an insert that can be used inside the pocket or just laid in the diaper as a prefold would. I would love to try these, but if I don't win it would be nice for someone that reads my blog to win. Enjoy!

Diaper Stash for Baby Number 3

Well as most of you know we are expecting our third. She is due this summer. I am nesting and trying to prepare for her arrival, but with two toddlers it is not easy. So far this is the cloth diaper stash for her as an infant. I intend to use gdiapers (with disposable inserts) or disposables for the first few weeks due to the messy tar-like bowel movements that infants have and then I will start in with cloth. I am excited and nervous to cloth diaper an infant. I have only cloth diapered toddlers and I still feel like a beginner at that. Newborns and infants are a little different to diaper so I am not sure if I have all that I need yet, but I hoping by the time she arrives we will be set.
Here is the breakdown of what we have so far
The Stack
10 infant prefolds (I will probably use these with the g diaper pants as inserts)
10 infant Chinese Prefolds (inserts for g diapers)
8 homemade inserts for gdiapers



In the basket (from left to right)
11 gdiaper covers (most are cream or orange, but there is also 1 red, 1 pink striped and 1 brown)
6 Fuzibunz pocket diapers size small in pink, lavender and white (a good friend gave us these to use since her daughter is done with that size)
2 Sassy pants pocket diapers in small/medium (brand new)
2 Swaddlebees size small stuffable pocket diapers
1 fitted newborn diaper
11 Sassy Pants all in one diapers (these are mostly boyish in color since I bought them from a mom on Craigslist that had a boy)

As you can see we are off to a good start, but with changing a newborn about a dozen times a day I am not sure if this is going to do it. I am hoping to be able to get some more diapers in the next several weeks so we can really be prepared. I have some one size diapers for the other kids that I can always throw into the little girls pile if need be. We will see.

I hope you are enjoying the sunshine and the extra long weekend. Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Jen D.

Sunshine and Retail Therapy

Well I had intended to type this out early, but the night got away from me.

Today was actually a semi-good day. I am still not feeling great about being pregnant another ten weeks and life sure is not where I want it to be, but things went a little better today. It is amazing what some sunshine and a little retail therapy can do for your mood. We spend the better part of the day outside. The family went to a nearby outdoor mall and walked around. It was so nice to be out in the fresh air and son. I also got a late incredibly indulgent, Mother’s Day present. I have not bought anything for myself like that outside of the iphone (which I saved money from both Christmas and my birthday for, plus waited for four months to get) for more than a year. I am still feeling a little guilty for it, since I know with a third baby on the way things are going to be tight for a while, but at the same time it is not something that will go to waist or that I won’t use. I probably just didn’t need to indulge in such an extravagant one. Since my hubby was with me and said to do it…I threw caution to the wind and gave into the impulse.

I have wanted a new Coach bag for quite some time. I find that when I do make quality purchases on something like a purse, I end up getting a lot more use and value out of it. The Coach that I purchased four years ago as a graduation from my master’s program for myself I still use. In fact I am having it sent back to the company to fix some of the stitching on it. It is a great purse and I am sure I will go back to it at some point. I know it was not necessary, but at the same time it is something I will get a lot of use out of and probably have for quite some time. Plus, this one is a quite a bit larger than my old one. I have been saying for a few years now that I need a large purse now that I have kids. Now it still is no huge purse where I can fit everything in it and the kitchen sink, but it is a nice medium size, instead of what I had before which was on the smaller size.

I hope you are enjoying your weekend. I am delighted that I finished two weeks of daily posts on the blog. I will continue to try to post frequently, but may not quite daily. Happy Weekend!
Jen D.

Organization: Craft Room

So today’s post is on organization. I consider myself somewhere in the middle. In my brain I am very organized and I rehearse all of these different scenarios. I type lists, keep records, but when it comes down to it I am not as organized as I want to be or my brain thinks I should be.

For example, I really struggle in my office with organization. I have a lot of craft stuff for scrapbooking, cardmaking and some sewing stuff. The problem is I have no closed storage and I have no place to really spread out to make scrapbook pages, cards or a craft project. I love to look at how others have organized their spaces, but when it comes down to it I don’t have the extra resources to devote to new closed organization or a lot of new furniture. In a perfect would I would have built ins in my office and plenty of work space within those built ins. There would be closed storage and a little open storage. Everything would have a place. Obviously, it is not a perfect world.

My hubby was planning on getting me some sort of second desk so I could have a computer workspace and a place for my crafts. I would love this and be very grateful for it. It would solve one of my big problems with organizing my office; however, I still have the issue of no closed storage. The funny thing is I struggle with this in my work space at school as well. I have no closed storage there either and my closet of a classroom is not much bigger than my office at home. I affectionately refer to it as a trailer. I don’t mean to be condescending to anyone, but it really is not fit for a classroom of any kind. Ideally, I am hoping to be placed in a regular classroom next year, but with how things work out for me I am not too hopeful.

Being that I struggle with the same problem of lack of closed storage at both work and home I have been brainstorming ideas for how to solve the problem without spending a lot if any money. This is not easy, but I was thinking of making a curtain and hanging it with a tension rod over on the top of the shelf so that you couldn’t see what actually being stored in the shelf. This would be fairly in expensive because tension rods are only a few dollars and have fabric that I can use. I actually already have the curtains for my office and they match perfectly. Another thing I could use is some decorative tacks that I already own to hang the curtain. The negatives to this idea are: I would have to hold it up and would not be able to pull it back when looking for something the shelves. My other thought the curtain may make it look even messier than it does without the curtain because it will look like I am hiding something, which hey I am.

Has anyone had this problem before and if you have, did you find a solution? I am open to suggestions. Once I figure it out I will post pictures. The first picture below is of my open storage office, when I first moved into it. Notice how clean it isn't even organized then. The other photos are of rooms that I like. I wish I could give credit to these websites for their photos, but I have saved them in my inspiration room file and I don’t know where I got them. There are a lot of others that I just love, but they were saved on my other computer and I didn't have the energy to hunt of them. Maybe I will post those inspiration pics tomorrow. I apologize to anyone whose photo I am using. I am not trying to steal the credit for your creativity.



Enjoy your weekend.
Jen D.

Another Cloth Diaper Post

I ordered some brand new diapers from the Swaddlebees outlet store yesterday. I am so excited. These are sized diapers, but the cool thing is they are stuffable AIO’s. I purchased a few off of Craigslist on Monday and then I found some seconds on sale at the Swaddlebees outlet store for a great price so I purchased those. It is amazing how excited a person can get about diapers. I never thought that I would get so much joy out of cloth diapering and out of trying different ones, but I do.


Lately, I have been drooling over these beauties. The first few pictures are from this etsy site. Now I don’t usually like fitted diapers, but I have heard some good things from other cd’ers about fitted diapers. I have not had a lot of luck with them so far because my kids seem to be heavy wetters. I am still interested in trying these though. The second group of photos is called Little Fancy Pants. I really want to order some of these for this baby girl I am carrying. I just love the floral prints. They remind of good mama’s, but they seem to be a little cheaper than the beloved Good Mama’s. I have yet to try a Good Mama diaper. I want to, but I just can’t bring myself to pay that much for one diaper. This is especially the case since cloth diapering is supposed to be saving me money and it will, but not until I stop buying new fluff when I find it at a great deal. I have been very frugal about it so far, but since I am also trying to get some sort of stash for this new little baby together it is probably not saving much if any money yet.


With that said, cloth diapering sure is saving me a lot a trash. I only use disposables at night on my kids when I work and then at the sitters house. So I am maybe tossing between two and four diapers a day three days a week and the other days I am cloth diapering so I don’t have any garbage from those. It is fabulous. My husband has even commented about the smell of our laundry room being less stinky now that I am cloth diapering. I do wash the cloth diapers every other day so they really don’t have much time to get too stinky. It is funny how I don’t putting and folding our other laundry, but I have no problems folding and putting away the cloth diapers. 

Do you cloth diaper and want to share your experiences? Please post a comment. I love to read about how others CD and their experiences.

Jen D.