So Much Is Going On...

Well today has been a crazy day and this weekend may even be crazier.

Today:
Had a girlfriend over for some fellowship time. It was our Bible study day, but it was a tough week for everyone else so they did not make it. We enjoyed ourselves. Plus, she took some of my diaper stash off of my hands. I am so glad that we made the move to cloth. Wow! You can sell disposable diapers back, it just doesn't work like that. Well cloth you can sell back if you take good care of them. These diapers had so much life left in them. They were darling and I got between 50 and 80 percent of what I paid for them back. :)




After that we went over to a good friends house for lunch, swimming and AC. It was so nice of her to invite us. The kids are fishes. They swam so much in that kiddie pool. It was pretty funny to watch Big A and Little A going at it down the slide. Baby A was not excited about being in the cold water. She just cried and cried. I took out and she was content on my lap for a while. Then we went and played in a shade tent with some toys. It was GREAT, that is until I smelled something. I looked around for doggie poo, but didn't see any. I continued to chat with my other friend and then I noticed that Baby A had spit up her lunch all over me. I don't know if I will ever look at a hamburger the same way again. It was so disgusting. After that I was cranky, tired, HOT and just wanted to be somewhere cool, but couldn't stay in the cool AC house because Baby A needed to go to bed and I honestly couldn't stand how I smelled.

The kids and I left. The boy wouldn't buckles his seat belt in the car and I had to pull over and get out to help him do it. I was so frazzled having been puked on, hot, tired and just miserable in this heat. I was frazzled again tonight when I was putting the kids to bed, it was about an hour later than I would like and Little A and Big A were getting drinks of water after I told them no. I am so afraid of them wetting the bed. We really try to cut liquids off two hours before bed and they have been drinking a ton today.

So we went grocery shopping this evening as a family and a friend called that we went camping with while we were in the car. My hubby was in the car with me when she called and to make a long story short we are going on a spur of the moment camping trip. I gotta go pack...more to come later.

Enjoy your weekend!
Warmly,
Jen

Mini-Blog Make over

My little blog got a much needed update. I was fortunate enough to win a bloggy make over a few years ago and Deanna at Domestic Chicky did a wonderful job; however a lot has changed in two years and it needed to be updated. I actually was able to design the header using the professional designed one as my guide and My Memories Suite scrapbooking software. I then exported it to a jpeg file and cropped it in Photoshop Elements. I am a lot more comfortable designing the MMS scrapbooking program than I am in Elements.

Old


I was so excited that I was able to do it on my own. Then when I tried to upload it to Blogspot and I ran into some difficulty. The header was really large and only partially showing up. I went back and tried again and again. The third time I got wise and looked at the exact pixels and dimensions of the previous header. Bingo, I saved my new header with those dimensions and it worked. The only thing is the crop was a little off and there is a smidge of white space especially on the bottom right, but I am okay with it for now. If I get brave I may decide to attempt to fix that. I am pretty tech savvy, but I have never been taught or shown how to do anything in the blogging world or digital scrapping world, so I am a bit of a beginner to say the least.

New


I hope you enjoy the new header and simple layout. I am hoping to be able to change my background paper soon. I am going to be heading to bed soon. I have been working on two upcoming posts. One is on square foot gardening and the other is on cloth diapering.

Speaking of diapers, we are potty training Little a this weekend and are hopeful to only have one child in diapers in less than 72 hours. I am prepared to change some sheets tonight though. He went to bed in just undies for the first time tonight. We will see how it goes. I am a little scared, but the book said to give diapers up completely so we are. Wish us luck. Maybe I will write a post on potty training after this. If you remember correctly it took us over a year to train our daughter to use the potty regularly. This would be a HUGE improvement if it works. I also will have a ton of diapers to de-stash. There are only so many diapers one baby needs and having gone from three in diapers to one in diapers in less than a year means I must part with some of my lovely cloth diapers. :)

Warmly,
Jen

Giveaway: EcoChic

The EcoChic is having a giveaway of the best kind in my opinion, a cloth diaper give away. GroBaby cloth diapers have actually a few different options. The first is to use one of the cute shells with a cloth liner that snaps in and the second option is to use one of their biosoakers (earth friendly disposable liners). I have yet to try GroBaby, but have been wanting to for a while. Check out the giveaway on the EcoChic’s blog. If you don’t have little ones in diapers, why not enter anyways. A cloth diaper or diaper system like GroBaby makes a fabulous gift for any cloth diapering mama. I am typically not very lucky at these things, but would love to win this one especially. I want to try the Sunset Stripe GroBaby.

GroBaby Video

This is a nice little video. Please don't be offended if you do not use cloth. I didn't for a while and now I do. It is whatever works for you. I just thought this was an information packed video.

Fuzzi Bunz

I was reading a blog that I started reading when I was pregnant. It is written by a dad and is a wonderful perspective that I rarely get being a mom. Well they are using Fuzzi Bunz one size diapers on their newest little addition. I have yet to try a one size diaper by Fuzzi Bunz. The couple is actually giving away some to one blog reader. From the looks of Fuzzi Bunz I would like them because they look very thin and that is good, especially with my little boy. Have you tried Fuzzi Bunz one size diapers?

New Fluff: Just in time for Baby A

Just less than three days until my c-section. This amazing four pound package of fluff arrived in the mail today. I am just so delighted by cloth diapers. It is pretty funny. I ordered 11 newborn/medium diapers and 4 medium/large pocket diapers from Sassy Pants Diapers. The gal who makes them is just so nice and the quality is unsurpassed by any of the major brands that I have tried. The stitching is near perfect on every diaper. I was able to get some different color combos this time around. I love the browns and pinks together. These are all pocket diapers. They are not one size, but come in adjustable sizes newborn through medium and medium to large. Most of the diapers that I purchased have an inner velour layer that is so soft to the touch, some of a micro fabric which is also soft, but not as luxurious as the velour.

I think we are done purchasing diapers for a while. This will make my stash pretty complete especially if I can use all of them when this baby girl is in size medium. I would use the first size with nothing snapped and the second size with them snapped as small as they go. I am hoping that works out.

What is your favorite cloth diaper? These are mine. I am so excited to try them with this little baby in a week or two. For my older kids the medium/large seems to fit better than some of the other brands that are one size, especially with the snaps. I have found that I prefer snaps, which is a surprise. I still ordered a few hook and loop closure diapers for baby A because I think they will work out better in the beginning when she is so little. We will see. I am thinking we will save these beauties for a little while until her yucky poops are gone. I don't want to stain them and honestly we bought some hybrid diapers for the beginning or Gdiapers with biodegradable disposable inserts and then a package or two of newborn Huggies with Organic Cotton. I know they are not the best, but I think it will work out the best for our family situation in the beginning. We will see.

My laundry room sink is in. I will try to post pictures in the next few days. I am very excited to have a sink in the laundry room, especially with cloth diapering. This will be so much easier than using the bathroom sink (of course I will still use the toilet to dump the dump first), but to soak or scrub the diapers I am going to experiment with the laundry room sink and a tub. We will see. :) At least now I will be able to strip the diapers when needed.

I hope you are enjoying a beautiful summer day!

Jen D.

All the new fluff


The inside and outside of a bright coral PUL cover and yellow velor inside. I love it and I thought I was taking a huge risk in ordering the color combo.



Light Blue Small/Med PUL with brown velor... inside view and outside view.



Brown Hook and Loop Closure Diapers (it is hard to tell, but the inner fabric colors are pink, blue, brown velor and then one white micro-fabric). These are all in the smaller size.

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.

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.

Hodge Podge Post

Well today was a much better day than either this Saturday or Sunday. I can’t believe I am posting this, but I seem to be transparent on this blog and so why start being something different now.


I pretty much lost it on Saturday. Big A went poop in her pants again and I just couldn’t deal. I felt the world closing in on me. I had a huge breakdown. Obviously, if I am okay blogging about it now I survived and I am okay. The picture is of me crying in my car, parked in my garage. I was going to go somewhere, but I couldn’t think of anywhere to go and I knew that in my emotional state I shouldn’t be driving, so I just stayed in my car. I called my mom and cried for a while on her shoulder. I got some potty training advice from her and then both my aunt and uncle. I wish that I could say that helped, but it didn’t. I was pretty shook up. The poopy pants incident was just the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. I have been feeling pretty horrible lately. As I have mentioned before pregnancy just doesn’t agree with me. Well in the car I tried to pull it together so I could go upstairs and face the rest of the night and my so called life. I had posted on Facebook that “I wished there was a place where you could exchange lives.” This was before I got in my car. In the car I was trying to delete that status from my phone, but was unable to. I am still learning how to use my phone. Anyways, playing with my phone was a good distraction and I took this self-portrait in the mirror of my car with the phone. I am a mess. You can see my make up is all smeared and I have black circles around my eyes. I prayed, listened to some praise and worship music and tried to pull myself together. I am hoping that I will feel better about my life and myself one day soon, but until then I guess I will just have to fake it until I make it.

Sunday was just like any other day around our home. I cooked, cleaned, took care of the kids, went to church. You never would have known it was Mother’s Day if you were just peaking in the window. I was bummed about it at first, but I am sure there are a lot of us out there that had similar experiences. I love my kids and I am glad to be their mom, even if it is a very disrespected, never ending, all consuming job. My poor hubby was having a bad day with his own stuff so he was unable to physically do anything to help out. I am starting to accept that life is just hard sometimes.


So today was a much better day. I don’t teach on Mondays so I took Big A and little a to a coffee shop with a friend and her kids. It is a coffee shop that has play area with a paid babysitter that watches your kids. It was my first time going there. It was a lot of fun and my friend and I got to chat and hang out. My kids didn’t stay in the area the whole time, but it was fine. Big A didn’t have any potty accidents so we went to a fancy grocery store afterward our play date and she got to push a cart all of her own. She was so happy. It was very cute. She did pretty well on peeing in the toilet today, but those BM’s are something else. I pray that she just gets it soon.

Before meeting my friend I went and met a lady selling some diapers on Craigslist. I ended up getting some new fluff for the little girl due this summer. I am so excited about these. They are stuffable AIO diapers made by Blueberry and Swaddlebees. I have two Blueberry diapers that I just love already and Blueberry/Swaddlebees is the same company. I can’t wait to try them out. A few of them should fit Big A right now so I might try them on her stuffed for overnight on Thursday. I am washing diapers now. I won’t cloth diaper again this week until Thursday night. I don’t tend use them when I am working. It is just too much for me. I am looking forward to the summer when I can cloth diaper almost a hundred percent. Adding great diapers to my stash always makes me smile and getting a good deal on them is even better.

Well I am doing pretty good on my postings. Now I just have to plan for the rest of the week when I am busy working. Tomorrow, I have a doctor’s appointment and get to see how the little mover and shaker inside me is doing. I will try to post an update either tomorrow or on Wednesday. Have a great week.

Jen D.

Gdiaper Cloth Inserts

I started using Gdiapers about six months ago with my 14 month old. I don’t use them all the time, especially since now that I cloth diaper, but I really do like the flexibility of them. First things first, the Gdiaper little g pant is just too cute for words. They come in a variety of colors and the medium size fits from about 15 pounds to 28 pounds. We got some good use out of our mediums and for my son he is now into the larger size. The disposable inserts that you can buy for them are great and I love the convenience for traveling, etc. I prefer to use the little g pant with cloth inserts though. I made about ten inserts for little a about five months ago using fabrics that I already had lying around and then some microfiber towels that I purchased from the automotive section at Target. They have worked out quite well for us. I use them in a rotation with the little g pants and my slow growing cloth diaper stash.

Well this morning I decided to make some small inserts to go in the little g pants I purchased for our little girl to be born this summer. I pretty much followed the same process that I did for making the large size cloth inserts, but just cut these smaller. I think they will work great. I used two microfiber kitchen towels for the small inserts and two receiving blankets that were used and given to me by a friend of a friend. I am so excited about how they turned out. I hope they will work well for the little girl. I figured out that each insert costs somewhere around 30 cents. I love how cloth diapering not only saves the environment, but also my checking account. These are extra green since I recycled the receiving blankets. This makes me happy.

Over the past few months I have been building up a stash of diapers for her. I have 11 little g diaper pants, 10 Sassy Pants AIO diapers (I bought used on CL), 2 brand new Sassy Pants pocket diapers, 8 infant prefolds (I will probably just use these as inserts in pocket diapers or something…prefolds are not my thing usually) and 7 Fuzzi Buns that my friend used and gave to me for this baby. I don’t think that will be enough considering how frequently a little one goes, but I am well on my way.

If you have cloth diapered an infant please share your wisdom with me. I am still very new to cloth diapering and would love any advice from a veteran. Please share your experiences, stories or advice in the comments section, especially on diapering an infant or newborn. My cloth diapering experience started just a few months ago when my son was about 16 months old, so I have no idea how it will be with this new little girl.

Mother's Day Give Away at Kelly's Closet

Kelly's Closet is hosting a fabulous and I mean fabulous give away in honor of Mother's day on their blog The Cloth Diaper Whisperer. Please go check it out. It is amazing what they are giving away. What a great package for some lucky cloth diapering mom out there. Wowsers! Are you feeling lucky? Go enter to win. If you don't need the cloth diapers I am sure you could find someone who would just love and adore you for giving them to her (including me). :)