5 on Friday

O     N     E

We are on the mend...thank goodness!

I feel like all of the sickness is almost gone from our house, at last.  Gil, though, is still rocking the jaundice.  This morning, I took him to get his second heel prick (he got one last week).  He is still having a little trouble with our blood types.  I'm a positive and he's a negative, and this can be one of the side effects.

But he sure looks cute smiling, yellow skin and all!

T     W     O

This is our first year to celebrate Halloween!  

I didn't grow up celebrating Halloween and didn't think I wanted my kids to celebrate.  But after hearing two different people make similar arguments (William Bondurant and Alex Watlington--I'm pretty sure neither read my blog!), I thought we'd try this year.

Jack and Gil were Sully and Mike from Monsters, Inc., one of Jack's favorite movies.  I think Jack had a great time!  He actually trick or treated three times--once at Grad housing, once at school, and once with friends last night.

T     H     R     E     E

But let's not forget that today IS Reformation Day!

Here's a quick little informative post, in case you have no idea what I'm talking about.

F     O     U     R

I know I talk about Fall all the dang time, but one of my favorite things to do in the fall is to make chili. Bech was sending signals (and by signals, I mean telling me) that he was a little tired of my tried and true chili recipe. So this week, I changed things up with this white chicken chili recipe.

(photo from the linked blog)

Y'all, this chili is SO good!  It is the perfect amount of spicy and creamy.  I made it for dinner Wednesday night, and it was a fairly big batch.  Bech, Jack and I ate it for dinner, then Bech and I ate more yesterday, and I just finished it off.  That's how good it was.

F     I     V     E

About two and a half weeks ago, we finally got back into the cloth diaper swing of things.  I had 22 pocket diapers (bumgenius and fuzzibunz) from when Jack was a baby.  I wanted to add a couple of more to the mix, so I decided to try some prefolds and covers.

We are using Thirsties Duo Wrap Snap covers, along with Osocozy prefolds and Snappis.  And I love them!  I was a little hesitant, because this is a pretty old school method.  But I think they do a great job. We haven't any blowouts, and they don't leak anymore than the pockets.

I am still glad I have the pockets (and that I used them with Jack).  We got such a great deal on them, and they are so easy for daycare workers to use.  But these are pretty fun for me!

We are headed to DC in just an hour or two, so we can spend the weekend with KK and Big Dave.  I hope y'all have a wonderful weekend!

New Baby Splurges!

I have totally become one of those pregnant ladies who only posts about the new baby.  Sorry!  But, really, new baby stuff is just so cute.

I feel like I haven't really nested with this baby.  For a while, I just really didn't feel the urge.  But at about the 30 week mark, the nesting kicked in.  Unfortunately, it kicked in right before the move.  I did go through and wash all of Jack's newborn, 3 month, and 6 month clothes (making sure to get the stains out).  Now I am ready to unpack everything next week and start getting it ready!

Even though I have moments of being sad that this baby isn't a girl (bows, bonnets, bishop dresses!), from the beginning I really did hope for another boy.  Part of that is because I think it will be fun, albeit crazy, to have two little wild men.  And hopefully they will fulfill their wrestling instincts on each other, rather than me.  But another part is because Jack has a great little wardrobe, and I am excited (as is my wallet) to have another baby to wear it all again!

Besides clothes, we really do have most of the other necessities too.  I think I have talked myself out of even buying (at least at first) a double stroller.  I did buy Jack's swing off of craigslist and then I sold it when we were done.  So I might need to get another one of those.  But I kept everything else (and lugged it all up to PA!), so we are good.

Which means everything else is fun!  Here are a few things I have either received or I have my eye on:

Zutano for Aden + Anais

I have loved Zutano for several years.  When Jack was a newborn, Bech and I became obsessed with Aden + Anais swaddle blankets.  Seriously, if you are new mom, get some.  They are amazing.  

My two favorites joined forces and released a line together.

Seriously, I can't even handle it.  So cute!  

We have received the swaddling blankets and washcloths, and I am going to buy the bibs.  I love the colors, and I know that I will love using all of these things!

Thirsties Duo Wrap

One of the great things about cloth diapering is that you can use your supplies through multiple kids.  And we have a great set of diapers.  We were able to get them on sale for 20 and 40% off (which never happens!).  I think we have 23 diapers, a mix of FuzziBunz and Bumgenius.

This time around, I wanted to add a little to our stash.  Partly because it would allow us to go longer between washing diapers (which is great in the early days!) and partly because I really wanted to try some prefolds and covers.

Jack was such a chunk, which meant we were able to use our one size diapers when he was about 3 weeks old.  But this little guy may not be as big (oh, who am I kidding?  he will probably be bigger!).  Prefolds and covers will allow us to start a little sooner with cloth.

How cute is this owl pattern?

I did some research and chose Thirsties Duo Wraps, with OzoCozy Prefolds. 

I have two covers right now, a size 1 and size 2, and I am going to get one more in each size.  That gives me about 4 to 6 more changes in each size before I have to do laundry.

I know, some of y'all (okay MOST) are laughing at the thought that cloth diapers are a splurge.  But really, they are super cute and I would get by without these new ones, so that counts as splurge to me!

A Paty Gown

Do non-Southerners know about Paty gowns?  Or even non-Mississippians?  

Paty gowns (and rompers and play sets) are these super soft, sweet baby outfits.  I adore them!  Jack had a newborn gown and two size 9 month rompers.  I am so excited about the new baby wearing them.

But this new baby has very few new outfits, so I wanted to get him something special just for him!

This is the one I have my eye on, a gray striped Paty with aqua trim.  Wouldn't his monogram look so sweet on it?

There is only one problem...I can only find this Paty in size newborn.  I would much rather get it in a 3 month, because this baby will probably be big, like Jack.  I am at work tracking it down!

Traveling with Cloth

This past weekend, Jack and I headed to Brookhaven for a night. Usually when we are gone from our house overnight, Jack wears disposables. We've done that since he was a newborn. 

 But this time I felt kind of adventurous and decided to just use his cloth diapers. Overall, it was not a bad experience. I had his plastic bin that holds his diapers from daycare (because we left right from school). I cleaned out his diapers at my parents and used the bin to hold his dirty diapers. Once the diapers were in the bin, no one complained about the smell (one of my worries!). 

 I will definitely do it again. It saved us a few dollars and was really not that hard. But I will change one thing next time--flushable liners! We have some liners that we were given when Jack was born. We have used them a few time, but we have a sprayer so we've never used them on a full time basis.  Plus, they aren't super cheap, so I've never wanted to get too dependent on them.

But diapers.com has these liners at a good price (plus 10% off and 4% cash back through ebates).  I think I am going to order some and then travel using cloth more.  We are headed to Jackson this weekend for Bech's high school reunion...might be a good time to try this!

Any readers out there do cloth?  Do you travel with them?

I'm linking up to Callie for "Mommy Moments."

Getting settled in...

We are almost completely moved in.  This weekend my grandparents came to visit, so that gave us a little bit of a push.  Bech and I always say that having people over is so good for us--after we've moved it helps us get everything put together, and all the time it makes us really clean!

So we got curtains and pictures hung and everything tidied.  And we had a great time with my grandparents.  We even had our first cookout in our new place.

Tomorrow we go to Jack's daycare for a "meet and greet."  I am excited but nervous.  We LOVED our last daycare.  It couldn't have been any better for us.  So I am worried about how the new place will measure up, especially because he will be going 5 days a week instead of 3 like last year.  But the daycare is at my school, so at least if he gets really upset, I can go check on him.

The highlight of the week is for sure my new washer and dryer (well, new to us)!  We picked them up today from a guy (gotta love craigslist) and Bech installed them.  The past four years we have been washer and dryer-less--I am SO excited to have a washer and dryer in our apartment!  Especially with cloth-diapering--Any readers who cloth diaper, imagine doing that in a laundromat!

Jack's room and our room are almost completely done.  The living room still has a ways to go.  We sold our big bookshelf, another bookshelf/entertainment center got damaged in the move, and we got rid of our coffee table a few months before we moved.  So we will slowly be replacing these pieces.

But I have clean clothes...so I am happy!

Busy Weekend!

I was hoping we'd have a calm and relaxing weekend, but it isn't turning out that way!  But it has been good and fun so far.

Bech called me Friday afternoon at about 3-ish and asked if we could move around some furniture (one of the pieces being a really large bookshelf, that he built when we lived in Jackson).  I was up for the idea, but not that exact day.  Well I get off the bus at 5:30, and he has already started the process.  Which is not super fun because I am exhausted.  And I am not the sort of person who can just go to bed with a project like that partly done.  But we got everything moved around, and we went through our books and got rid of tons!!!  I was so excited.  We have so many books, and they are (mostly) really good.  But a lot of those books, even though they are great books, we just don't use.  We got rid of a few cds and plan on getting rid of more.

With every switched around (and all of the extra books gone), everything looks really great!  Plus there is a ton of extra floor room downstairs, which will be great for Jack.  But all of that moving up and down stairs was exhausting!

Today, I hit up my favorite kid store for Jack.  I needed a few more cloth diaper things.  I'm going to try out hemp liners with his diapers for nighttime.  Right now, he sleeps in a disposable at night.  I wanted to make sure we got his nighttime sleep pretty established before we experimented with staying dry at night in cloth.  So I'm going to try out a hemp liner and see how it works.  Anyone got experience with them?  I also grabbed a wet bag for daycare.  

I got a few toys for Jack, as well, and I dropped off our baby swing at the consignment section there.  If it sells there, I get 100% of the price in store credit.  They have a fun jumperoo I would love to get for Jack!

Then this afternoon, we headed to Stowe.  It was my friend Amy's birthday, so a few of us went there to eat at Fridas--sooo good!  Plus the town is just really fun and cute.

I put Jack in a Thanksgiving outfit (See, Dan, I am celebrating Thanksgiving.  I only went on that little rant because people always give me such a hard time about celebrating Christmas too early. Thanksgiving is a great and special holiday, too) for the afternoon/night.  He looked so cute, that I wanted to snap a few pictures of my little chunk.

Jack has started to grab Bech and my faces.  It's pretty sweet.

Love that smile!

I love how Bech is making such a goofy face.  This is the face we make to get Jack to smile.  

And Jack's totally rocking an Elvis smile.

Here Jack is in his first pair of shoes.  You won't see him in too many.  I am actually not a big fan of real shoes on babies (you know, like tennis shoes, or shoes with hard soles).  But I do love really cute soft sole shoes, like Robeez or these.  His grandmother got them for him, and he looks pretty darn cute in them!  Plus, they are going keep his feet warm the colder it gets.

Tomorrow looks like it will be pretty busy again.  We have church in the morning.  Bech then plans to go into the studio to get some work done, then he has a pottery teachers meeting.  And finally, we have a get together/potluck for the Burlington PCA church plant (actually, it has a name--Redeemer!).

Finally, if you had any doubts at all that my son is pure boy, check out this picture.  This is Jack after he woke up and ate this morning.  I love the hands on the crotch.  He looks like all he needs is a canned beverage and a football game on tv!

Cloth Diaper Update...

Okay, here is another post you might want to skip (unless you are interested in CDing)!  

When I was trying to figure out the logistics of cloth diapering and what all we would need, I scoured mom blogs, searching for any posts they had done on cloth diapering!  So on the off chance that someone reading my blog is interested in cloth diapering, I thought I would share what we do and how its working out so far with us.

First of all, the stash:

We have 14 FuzziBunz.  They are All in Ones pocket and one size.  These diapers will fit Jack until he is potty trained.  The perk about these diapers:  there is elastic around the legs and the waist that can be sized.  So basically, you can get them to fit perfectly.  Since they are AIO's with a pocket, there is no fooling around with a prefold and snaps or pins (think old school diapers).  You put the diaper on and snap it closed, just like you would a disposable.  Which means its easy enough for a babysitter or daycare...or, let's be honest, a dad!

We have 10 bumgenius (7 are from the artist series).  Again, these are one size AIO's with a pocket.  These are sized with front snaps.  But I actually like these better than the fuzzibunz.  They are less bulky (which I know will change the bigger Jack gets), and the artist series is so cute!  Again, super easy to use.

We put on the diapers just like normal.  When we change a diaper, we pull out the insert and throw both parts in the wet bag.  This is the wet bag that we keep in Jack's room.  We just hang it on his changing table until its time to wash.  So far smell has not been an issue.  At the daycare, they just throw his diapers in a pail we bring, and then I pull out the inserts at home.  We also use cloth wipes and we just toss those in there as well!  

The wet bag is great, because it gets washed along with the diapers.  See how there's a zipper on the bottom?  You just unzip and dump all of the diapers into the wash, then throw the bag in, too!

 Here's our travel wet bag.  We keep this in the diaper bag.  It can hold about two dirty diapers.  Again, it gets washed with the diapers.

Okay, here is the only sort of hard part (I actually don't find it that hard)--the washing!  I put the diapers in the wash and run it once without detergent on cold.  Then I add detergent (but a small amount).  We use Rockin' Green.  It's cloth diaper and baby friendly!  Then I run it through again on hot. Then I either hang it all up to dry, or I grab out the diapers and wet bags (they can't be dried) and machine dry the inserts and the wipes.

A couple of notes about the washing:

* Jack is exclusively breastfed, so his poop is all water soluble.  So it can all go through the wash.  In a few months when he starts eating solids, we will need to dump out the poop into the toilet.  We have an attachment that will spray the diapers to get everything off.

* We don't have a washer and dryer, so I have to use the laundromat in the housing area we live in.  That's the only part that isn't easy.  If we had a washer and dryer in our house, cloth diapering would be ridiculously easy.  I mean, honestly, if you have a washer and dryer, you are crazy to not at least try!  It doesn't take much time and is so much cheaper!

* After the first run through in the washer, you can throw some extra clothes in.  I usually throw whatever is in Jack's dirty clothes into the washer at that point.

* If there are any stains left on the diapers, drying them in the sun will take them right out.  Literally, it happens in minutes.  It's amazing.

Here are my diapers hanging up to dry!

Here are the inserts, ready to be stuffed.

Once the diapers are dry, I stuff the inserts in.

And, voila!  Ready to go!

So far, this system is working great for us!  

The only negative: Diaper rash!  Jack keeps getting bad rashes.  I have cloth diaper safe rash cream, but it doesn't clear it up very quickly.  I think part of the rash is due to his sleeping all night.  When he is in the same diaper all night, he has that wetness on his skin for almost 12 hours straight!  The past few nights, we have been putting him in a disposable and lathering him up with Boudreauxs butt paste (which is definitely not cloth diaper safe!).  It seems to be helping.  Anyone else had this problem?  Any tips or advice?

Anyway, that's how we cloth diaper around here.  I am certainly not an expert.  I emailed friends and read lots of blogs!  I also read a ton online about what all of the different kinds and brands of diapers are.  I love my choices.  

And I love Jack in his cute cloth diapers!

Um, I am kind of in love with this little guy...

Doesn't he look like he's going to be a redhead/strawberry blonde baby?

I am so thankful that I agreed with Bech that we should get a DSLR. Bech has taken the coolest pictures. Although we haven't taken any in the past few days. We did have a newborn photo shoot on Thursday night. I am excited to see the pictures. Of course, Jack was wide awake through the whole shoot, so we didn't get any of those cute naked sleeping ones.

We switched to clothe diapers this week. So far, so good. He is a chunk, so the diapers fit (we are using one size bumgenius and fuzzibunz). I actually like the bumgenius just a little better, but mostly cause they are easier to snap. The fuzzibunz have a tighter fit. His little booty looks so cute in the diapers, plus we've only had two semi leaks (which is a LOT better than the newborn disposables).

We also have started using the crib this week. The past few days, we have been using it for naps, and that has worked really well. Last night, we moved him into the crib for the nighttime, too. I was really nervous, even though his room is seriously like 6 feet from ours. And we kept both doors open. But it seemed to work really well. I slept a lot better (his little noises were keeping me up all night...I'm a really light sleeper), and he seemed to sleep really well (4 hour stretch, then two 2 1/2 hour stretches).

Plus, I feel like we are finally getting into the babywise routine. We haven't even had to let him cry it out much. He seems to associate his crib with sleep really well, and falls asleep quickly! Which is good, because the few "cry it out" times we have had have been tough! I hate to hear him cry! We still have trouble during that last stretch of time from about 5:30 pm onward. He fights sleep so hard and gets fussy. But as long as he's sleeping at night, I am a happy camper!

On a totally different note, we are going home in 3 weeks from today! Oh my lanta...I am so excited! I cannot wait to be back in Mississippi! First things first (besides seeing and hugging all of our family!), I want a snow cone. We arrive on a Saturday, though, and my favorite snow cone place is closed (it's owned by 7th day adventists), so I will have to settle for a snow cone from another place in Brookhaven. I also plan on taking Jack for his first meal at Little Tokyo. Plus I want to lay out some...I am pale!

Again, on a different (and serious) note, please continue to pray for Baby James and his parents. The blog is linked in my post below. I would encourage you to read it, if you can handle it. James' dad writes most of the posts, and he is an incredible writer. I have a lot of time nowadays (during night feedings) to pray, so I have been spending a lot of time praying for James and his family. Please do the same! There are few things we can do as Christians (if you are a Christian) that are more meaningful than prayer!

Cloth Diapers...

I've been interested in cloth diapering for a few years now. But there are very few people in Mississippi who cloth diaper, so I hadn't seen it in action before. In Malawi, our friends the Robbins cloth diapers Elijah, so we were able to see how you really do it. And it is not that intimidating! We've also met several families in Vermont who clothe diaper.

We've decided to go ahead with cloth diapering for Jack. There are several reasons behind our decision:

1) the Environment -

Bech and I both believe that Christians should be actively concerned about the condition of the Earth. Not to the point of freaking out about global warming (God is going to come again and redeem this earth!), but to the point of caring about our individual effect on the earth. One way we can do this is by limiting the amount of waste and trash we create. And disposable diapers create a LOT of waste! Abut 27.4 billion disposable diapers are used (and then thrown away) each year.

Clothe diapers do use water for washing, but the amount of water used is minimal compared with the lack of waste created.

2) Cost Effectiveness -

Clothe diapers are a lot cheaper in the long run! For two years in diapers, parents will spend about $1600 on disposable diapers. We will spend probably $400 total on cloth diapers. Factor in doing the laundry (we have to use coin machines) and the total cost should be $1000 or $1100 total! Already we have saved $500! Plus, cloth diapers are reusable from child to child, so with our next baby, we should only have to buy a few new inserts and pay for laundry, and we'll be set!

I have been pricing out diapers for a month or two now. There is a local kids store who had a huge sale today. I got a 20% coupon when I walked in the door this morning. I figured this would be a great day to stock up on some diapers. The best price I've found for FuzziBunz and Bumgenius diapers has been about $19. But with my coupon, I was able to get the diapers for $16! I went ahead and got 11 diapers. I know I will need more, but I wanted to just get a start on buying the diapers.

I got 7 FuzziBunz and 4 Bumgenius. I was going to get all FuzziBunz, but I couldn't pass up the really cute Bumgenius artist series. I have been eyeing them online for a while!

Here's my loot:

A close up of a FuzziBunz diaper:

The artist series:

Seriously, how cute is that pattern???