Small Group, Large Amounts of Baby Food

What happens when you get four Moms, four babies, and a bunch of fruits and veggies together? 

This. 

And this. (Left to Right, Lyla Jo, Landon, Jude, and Eli) 

I love it! And I really love my small group from Mill City Church! Our numbers have dwindled down this summer, but even with just four of us we had a very successful baby food making party! We each brought a fruit and a vegetable (I brought two veggies because I only had two pears). We all sort of took turns watching babies, drinking coffee and eating homemade scones (thanks Lindsey!) and washing, chopping, and steaming fruits and veggies. Together we had sweet potatoes, butternut squash, bananas, peaches, pears, apples, raspberries, broccoli, peas, and cauliflower. What a wonderful outcome we had!! 

Food prep.

We seriously had so much fun! It makes my heart so happy for Landon to have friends and getting to watch them grow and their little personalities come out! What a blessing! 

So my forgetful self had forgot the ice cube trays, so I ended up just having to use plastic bags to put stuff in. I came home and filled up our two trays. I still have a lot leftover! 

I mixed and matched. Broccoli/cauliflower. Peach/raspberry. Apple/banana. Etc etc. 

Since Landon doesn't eat baby food too much anymore, I plan on busting out our beloved Yummi Pouches! 

I can probably fit about two ice cubes in there. This will be so great to just throw the cubes in when we're on the go this summer, and let them thaw in my purse while we're out and about. These are seriously soooo convenient now that Landon has figured them out! 

Of course the little stinker has also discovered that he can squeeze it out onto the floor and play with it. My oh my. Oh well. Messes are fun! As long as I remember to keep him off the carpet! :) 

Anyway, great day with a great group of people! 

Our Merge Into Cloth Diapers

Hello!

I have been dying to write this post for a few days now. Our merge into cloth diapering has begun, and Inam so excited! There's a lot more to cloth diapering that I originally thought. There are so many different types of diapers and even more brands to choose from! 

We picked up first five cloth diapers on Friday. Two of them are girly, pink stripes so we are passing those along to a friend. Technically, these are our first three diapers: 

These are Thirsties brand. I love them! It's kind of a funny story, but I was short for the third diaper. I had just been grocery shopping so I bartered some asparagus and an acorn squash to make up for it. 

I spent a lot of time last week on Craigslist, eBay, Amazon, and the Facebook group "NoCo Cloth Diaper Fans." Not to mention researching and price checking on various cloth diapering sites. There's a lot of cloth diapering lingo that is foreign to me, and so it's been really confusing at times. What are snappis? What's the different between a pocket, all-in-one, prefold and flat diaper? DSQ? CPF? GMD? Yeah, no clue what they're talking about. 

I also didn't know that you needed a special pail, pail liners, and specific laundry detergent. Not to mention a special sprayer. 

I found a Dekor cloth diapering pail (normally around $50) for $15 on eBay. Brand new from a whole saler because the box is damaged. Score! I also am picking up a FREE diaper sprayer in the morning. I am pretty excited a about this because I just changed my first poopy cloth diaper. Needless to say, it took a lot of wipes and went straight to the washing machine! Yes, I am definitely excited to have a sprayer. :) now I just need a few pail liners and a wet bag. 

I went and picked up some detergent yesterday, so our three thirsties are CLEAN! I tried to air-dry them over night but they were still damp today so I threw them in the drier. Check out this adorable little fluffy-butt: 

Now we just have to get the rest of our diapers and we will be full time cloth diaperers! I am calling this phase a merge since we only have the three. Hopefully we are using our last bunch of disposable diapers. :) 

He is just so cute! If it weren't snowing outside, I'd let him run around in just a diaper all day! Cloth diapers are just so adorable!! Happy mama right here!! :) 

Happy Mother's Day: My First

I love this kid. If he would just learn to sleep I really do think he would be the perfect baby. I guess we just can't win them all. ;) 

It's been a pretty wonderful Mother's Day so far. Jay got up and cleaned the house while I just lounged around in my pajamas (which I'm still doing, by the way). Then he went and got The Egg and I and came home with flowers, my favorite coffee (Allegro Early Bird Blend, whole beans for the French press), and carrot cake from Whole Foods! Yes, I'm in heaven. To top it off, I even got a nap! SCORE! Yep, I really don't think today could get much better. The only thing I'd change is the weather. This snow storm is pretty yucky. 

On a sentimental note, motherhood has been pretty dang incredible. That might even be an understatement. Pregnancy destroyed me. I had a lot to overcome during those nine months in order to be a suitable mother. By the grace of God, and literally it is by His grace alone, I was able to do it. This amazing little soul was born, and he salvaged me. He took this broken, isolated, scared person that I was and made me come alive. He has been my joy, my delight, my strength, and taught me of a pure, selfless, unconditional love. He is my everything. He is my joy. He is my delight. 

I am so in love with this little human being. 

Too Old For The 16 Minute Club

Today I got an email offering a 10% discount to the 16 minute club. I'd never heard of it before, but it said it was a program sort of like Birchbox but for nursing mothers. In other words, they send you a box of goodies to meet your breast feeding needs every six weeks. Mailed right to your door. SWEET! Right?! 

I went to their website, 16minuteclub.com to find out more deets on what seemed to be a fabulous program! This sounds awesome! Is it too good to be true? 

I entered in Landon's birthday, and there's only one box left that we could receive. The last box. In other words, we are getting TOO OLD to receive any sort of breast feeding pampering. We are headed straight for that awkward, post-first-year breast feeding stage. Not because it's awkward for us, but because it's awkward in our society to breast feed past a year. The fact that this awesome program drops off at just one year clearly suggests that it's true. In just over a month, it won't matter whether I cover up, where I feed him or how. It'll just be awkward because he's past one year. 

I know a lot of people wean at a year. A lot keep going, but you don't really hear as much about it. I don't see any sign of us stopping any time soon. Landon loves his "milkies." He nurses when he's hungry, when he's thirsty, when he needs comforting and he nurses to sleep. I'm a little bit proud for making it to my ONE year goal! What an incredible journey it's been!! 

It does make me a little sad that The 16 Club just stops at a year. I don't think it's very supportive of those of us who choose to keep going. Whatever. I'll throw myself a little pamper party for saving thousands of dollars on formula! BOOYA! ;) 

What are your thoughts surrounding breast feeding past a year? What's appropriate? What's not? 

Changing Diapers: Making the Switch From Disposable to Reusable

That's right. We are making the switch! Call me crazy, but it's something I've wanted to do since before Landon was born. I didn't get very much positive feedback about it. It's too hard. It's too difficult. Nobody sticks with it. I got discouraged on the idea, and so we've just been adding to the landfill the past ten months. However, a few weeks ago Landon and I participated in the Great Cloth Diaper Change and I changed him with a borrowed diaper. Easy peasy!! So we may be ten months behind on this whole cloth diaper thing, but we are taking steps toward a more sustainable approach to diapering. 

Well, it turns out it's quite stressful to buy cloth diapers on a budget. The dang things AREN'T cheap, not even when you're buying used. Sigh. I've been searching HIGH and LOW. Reading up on how to buy them for cheap... Which turns out, $14 a diaper is cheap. When you need at least 20 of them, that is NOT cheap. Craigslist and eBay have turned out to be the best bets. 

I am looking to buy the above fuzzibunz diapers (25 of them total) from a lady in Denver. I like that they have the snaps, and they are a good price. She is also including detergent and a sprayer.  I was looking to buy ten fuzzibunz and 14 Bumpkins from a lady in Lafayette, but when she sent me the pictures, I just didn't think they were in good enough condition and I prefer snaps to Velcro. 

 The prints are super cute, but the Velcro just looks really worn on some of them. I thought this was the route we were going to go, but I got cold feet. She didn't even send me pictures of her Fuzzibunz. So I think we are going to go with the others. 

BUT, I made some bids on eBay, and it looks like I may be getting these Sunbaby diapers as well. Which is really stretching our budget, but it's a great deal on some nice diapers and we can use the extra ones to help save on the amount of laundry! 

Well, then I also have put in bids on a few others. 

gDiapers.

Bumgenius 4.0s.

and I really wanted these Charlie Banana diapers (below) but they're just out of my price range. Sigh. 

If you're reading this and you're a cloth diaper user, please, please give me your feedback!! I really don't know what to look for. If you can tell me what I may need besides the diapers themselves, that would be wonderful as well. Lastly, do I need special night time diapers? 

Thanks so much, y'all! We are super excited to make this change! My only regret is that we didn't do it a long time ago!! 

Have a great day! 

DIY Mei Tai: Part One

Good afternoon! I am super ecstatic to share the first phase of my do-it-yourself Mei Tai from a tablecloth!

(Please pardon my little helpers. Hehe!) 

I actually found this table cloth a few weeks ago when I was thrift shopping for potential materials to make a wrap out of. I scored this Target brand tablecloth for a whopping $2.99! Unfortunately, when I got home and measured it, it was too small to turn into a shorty [wrap] so I figured I'd just turn it into a ring sling. Then I came across this blog for a DIY Tablecloth Mei Tai and I was sold on the idea. All of my ideas come from the You're Sew Crafty blog. Check out her instructions at youre-sew-crafty.blogspot.com. She did an excellent job explaining it all! I took her instructions and made an outline of it, because I needed a simpler way of viewing what she said and I like outlines. :) 

Tablecloth Mei Tai

I. Things Needed

     A. Tablecloth

          1. Body - about 20in x 15-20in

               a. Need three pieces, two pretty ones and one heavy duty twill or canvas

          2. Shoulder Straps- 80in long x 15in wide

          3. Waist Straps- 40in long x 15in wide (my fabric was only 14in wide) 

          4. Hood- 10in x 10-15in 

     B. Fabric

          1. If 55-60in on the bolt, you will need about 2.5 yards.

               a. Linen works great!

               b. Avoid quilter's cotton! 

               c. Be sure straps and center panel are good quality and medium to heavy weight! 

II. Cutting

     A. Straps

          1. Cut 3 long strips, 15 in wide each

          2. Do a rolled hem on the straps 

     B. Body

          1. Measure using baby... For width, measure from center of buttocks to each knee. Landon was 10 inches to each. For height, measure from very bottom to the neck. Landon was 14 inches. Then you want to add about 5 inches to the height to account for the waist straps. 

          2. Design your pattern. (The YSC blogger suggests using a newspaper. I couldn't find anything big enough so I just went for it and cut our body into a large rectangle. We didn't have enough fabric to do the 20 inches wide so it will be 15 inches wide by 20 inches tall. I then cut the corners off of the top to accommodate for the top straps). 

(Above is the body portion. In the YSC blog, she uses a pattern that rounds inward on her body. Since we didn't have enough material I just left our sides straight edged.) 

Now all I have to do is borrow my Mom's sewing machine. I should have it by the end of the week. I haven't sewn anything since I was a kid, so I will need to brush up on my skills. I'm pretty excited to get back into it though! The possibilities are endless! 

I also have to make one more trip to Hobby Lobby. I didn't know that I needed a thicker material to put in between the two "pretty" body pieces to give it more strength for carrying all that baby weight. I will probably get the strongest material I can find since Landon is almost 26lbs!! I also need to invest in some high quality thread to hold his weight as well. I'll include what I get in the next post. 

Lastly, I just wanted to include a few photos of what a tablecloth Mei Tai will look like. 

Awesome, right?! I love the wrap style straps... They add extra support for a big baby and close off the sides so a little baby won't fall out. There are instructions for Mei Tai's with thinner straps if that's what you're looking for. 

Anyway, this is how far I've come so far. Keep an eye out for the post about sewing it all together (and please say a little prayer that it's not a disaster! Haha) 

The Wrap Hunt

Baby wearing. Because how else are you supposed to clean house and spend time with your kid? Just kidding.  I love it, I really do, but when it comes to woven wraps, apparently you've got to be baby wearing elite. Who knew? 

I have an ergo, and I use it all the time, but it's just not quite right for me. My back always aches in weird places after I use it.  Perhaps because it's ancient (like ten years old). Perhaps because it's just not the right carrier for us. Whatever, we have it so we use it anyway. 

If you really want a backache, buy a cheap Infantino, front facing carrier. Ouch. We got rid of that one months ago. It just wasn't fat-baby friendly, and ain't nobody got time for that. ;) 

I loved the moby wrap, but let's face it, it's just not practical-- or safe- past about 15lbs. All that stretchy material gets too stretchy. Another one of those things taking up closet space while waiting for baby number 2. Which means it's a dust collector because that's not happening anytime soon. 

Note: as much as I used the Moby when L was little, I don't have a single picture. Sad. You'll just have to take my word for it: we wore it everyday, every time we had to take the dog out. :)

So I am coveting and lusting over a woven wrap. They're so beautiful. There is so many ways you can use them. They're so expensive! Hundreds of dollars expensive!! And like I've learned in the past week, there is a following for these things. I have joined group after group on Facebook and the internet just trying to find one I can afford. Baby wearers on a budget. Yeah, right! Who has $100 to drop on a piece of cloth? So I figured I'd just make one. Well, I went to JoAnn's fabric and not only is osnaburg cotton UGLY, it's still going to cost AT least $30. By the time I dyed it, sewed it, etc it was still going to be more than I could afford. Dang it. 

Can you believe people have wrap "stashes" (aka expensive collections)?! Those lucky, rich women. 

So off to the thrift store I went. I bought a $3 tapestry made from Indian woven cotton. I measured it, and cut it in half to get the 30 inches I need. And that, my friends, is how I created my first "shorty." 

Okay, let's face it. It's pretty heinous and probably not very safe. I don't trust it. But it's a wrap. The very first for my "stash." 

And thus, my woven wrap hunt continues. I'm searching for a didy, preferably a size four or bigger. But I'd take anything. I just want to learn while my baby is still somewhat a baby. I want in on this baby wearing eliteness. I want to be rich! Haha! If only I got paid for my ideas... Sigh. 

That's a wrap, y'all. ;)