Cloth Diapering

I have always wanted to try cloth diapers and with Milo I did for about a week and a half (I know, rockstar effort.) But with Milo I only had prefolds and no covers that fit correctly and simply gave up. I never tried again with Autry or Fin.
Well, after a lot of online research and a visit to a local baby boutique that has a cloth diaper sample station where you can try all of the different cloth diapers they sell on a baby doll and check them all out, I have come to a conclusion.

With this new baby, I plan to use gDiapers. I'm currently saving up for their gDiapers gBaby Bundle- small which contains 12 tiny gPants which are sized for newborns, 6 small Little gPants, 2 pkgs of small biodegradable gRefills (80 count) and a Swishstick. It's on sale at Target right now for $124 but I probably won't have enough before the sale is over so it'll likely cost me $150.

But I think it'll be worth it. If this is a girl and I have a shower, I'll register for the larger size and prefolds which I plan to use while at home. I think I'll only be using the gRefills when we're out and about.
Oh, and I discovered that there are also little liners that you can place on top of the prefolds to catch any "solids" and then you just throw that away and throw the wet prefold in the wash. Nice. These ones, are available at BabiesRUs @ $6.99 for 100 liners. Not bad!

Cloth diapers have come a long way since my Mom cloth diapered me. She never encouraged me to try it because she didn't have much fun. hahaha. I'm excited though.

Family birthdays

My cousin Dennis and his wife Olivia have two precious boys and their youngest, Luke, turned 1 yesterday! So, the boys and I piled in my Mom's Expedition for the drive up to Placentia, CA. It was sunny but VERY cold and breezy. There was a bouncy house that Milo and Autry took great advantage of but Fin avoided like the plague. And decorate-your-own cupcakes, and hot dogs and hamburgers and such. It was a really nice time and I'm glad we made it up there.

My clown-like "you did it" face and my cousin, Dennis with the Birthday boy, Luke, on the bouncy.

Autry and his cousin, Nathan.

Obviously, serious cupcake decorating going on.

Home improooovement

We bought our house almost a year ago, exactly. And of course, we've been fixing up a bunch of little (and a few big) things ever since. Well, Hubbs has recently gotten the itch again and in the last few weeks has finished painting the outside trim after painting the entire house last summer, tore down the old and built a brand new fence along the back of our property and tonight had a friend over to help replace a few of our oooold cheapy-cheap 1970's interior doors.

He bought 5 doors in all but they were only able to hang 3 tonight. Apparently as our house has "settled" over the years our door frames are no longer perfectly rectangular. So they've had to do a lot of cutting and sanding to make the doors fit into the frames.

But after all of their hard work we have 3 beautiful new doors and I couldn't be happier with the look of them.

I thanked them with carne asada tacos and all the sides they could eat and I hope that Harold can be persuaded to come again and help us out with more projects as they come up. He's such a nice and knowledgable, God fearing guy and we were blessed to fellowship with him tonight.
Yay!!! for home improvements!

Oh...my....stars!

So, truth be told, I haven't seen my natural hair color in at least a decade. I've been a red head for the last 5 years with varying shades from a mild strawberry blonde to a bold bright auburn but never straying too far from the realm of natural shades. The most unnatural colors I've had were blue-black and black cherry but not really all that rebellious.
Well, I've long envied the women who were bold enough to color their hair WHATEVER color they want, regardless of the social consequence.
So I decided to take the leap but keep it in my comfort zone with a bold red.
I picked this up at Walmart yesterday:

It was a two step process so first I bleached:

Then I colored:

And obviously the results were less than accurate....
However, I'm taking it in stride (despite feeling a lot like a My Little Pony) and I've decided to rock it for awhile.

Growing growing growing

Our current youngest, Finlay, turned 2 in February, is halfway potty trained (interpret however you like) and as of today is now in a big boy bed! He's gotten up a billion times simply because he can tonight but I know that will pass once the novelty wears off (we have done this before after all.) Oddly enough, he disappeared a little before lunch today and when I went looking for him, he was asleep in his bed! Wild! Spontaneous sleeping is considered WILD in our house. We'll see what tomorrow brings!

TV Free!

And FREE Indeed! We decided to unplug our tvs (and thus anything necessitating one) for lent because the kids tv/computer/video games habit had gotten very out of control during the last few months. I was a little nervous about how they'd react to be completely honest.
However, they have only asked to watch something once and since that one time have only asked every few days or so, "How many more days till Easter?" It's been like heaven. They're playing well together and reading more books and spending oodles of time outside where they belong, climbing and jumping and bug hunting, etc.
I'm ashamed to admit that there have been several times, though, that I have wished they'd just sit and watch a movie! Good grief! They are so fun and I am just a party pooper cause I'm so exhausted still and just can't keep up!
All in all, this has been the most wonderful experience and I'm praying about how to reintegrate small amounts of the activities that they've so readily given up if at all...
TV free.....?

conlicted...

I really enjoy reading my friends' blogs! And it makes me wish I could write as well or gather my thoughts and experiences in a way that is both fun and heartfelt. Or even that I could simply remember to blog about it all.
But that's where it gets wonky for me.
I am constantly struggling with guilt about getting online. If I want to get online I HAVE to do it while the kids are awake. I'm always careful to keep my time to no more than 15 minutes and to always know what my kids are doing and so on. I wish it were simpler to get on after the kids are asleep but it's just not. Because by then Matthew's home and I'm busy cleaning up the supper mess and other tornado stricken rooms before collapsing on the couch to try and spend a few meaningful moments with my husband each night.
Another thing I admire about my friends blogs are how comfortable they seem to be with putting their lives out there for the world to see. I on the other hand, am very uncomfortable with it. I'm not used to people knowing so much about me. But I'm working on opening up to people and I'm hopeful that finally committing to this blog that I've had for years will help with that.
So check back often, there will likely be something new to read!