contesting...

I've recently realized as I've been researching cloth diapers that there are some serious cloth diaper giveaways on other blogs. This is not only FANTASTIC but educational as well. I've entered only 2 so far, including the following one. You still have till tomorrow to try for it. The prize includes:
* 2 bumGenius 4.0 diapers (snaps or velcro) (In winners choice of color and closure style)
* 1 package of six Thirsties Fab Wipes (In winners choice of color)
* 2 Sample Packets of Rockin Green Detergent
* 2 Sample Packets of Tiny Bubbles Detergent
* 2 Sample Packets of bumGenius Cloth Diaper Detergent

How cool is that? As a total novice cloth diaper-er (? hey, I claimed novice) to possibly win two cloth diapers some cloth wipes and samples of 3 different brands of cloth-diaper-specific detergents is pretty rad. What an excellent way to try different things out and see what works best!
So here's the link:
http://www.thebudgetmommy.com/home/2011/4/4/cloth-diaper-set-giveaway.html?lastPage=true#comment12623296

Please check them out, and good (wait, I don't believe in luck)...er...blessings!

New Curriculum!

Last year, I really wanted to use a Charlotte Mason method Christian curric. and found an excellent one called WinterPromise.
We homeschool through a local charter school and they will purchase up to $700of school stuff for you. They bought as much as they could but, being part of the public school system, they couldn't buy all of it because, of course, they can't buy "religious items." Although I initially planned to just buy the rest myself, time got away from me and it never happened. I either borrowed comparable items from the charter's resource center or had them buy acceptable items from Amazon. I loved everything that we got from WinterPromise and would highly recommend them to anyone. Here's just a small sample of what we got from WinterPromise.

However, through our process this year, I've learned so much about my boys and what they respond to best and how they most enjoy learning and we've decided to take a different route next year.

We will be using Calvert K for Autry and Calvert 1st for Milo. And honestly, I couldn't be more excited. It is a complete curriculum that our charter can purchase in full and it will make homeschooling the two big boys so much easier once I also have Fin plus a newborn. I had our EF (educational facilitator) order them today so we should have them before the summer and be ready to go next year. Woohoo!

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!