It's a red, red world

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Happy Valentine's Day

5x7 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

1. I know I've mentioned this before, but I am not a fan of the full moon. Ugh.

2. Aiden has started going to bed really early, around 6pm. This is nice for getting things done, but means we're up earlier, around 5:15. I'd much rather go back to the 7pm bedtime and 6:15 wake up.

3. Don't let number 2 fool you into thinking we sleep all that time. We are back to getting up 2-3 times a night. Again, I'd rather go back to 9:30/10:00 and 3:00ish feedings than our current 9:00ish, 1:00ish, 3:00ish....

4. I'm currently in love with parsnips. Delish!

5. Today is field day at school. Hoping this means an easy day. However, see number 1...

6. Aiden will be 7 months in two days! How is that possible?

7. There are 5 pregnant ladies in my life right now. All but one are due in July or August. So far 1 is a girl and 2 are boys. I'm excited for new babies and playmates for Aiden.

8. I see a lot of baby knitting in my future. I'd better finish Aiden's blanket first.

9. I need an appetizer to take to a baby shower Friday. Needs to be something I can make ahead of time and keep int work fridge all day since I won't be going home first. Any ideas?

10. My paperwhites are finally blooming. Love them.

Monday, February 6, 2012

On Cloth Diapering

First off, I am definitely not an expert at cloth diapers, nor is this post going to be anything new or earth shattering. There are tons of cloth diaper how to posts and cloth diaper reviews to be found elsewhere. There are blogs devoted solely to cloth diapering. This is merely a post on what and how we do cloth diapers. When people find out we cloth diaper, tons of questions inevitably follow. Here's the low down on our cloth diapering system.

I knew I wanted to cloth diaper, but wasn't sure my husband would be on board. Since Aiden is with dad several days a week and also with my mom and sister during the week while I'm at work, I wanted a diaper system that would be easy for everyone to use. After reading a ton of information on cloth diapers and many, many reviews, I opted for GroVia diapers. Many people have a stash that consists of a variety of diapers. Because I wanted my husband on board, things needed to be easy with limited instruction/thought process involved, so I chose to just buy one brand. Some people would tell you this is a no no, but it works for us.

I chose the GroVia system because of excellent reviews, flexibility and ease of use. Our hybrid diapers have inserts that snap in and out of the diaper cover. The diaper cover only needs to be changed when it is wet or soiled. With the hybrids we can also use a disposable insert, which is handy for travel. I registered for some stuff on amazon and have purchased from amazon, diapers.com and in bulk from BumRite diapers.

Our cloth diaper stash consists of:

4 GroVia all in ones in snaps
12 GroVia hybrid shells (covers) in snaps
20 GroVia hybrid soakers (inserts)
2 GroVia Stay Dry soakers
2 GroVia boosters
3 Kissaluv cotton doublers
GroVia biosoakers

Cloth diaper accessories:

2 planet wise diaper pail liners
2 planet wise wet/dry bags
GroVia diaper liners
Tiny Bubbles detergent

We also use cloth wipes:

1 Prince Lionheart Warmies Wipes Warmer plus reusable wipes
20 BabyKicks reusable wipes

I prefer the BabyKicks wipes to the ones that came with the warmer. I make my own solution for the warmer using water, olive or grapeseed oil and baby soap (we use either Burt's Bees or California Baby). I roll the wipes, stack in the wipe warmer and poor the solution over the top. I replace wipes and add solution every couple of days. The wipes stay wet and warm. Cloth wipes clean much better and more efficiently than disposable wipes and Aiden prefers them to cold disposable wipes.

We have a garbage pail in Aiden's bedroom that we put a diaper pail cover in. Dirty diapers and wipes go into the pail. With breast milk, poop is water soluble, so the whole diaper went in the wash without any rinsing or pre-cleaning. Now that we have started some solids, the solid poops get dumped in the toilet (or if we use a liner the liner plus poop) and flushed. Every two (or sometimes three) days, I collect the diaper pail bag and dump it in the wash. Cloth diapers require special detergents that do not contain harsh chemicals or enzymes. I've decided to use the tiny bubbles detergent for my diapers. My wash routine is to run a soak cycle with cold water and a small amount of detergent. I sometimes add vinegar to this cycle as well. I follow the soak cycle with a heavy load cycle with warm water and a full scoop of detergent. Lastly, I run a cold rinse cycle. Usually, I run the first two cycles at night, setting the heavy load to run while I go to bed and run a rinse when I get up in the morning. I hang all my covers, all in ones and any stained inserts on the line to dry in the sun. Stains are gone after an hour or so in the sun. Unstained inserts and wipes go in the dryer.

We've had to do some trial and error with the night time diaper routine. Aiden is a heavy wetter and we often have leaks during the night. Lately, what has been working best is to use a stay dry insert with a kissaluv booster folded in half towards the front of the diaper. Our night time routine has changed over time.

All and all, I am very happy with our choice in cloth diapers and do not find them to be difficult or time consuming, as many people assume them to be. I feel good about not exposing Aiden to unnecessary chemicals and love that we aren't generating the large amount of trash that come with disposable diapers. Plus, Aiden looks awfully cute in the fun colors and prints of our diapers.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Tuesday 10

It's been a long time since I posted one of these. Here's a right now 10.

1. He is so much fun

2. So far I am doing much better at project life this year. Instagrams and journaling apps totally help my process on a day to day basis.

3. I'm finally getting used to my working mom schedule. I have a pretty good routine for baby related chores, playtime, work stuff and a little bit of me time. I just need to figure out how to work in all my cleaning on a more regular basis. I'd much rather play with the baby :)

4. I've finally done a little scrapping. I've returned to my roots as a clean and simple 8.5x11 scrapper. It makes it easier to get pages done and it feels more like me. Here's my two favorite recent pages:

5. I'm in the mood to shop, but shouldn't. I'm ignoring my inbox...I might sucker on a sale.

6. We are beginning our long overdo kitchen remodel soon (hence the no shopping). In the process, I've decided to move around 3 spaces in our house. It's a slow process. The house is a disaster and most of my scrap stuff is piled in boxes in a corner. It's making me a bit crazy, but I'm excited about what lies ahead.

7. Aiden is not a fan of avocado or mashed potatoes so far. He'll eat squash, sweet potato and banana with the best of them though.

8. I'm itching to read a book. Haven't read much other than parenting books or magazines since Aiden arrived. I've downloaded Discovery of Witches and Divergent recently and I've got the Dragon Tatoo just sitting there on my kindle app.

9. I'm currently in my office/guest bedroom. Something I rarely use these days unless I'm printing. The calendar still says June. That's pretty funny. Guess having a baby around changes a few things doesn't it!

10. I am hungry. All the time. I eat. All the time. I'm also the skinniest I've been since having health issues a couple of years ago. I apparently can't keep up with the calories needed for breast feeding. I'm trying. Eating lots of pasta and ice cream even. I know, horrible dilemma, to have to gain weight, but I really am too skinny.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Six months

Aiden is already 6 months old! Can you believe it? I can't. It's gone by so fast and he is getting so big. I'm in love with his photos for this month. You can totally see his little personality in these photos. I had a hard time choosing which ones to include in this post. So many good ones. He is just too darn cute, but maybe I'm biased :)

At 6 months, he:

is huge. We'll find out Thursday his official stats, but everyone's guessing 20 pounds.
has started eating solid foods. We started with bananas on New Year's day (about a week before his 6 month birthday). He's also had sweet potatoes and butternut squash. Tomorrow we try avocado.
is taking fewer ounces from a bottle while Mommy is at work, but still nurses every few hours when I'm home.
is drinking water from a cup. I got him a couple sippy cups, but he'd rather just drink from my glass.

is pretty into standing up and wants desperately to pull up on things...he's not quite there, but pretty close.
sits up like a big boy.
is working on crawling, but hasn't quite coordinated his arms and legs.
has 2 teeth and is working on a third
is still sleeping in our room and/or in bed with me and wakes up once or twice during the night.

likes to play rough and be tickled.
still thinks peek a boo is pretty great.
is loving more active toys and is into banging on things.
still loves his blankets and stuffed animals.

had his first real illness, a cold that lasted for almost two weeks :(
loves splashing in the bathtub
likes hanging outside
is still such a cuddler
is quite the entertainer and kind of a ham, as evidenced by the next few pictures

is the best thing ever.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Project Life

I really like the idea of project life. I love the everyday life aspect of it. I love seeing random photos, notes and bits of life all together. It's fun to look back and remember the ordinary. I love that you can make it what you want. I love that tons of people are doing it and nobody's project looks the same. It's a great, real scrapbooking project.

Last year I was all excited for project life. Mid-January, I bought a kit with some amazon gift cards and jumped right in. The first month or so went great. But the rest of the year, well, I was not terribly successful. It may have something to do with the fact that I was a pregnant first year teacher finishing her teaching certificate courses and working on her master's degree for the first half of the year and a new mommy for the second half. My album went along great for the first couple months. I fell behind somewhere in March or April. My 2011 album has unfinished spreads completed through the month of June. I have a giant stack of memorablia and notes I kept to put in the album and have all my pictures filed by month on my computer. I would like to finish the album, at least partially. I've adjusted my view on 2011's album and will be happy with how ever it ends up, finished or not.

Here's a couple pages from my 2011 album. Cover page:

A finished spread from February:

Where things start to fall apart (you'll notice this is a multi week spread):

Fast forward to December and the all the buzz on the project for 2012. Given my unsuccessful attempt at Project Life in 2011, I was hesitant to commit to the project for 2012. I still love the idea of the project. The project seems to have gained in popularity and blogland is full of people participating this year. I knew I'd be sorry I didn't at least attempt it again, especially as I watched others share their albums. I've changed my expectations this year. Project Life 2012 will be a no rules, no stress project. If I get weekly spreads done, great. If I lump 2 weeks together, great. If I only manage a monthly recap, perfect. I will let the project unfold how it will and be happy with the results. This year, I'm using my stash and mixing up the page protectors. Making it more my style and less what I thought it should be. Some weeks may just be photos and ephemera. Some weeks maybe full of journaling. Some weeks may be embellished. Some may be plain and simple.

This weekend I finished up my cover page and my first two weeks. I'm excited about the project again. I'm happy about how things are unfolding. I hope I can keep up the momentum, but if not, I'm not going to stress about it. This time around however, the iphone is my friend. Most of my pictures these first couple weeks are instagram pictures and I've downloaded a couple apps to help me keep track of journaling and memories in case I do get behind.

Here's what 2012 looks like so far. Cover page:

Week 1:

I added an insert with a couple new year's cards we received:

Week 2:

Friday, December 30, 2011

2011 Recap

Truth be told, I started this post on December 30th. It's now January 16th and a bit late for a 2011 recap. I hate to let all the work on this post go to waste, so here goes...2011 remembered:

January