A bounce house in the house!

   Daddy is working today (Saturday).  It is raining outside.  The kids have been wanting to pull out the bounce house.  Our back yard (and front) is full of cactus.

I don't think I need to say anything else. :)

The pig hunt

Rob had been looking forward to this hunt for a while now, and it had been delayed once because of weather. I think it would have been delayed again had the weather man done a better job forecasting the weather!

The kids all cheered as they saw daddy coming out of the hills on the other side of the lake and ran to greet him. Even Miss J was excited yelling "Daddy! Pig! Hot dog! Me! Boom Boom!" -hot dog is how she says sausage- They had fun checking out all of the pigs that were brought in (there were three men hunting)

The kids were looking forward to this hunt just as much or more than their daddy. He was begged by more than one child to please let him/her go with him on the hunt! They had to settle for being there when he brought the pigs in and watch them get skinned. Don't worry, they were not at all upset at seeing the dead pigs or watching them get skinned. They were so proud of their daddy, and thought it was so cool to be in on the action!

 

washer woes

My washing machine broke this week. It is only 2 1/2 half years old, but the computer in it died. It is going to be 2 1/2 weeks until it is fixed. :( In the mean time we'll be making a couple of changes around here to make situation work. Here is my plan so far....

Normally everyone around here wears their clothes/PJs at least two days/nights. This will change to wearing them until they really are dirty (so some of the nice and tidy kids around here may wear one outfit for nearly a week, other then errand day and Sunday). Have no fear, socks and underwear will be changed daily!

The big kids will help with hand washing clothes in the bathtub. So far they think this is a fun idea, and are happy to help out.

At first I thought that cloth diapering would be taking a break, but washing those newborn diapers is not so bad, so I'll keep that up for a few days at least and see how it goes. Miss J, however, will be in disposables. *I had just done a load of diapers the day before, so the only ones that were dirty when the washer broke were Miss C's. That is how I learned they were going to be easy to clean.*

Potty training may be taking a break. I just don't want to deal with that many messes while hand washing everything. I do plan to pick up some pull-ups though, so maybe it will continue to some extent.

newborn cloth diaper stash

I have never cloth diapered a newborn before, so though used cloth with my last two kids I needed to get all new diapers for this stage. I started picking up these diapers, and some of the fabric too, before finding out that we were expecting a girl so there are not many "girly" diapers for Miss C.

I'm not exactly sure what kind I'll like best, or even how long this size will last, but I've heard that you want to have at least 24 newborn sized diapers if you want to use them right away and you don't expect a baby over 9 pounds or so. So that is what I have.

I picked up 12 newborn sized pre-fold diapers. These are like the old fashioned white diapers that my mom used with us, but smaller so they will not be so bulky on a newborn. I'll use a snappi with these instead of pins.

Covers- The pre-folds need covers, I have 5 xs ones. Two are the "thirsties" covers that have an

umbilical notch in them (one white, one celery). The other three are by "bummis" (one white, one with celery dots, one jungle print).

Fitted diapers- These are not water proof, but are easier to use than the pre-folds since you

don't have to fold them and they snap closed. I made all of these. Since they should be fairly absorbent I don't know if I'll have to use a cover with them if I'm just using them at home during the day. I used minky on the outside of these, it is so soft, I can't wait to put them on Miss C!

Pocket Diapers- I like using pocket diapers best of all (at least with Miss J), but these are more

expensive. These are water proof and go on and off like a disposable, but you wash them and re-use them! I purchased three of these, there is a blue one with a cow print inside and an aqua one with a penguin print inside as well as an "air force baby" embroidered one. I had purchased a pocket diaper pattern a couple of years ago, so I used that as a guide for making the rest

of the pockets. I made three out of the celery outer and the monkey print inner. I also had some Christmas print PUL fabric too, I made two out of that, I'm not sure if they will still fit her around Christmas, but I figured it was worth the try!

So, for now I'm set on cloth diapers. I'm not sure how long these will last Miss C. It really depends on how big she is when she is born and how quickly she gains after. If she is on the bigger side these could only last a couple weeks to a month. If she is smaller then I may be able to use them for longer. Once she grows out of all of these I have the small diapers I used for Miss J. However I also had some "one size" diapers that I used during that time that I'm still using with Miss J, so I may have to pick up some more. I like the bum genius one size diapers (they don't work so well for newborns though, I've heard), but I've been looking into the blueberry one size diapers as well (the thing is that they cost quite a bit more and so far the best thing they've got going for them is the cute prints, I don't think its worth the extra $$$, but they sure are cute!). Having more one size diapers will come in handy if Miss J does not potty train soon since I'll be able to use the diapers on either one of the girls. Otherwise I've got pockets, pre-folds, and covers in sizes for both of the girls.

Diapers for Miss C

I just finished six fitted diapers for Miss C. In the cloth diapering world "fitted" diapers refer to diapers that do not need to be folded, have some sort of closure (these use snaps), but do not have a water proof outer shell (they need a cover). These are made with snaps so that I can have a snap down notch for her cord until it falls off, other diapers I've made I've used velcro.

They all have a minky outer, it is so soft, and should keep moisture from coming through! Every time Miss J sees me with the fabric she comes right over to pat it, lay her head on it, and kiss it (I know, I need to make a blanket for her out of it!). Inside most of them have suede cloth, except for one of the pink ones that has a brown minky with pink dots. The tan ones all have the cute monkeys in diapers print inside them. I'm happy with how these turned out, but I'm not sure how they will work since I've never cloth diapered a newborn before and right now I don't know anyone with a newborn. I'll have to wait a few months to try them on her. I'm just about done with her diaper stash, then I'll take pictures of it, I made some of them and she will even have an Air Force one that was custom made!

the laundry fairy strikes again

Well, our laundry fairy has been at it again. This time, however, she was also trying out some other skills. I'm not sure which one she was going for, but it could be housekeeping, librarian, or even Sunday school teacher. Whatever it was it was a bad combo! You see, Miss J LOVES to read. She often walks around with a book in her hand and more often than not that book is a Bible. We think it is great that she loves God's word already and encourage her in her love for it. She also likes to help out by picking up garbage and throwing it away. Really, she likes to do just about anything she sees her mommy doing. Well, yesterday she must have been doing all of these things at once. This morning my washing machine beeped at me and gave me an error code as it was doing a load of diaper laundry (yep, I cloth diaper my babies. I LOVE using cloth!) As I inspected I could tell that quite a bit of paper had gone through with this load, but I was stumped as to what it could be and what could have so much ink in it to have turned all of the diapers grey (you can see where this is going can't you?). Then I found it. The cover to Rob's NAS Bible (its black), one of Miss J's favorites. Ugh! Thats right a WHOLE Bible went through a whole extra long/ extra hot wash cycle (thank goodness we were dealing with "clean" gray, paper filled diapers!).

Rob spent the afternoon cleaning out the drainage pipes for the washer and it seems to be

running fine now. I'm so glad he is able to do things like that, he is the BEST!!!!! I've been rinsing diapers trying to get the paper and dye out of them, but they were washed with vinegar which sets dye, so I have little hope that they will ever be pretty again. Oh well...