4th of July Weekend

Well it was a success after all! Once the workers went home things really smoothed out and we had a magnificent holiday weekend. Sunday we had a big cookout at my mom's house. All 4 of my siblings and their significants and kids were all there. It's a big crowd, but we love it that way :)

There's not much else to say about my great big family and our get-togethers. They're the best. There really is no where else I'd rather be than with all of them. We always have amazing food and spend the whole time laughing and talking. And not only do I love being with my family, but I love that my baby (and future children) will grow up surrounded by a great big loving family that prioritizes spending time together and has a bond so tight that it simply can't be broken. My own cousins are at least 10 years older than I am and we only saw them a few times a year on occasions. So I'm really glad my kids will get to spend lots of time with their cousins and will hopefully be close with each other as they grow up. There's nothing like the support of your family, and the bigger and tighter that network is, the better if you ask me.

On the Fourth, we had plans to just relax, be at home, take care of some things that needed to be done around the house, and maybe see fireworks. We didn't want to be busy or away from home all day only to return exhausted and have to start the week feeling like we never rested.

After breakfast we decided to go over to the park to let Bebe girl toddle around. There wasn't a lot she could do on her own since she's barely walking, but we went down the slides with her a few times and let her walk around. She was totally fascinated by the bigger kids running around and ended up having a lot of fun.

While she napped we did some household things that needed to be done, and talked about a few upcoming things that we needed to chat about - one being vacation! More on that later though. We went out to the store when the baby woke up and finally at the last minute decided we would brave the fireworks. We met my sister at the same place both my family and my husband's used to go back when we were high schoolers. It's kind of a spot for us.

She was a little startled by the first couple of fireworks but then snuggled up to me and watched the rest of the show without making a peep. We had a great time celebrating such a special day in our nation's history (and really world history). I can't help but feel a bit sentimental about Independence day, knowing all the things we take for granted every single day in our luxuriously free lifestyle. I also think about all the lives that have been lost or forever changed preserving that very freedom. For most people it's a cookout and fireworks, but it truly is a big deal. I can't even put words to how blessed we are to live here, and how thankful I am to be raising my kids here in the greatest nation on earth.

Happy 235th birthday, America, land that I love!

What the what

It's one of those days that I'm asking - "What the what?!" Liz Lemon-style. This is not how I wanted to start my holiday weekend.

We came home from running errands this morning and found that a turtle had been run over in our parking lot! Of course it was directly in front of our parking space. I don't want to look at that poor crushed turtle every time I leave my house :(  We tried to contact the county about picking it up, but you know how that is on a holiday weekend. No luck.

Then we get the baby upstairs in bed for her nap and realize that the next door neighbors are having the tree in their front yard cut down. This sucks partly because we just put the baby in bed, but also because the tree provides cover for a window over our front door. Without it all the houses across the street can basically see all the way through our main level. I'm not excited to lose that privacy. I guess I can rig some kind of curtain, but the window is not square it's a semi-circle. Plus, beyond the privacy there was an inhabited bird's nest in that tree. The top of it was right outside Carsen's window and any time you would ask her about birdies or say "tweet tweet tweet" she would look right out the window to that tree. Makes me sad. I just hope the birdies were gone when their branch was cut down.

It's hard to tell from this photo, but what remains of the tree at this point is covering the left half of the window. It used to cover the whole thing. 

And if cutting down a tree wasn't loud enough, then the workers turn on a stereo to listen to music while they work. I can hear it through my house and through the baby monitor. They were nice about it when I asked them to turn it off. Now they're power-washing the siding. Guess they showed me.

Hopefully the rest of the weekend will prove to be peachy perfect! We're looking forward to getting some stuff done at home this afternoon/evening and a big family cookout at my parents' house tomorrow. Monday we wanted to keep things low key so we're just hanging out with a few friends. I can't decide if we're going to see fireworks or not. For me personally I feel like I've missed 4th of July if I don't, but I wonder how our Bebe will feel about them this year. I'll let ya know!

Happy 4th of July weekend to everyone!!

My Cute 1 Year Old

I really can't believe that my tiny baby is a year old - 14 months at this point - but I am loving this age so much. She is so bright and happy, and has so much personality, it's like getting to know more of her every single day. So here are some of the things she is up to these days in her busy little toddler life...

She is eating a variety of foods, though some are still a challenge to get in her. Her favorites are scrambled eggs and toast, yogurt, multigrain Cheerios, grilled cheese, and just about any meat. She's not much for pasta or rice, and I have a tough time getting her to eat vegetables. She has figured out that the inside of a pea is better than it's shell, so she bites them and sucks the insides out. It's pretty impressive. She also loves peaches, pears, and mandarin oranges.

She has lots of hair and we sometimes have trouble keeping it under control. The hair that's on top of her head includes the stuff that never fell out, so it is very long and falls right into her face. It's actually long enough to swoop across her forehead and tuck behind her ear. Most of the time I pull it up in a little pony tail on top of her head - sometimes piggy tails. It's pretty cute :)

Like most kids her age, she is totally into anything with buttons - except baby toys, of course. She loves the remotes and knows where we stash them. She still snags one from time to time and suddenly the channel will change or the volume will go way up. She also loves our cell phones, naturally. We've given her an old one to toss around and play with, but she still knows which ones work.

She also really loves our dog, Shep. Luckily he's super-tolerant and she's very gentle. She has noticed other dogs though and even started saying doggy - well in her own way. She says, "gaga" but points to any dogs we see.

Like her mommy, she has developed a taste for chocolate. She recognizes Oreos, cupcakes, and even wrapped Dove chocolates if she sees them and has no problem demanding a bite :)

She is beginning to realize that books are for reading and not eating so we're encouraging that. She's still not super patient with the reading part and mostly wants to turn the pages herself to look at the pictures she likes. This is fine with me, it's a start. Magazines on the other hand....

She doesn't really watch TV, but there are some kid-show theme songs she likes. Angelina Ballerina is one of them. She will drop anything when she hears that song come on. She actually goes over to the coffee table and stands on one leg with her other leg up in the air behind her, like she is standing at a ballet bar. Kind of cracks me up. I promise she has not watched enough of that show to know. She usually goes to play when the song is over.

This girl is also turning into quite the little sports fan. She loves to clap and cheer and sometimes even yell when we're watching Os games either on TV or at the park. We were driving to a game just last weekend and I said to her, "We're going to see the Orioles! Do you want to see the Orioles?" And when I looked in the rearview mirror, she was pulling the straps of her carseat so she could see the word Orioles on her shirt! I was surprised that she knew without me saying anything prior, that that was her Orioles shirt. Her daddy is proud of that one!

Still a music fan, she definitely favors the toy instruments we have to the other toys. She has two different drums, a piano, two microphones, a guitar, and a xylophone. Sometimes she turns them on just to let them play while she is doing something else!

We've been lucky that we haven't really gotten into tantrums yet. I can tell that she is trying to find ways to express her anger though. A few times she has sprawled on her belly on the floor when she was mad, and I've also seen her swat at things. Once or twice she has even bitten the couch cushions, hopefully that doesn't become people. I expect a full-on tantrum to hit one of these days and I just pray it's not in the middle of church, or a nice restaurant.

Our little goof-ball definitely loves to make other people laugh. She learned when she was very young through peek-a-boo that it's funny to give someone a little startle. That turned into her saying "Boo" back to us, and now to pretty much everyone and everything. She has gotten good at her "Boo" so it's not just cute, she's out to scare. And she will do this to strangers in the store, babies, and me when I catch her doing something she knows she shouldn't be doing.

We took her for her first swim and she loved it! Not to mention, she was irresistible in her little bathing suit. She has several actually and has yet to wear the same one twice! As much fun as she has in the bath tub, I knew she would be a fan of the swimming pool. She was a little more intimidated when we got out into the middle of the water, but still enjoyed it as long as she was holding on to mama :)

As you saw in a recent post, she has started walking unassisted. At first she would only go from one person to another. But now she is going from person to object and sometimes between pieces of furniture. She is getting braver every day. She still doesn't just take off around the house. If she wants to get somewhere quick she will crawl, but I know those days are fast approaching. Just this morning I looked over and she had climbed up onto a speaker we have sitting on the floor... now we have that can of worms open!

She still sucks that thumb, though thankfully only when she's tired or snuggling. Hopefully that will make it an easier habit to break, or one that goes away on its own. She has been such a calm and adaptable child, I think she will grow right out of it without a problem.

We practice our animal sounds with a farm puzzle she got from her aunt and uncle. Sometimes she repeats them, but her favorite animal sound is "Rooooaaaaaaar" and so usually that is what all the animals in the puzzle say.

She's a Cheerio fiend and would probably subsist on them entirely if I let her. I have to hide the box if I don't want her to have them. She also knows there's a stash in the diaper bag and will ask for them non-stop in the car if she sees it. I can't complain, there are far worse things for your toddler to be obsessed with than multigrain Cheerios and your water bottle.

While I could go on and on about her for at least decades, nap time is only so long. I've hit on a lot of the big stuff to summarize her cute little personality well enough for today. My hope is always to keep up with my blogging better so that I don't have to think back over several weeks or months to catch up on what we've been up to. And as always, we'll see how that goes :)  As much as I like guarantees, unpredictability is one of the things I love most about life!

Breaking News!

I'm interrupting regularly scheduled blogging to bring you this breaking news...

Our baby girl is walking!

She has taken a step or two in the past which I did record in her baby book as her first steps. Tonight though, she was taking many steps at a time (I think we counted between 8-10 as the most).  It was clear later that she believed this walking to be for entertainment purposes only. When she really wanted to get from place to place she would either hold on and cruise, or drop down and crawl. It's a start though. I think with practice she will become more and more confident and transition to walking very soon. We are so proud! :)

Follow Up On Suzanne

So as not to leave everyone hanging...

My friend Suzanne who I spoke about in this post is back at home and recovering well from her surgery. The doctor said that her surgery went well and she was discharged from the hospital on Sunday. Of course she is still healing from the operation, but hopefully she is and will remain cancer-free from this point on.

Thanks so much to everyone who said a prayer (or many) for her and her family. Please continue to pray for her healing and for her body to remain cancer-free.

Cloth Diapering 101

So I went to a cloth diapering class over the weekend. I had originally signed up before I started using cloth, but the class got rescheduled. I went even though I'd been using my cloth diapers for a few weeks because I wanted to ask about the leaking issue we were having. As a teacher I tend to have high expectations for instructors when I am the student. I get that not everyone who runs a seminar or mom class like this one has had formal training in being a teacher. It's still important to know what you're doing enough to be able to accomplish the purpose of the class though.

If you can't tell, I thought the instructor for Cloth Diapering 101 was not great. She apologized in the beginning for being a little scattered, but that was an understatement. She pretty much decided that everyone would really only want to use pocket-style diapers and blew through all the other 4 styles of cloth diapers in about 10 minutes total. Then she buzzed through pocket diapers in a very unorganized fashion.

The whole thing left me unsettled. So I've put together my own lesson. If you already cloth diaper, you may want to check out now. I'm figuring there are some people out there who perhaps think cloth diapering is nuts, or who are interested in learning more, and maybe I'll be able to sway some of them. So take out your pencils and notebooks (not really) and let's get started!

*I'm only covering pocket diapers because no one wants to read an hour-long lesson on a blog post. If you have questions about other types of cloth diapers, you can ask in a comment or Google it :) 

We'll begin with actual diapering. 

So, a pocket diaper is thusly named because it has a waterproof outer layer, and then a fleece/fabric (depending on brand) pocket that you stuff an absorbent insert into. Then you snap or velcro it to your kid. They are used just like a disposable, except when you take the diapers off you put them in a waterproof bag until you're ready to wash them. Easy!

But what if the kid poops??

You have some options. You don't store the poop like many people do with disposables (the packaging actually tells you to dump out and flush an solids, but I've never known anyone who really does that). Depending on the age of your child, and therefore the consistency of their poop, you can dump the solids into your toilet, use a diaper sprayer that neatly attaches to your toilet's water supply to clean the solids off, or you can use flushable diaper liners that peel off with the poop and everything gets flushed. I've heard of people fashioning their own diaper sprayers, and the instructor from my class said she uses her old peri bottle (LOL). So, basically you can do whatever works for you. Just don't spray your diaper with the absorbent insert still in it or you'll be doing a lot of wringing. Then you put the diaper in a waterproof bag with the others until it's time to wash them.

Rules for washing cloth diapers:

  1. Make sure your absorbent inserts are pulled out of the pockets before washing.  

  2. Use a detergent that is free of dyes and perfumes because they will ruin your diapers and cause them to stop absorbing liquid. There are a lot of detergents out there marketed specifically for cloth diapers. Some of them are pretty expensive. Arm & Hammer Free is $4.99 for a 44 load bottle. That's what I use. It's specifically listed on the FuzziBunz web site as an option.

  3. Don't use fabric softener. It will also ruin your diapers and cause them to repel liquid.

  4. Dry them on low heat or hang dry them. High heat will ruin the waterproof outer layer. 

I wash my diapers daily. Some people wash them less frequently. It depends on how many you have, really. More diapers = less washing. But I wouldn't recommend letting your dirty ones sit for too long because that's just gross.

Cloth diapers on the go:

All you need is a small waterproof bag to store your dirty diapers in. If you're going somewhere that there won't be a toilet to flush your solids (say on a hike or picnic), you can either flush them when you get back to civilization, dump them in nature like the animals do, or bring disposables (you'll still be carrying the poop with you unless you plan to litter, or there are trash cans nearby). 

I'm pretty sure that covers it. Seems pretty simple and logical, right? I still can't figure out why the instructor had such a hard time organizing the information and remembering what to cover. Oh well. Maybe she really was just having a rough day. Either way, I feel better having organized the material for her and pseudo-taught it to someone. Phew. Now I'll be able to sleep better :)

So again, not that I'm an expert, but if you're interested or have questions, leave a comment!