Busy Busy Busy

The past couple weeks have been crazy!! Been a busy busy bee!! I have so many fun things coming up and can't wait to share them with all of you!!

I made my cousin's invites for her wedding and got them in the mail at the beginning of the month!! They turned out so super cute! I'm working on her wedding shower invites this week :) I hand dyed the paper to ivory and hand painted glittery accents! Too cute!

Easter was a blast, I got to bake some fun treats!

The cupcake was made with a pinterest recipe! It took a lot longer than I expected it to, didn't feel like they ever dried properly... I ended up giving up which left them a little chewy and hard to eat, they also flattened out after being left in my cupcake holder from the moisture, but I thought they looked super cute! I'll def try again and hope for a better result next time because I really like the way they looked!

Then the following weekend was Miss Isabel's birthday party! I got to make a dress and bake her birthday cake! This cake came with technical difficulties! My son was either screaming or getting into things he shouldn't have the entire time! I also had a strict time limit... but I still like how it turned out :) I feel like I'm slowly getting better at this! Still have a lot to learn but it sure is fun!

The dress was SOO much fun and she loved it! I also made a headband and purse to match :) Things like this are why I NEED a little girl next!!! The dress was super easy to make and the pattern I followed was found here. This pattern is for a size much smaller but it was easy enough to alter for her! I definitely learned a lot from it though lol I would recommend doing some measurements for the armpit holes! I made hers a little big, so she really needed to have a tank under it! I had never made a purse before either and well... It'll definitely be better the next time too! Since I put a cardboard bottom in it, I couldn't just sew up the sides like my original plan! So, next time I either need sides or to forget the bottom!! But hey, for my first time (and without a pattern) I thought it looked pretty cute and she loved it, so that's what really matters!! I even remembered pockets!

I am so super excited to announce I will be attempting to make my first home-made cloth diaper sometime this week... hopefully...

I also received some Bee All Natural baby powder to test and I can't wait to report back with more information!!! If you already know you like their products or are interested in going ahead and trying some yourself, they have a $10 off of a $30 promotion going on just for viewers of my blog!! Just use the code ?FACEBOOK? When purchasing from BeeAllNatural.com!

1 year old banana... yuck!

As most of you know, baby food has a shelf life of 1 year! Would you feed your baby a year old banana? No way! They say it's just as healthy... yadda yadda... How on earth could baby food that can be in your pantry for a full year not have something added to it? And I know we've all tasted baby food and tried guessing what the food is suppose to be. Well, with home-made baby food, you can guess correctly every time!! That alone is a good enough reason to switch for me. Switching to home-made baby food was the easiest thing I've done so far and my little one LOVES his fresh food so much more!

We were given some jars of baby food that we used in the beginning and I bought rice cereal from the store because, to be honest, I was kind of nervous about starting the process... and I thought it would be easier to just use what we had. I was also afraid I wouldn't get the food pureed well enough for such a young baby, of course I was wrong!

Preston quickly got tired of the rice cereal so we switched to oatmeal. I used some of the baby food we already had to add some flavor. I figured starting this way would make the transition easier. I just used a food processor that we already had to puree the oatmeal. This started out very humorous! He didn't know what to think of the new texture at all! But it didn't take long for him to be hooked! In the beginning, I was making the oatmeal one meal at a time, when he needed it, and I thought to myself, oh my goodness what did I get myself into! It is such a pain to do it this way because it takes so long to cook and cool. I finally decided to try my hand at freezing the oatmeal. I also decided to jump into fresh fruits and veggies!

Without thinking, I went and bought sweet potatoes, squash, carrots and mangoes. Yup that's right... all orange foods! Oops! If you didn't know, when you feed your child primarily orange foods they will turn orange! I also got apples and bananas to add to his oatmeal. Shortly after this I got peas and green beans so that we had some other colors as well! He has LOVED every food except green beans! I have to add peas or apples to his green beans to make him eat them!

I have used http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/ as my primary information source.  This website pretty much covers everything! It will tell you when you can introduce different types of food, how to cook them, different recipes, etc. I highly recommend it if you're planning to start this awesome adventure for your little one!

I was given a couple different types of baby food freezing containers. Cute plastic ones with snap shut lids and freezable canning jars. I also use the ice cube method. I use some of the baby food jars I kept to heat up the cubes in. Baby food jars from the store are NOT meant to be used in the freezer! The only thing that I don't really like about the plastic containers is that I end up having to clean two things instead of just one because you don't want to heat plastic in the microwave. It's not really that big of an issue though, I just take a couple of them and heat them together in a larger dish. I like to use my ice cube trays for foods I like to mix and for foods I don't like giving him such large portions of. This method also gets used when I run out of other containers! It's definitely the easiest method when freezing large volumes of food! They also make it easier when all he wants is another ounce or two, that way I'm not heating up more than he needs! I will usually just freeze enough for a couple weeks at a time. The food lasts for a month in the freezer and no more than 48 hours in the fridge!

The only issue I've had is accidentally adding too much liquid and ending up with runny baby food! So the big tip I have, is to add liquids a little at a time! Some foods actually don't need anything added or just a very small amount. It's also handy to keep a box of the store bought rice cereal on hand to add to your food to thicken it up, just in case.

Traveling with home made baby food is actually MUCH easier than I expected as well. I haven't gone on any long distance trips with it yet though! We'll be doing that in May, so I'll update you on that experience then! If I'm going somewhere with a microwave I just put the frozen food in an insulated lunch bag with a small ice pack and heat it up when we get there. If there isn't going to be a microwave and it'll be no more than an hour before feeding him, I will heat it up and put it in the insulated lunch bag before we leave. Easy peasy!

Oh, Sunny Days!

With all this beautiful, unseasonably warm weather, of course I've been thinking about sunscreen! I ran across the Environmental Working Group (EWG) website that has information on sunscreen that is pretty shocking! Definitely makes me think twice about what sunscreen I put on my skin... let alone my child's!!! For something that is suppose to help you not get cancer... it sure has a lot of cancer causing ingredients! I will be keeping these ratings in mind when choosing sunscreen this summer for sure!

List of baby sunscreens and their rating

EWG.org has A LOT of useful info! The 'dirty dozen' and 'clean 15' are also on here telling you which fruits and veggies should be bought organic and which are the cleanest. Which is especially useful if you are making your own baby food! I also downloaded the app on my iPhone which will be very handy in the supermarket! If you search for dirty dozen the EWG app will come up (it's green with a white shopping cart). I don't have the money to be buying everything organic, so this helps make the choice on what to spend the extra money on!

I also wanted to share my cloth wipes follow up. In short, they're pretty awesome! I feel like I'll be saving A LOT of money this way because I'm using an incredibly smaller amount of wipes. They also leave my baby's butt smelling just lovely! It's like a mini bath each time I change his diaper. I do love the more expensive ones but for something that is just wiping my child's butt... I feel like it's not really necessary! The less expensive ones work just fine and are much thinner which is more convenient when storing and packing in your diaper bag. I mean lets face it... if your diaper bag is like mine, you need all the space you can get!

Check it out!

As a forewarning... this link is incredibly overwhelming there is SO much information! But it really does explain a lot!

It's not the most amazing article out there but there is a lot of info in one place, which is awesome.

http://www.milkfriendly.com/2012/03/cloth-diapering-101.html




I will be posting my results with the cloth wipes soon!

Monkey Farts

Just got my fluff mail!! Always so exciting!! Ordered a couple more dipes and some cloth wipes! Excited to start using them! It AMAZES me how many wipes I go through!!! I will just be using them for the wet ones... not the poopy ones! You don't put poopy dipes in the wash so why would I put poopy wipes in the wash! Maybe some day I will change my mind... we'll see...

I will be trying Thirsties wipes and a generic wipe to compare the two. Thirsties gets rave reviews saying they're amazing but they're quite a bit more expensive...  I got 15 of the generic wipes for $3 less than 6 of the Thirsties!! But from the way they came out of the package they're definitely a lot nicer! Much thicker and softer! We'll see what I end up liking best once I start using them :) Someday I will hopefully be able to make my own!

The wipe solution I'm trying is Bee Green Naturals Purely Clean Cubes in the scent Monkey Farts hehe I got this smell mostly for the name but people say it's awesome and well I'd have to agree... smells fantastic! You have two options with the solution, soak the wipes in it or spray them as needed. I will be spraying because I feel like the solution will last longer that way and I would think be more sanitary.

They're going in the wash right now!!

Thirsties on left. Generic on right.

What do I do with the poopies?!?

This is the MOST common question I am asked! No, it's not that bad! If you're breastfeeding exclusively, it washes out just like yogurt! So, just throw it in the wash! When they start solids you have a couple different options...

1. Use a disposable liner that allows you to just throw the poop in the toilet, flush and put diaper/insert in your wet bag.

2. Get a diaper sprayer. I didn't want to pay $40-$50 So, since my toilet and shower are right next to one another, I got a detachable sprayer for my shower (typically used to wash your dog) for $17 and I use that! You just turn on the water, spray the poop off and put the diaper/insert in the wet bag.

3. Dunk and swish. This is the messiest... you take the diaper/insert and dunk in toilet until poop falls off. Then once again, put it in the wet bag.

If the poop was especially nasty, after rinsing, I will throw it in the washer on an extra small load and just do a rinse. Then, throw them in the wet bag to be washed later. It seriously isn't that bad! Anyone that has seen me do it, shrugs it off and says, "wow, that's it?" If you have a dog, you deal with a lot worse!! Oh and seriously... if poop and vomit grosses you out... you're in for a rude awakening when you have a child...

If you have to work and your daycare just doesn't allow it... which totally breaks my heart... you could always use cloth at home and use disposables at daycare! Every little bit helps! Maybe if more people start using cloth and talking with their daycare providers, the idea will become the norm!

*A girl can dream*

Who would have known?!?

Being a woman that HATES doing laundry and dishes, doing it for my child doesn't bother me one bit! I ENJOY it! Before getting pregnant, the thought of cloth diapering and making my own baby food NEVER crossed my mind! Once becoming pregnant, my thought process completely changed! Knowing there was a child growing inside me made me want to be a better person. I started eating right. I started researching EVERYTHING, as all new moms do. I soon realized the terrible chemicals in disposable diapers. I knew right then that I did not want that to be a part of my child's life! My husband, thankfully, was very supportive and agreed that using cloth would be a good lifestyle decision for us (I think it's because I mentioned saving money). I researched for hours on end. Every night my husband came home, I was showing him different diapers that were "the one." He of course couldn't tell a difference and said "yeah, those are nice" to everything!  My first diaper I ordered was a SoftBums diaper, which to this day is my FAVORITE! I've never been more excited for a piece of mail get to my door! Then arrived, and of course the baby wasn't here yet, so all I could do was look at it! But from that moment, I knew I was addicted!

For those of you looking into cloth diapering, just because these diapers are my favorite, doesn't mean they will be yours! Never buy a large stash of any one specific diaper until you have used that style for at least a month so you know that you actually like it! It's best to try a few different styles first and then stock up! You quickly see what diaper you reach for first! Also, just because you like one style now, that doesn't mean your preference won't change as your baby grows.

We were unable to start cloth from birth, like I had originally planned, because we had a boy! For those of you that don't know, we didn't want to know the sex until the baby was born and we all thought it was a girl! Well, surprise surprise it wasn't! So, we weren't prepared! You can't use Vaseline with cloth, and well, if you have a boy you know why that's needed ;) Shortly after he was born we ordered cloth friendly ointments and got started! We used mini Swaddlebees and Blueberry pocket diapers and small sized covers as a newborn because one size diapers, like I currently use, are too bulky on a newborn! Pocket diapers are difficult to use for a newborn because they potty SO much!! But we used prefolds and inserts that are safe to use against the babies skin on top of the pocket, instead of inside, so the cover could be reused! This cut back on the number of covers that we had to buy (which is the expensive part) and I like the cloth lining vs a cover that doesn't have one.

All of these things are why I LOVE SoftBums diapers! They're a hybrid. They have a cloth lining and inserts that snap on top of the cover so that the cover can be reused. Once again, cutting down on the amount of diapers needed! Pockets and All-In-One diapers can only be used once, which in my mind is crazy for daily use, but they are my go to diapers for night time! There are diapers for everyone depending on your personal preference, you just have to find it!

Cloth is a lot easier than you could ever imagine! They're a lot more advanced these days, so don't be scared! The cost starting up is a small price to pay for the amount you will be saving! Not to mention how much better they are for your baby's skin!!

You make sure your bottles are BPA free, you make sure your baby's milk is free of growth hormones, you make sure paint near your baby is lead-free... So wouldn't you want to make sure your baby's diapers are free of chemicals?! Chemicals that have been banned from being put in tampons are still used in disposables! The diaper rash that is caused from disposables are often chemical burns!!! Ouch... Oh and did I mention that they save you money?! Parents using disposables spend $2,000 - $3,000 on diapers alone. For $300 - $800, you can build a stash of cloth diapers that can be reused for not only your current child, but your next one as well!! And seriously... they're WAY cuter than disposables too :-D

I could probably write a book on the benefits of using cloth, but I won't. If you have any other questions, please ask! Or trust me, the information is out there. Google it ;)