Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Wordless / Wordful Wednesday – Look-a-likes

Wordless Wednesday is brought to you by the sweet gals at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Mom Blogskidheads1

~~~~~~~~~~ And now the wordful part!~~~~~~~~~~

I always thought those families that had a bunch of kids who all looked the same were really cool.  My brother and I look nothing alike.  I find it amazing HOW MUCH our kids resemble each other.  Can you guess before you scroll down who is who? Apparently boys can grow hair more efficiently than the girls.  Oh, and the all look like dad. Go figure.

kidheadsnames

Wordful Wednesday posts can be found at Seven Clown Circus!!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Journey For Jess

UPDATED: The local newspaper has run an article HERE.

ORIGINAL POST:

In just 3 days a family will be taking an important journey. Two years ago Jason and Amy lost their sweet little 3-year-old girl Jess. She fought against epilepsy for most of her short life. Now, with their older son Noah, they are taking a trip that will use Jason’s talents as a photographer to raise awareness and money for the Epilepsy Foundation and the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance. Starting July 10 they will travel to several National Parks around the western United States and take photos. The photos will then be sold to benefit these two groups. This is an important and healing journey for the family. I urge you to check out Journey For Jess as well as their blog (which will be updated as they travel) to see the story thus far and to keep up on their Journey. Also, I ask for your prayers for their safety and health during the trip!

Grab This Button for Jess!
<a href="http://journeyforjess.com" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Journey For Jess!" src="http://i448.photobucket.com/albums/qq208/affectionatelyyoursphoto/JFjessbutton.jpg"/></a>

Trying to do my part, I offer in my Etsy shop a pendant dedicated to Jess, and of which $4 goes to Journey for Jess.

butterflysaletile

Please, if you feel led to donate, visit Journey for Jess or purchase a pendant!

Saturday, July 4, 2009

We’ve finally adopted!!

I know you are so ready to meet the newest addition to our…

lexicon.

Yeah.

We’ve adopted a couple of words, and you can too!

These poor poor words have been excluded from current editions of the Oxford English Dictionary as they are no longer in common use.  That is where Save The Words has come in.  They rescue these neglected words, give them a temporary shelter, and invite us to take a look around and bring one home.

When you go to the site, the cute little guys are actually jumping out, crying “pick me!” and “over here!”.

We signed an agreement to promise to insert the orphaned word into our everyday vernacular as often as possible, AND to share the word with others in hopes of its use spreading!

Here’s one of our little adoptees:

Lardlets

cute, huh? and I even took a picture:

mmmm, lardlets

This is a shot from the day we met…

lardlet

What I love about this site is how fun it is.  Even the definitions are hilarious! For example….

supellectile

supellectile; adj; of the nature of furniture;  Mike’s supellectile skills are not in doubt, I just wish he’d use wood or plastic instead of dead cats.

So please, Save a Word.  We did.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Friday Fragments – Fourth

Get ‘em all out, all those bits and pieces you’ve stored up all week. It’s Fragment Friday! See tons of other random thoughts at Half Past Kissing Time!

Friday Fragments?

  • I have been trying to get my house in order all week.  Fat lot of good it did. Should’ve just sun tanned instead, the place would look the same.
  • My clothes line is loving all the attention, I think there’s been something on it every sunny day lately! Especially all my lovely cloth diapers.  I feel like such a nerd that I’m excited over butt covers.  I imagine the novelty will wear off, but for now I love washing them, hanging them, folding them.  Surely I’ve cracked.
  • I will be gone over the fourth to shoot a wedding.  The couple is from Hubby’s National Guard unit that he went to Afghanistan with.  Sadly, Hubby can’t even attend.  I on the other hand am not only attending, but doing so SANS KIDS.  A whole weekend. without. kids.  I’ve not done this since we had half as many.  I’m pretty excited!! That being said, I’m feeling some trepidation.  Wouldn’t you know it the baby spiked a little temp today and the oldest mentioned that her throat hurt.  Can’t you guys just hold out through the weekend?? I promise I’ll drag you all into Urgent Care first thing Monday morning if that’s what you need!!!!!
  • You know me, I get restless, so I changed the look of my photography blog.  You can see it by clicking the button below:

Affectionately Yours Photography

I’d love to hear your input!!

  • Oh, Billy Mays! Who’s gonna shout at me in the middle of the night to keep me awake while I edit pictures!! You will be missed “OxyClean Guy” (that’s what the kids know him as)
  • The neighbors just had their front steps rebuilt and their house painted.  Our house, in the mean time looks like its falling apart.  Hope we’re not bringing down their property values with our ghetto corner lot, peeling paint, toys strewn about the lawn and listing garage.
  • Steve (that’s the Hubby in case you weren’t sure) and I are adopting… I’ll tell you all about it this weekend (in a post I have set to publish while I’m gone – hee hee!)

car crash

CIT Day 10 tally:

# times anyone was smacked upside the head with a cast: 1 (poor Jackson!)

# times “pink” got caught in the swingset climbing ladder: 4

# times Piper freaked out about “pink” getting stuck: 4

# Princess color book pages done RIGHT HANDED: 2!!

Thursday, July 2, 2009

A Thousand Word Thursday - Cheating

Cheaper Than Therapy

Thousand Word Thursday. All those photos worth a thousand words...or more! See the selections of the week at Cheaper Than Therapy!

HPIM2320

Ssshhhh! You didn’t see this. Dr. K will never need to know. Worked like a charm, though!

~~~~~~~~~~

HPIM2313

CIT Day 9 Numbers:

# times MD was clobbered with cast: just 1 all weekend!!

# baths requested: 5 or 6

# full baths actually received: 1

# times PM fell at the park: 2-3

# full sized band-aids in the van first aid kit: 0

# teeny tiny band-aids needed to cover a skinned knee: 2

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Coolababy and Rainbow BB Update

I wrote a review earlier about the Coolababy and Rainbow BB cloth diapers earlier, you can read that HERE.  I’ve been using them all summer as well as a set of Blue Penguin’s SposoEasy all cotton cloth diapers.  I just wanted to give a little update now that I’ve had a really good chance to try them. 

First of all the fit:

Coolababy diaper –>IMG_0326          Rainbow BB Diaper –>IMG_3359a

They both fit fairly well. I really don’t think they’d fit a newborn at all.  Both tend to suffer “wing droop” after they’ve been on too long.  But I’ve found that most of the cloth diapers my guy wears look that way, especially now that he’s on the move.  I still don’t find that to be a big deal and it doesn’t affect the absorbency.

The Stains:

They are still completely stain free!  I DO use a flushable liner to catch the solids, but many times it doesn’t catch everything.  I rinse them ASAP and they are washed when I have time.  If I am doing a load of diapers soon, I may not even rinse them (just remove the big stuff!).  The fleece doesn’t stain easily and my inserts are still VERY absorbent.  I even end up wringing out the inserts before I hang them on the line.  Yes, hanging them on the line can contribute to less stains. 

Drying and odor:

The Coolababy AND the Rainbow BB diapers are awesome as far as odor goes.  It’s important to treat them well to begin with, but cloth diapers can get stinky sometimes.  My SposoEasy diapers seem to retain odor much faster.  The Coolababy and Rainbow BB shells retain almost no odor and they dry quickly on the line or on lowest heat in the dryer.  The inserts keep some odor, but occasional washing in hot with a double rinse (I double rinse all the time anyway) with a little vinegar and baking soda really does the trick.  I also HIGHLY recommend Crunchy Clean Diaper Soap or Rockin Green Diaper Soap because they smell AWESOME and they are specifically made for cloth diapers.

Waterproof-ness:

The PUL (polyurethane laminate) that is the outer shell is still holding up well.  I haven’t noticed any wear at all.  They do wick a little, but its usually when I haven’t changed him for a long time and they’re really wet ;)

ONE PROBLEM:

IMG_3369a IMG_3374

As you can see, some of my Rainbow BB’s has bad elastic.  I haven’t had this problem with my Coolababy, but I just have the one, and I have 12 Rainbow BB.  My guess was that it was one of two problems: 1) the elastic was sewn poorly and let go at one end, or 2) it is just bad elastic as gave out.  I decided that since I only paid about $6.50 apiece for these that they were worth repairing.  Here’s what I did:

IMG_3828 IMG_3830IMG_3978

I used a seam ripper and opened from the inside the elastic pockets, only at each end, and pulled the old stuff out.  You can see it was not bad sewing but bad elastic.  I pinned one end of my new elastic with a safety pin and guided it into the pocket then stitched at each end.  It didn’t take me very long.

IMG_3822                                 IMG_3979

If you are handy with a needle and thread or know someone who is, I still say these diapers are well worth the money.  Overall I’ve still been very happy with them and they are holding up well.

Hope this helps.  I’d love to hear what you all think.  Please feel free to link these reviews!

Monday, June 29, 2009