Getting Started with Cloth Diapering

There are lots of reasons to want to do cloth diapers. . .saving the earth, saving money, health reasons, or just how darn cute those little baby bums look in a cloth diaper!  I am personally in the saving money camp of cloth diapering (although the side benefits are great!), so if you are thinking about getting into cloth diapering for the same reason, this post is for you!

I started cloth diapering in April of 2009 when I had two little ones in diapers under the age of two, and no end in sight to the parade of diapers coming in and out of our house!  I really, really wanted to stay home with my little boys, so the spring of 2009 was the time when I really started crunching the numbers and trying to do just that.   Cutting down on regular monthly expenses seemed like a good way to start, and diapers were a big expense! We had two amazing families on our street at the time who were doing cloth diapers and helped us get started.  Because, let's face it, if you are getting started with cloth diapers it can seem really overwhelming if you just google it, so we were lucky to have some mentors along the way!  I am now cloth diapering my 5th baby (4 of my own and my neighbor who I watched from 6 months to 16 months), so here are the lessons that I have learned to get you started!!

1.  If you want to save money, invest in something you know the quality of.  Cloth diapers hold their value like a Honda, so don't hesitate to invest in something good, because chances are if you change your mind you can resell and make good money back!  Name brand is going to resell better than other cloth diapers, so keep that in mind when buying new.

2.  If you want to save money, decide what you want and try to find it used!  People who like to keep a variety of diapers to start often narrow it down and sell of their stash, some don't have time, etc. . .so their change in plans is your gain!  Don't hesitate to buy used even if they are stinky, stained, worn out fasteners, etc. . .you can save big bucks and always fix that later (I will have another post about washing)  Also, if you buy used you can typically turn around and resell with very little loss!  I have bought and sold diapers from craigslist, ebay, and facebook garage sale groups with great success!

3.  The cheapest way to go to get started is prefolds with a cover.  We started off with unbleached prefolds (which require some more prep, but worth it) and Bummis covers.  The covers can be used for more than one changing, so you can get by with less covers and a bunch of the less expensive prefolds. If you have a little more to invest up front, go for a pocket diaper or all in one like Bumgenius that will grow with your baby and take you all the way through your diaper years!

4.  Save yourself a world of trouble and go for snap diapers.  Those hook and loop fasteners are so tempting, but allow me to throw my two cents in after starting off with those. . .just go for snaps.  No matter how hard you try, at some point a big old stuck together string of diapers is going to come out of the washer every time, and at some point they will get so un-sticky that your one or two year old is going to calmly remove his diaper and poop on the floor while you aren't looking.   Not that that ever happened to me or anything. :) Snaps are easier to wash and just hold up longer.  If you buy used diapers with hook and loop fasteners, there are many WAHM's who specialize in converting them to snaps for you!

5.  Go on the low end of your estimate of what you need to start.  6 covers and 15-20 prefolds might do the trick for doing the laundry every few days.  It just depends on your strategy, which brings me to my next point. . .don't shoot me. . .

6.  If you are doing cloth diapers to save money, don't be afraid to use disposables every now and again.  Like overnight.  So, yeah, every day.  I love me some Target brand.  You can spend a fortune on different diapers and stuffers and liners and inserts and trying all different CD safe ointments for when your baby busts out in a rash from being in a wet diaper for 12 hours, take it from me.  After a few months of that business, I went straight to sposies for overnight and I haven't looked back!  In fact, after I felt confident that I had made my money back that I spent on my diapers, I got more laid back and just decided any time I used a cloth diaper it was a bonus, as opposed to the other way around.  My kids wore disposables on long outings, vacations, the ENTIRE time our house was on the market, etc.  We must have a balance that gives us sanity!  After two months battling a yeast diaper rash in one of my little guys because I was so determined to use the cloth all the time, I finally learned my lesson.  For me, the cloth diapers are a budget tool I can use strategically and I can't kill myself if they don't work all the time.

7.  Besides the diapers, you will need a wet bag.  We used a Bummis wet bag, hanging in our old white plastic kitchen trash can.  We throw it in the wash with every diaper load and this has been serving us well for 4 years now!!  You can buy another smaller wet bag for on the go, or just use empty plastic grocery bags for that job ( . . .or just use disposables when you go out!  Changing a poopy cloth diaper on the go is not exactly a fun time!)

8.  Get some wipes- to me, hemp seems to be the most efficient as far as needing only one wipe to do the job.  I have been using the same ones for 4 years, nonstop.  Now that's a good investment!  Or, just take an old flannel receiving blanket and cut it up into small flannel wipes.  I just get the wipes wet in the sink each time I need one for a diaper.

9.  A diaper sprayer might be nice, but not necessary.  Alternatively, just use rubber gloves and dunk it in the toilet when it has some poo to wash off.  The sprayer does make a fine mist of poopy particles that you have to watch out for!!  Plus, they have really gone up in cost since we bought ours.  You might decide you can get by without, particularly when your baby is breastfed.

10.  If you are diapering to save money, you might not want to cloth diaper your newborn.  Wait until they get to 8 pounds if you are doing a one size diaper like bumgenius, or 15 or so pounds and get the larger bummis super snap prefolds and covers.  Special newborn sized diapers will not typically pay for themselves, and usually you get sposie diapers as baby gifts anyways that will help defray the cost of the 10 diaper changes a day!!  Plus, when you have a newborn, you are KIND of busy, so learning another new skill of cloth diapering might not be first on your priority list.

11.  Get a good detergent to start, so you can save money on playing around with what to use.  My time tested go-to is Country Save, and I will go over how to use it in my next post about washing!  Stay tuned!

And read this AWESOME POST from one of my favorite laugh out loud blogs, Crappy Pictures.  Love.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section, I have been there and I am glad to help!!

Summer!

Woo hoo!  Summer is here!  I can't even begin to express how excited I am for the lazy days of not having to be anywhere particular, on time, dressed, with our hair brushed and the appropriate show and tell in our backpacks and SHOES ON OUR FEET.  Because, when you have to get 4 kids out the door for preschool everyday, sometimes you just might forget shoes.  :)  In a few short months I will become a mom of real elementary school children, and the next 23 years or so of my life are going to be all about school.  Kind of like the first 28, only I am the mom and not the student or the teacher!!  I am soaking up this sweet summer with my precious little guys and I just want it to last forever.

Enter Project Life.  Being intentional is a goal of mine for the year, and I wouldn't say that I excel at it, I just am trying to find ways to be more purposeful about the way I spend my time (Sometimes. . .not all the time. . .because who can maintain that kind of mental focus!!  Certainly not me!!)  Plus, fun and exciting things happen when you are intentional, and other fun and exciting things happen when you just drift through life as well!  This summer we will have a balance of both and the boys helped to plan our summer "Bucket List" thanks to some inspiration I saw on Becky Higgin's Blog.  First of all, I just plain love Project Life.  I am about 6 months behind on my memory keeping and I am not even the least bit worried about it because I know it will be so easy peasy to catch up!!  So, when I saw the bucket list idea on her blog, I knew I had to combine the two.  The boys and I sat down and they gave me their ideas, which I recorded for them on the grid cards.  Then, each boy took turns decorating their activities with their sweet little artwork. I am going to tape the cards to the wall in my dining room (because now that I am a grownup, yeah, I still tape stuff to the walls. 'cuz I'm still cool like that, and noone can tell me no.)  As we go through the summer, we'll have fun talking about, planning and doing our activities, and at the end of the summer we can include all of the cards in our PL album!!

The kids get excited about pretty much EVERYTHING, so we have activities big and small, from our summer vacation to a campout in the backyard to simply playing hide and seek.  Summer, I am so excited to spend you with my boys!

Gingerbread Play Dough

 

I like to pin things on Pinterest and think about making them for an extended period of time. . .this particular activity has been on the pinboard and in the works in my mind for about a year, and I finally did it yesterday to rave reviews from the boys, particularly 2-year-old Josh.  If the first thing your toddler says when he wakes up in the morning is, "Mommy, can I make some more gingerbread?" you know you have a win!  So, I wanted to share the recipe because this was easy, painless, inexpensive and once again. . .TOTALLY WORTH IT because it is making the "baby" incredibly happy so mommy can work on Christmas cards!!  This would make a fun gift for any child- just seal in a mason jar or some Gladware and attach a cookie cutter with a bow.  Include one of our favorite books- The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett for an even more special gift!

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Gingerbread Play Dough

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup salt
• 4 teaspoons cream of tartar (or 1 tbsp plus 1 tsp)
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons ground cloves (optional)
• 1/4 cup canola or other vegetable oil
• 2 cups boiling water

Whisk together flour, salt, cream of tartar, and spices in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook.  Add the boiling water and start your mixer on low.  Add the oil.  Mix until the dough has an even consistency, scraping the side of the bowl if necessary so that you have one nice ball of dough adhered to the hook.  Allow to cool a bit and play away with rolling pins, cookie cutters, plastic knives and lots of imagination!  Store in an airtight container.

Makes approximately: 4 cups- enough for 2-4 kiddos to play happily!

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A few notes- it does use a lot of spices, but the good news is that every year at holiday time, ALL of these spices are available for special purchase at Aldi!  They go quickly, but right around Thanksgiving you will see a special cardboard display appear with all of these guys plus some extracts you can't get year-round for a great price.  We make our own imitation playdoh year round, so I stock up on Cream of Tartar at Aldi when it is there and super inexpensive!   And if you have never used Cream of Tartar before (frankly, I had no idea what it was until I made a filling with it a few years ago) it's actually white and powdery and you find it in the spice aisle.  Go figure.  Cream of Tartar.  Not creamy.  Not Tartar-y. Discuss.

Hope you have as much fun with this as we did! :)

Potty Training. . .

One thing a lot of my girlfriends ask me for advice about is potty training.  Let me give a little disclaimer.  One one hand, I love when people ask me for advice!  It makes me feel awesome and super helpful!  But on the other hand, it is a huge responsibility that seems a bit terrifying.  Older moms are lucky enough to be able to brush off the questions, like, "Oh, I don't remember, it was so LONG ago. . ." but I know noone is going to fall for that line if I try it.  The Thomas the Tank Engine underpants in my laundry and the gunky pee on my toilet lid TOTALLY give me away.    I am definitely no parenting expert, so any time someone asks me for advice, I figure they are really just asking me if they are OK.  Like, is what they are feeling normal?  Is their kid going to turn out OK?  Will they all survive?  I know that, because I feel that, too.  And I think the best gift we can give each other as humans is to let each other know that, "Hey, you're going to be just fine!"  Because you know what?  We're all fine.  If you love your child and your child knows you love them, you have done your job.  They will grow up with the ability to love others, because you loved them.  Success.  All the other stuff. . .solid foods, potty training, vegetable variety, sleeping through the night, thumbs, pacifiers. . .those are all secondary to the main goal of parenting, which is love.   It has taken me a few years to figure that out, and sometimes I am still learning.  So, I say if you love your child enough to read up about potty training so that you can give them the pride of being independent and caring for themselves, you are an AOK parent, whatever method you choose to use to get there.

Now that we have that out of the way, here's my two cents on potty training.  I have potty trained 2 of my 3 boys so far, and because each child is so different in their own God-given ways, each experience was different even with the same me using the same techniques.  My potty training method is what I like to call the "Elmo and Mister Rogers 3 Day Potty Training Method".  Patent pending.  Not really, because I just mish-mashed a bunch of stuff together, but here it goes!

1. Go get yourself a potty seat.  Or two.  Or three.  Get some used ones if you don't want to spend a fortune, because since every kid is different, you never know what they will be into! We have 2 Baby Bjorn potty seats- one that sits on the floor and one that goes on the toilet seat.  However, both of my kids just preferred to stand and pee like their daddy.  Whatevs. 

2.  Go check out the Elmo's Potty Time DVD from your local library.  I signed up on the waiting list and I was like #93, so, you know, plan ahead.  When you get it, you can hypnotize your child with not-so-subtle potty messages and ridiculously catchy songs.  The one that Elmo's dad sings him is priceless, and involves lines like, "It's potty time, gotta get down low, it's potty time, just let it gooooooooo".  For your own entertainment alone, get this video.  Also, there is a nifty part where they show you how toilet paper is made!!

3. Now, it's time to do some "reading".  Basically, in my mind anything that Fred Rogers said or did is pretty much solid gold.  So, you start here.

And you read what Mister Rogers said.  And you take a deep breath because he always makes people feel better about things.  And you watch the cute little video.  And you buy your kids a bucked at the dollar bin at Target and let them drop pennies in, and sing "You Can Never Go Down the Drain" and get the Mister Rogers First Experiences book about Going to the Potty  even though the kids have bowl cuts and rainbow overalls, your kids won't know the difference.  They will love it because there are real pictures of real kids doing something that is fascinating and foreign to them and the words will sink in to their noggins and they will be getting ready for the big day.

4. Once you've primed the pump you need to think about when you are ready. When is a GOOD time to potty train?  It just depends on your child and on you.  There are all kinds of signs of potty training readiness, but I think once you detect some of those the most important thing is to pick a time when they are not experiencing a bunch of other transitions and YOU are not experiencing unusual stress.  I feel like being in a big kid bed is an important transition to make before potty training if you want them to be truly independent, which I didn't realize until I tried to potty train a kid who was still in a crib!   Lesson learned. Also, it helps to be clear of any other strife, like getting teeth, and safely past dramatic life events like moving and new siblings.  Now, if you have a resilient child, they could probably handle potty training and some of those other things at the same time.  I'm a pretty sensitive person and I like to project that sensitivity on my kids (often to the annoyance of my husband), so playing it safe and steering clear of major events works best for me.  You also need to pick a time when you can be TOTALLY devoted to your child, which whether you have 1 child or 5 is equally hard to do.  I had no idea how hard it was to actually pay attention to my kid all day until I did the "Three Day Potty Training".  Let me tell you, I felt like a pretty bad parent when I realized how stressed out it was making me just to give my undivided attention to one child. So, if you are confused and unnerved by the amount of time you are staring at your child while potty training, I am thinking that is pretty normal!!   Oh, and once you have decided, it's a good excuse to run to Target, pick up some fantastically cute undies and some stickers and lollipops and juice and whatever else you have planned for their potty training experience, and maybe a frozen pizza or two since there is no way you are going to feel like cooking after a day of potty training!  Plus, you can't take your eyes off of them to whip up anything fancier.  I learned that the hard way!

Now that you have the peppy cheerleading of Elmo, the gentle wisdom of Fred Rogers, and the goodies from Target, you need a roadmap to get to Potty Town.  That's where Three Day Potty Training comes in. One of my friends told me about it and all about how it works.  Her friend told her, who heard from another friend.  It's kind of a big deal. ;)  I would highly encourage people to check it out, with a few caveats. There are some awesome ideas in this ebook.  The highlights for me are

1.  The cold turkey approach- going straight to undies

2.  Pumping fluids at the beginning to give lots of practice opportunities

3.  Undivided attention

4.  Never forcing the child to go potty or asking them if they need to go, just saying things like, "Let me know when you need to go potty!"

As a teacher, all of these things speak to me.  Lots of practice, reinforcement, and putting the responsibility on the child.  For those techniques alone, buy the book.   But here's the things you need to remember when you read a book like this.  The author of this book is not a medical professional or a scholar of child development and psychology.  She has that disclaimer on her website herself.  She is a mom with good ideas.  She has written a book to help others and to make money.  It is based on anecdotal evidence and experience more than scientific peer-reviewed research.  There is nothing wrong with any of those things, but you have to remember that when someone writes a book like that selling a method, they are really going to "sell" it.  Probably in a way that will make some sensitive people like me feel pretty junky if they are trying the "method" and it is not working, and the book says it SHOULD work and it's guaranteed to work and ohmygoodnesswhatamidoingwrongiamanepicfailureasaparent.  At times like this, my mom (who has a lot of the wisdom of Fred Rogers) likes to remind me that they are probably not going to be 20 and in diapers.  And if they are, then you have other problems that are way more important than potty training so count your blessings.

So, all that being said, how did potty training go for me?  Well, thanks to the methods in the 3 day potty training book and lots of hyping ahead of time with Elmo and Mister Rogers, both boys had the pee part down with less than 1 accident.  Of course, part of Daniel's strategy was just to not pee at all for 8 hours despite all of the fluids we had been pumping, but it all worked out!  And for some reason, they were both staying dry overnight within the first week.  I can't take any credit for that, they just went with it!  The poop part was harder.  They both had different reasons why they wouldn't poop on the potty, and we had to get to the bottom of those reasons.  However, washing poopy underpants every now and then was a way better deal to me than changing all those diapers, so we worked our way through it and everyone does their thing in the potty now.  I would be lying if I said I never lost my temper when someone pooped their pants for the bazillionth time, however, if I did lose my patience I would just hug my boy and tell them I was sorry that I lost it and I love them no matter what.  If our kids can see that we can admit when we are wrong and apologize for it, that's a good model for their own life.  At least that's what I like to tell myself when I am a less than perfect parent!!  

Good luck, potty trainers!!  Let me know how your adventures go!  I'll update this after I finally decide it's time to potty train boy #3- who knows what adventures we will have!  :)

Baby Keepsake Shadowboxes

 

One of my very first pins on Pinterest was this one. . .
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikaoline/6124646145/in/photostream
from Midwest Family Life's photostream.  Thank you so much for the inspiration!  I needed to do something like this, and this was just the idea for it!

My amazing mother-in-law, Kitty, knits each of her grandbabies a hat.  All three of my boys have one that is as special and unique as they are.  After they outgrew the hats, they were simply sitting in a box in the nursery closet which seemed like such a shame.   I have been wanting to do something special, but I didn't know what!  After seeing this pin, I rushed out to Target and bought these shadowboxes for about 10 bucks a pop.  Sweet!  The scrapbook paper was also from Target, with the exception of the middle frame which has Becky Higgins scrapbook paper from her Project Life collection.

These sat on a shelf in my office/art room for a good 8 months until today, when I decided it was time to just dive in and do it!  The whole project took less than an hour. Maybe I shouldn't have procrastinated so long, huh?

I simply cut and attached the paper with double stick tape and affixed the hats with three thumbtacks each.  For the birth announcement portion, I searched for free label templates and found these adorable ones.
http://haphazardhappenstances.blogspot.com/2011/03/simple-label-frames-freebie-download.html
Thank you so much for offering these for free!  What a gift.

I opened the labels I wanted in Picasa and used the Picnik photo editor to add the text that I wanted for each.  I made the color and font, and even the style of the wording different on each one. . .each boy is unique, each hat is unique. . .so I wanted each frame to have some elements of consistency and some elements that would set them apart!  I printed the labels out on cardstock and used some little scrapbooking brads I picked up at Meijer to add some flair.  In order to get the brads in neatly and in just the right spot, I improvised and used the seam ripper from my sewing box to roughly measure and poke the hole.  Each label is held on with double stick tape.  I know it doesn't seem like the most secure thing, but once you put the frame on everything is pretty much "in there".  I am going to attach an envelope to the back of each frame and tuck in the cards their Grandma Kitty gave them when they were born.  I save everything, so I know I have them somewhere!

This was so easy!  The whole project cost less than $40. Now the hard part is going to be deciding where to hang them!  Thanks so much to Midwest Family Life for the inspiration, Haphazard Happenstances for the labels and Grandma Kitty for the treasured little hats.

At least I can LOOK like I have it all together, right?

Oh my goodness, I just love all this cuteness.  But before you are fooled by how matchy-matchy and clean my purse is, here's a true story from long before this purse came to be.  We're at church, and Paul is back at the soundboard doing his usual Saturday night thing, when he sees a few ants crawling along the soundboard desk.  Funny, he thinks, ants at CHURCH?  I mean, I would understand in our house, but in the pristine environment of our sanctuary?  Seems a little odd.  He and our music director had a little chuckle about it and didn't give it another thought.  Fast forward a few hours. . .we're in the van on the way home from my parents' house with leftover pizza in tow.  We pull out the pizza box at home and. . .lo and behold. . .more tiny ants, crawling on the pizza.  If you know my husband Paul, you know that he is pretty even tempered- until invasive critters are involved.  I sweetly suggested that the ants might have just hitchhiked from my parents house??  To which I got the exasperated sigh, the stern look and the "Jennifer".  Not the "Jen" or the "Jenny". . .the "JenniFER"  That's when you know it's serious.  So, I obliged my husband and investigated the ant situation.  Turns out at the bottom of my diaper bag there was a long ago unwrapped and melted lolliop, which had fused its melty little self to the lining.  Peppering the melted lollipop's surface were the crumbs of forgotten graham crackers that had attached to the gooey layer, and prancing around on top of the whole mess was a little colony of ants.  
Oh.
That's how life keeps you humble, folks.  On the one day of the week that I am wearing heels, perfume, makeup, and dry-clean only attire, I learn I have been trailing tiny ant buddies all around town from my purse.  Nice.  Upon further investigation, I discovered a parade of ants who had found their way into our home and up the back of the bench where I keep my bag.  They were stumbling around confused as to where their queen's food supply had been for the past few hours.  Didn't they know their ant buddies in my diaper bag needed to take their sticky lollipop and go get their worship on???

After this incident, I determined it was time for a major overhaul in my personal organization.  Enter my friend Alyssa, who had recently become a Thirty-One gifts consultant.  I decided it was time to separate the purse from the diaper bag and come up with some solutions that would help me become more organized and ant-free on the go.  The first purchase I made was a Retro Metro Bag- which is cute enough to be a purse and big enough to be a diaper bag when needed- those pockets on the sides are just right for sippy cups!  The second purchase I made was a new wallet- let's face it, the sweet Buxton Wizard wallet as seen in your Sunday paper coupon section had served me well for 10 years and now it was time to move on.  I loved the wallet, but there was no room for receipts or bills laid flat, so instead I just stuffed things in.  I got the Thirty-One coin purse wallet (with some laser etching, because why not, I had had the same $10 wallet for 10 years!!) and I am so sad that they discontinued the coin purse part of this style because I loooovve this wallet.  I also purchased a wristlet key fob, so that way if I was hauling the kids into preschool for dropoff I could throw it around my wrist and not have to dig for my keys.  That saved me about 10 minutes a day.  Overall, the key fob makes my keys so much easier to find. . another problem of mine solved.  After these three changes and the addition of a Large Utility Tote for hauling stuff around, I started to get a lot better about keeping my purse clean during the fall.  I knew that I still wasn't quite there yet because my purse was still a receipt explosion at any given time.  Paper clutter was a major problem, so my new year's resolution involved conquering it.  Enter- the Fold and Go Organizer.  I can keep lists, coupons, checks to deposit, etc. all in there and even have a notepad to write things down.  Usually, I would be at the park and some mom would be like, here's my phone #/email address/etc. and I would write it down on the back of a receipt.  Classy.  Now I have a legit notepad.  This little item is so handy and helps keep me from panicking that I am going to lose an important paper and looking like a goof as I dig through my purse for receipts to see which one I wrote something on.  I also started a receipt basket, thanks to an idea I saw on one of my fave blogs, the Nest Effect.  Paul and I try to stick our receipts right in the little basket when we come in the door and that keeps a lot of the paper clutter out of the bottom of my purse and the dresser in our bedroom!

After I became a Thirty-one consultant, I thought it would be fun to pick up a few new things with my discount, which is why for the first time in my life I am the proud owner of a sunglasses case.  That's right, a case specifically designed FOR GLASSES, not the mitten I was carrying my glasses around in before.  I will say that a mitten does make a mighty fine glasses holder, you just don't look very hip when you bust out your mitten at the park in July and shake your sunglasses out of it.  I would also like to add that I got the mitten idea from Real Simple magazine, so that's how you know it's legit.  I love the Thirty-One glasses case because you can attach a wristlet strap to it and carry it that way and it will also fit a cell phone in the zipper pocket, and ID and lipstick, too!  All the essentials.  When I go to the park, I like to attach the wristlet strap and take this as my "purse" because it holds everything I need!

Another nifty item that came in my kit is the Wristlet Wallet.  When I first saw this item, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be using it.  For one thing, the color is called "Painted Snakeskin" and pretty much nothing about me says "snakeskin".  But, surprisingly, the pretend snakeskin print is really neutral and kind of cute!  I carried this all around the amusement park on our vacation and it kept my phone handy and my essentials (cash, debit, ID, lipstick) organized.  It coordinates well with any base color I am wearing- white, navy, gray, even black, and the background color looks great with the flutter, lotsa dots, minty chip, denim and the awesome blossom pattern so it can coordinate with any of my plethora of bags.  Snakeskin, I should not have doubted you.  You are cool.

I also picked up another icon coin purse which is great for holding your ID and clipping on your key ring if you are going somewhere where you don't need much at all.  I like to stick my Aldi quarter in there so I am always set to go, or I hook it on my pool bag to keep a few things in.  Plus, I am a sucker for butterflies.  That's why I also had to get a Flutter Manicure Nail File.  It's too cute to touch to my nails, but I like to look at it.  The mini zipper pouch is perfect for makeup and I have another in my church bag for crayons.  It can even make a fun little wristlet as well!  Just attach strap and go!

I am feeling pretty good about the exciting changes that have happened in my purse life since the Ant-tastrophe of last summer!  I mean, the ants were free and the butterfly stuff cost money, but I think the insect trade-off was worth it.  I consider these items an investment in my marriage.  Right, honey?

The snakeskin wallet.  Not so bad after all.

The receipt basket.  I love it!

One more nifty thing I figured out this spring- I fold one of Phil's old school papers in thirds and use the back as my grocery list- I can put my three stores on there and make the lists side by side, so if something is out of stock at one store, I can move it to the other list, or if I am at Target and decide to run to Meijer, I have that list as well and I am not stuck guessing.  I just fold the paper to have whatever list I need for that store on top and it is even thick enough to cross off while I shop.  Plus, it's recycling and Phil thinks it is really special.  Sweet.

Side by side (by side. . .)

I did this picture the other night and it brought tears to my eyes.  How fast these babies grow.  Thank goodness for pictures!!  It helps me stop and reflect when I can see those images side by side. . .
 plus the little scientist in me just loves COMPARING. It is so fun to see how our boys grow, or how much they are like each other at the same age, or how much I change!  Here are a few of my favorites for inspiration, and some details on how to do these with very little computer skill.  :)


Me, 9 months pregnant with Josh (left), Daniel (top) and Philip (bottom)

Bringing each boy home from the hospital Josh (left) Daniel (top) Philip (right)

Each boy on their favorite blankie on their baptism day

Each boy in my favorite little St. Pat's outfit.

My bestest friend Kristin and I in 1998 and 2011.  :)

First of all, I am not fancy.  I just like to look fancy.  My husband can use Photoshop and do all kinds of incredible things with it.  It's like another language (Layers?  What are those?)  But he speaks it since he uses it every day at work, and I take advantage of his skills any time I can!  But since I don't want to bug him every single time I want a photo edited, I have picked up some easy things I can do myself.  Thanks to my tech-savvy husband, I have been using Picasa to organize and edit my photos for years now.  It is free, it is awesome, and if you don't understand Photoshop (like me!) it can give you some powerful tools to edit your pictures.  Even if you do use Photoshop, Picasa makes a lot of decisions for you that can make your editing much faster for those times you just need to be speedy!

Here are some things I love about Picasa, in no particular order. . .

1.  Face tagging.

Picasa has a face tagging feature, so if I want to find every single picture of my Dad, it's easy-peasy!

2.  Photo uploading.

I can put all of the photos I want in the tray and upload them to facebook, google plus, a blog post, send them in an email. . .all from Picasa.  It's so simple and visual.

3.  Shopping

Picasa also supports uploading to lots of online retailers I use like Walgreens, Snapfish and Shutterfly.  It makes uploading photos to shop very straightforward since you can see all of the folders and pictures you have at once instead of clicking around in your directories.

4.  Collages

Any time I have a series of pictures I love and I can't choose a favorite, I make a collage.  The collage tool within Picasa is very basic but it gets the job done quickly, which I like!

5.  Adding text

I love to add text to my pictures, especially for gifts.  The picture below is a collage that I made and then added text to (a poem by Meiji Stewart)

6.  Picnik integration

To be honest, I had no idea what Picnik was when people would talk about it.  I figured it must be sketchy because they use a letter "K" where there should be a "C" and that stresses me out.  But I noticed Picasa had added a Picnik button and casually clicked on it.  Now I am IN LOVE.  I can make a collage and then add text to it with all sorts of trendy fonts.  Typically when I see a font I love I have to do some detective work to figure out what font it is, download it, etc.  In Picnik, you can use all of the fonts they have to add to your pictures and it is so easy to move the text, change the color, resize, etc.  I am hooked.  Picnik is really kool.  Just be careful to make a copy of your image before you edit it in Picnik if you do not want to overwrite your current image forever.  Here's a little image I did for a fundraiser for my sister's orphanage in Uganda.

At the end of the day, I really can't imagine using anything else to manage my photos.  Our memories are so important to me, so I love having everything accessible and integrated so I can manage printing, uploading, editing and other memory keeping in a very user friendly format.  Thank you, Picasa, for helping me feel fancy!!

Witching hour.

One of the main reasons I started this blog is to offer encouragement to my friends on the things we all struggle with.  Not because I am perfect at parenting, I just don't mind sharing my failings on a public forum if it means someone else can benefit. :) I know that you can relate to me here. . .the very hardest time of day when you have young children is that magical time right. . .before. . .dinner.  I mean, every part of the day has it's own unique charms.  There's the energy and optimism of morning, the messy exuberance of lunch, the sweet snuggles (and sigh of relief) of naptime, the blissfully long stretch of play in the backyard as the day turns to evening.  And then, there's the witching hour.  It all comes crashing down because. . .

You have to cook dinner.  

Can you believe this happens EVERY DAY? 

The dinner fairy hasn't arrived yet so you pull yourself off the grass and head inside.  All of the sudden, the blissful play has vanished.  Everyone needs to pee.  Simultaneously.  And they all need help with their pants, their hands, and the half a roll of toilet paper they are attempting to flush down the toilet.  Elbows are being thrown, tears are being shed, the baby has disappeared upstairs and is digging in the cat's litterbox, and everyone is tugging on your apron and hanging on the oven handle like it's the monkey bars.  And have I mentioned your husband hasn't even insinuated that he might be leaving work yet?  Oh, man.  Deep breath.

Here are some ideas, in no particular order, to keep you from pulling your hair out or simply throwing in the towel.  I didn't reinvent the wheel here- this is some pretty standard stuff that I have put together.  Everyone's family is different and every child is different, but these are some lessons I have learned to help me survive and thrive until 6:20 when my knight in shining armor comes through the front door.  Now you have 15 weeknights worth of evening sanity ideas. . .you can just pick/choose/rotate them as you see fit!

1.  Crock pot it up.

Now, I can't eat from the crock pot every single day.  But when I do, it makes me soooooo happy.  Because dinner is just IN THERE.  I can just scoop a spoon in and dish it on plates at a moment's notice, meaning that during the roughest part of the day, I don't have to leave the kids unattended at all.  We can even go to the park or for a walk and get home right as daddy is arriving!  I love you, slow cooker!  And I love you, Pinterest. . .so full of crock pot recipe goodness!

2.  Play doh.

There is no better time of day to pull out the play doh than when you are getting ready to make dinner.  Play doh is a little messy and crumbly, and so is dinner. . .so you can handle all the sweep up at the same time.  I like to plop the kids at the kitchen table while I cook with a few accessories to spur their imaginations like cookie cutters, kid size knives and plastic dinosaurs.

3.  Watercolors.

Once again- a messy thing that you can combine cleanup with your dinner cleanup.

4.  Give up on the toy cleanup.

I had this major vision of my kids cleaning up the playroom so that my husband would come home to a lovely and organized home.  I used to kill myself trying to make it happen and end up totally discouraged if he didn't notice or we just flat out didn't succeed.  In reality, right before dinner is the worst time to clean up!  I mean, you need them to PLAY with those toys so you can cook their food!  If they have no toys out, you have all the additional stress of trying to  keep the house tidy while the kids are hanging on you AND you cook.  Plus, they are the least compliant when they are tired and grouchy.  We started saving cleanup until after dinner, and it's way better. My husband has graciously accepted that a messy house means happy kids, and that eventually it will get clean.

6.  Casserole time!

I love to make a casserole during the morning or naptime and save it in the fridge until dinner.  We still have to be home, so it is less ideal than crock pot, but it is so much better than, say, a skillet meal, because you can leave it unattended and attend to your kids who neeeeeeeeeeed you so much.  Any time you can rid yourself of prep work at mealtime, it helps.  My skillet recipes have disappeared from the rotation until further notice.

7.  Leave the cooking to someone else.

Eating at restaurants is not really a part of our budget, so we would rarely just plan on having a whole meal out.  But if you want to leave the cooking to someone else without the expense, grab a refrigerated pizza at Aldi. . .they are only about 5-6 dollars and serve the whole family.  Plus, they are really good!  Another favorite meal of mine (that I learned from my own mom and dad) is to grab sandwiches from a restaurant's dollar menu and bring them home or to the park for a picnic with all of your own drinks and sides.  You'll look forward to this kind of night all day!  Low prep, low cleanup, low cost!

8.  Pull out your big tricks.

This is a good time to get out the things you don't normally get out on a regular basis.  Let them make a mountain out of the couch cushions or a tent under the table.  Bring a toy back into rotation that they haven't seen in a while.  Turn on the wii.  Get out musical instruments and turn on the stereo.  Distraction is powerful!

9.  Involve them in the set-up.

Kids love to "help".  If you have the time, let them!  They think they are such big stuff, then you can brag to Daddy about their hard work and make them feel even better!  You don't have to do it every night, just whenever it works with what you are making.  Tell them they are your kitchen team.  Make them little chef hats out of paper.  They'll eat it up.

10.  Team up for a witching-hour playdate.

Usually, playdates are in the morning, right?  Well, why not plan a playdate with a close friend AFTER naps?  Kids are less likely to be fussy at the witching hour when they have the excitement of being with their friends.   And if your friend is anything like you, she will understand if your kids ARE fussy.  It requires a little planning on both of your parts to make sure you can both feed your families when dinnertime rolls around, but its a fun change of pace.  

11.  Feed the kids early

If your hubs gets home after 6 like mine does, it might just be a good idea to set a dinnertime and eat at it.  Sometimes, I feed the kids their entire meal before he even sets foot in the door.  Or I will start them about 5-10 minutes before he gets home.  At any rate, they are less grouchy and we can enjoy a more peaceful meal together.

12.  Turn on the TV without guilt.

Most of us like to limit screen time for our kids, and that totally makes sense.  However, if you think of television like a diet, you can just save some of their "portion" for the most difficult hour of the day.  Whatever your personal limit is, if you know you have a meal coming up with more prep work, just budget some of your screen time for then.  And don't feel bad about it, OK? 

13.  Enlist a helper

If there is a young person on your street in need of service hours, or a little neighbor who might not be old enough to sit on their own but wants some babysitting practice, this might be a great time to offer them a guaranteed service hour every week! 

14.  Have some "room time"

When my oldest two were particularly small (maybe about 2 and 1) one of the best ways for me to survive cooking dinner where it was too dangerous for them to be underfoot was to put them in the crib together with a stack of books and a stack of pacifiers.  Remember, I didn't say I was a perfect parent!!  Their bedroom was literally only a few feet from the kitchen so I didn't worry about them, and they were tired anyways so it wasn't too hard to convince them to just contain themselves in that crib until Daddy got home.  I'll do a similar thing now and send them all up to their room for a dance party while I cook dinner.  The chandelier may be shaking, but I just imagine no one is getting hurt.

15. Tune it out.

The other option is to just let the kids whine and cry.  Close the gate and barricade them out of the kitchen, and just cook the things you need to cook.  As they hang on the gate, you can just cheerily say, "Dinner will be ready soon!"  Sometimes they even give up and go entertain themselves!  And sometimes they are just going to cry.  And you know what- that's OK.  My grandma told me kids can't be happy 100% of the time.  Don't take it personally.  Everyone else's kids are doing the saaaaammme thing.  It's just that time of day.

What other ideas do you use to get dinner on the table while maintaining your sanity?