Cloth Diapering

It's official, we are now a cloth diapering family. After trying about four different kinds of diapers on Evan's incredibly sensitive butt, I finally decided to just do cloth. It's so much easier now than it used to be. And even the disposables that were supposed to be better for sensitive skin weren't keeping the rashes away. We've been doing cloth for about two weeks now and I have to admit that it is much easier than I ever thought.

We're using the organic Flip style by Bum Genius...that probably means nothing to people who don't know anything about cloth diapering, but I'll give a quick explanation. They are kind of like the "old school" cloth diapers but with a twist. The cover looks like most other cloth diapers, and has a waterproof liner built in. The insert, or absorber, is a tri-fold super absorbent 100% cotton fabric. They are a one-size diaper, so there are snaps on the outside of the diaper to adjust to 3 different sizes. And they have a snap closure, so no velcro to worry about like some cloth diapers. You can see the different options and learn a little more about the Flips here. But I'm starting to look into a different diaper style for Evan because he pees so much.

Since we switched to cloth, Evan hasn't had any kind of rash, bump, or red mark. In fact his butt has never looked so perfect! We still use disposable overnight diapers because the cloth just aren't absorbent enough, no matter now many other liners we use. I did get a few hemp inserts that are supposed to be for heavy wetters and to get through the night (when used with the cotton liner). I use them during the day and Evan can barely go more than two hours without needing a change. So I'm not brave enough to try cloth at night too.

Never in my life did I ever think that I'd be cloth diapering my kids, let alone actually liking doing cloth! I promise to post some pics of the boys with their "fluffy" bums!

Emma Jordan Husske

Emma Jordan Husske finally made her appearance May 19th, 2010 at 2:55pm. She is the cutest little girl ever! She is already and will continue to be spoiled by her favorite Auntie Anna!!! :D

Mama and Emma

Grandma Jordan holding Emma

It's so amazing to be an Aunt again after such a long break. I forgot how fun it is to meet these special little people for the first time. Miss Emma definitely picked the right family to join because we are going to spoil her rotten!

Busy, busy bees

Andrew loves it when he gets up from nap before Evan...he gets first dibs on whatever toys he wants! Now that he's crawling, he's already trying to figure out how to do other things.

Gus thinks he's starved for attention and got in the way of the only picture I got of Andrew looking at the camera.

This is how you throw a fit...throw yourself on the floor and thrash around. But it didn't quite turn out like he'd hoped because mom just took a picture and then ignored him!

He's getting to be such a big boy now! He can sit all by himself, which is kind of funny because until he could get himself into a sitting position he couldn't sit by himself. I guess he just needs to do everything himself...I don't know anyone like that! :p Can you tell he was a little upset that mom was taking pictures instead of playing with him??

Thinking...

Well maybe playing by myself isn't so bad after all!

Things with the boys have changed so much in the last couple weeks. Andrew is crawling, and just the other day figured out how to sit all by himself. He also has two teeth on the bottom, the first one cut about two weeks ago and the other a few days ago. I've been trying to get pictures but every time I try he just sticks his tongue out!

Evan has officially hit the terrible two's. We deal with lots of "NO!," tantrums, and timeouts. He doesn't like the fact that Andrew is mobile now because instead of Evan stealing Andrew's toys, Andrew tries to steal Evan's! Which tends to make Evan pretty upset. We're working on sharing, and not stealing each others toys!

After much debate, consideration, and research I decided to switch the boys to cloth diapers. Evan has such terribly sensitive skin that the littlest thing can give him a rash. And when he gets diaper rash, it's horrible. I figured if I'm going to switch Evan to cloth then I might as well switch Andrew too. Today was my first day doing cloth, and I only did half the day to kind of ease into it. It really wasn't as bad as I thought, and is actually pretty easy. Especially with all of the cloth diapering options out there. I got the Bum Genius Flip dipes, which so far are working out really great for Andrew. The only reason they aren't working quite as well with Evan is because he's been teething a lot lately. And when Evan has new teeth cutting, he unfortunately gets liquid poo...sorry TMI! So I might be getting a different style of dipe for Evan. But we'll see how long the teething lasts before I run out and get a different style. If I decide to really stick with cloth diapering, I'll probably end up buying at least enough covers and liners to get me through a few days so I don't have to wash every single night. But for right now I have just enough to get each boy through one day (no more than 6 changes.) I'm so grateful that so many of my friends also do cloth, they have been invaluable to me this last week. And I'm sure that even once I have the hang of cloth diapering, I'll still be asking them questions!

I'm really looking forward to planting season being done so that we can try to get back into a normal routine. In the meantime it's just me and the boys alone most of the day. Although I am anxiously awaiting a phone call telling me I'm going to be an Aunt again, so hopefully little Miss Husske decides to make her appearance soon!

Evan eating some fruit loops for breakfast.

Such a goof! I love his smile!!!

So much to do and so little time...

I ordered a couple of acrylic scrapbook albums to make mother's day gifts for my mom and mother-in-law. I got them about a month ago and thought, a month is plenty of time to get them made up. It is when you actually have the time to do it! I stayed up until 1:30 twice the last three days just working on one of them. I'm sure I'll be up until 1 or later again tonight trying to finish the first one and start the second. Here's some pictures of the first one...I still need to add the pictures.

The pictures of the boys are actually on plastic tags. I used liquid glass from CTMH as an adhesive so that you'd be able to see the whole picture clearly. They turned out really well. You can see some of the "layers" of pages. The curved vellum is actually the second page. So the only thing on the first page is "MOM"

The rectangle on the upper left side is actually a little half page. I think I had a pre-printed saying on vellum on the opposite side. The "GRANDMA" page actually only has paper on the middle of the backside. The red is from the next page.

For this page there's red on the front and then this blue and white scalloped print on the back.

Since doing these projects I found out that spray adhesive works much better for acrylic albums. I wish I'd known that before! But they still turned out cute. And they'll look even better when I get pictures put in them. Unfortunately I didn't have the pictures printed and in the albums for mother's day, but I gave the albums anyways. Mom and Sandy still thought they were super cute!

Naked Boys!

Just some shots of the boys before bath time. I don't know if you can tell, but Andrew loves his orange veggies! The doctor even commented that he has a nice healthy "sweet potato glow" Sweet potatoes are his favorite!!!

Teething, Ear Infections, and Throwing up....

...has been what I've been dealing with the last week. Andrew's first tooth finally cut about a week ago, which is painful for him and for me since he's still nursing a few times day. I have enough milk in my freezer that I'm contemplating weaning him. But he's been better the last few days so we'll see.

Yesterday I noticed Andrew pulling on his right ear a lot so I took him to the doctor this morning. The diagnosis...another double ear infection. The poor kid! This is the third double ear infection in the last six weeks. I asked about getting tubes put in, but evidently they don't really recommend tubes until kids are at least a year old since most will grow out of the ear infections by age one. I guess we'll just have to keep putting up with them for now.

Sunday Josh and and I took the boys down to Bass Pro to look around. We had fun checking the store out. We also went to Menards to get some heavy duty shelving for the garage. (I'll post pics once we finish organizing the garage.) We ate lunch at Uncle Bucks, the restaurant attached to Bass Pro. Evan wasn't very interested in his lunch so we took it to go and he ate some of it in the truck on the way home. We spent the afternoon, after Evan's nap, out in the garage cleaning, sorting, and organizing. We are almost done, just have some totes and boxes that need to go to the basement. We came in for supper and Evan started acting funny, he was running a fever and just acting really lethargic. He didn't want his supper so Josh laid down on the couch with him, feeding him saltine crackers. Then all of a sudden Josh told me he thought Evan was going to throw up, he barely said it before Evan threw up all over the couch and the floor. Thankfully it was a one-time I thing, but I felt bad for Evan because you could tell he really didn't feel good. He didn't eat a whole lot yesterday and he took a three-hour nap in the afternoon. But he seems to be his normal self now. I'm just hoping that whatever he had isn't going to hit Josh or Andrew too.

Well I think we've had enough sickness for a while so I'm really hoping that we can just enjoy the nice spring weather!!!